She's tired. I wore her out.
I can't help but grin.
I press the phone into my ear. "Are you going to bed?"
"Mhmm."
"Stay on the line. I want to fall asleep with you, even if we're far away."
She takes a slow breath. "Give me five minutes to brush my teeth."
And we spend the next hour sharing, listening to each other breathe. I keep her up too long, talking about nothing. She almost falls asleep half a dozen times, but she catches herself and begs me to change the subject to something that will keep her awake.
But she can't last forever. Sometime after midnight she stops responding. Her long, slow breaths fill the room, and I almost feel like she's sleeping next to me.
Almost.
CHAPTER TEN
"My parents are out of town this weekend," Samantha says.
We're in her hospital room, playing another game of five hundred rummy. She's winning, as usual. Though in all honesty, I'm not paying much attention.
It's much more fun to replay last night's phone call with Alyssa.
"I was thinking of leaving Friday," I say.
"Oh." Dread spreads across her face. She sinks back into her chair and motions for me to play my card.
I do. She stares at it like it's everything she needs.
"Is that a problem?" I ask.
She shakes her head. "No, of course not." Her voice is weak, barely a whimper. "I was just thinking..." She stares at her cards like they're the most interesting things she's ever seen.
I fight a sigh. This would be much easier if Samantha would admit how much she needs someone.
I lean a little closer, ridding my voice of any hint of irritation. "What were you thinking?"
She slides her fingers over her cards. "It would be nice to have someone around."
Someone. As if any bum off the street would do. As if she's not going to desperately beg me not to leave.
An ache builds in my forehead. I want to get back to Alyssa, but I can't exactly leave Samantha if she's worried about being alone. Even if she's not willing to admit she needs my help.
"I can stay through Sunday," I say.
She looks up from her cards. Her eyes are bright. "Are you sure?"
I nod.
She sighs and her face floods with relief. She plays her hand--she's won this round--and she marks the points on a notepad.
She squeezes her pencil. "Do you think you can stay in the house?"
The air in here is so stale. The windows don't open and the air conditioning is utter shit. I clear my throat. "That's not the best idea."
"Oh." And all that relief drops off her face. Her voice falls back to that desperate whisper. "Is it because of Alyssa?"
"She wouldn't like it." I want to help Samantha, I really do, but not at Alyssa's expense.
"You can stay in the spare room. It's not like I want to get you into bed." She shuffles the cards. Her voice rises until it's confident. "I could have done that a long time ago."
"Is that right?"
She nods. I try to read her expression, but I can't place it.
"You probably forgot how good I am."
She rolls her eyes, then stares at me like I'm an idiot. That's the Samantha I know.
"Luke, I remember perfectly." Her voice is matter-of-fact, like she couldn't be less impressed if she tried.
I may not have been the world's best boyfriend, but I sure as hell left her impressed.
"And?" I ask.
"Let it go." She looks down at the cards.
I tap her hand. "Sam."
She refuses to meet my gaze. "This isn't a fruitful area of conversation."
"You seemed satisfied."
She squeezes her cards. "I'm not discussing this."
"Because you don't want to tell me how much you preferred Edward?" The ache in my head is back, but I'm not giving up on this. I have to know.
"I'm not comparing your sexual abilities to your father's."
My fingers curl into fists. "When you put it like that, it sounds insane."
"It is insane." She pushes my hand away from hers and deals the cards on the tiny table. "Besides, I'm the one in the hospital. I'm the one who gets to decide the conversation topics."
"I'm not going to be mad."
"Really, Luke? Has three years of divorce after divorce destroyed your brain or do you think the sleeping pills made me naïve?"
"Don't joke about that."
"Don't ask me questions like that."
I pick up my hand. All crap, number cards, all over the place. "Did you really think he was better?"
"It wasn't about the sex." She tries to turn her attention back to the game, but it doesn't hold. She brings her eyes back to mine. Keeps her voice steady. "I feel bad enough about the whole thing, okay? Didn't we go into it enough yesterday?"
"No."
"What if he was better? Would knowing that help you in any way?"
"Yes." It's more of a demand than I mean it to be, but I have to know.
"You're so full of it." She sighs, furrowing her brow and pressing her back against the bed. "God, I can't believe I ever thought you were smart."
"Sam..."
She throws me a curt look. "Maybe you should step outside and get some coffee. Call Alyssa. Ask her to remind you of how well you fucked her last weekend."
If I didn't know better, I'd swear she was jealous.
I hold her gaze. "When you asked for honesty, I gave it to you."
She shakes her head and, once again, stares at me like I'm an idiot. It's a game of chicken, but I'm not going to release her stare.
Finally, she sighs. "You were better overall."
"I don't like the sound of that overall."
She shoots me a look. An "if you want me to tell you, shut the fuck up with your sass" kind of look.
I nod. Fine.
"He was more..." She looks at me with concern, but she shakes her head. "It's not that he was better or bigger, but you were always trying so hard and you were so obsessed with making sure I was satisfied."
Yeah, she really makes me sound like an awful lover.
"You wanted me to try less hard to make you come?" I ask.
She presses her back against the bed. "Not exactly." Her eyes turn to the window. Her voice lowers. "But he made everything feel effortless."
"Well."
She looks at me with concern. I must not be hiding my grimace as well as I thought I was.
She shakes her head. "I knew you didn't want to hear it."
"It's fine."
She looks down at her cards and spends what seems like forever rearranging them. "By the time he and I first had sex, you and I weren't connecting. I swear, Luke. I was looking for an out, and that was it. You have to admit, things were pretty strained."
I don't have to admit anything.
"Luke?"
"Thanks for telling me the truth."
"Are you mad?"
"No," I say. "But I still hate him. Nothing you can say will ever stop me from hating him."
"I'm really sorry, Luke. I don't know if I'll ever apologize enough for lying."
"You don't have to keep apologizing. I forgave you a long time ago."
It's hard to stay mad at someone after she tries to kill herself with your bottle of sleeping pills.
I pull a card from the draw pile, but I don't look at it. My eyes are on Samantha. She's still looking at her cards, doing a poor job of hiding how much she hates this topic. She usually looks so polished. She usually keeps up her brave face so well. I barely recognize her like this.
She needs me right now. She wouldn't let anyone else see her like this.
She trusts me.
Her eyes turn to the floor. "I get so guilty, I can't sleep." It's a low whisper. It's desperate and needy. "We had our flaws. You have your flaws. But you treated me better than any guy ever has. And I wanted so badly to stay in love with you, but I couldn't. And, instead of telling you, like a decent person, I strung you along while I fell in love with someone else."
She runs her fingers over the edges of the cards. "I don't care what you think about it. I don't care if you're over it, or if you've forgiven me. I'm not over it. It was an awful thing to do, and only an awful person would do it."
"That's not true."
"Don't, Luke. I know you have different ideas about morality with your 'people can't be stolen' bullshit. I know you don't want to think of your precious girlfriend as a heinous bitch who cheated."
"It has nothing to do with her."
Samantha shakes her head. "Fine. I don't care what you think or what your opinion is. I still feel awful."
I scoot closer to the bed. "Is that why you... tried again?"
She frowns, her eyebrows furrowing, her gaze on the ground. "I fucked up my life so badly. None of my friends speak to me anymore. I couldn't face them if I wanted to. Not when they know what I did."
I offer my hand, but she doesn't take it.
"They'll understand," I say.
"Don't, Luke. I don't want your empty encouragement. It only makes it harder when reality hits. I don't need you to lie to me and pretend like my friends don't hate me. Or like everyone at work doesn't think I'm a tramp."
Samantha blinks back a tear. She takes off her glasses and wipes her eyes with her free hand. I can't sit here. I need to do something. But a hug would be too much.
I hand her a tissue from the box on the counter. She nods a thank you, and pats her eye.
I keep my voice as steady and reassuring as I can. "I doubt anyone is thinking you're a tramp. Not unless you went back in time to the 1950s."
She cracks a smile. "You know what I mean."
I nod, and I wait for her to catch her breath.
The air is still so stale in here. And this room is so drab and ugly. Samantha pats her eyes dry. She offers a tiny smile as if to say she's okay. I know I should move past this subject, but I can't miss this opportunity.
I look her straight in the eye. "Why did you do it the first time?"
She bites her lip but she holds my gaze. "The weight of it was crushing me. It was the only thing I could feel. I wanted to stop feeling it, and I didn't know any other way I could do it."
It was my fault. I was distant. I was mean. Hell, I was an asshole. I had my reasons. It fucking hurt when she told me she was leaving me, and it hurt more when she crawled back to me after Edward dumped her. No, she didn't crawl back. She picked up the pieces, and I begged her to let me help. I begged her to give me another chance.
I begged her to let me help and then I didn't.
Her eyes are on me. Samantha wipes another tear from her eye. She scrunches the tissue into a tiny ball. "It's still killing me. You come here every month and you're so nice to me. I'm so happy when you're here, but whenever you leave, I keep thinking that I took something I didn't deserve. That I'm dragging you down, ruining your life. And the weight of that is so heavy."
"You tried again because of me?" I can't breathe. The air here is so stale. It's not moving. How the hell is anyone supposed to breathe like this?
She shakes her head. "That's only part of it."
Part of it. My friendship with Samantha is part of the reason why she tried to kill herself again.
There's no way to take this information, so I take a deep breath. I nod. I offer her my best smile, something that will convince her this is going to be okay.
She studies my expression. Her lips press together. Her hands press together. "It's not just you."
"But it's partly me?"
"No, I didn't mean... I'm sorry." She turns her gaze to the floor. "I have such long, empty days in that giant house. It's so lonely and the only respite is your visits. It hurts so much when you leave. It's like there's a weight in my chest and it's dragging me into the ground."
I bite my tongue. It's so ugly in here. So drab and gray and completely devoid of life.
"Luke, I... it's not your fault."
I nod. But it certainly sounds like it's my fault. Hell, it still feels like it's my fault. I reach for Samantha's hand, to offer her some kind of comfort. At least one of us should feel some kind of comfort.
She pushes me away. "I only wanted to feel light again. It was the only way."
"What about therapy and antidepressants?"
She shakes her head. "I don't have a future. What's the best that could happen--I get another law job?"
"You loved being a lawyer."
"I loved studying the law. But writing contracts for sixty hours a week? I can do it. I can convince everyone there that nothing is wrong. And I even like going to the office, and making a cup of coffee with awful powdered French vanilla creamer. But God, when it's seven o'clock and I have another two hours of work so I can help some company squeeze a little bit more out of its employees?"
"You'd be a great teacher."
"Yeah, right," she says. "It's more than the job, Luke. If it was just the job, I could take it. But the job is all I have now."
My head pounds. This isn't how this is supposed to be going. I'm supposed to be convincing her everything is okay so I can go back to Alyssa.
I'm supposed to repay this debt, not make things worse.
There's horrible dread in Samantha's eyes. She presses her hands together. "I think about my future, and it's empty. I'm never going to meet someone. I'm never going to have a family..."
"You'll meet someone else. You're a beautiful--"
"I'm not beautiful." She folds her arms. "And it doesn't do me any good to listen to your lies. Especially when you're dating the hot actress."
I rub my temples, but my head is still aching. I need to put an end to this conversation. I need to convince Samantha that she's wrong, that she has a future.
I meet her gaze. "Fine. You're not beautiful. But you look nice. You're not at your best at the moment, but I've seen you in your suit and makeup. There's something very appealing about it. There must be. Edward would not have wasted his time with an unappealing woman."
She shakes her head, almost cracking a smile. "This is the strangest pep talk."