Suffer Love (28 page)

No,
I want to say, but I don't. I don't say anything.

He steps into the room, approaching my bed with the wariness of a hiker caught in a hungry grizzly's path.

“We won't be long,” he says. “We're both tired of turkey leftovers and I—”

He freezes, his gaze falling on the photographs. My eyes follow him down as he sits on the bed. One by one, he picks up the pictures. Something both hot and cold creeps through my veins as he looks at me and Sam, at the woman he possibly loved, at her son and daughter.

I rip the photo of the Bennett family out of his hand. I gather all the pictures into my arms, hugging them to my chest. I don't want him to see these. They're me. My life, my heart. My own father ruined all of it. Our family. Mom. He ruined Livy. He ruined Sam, turned him into a liar. This boy who I think I might have loved and now I'm alone and he's alone and Dad doesn't even care. He doesn't even care—

“Hadley!” I jerk as Dad's hands encircle my arms to stop me. My throat feels hoarse and thick, my eyes burning with tears as I realize I've been speaking aloud. Screaming. Every word that just swam through my head had fallen out of my mouth in a messy rush.

Dad's eyes are wild and shining. He keeps his grip on my arms. My head falls to my chest, deep sobs racking my body.

“Honey,” he says, his voice a cracking, desperate. “I do care, but I don't know what to do or say anymore. Tell me what to do.”

The tears spill over and I'm unable to tell him anything. Because really, what can he do? We can't go back. None of us can. Eventually, he releases me and rises to his feet.

He lets me go.

I hear his heavy sigh as he turns away. A myriad of emotions—panic, regret, loneliness, remorse, love—fill in the empty spaces inside me, and I pull myself off the bed. The photos float to the ground like black-and-white petals.

I'm so tired.

Tired of pretending I don't feel anything. Tired of pretending I haven't been hurtling toward this spot—this place where acceptance finally sneaks up on me and wraps me up in its arms—for months. Tired of pretending I don't miss my dad. Miss us
.
Miss my family. Miss Sam. Miss myself.

Miss, miss, miss . . .

My thoughts settle around Sam and I feel a wash of relief, just to let myself see his face behind my eyelids. I remember how his whole body trembled a little when I slid that note across the table at the Green-Eyed Girl. I kept waiting for him to give me some explanation, but when he didn't, I wasn't surprised. Sam Bennett wears his loneliness like a skin. He's resigned himself to it, believes he deserves it, thinks it's just the way things are and nothing will ever change it. He looked so small and young as I watched him leave, his whole frame weighed down by half a year of brokenness, of missing his parents, of trying to be superhuman for Livy. I cried that day because, deep down, I knew he loved me. But I couldn't bridge that gap between the anger and the acceptance. The broken trust and the
need
to let him be someone important to me.

Just like my dad. I know he loves me. I also know things will never be like they were between us. But they have to be
something.

“Dad.”

It's a whisper. I barely hear it myself. But he stops and turns. Something in that tiny word, in my face, must cue him in to how I'm feeling, because his expression shifts from weary to relieved in a blink. He crosses the room in two strides, wrapping his arms around me and cradling my head against his chest. I breathe out months of anger, breathe in his familiar smell—the same one I remember as a little girl when I'd fall asleep in the car and he'd carry me to my room. Paper and ink and wool sweaters and coffee.

We sink to the floor and sit against my bed, his arm around me. He hands me a tissue and I lean my head on his shoulder, gulping jagged breaths. I don't know how long we sit there, both of us sniffling and swallowing over knots in our throats. Outside, the day fades into twilight, filling my room with a soft lavender haze I've always loved. This time of day makes me believe in magic. Of living in between two possibilities and letting that be okay.

Mom's form appears in the doorway. She leans against the frame, her hands clasped in front of her. I can barely see her face in the dim light, but I can tell she's smiling. It's a sad smile, but it's there. She's here. We're all still here.

“Had,” Dad says quietly. “It's not too late, is it? For us all to start over?”

So much has happened—so much hurt and lying and unforgiveness and time—that I'm not sure what to say. I know what I want my answer to be, but is it even possible? To go back or move forward or whatever the healthiest reaction to all this crap actually is?

So I don't answer right away. I pick up the photo of him at the café, my eyes settling on the open journal, on his poised pen, on the illegible scrawl blurred underneath it.

“Do I still get to read it?” I ask. “When I'm eighteen?”

He tightens his grip around me and I hear the smile in his voice. “Of course. It's yours.”

I nod against him, my heart settling into a steady rhythm. Mom comes in and sits down on my other side, her arm around me, fingertips resting lightly on Dad's shoulder. My chest feels open and airy, that sort of peaceful, exhausted sensation you get after you've let go of a bunch of tears that should've been released a long time ago.

“Dad?”

“Mm?”

“It's not too late.”

I used to think Benedick was a smart-mouthed dick who morphed into a whipped asshole with no concern for anything other than getting laid. The guy's ready to kill his best friend, all because of some girl who until about ten minutes before claimed to hate him.

Now I'm starting to understand him a little better.

I sit on my bed,
Much
Ado
in my lap as I read over act 5, scene 2. He and Beatrice banter back and forth, quipping about how they first came to love each other.
Suffer love! A good epithet. I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will.

The words bounce against my chest, my own translation coming too easily. My hand moves across my notebook, dark blue ink bleeding onto the page in a mindless word vomit. I sit back, fingers aching, and reread what I wrote.

My heart is crushed within me. Here is the truth: You made me love you—your eyes and mouth and voice. You pulled me into your heart. You don't want me there and I don't want to be there, but it's where I will always live.

Jesus.

I stare down at the words I scribbled into my notebook and shake my head. I'm pretty damn sure Benedick is just flirting with Beatrice, a girl who loves him back and can actually stand the sight of him, but my pen took on a mind of its own, spilling out mush I didn't even know was inside me. I have no idea how the hell I got here, but I feel physically sick at the thought of Hadley, beautiful and existing and hating me.

I slap the play shut and rip the page from my notebook. Then I throw all three things across the room. The play crashes into a framed picture of me and Ajay playing Little League, sending the two of us sprawling. It feels good to slam things around and get pissed, little rebellions against my slowly dissolving heart.

I flop back on my bed, arm flung over my eyes, and hear a soft knock on my door.

“What?” I yell it. Rudely.

The door creaks open and I hear feet padding over the carpet toward me.

Mom.

I can tell by the sharp, unhindered sound of her steps. Livy always drags her toes. The bed depresses as she sits. I keep my face covered, waiting for her to speak.

She doesn't.

She just sits there and breathes my air.

I lift my head to look at her. She's staring at me, her eyes crinkled softly like she hasn't seen me in years.

“What?” I ask again.

Her body jolts at my harsh tone. “Sam, I—”

“Mom, I'm sorry. But I'm really not in the mood for another lecture about something I did or didn't do or a dream I had that you somehow extracted from my mind and saw all of my devious plans to crap all over your life.” I sit up and pull my laptop closer, flipping it open so hard, I'm surprised it doesn't snap in two.

I busy myself on Twitter, reading inane tweets like
OMG, I have so much homework!
and
Craving Sonic tots somethin' fierce #hungry.

“I guess I deserve that,” Mom says after a few moments. Something about her tone makes me look up. Black shit smudges up under her eyes and she looks pale. Her hair is in a messy ponytail and her hands are trembling.

“Sam, I don't even know what to say.”

I close my computer on the blissfully frivolous teenage world I seem to be no freaking part of. “Say about what?”

“About you.” She covers her mouth with a trembling hand. “About us. About everything.”

What the hell is there to say? I'm so done with this. Done with treading water in my own house, with my own family, always on guard for an attack when I ran out of defenses a long time ago. Maybe I haven't run out so much as I've stopped looking for more.

“I talked to Olivia,” Mom says.

“Yeah? Did she actually talk back?”

Mom looks at me, pain coloring her irises like ink in water. She pulls on her earlobe and it's this tiny, familiar tic, her finger under her silver hoop earring, that snags my attention.

“She told me everything, Sam.”

“Told you what?” My voice is still hard and almost cruel, but something in my chest starts shriveling up.

“I think you know what, sweetheart.”

My stomach flips at her use of a term of affection. I almost open my mouth to refute everything and anything Livy might have told her. I've gotten used to Mom's scathing glare and I don't really feel like dealing with another change. Not after the crap week I've had.

But I stop myself. Livy's not a kid anymore. If she took the initiative to set the record straight, she had her reasons, and I'm done using her as an excuse to cover up my own shit.

“Why?” Mom says, eyes filling. “Why didn't you tell me? Why did you let me think it was you for so long?”

“Come on, Mom. Would it have really made a difference? Would you have treated Livy like a pariah too? Would you have blamed her for everything? She was thirteen and one wheeze away from landing herself in the hospital. She was confused enough already.”

“Sam . . . I . . .” She presses both hands to her mouth and whispers through her fingers. “I'm so sorry.”

I shake my head. I don't want her apologies. I want her faith and I'm not sure that's even possible anymore. “Who put that stuff on the St. Clairs' door isn't the point, Mom. Don't you get that? The point is that you never really owned what you did. You never seemed sorry, not even at
how
you got caught, just that you got caught at all. We were kids. We're still kids. No matter how we reacted, no matter who went nuts for a few days and who didn't, it was
your
mistake. You were the parent and you and dad both acted like we were to blame. Like I was to blame.”

Her tears spill over. “I know. I just . . .” She reaches out for my hand and it takes all of my control not to yank it back. “I was going to tell your father. I was. In my own way and in my own time and I felt like you took that away from me. Or those notes did. Jason . . . he was so angry. He ended it before I could do or say anything and I . . . I was devastated.”

I close my eyes and live in the dark for a too-short moment. Open them again. “Did you love him?”

She rubs her eyes, blows out a breath. “I think you know that your father and I hadn't been happy for a while. Truthfully, I'm not sure what I felt for Jason St. Clair or what he felt for me. I do know I was hurt and angry when it all blew up in my face. I was furious with you, and I needed someone to blame.”

“And you found him,” I say, almost to myself.

“I was wrong, honey. So wrong and I'm sorry.”

I look up at her, meet her teary gaze. “
Don't
punish Livy for this. I swear to God, if you make her feel the tiniest smidgen of guilt, I'll take her and leave. I'll go to Dad's. I don't care if he wants us there or not.”

She shakes her head vigorously. “Livy was so upset because she let you carry this for so long. She had to use her inhaler twice before she even got it all out. I understand that this was . . . this
is
all my fault and I know how unfair I've been to put all of that on you.”

I feel the familiar blankness of my expression, but as Mom acknowledges how shitty things have been—her own role in creating and maintaining that shittiness—something loosens in my chest and blows away.

“I'm going to speak with your father. He needs to know the truth, Sam. I know you think it doesn't matter, but the truth always matters, honey.”

“All right. Yeah. Fine.” I drop my head in my hands, not looking forward to having this conversation again with Dad. At the same time, I know it's time. Long past time, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a freaking tsunami of relief.

We sit there for a minute, a million unspoken words passing through the air between us. Finally, she says, “I'm sorry about Hadley, Sam. I didn't mean to treat her unfairly. I didn't want you to get hurt. That's why I called her parents.”

I just nod. I don't want to talk about Hadley. Can't.

“I believe things can get better, Sam. I have to believe that.”

Better.
What is that?

“I'm sorry, sweetheart,” she says again. And again and again until her words form a lump in my throat I can't swallow around.

“Okay, Mom. It's okay.” She squeezes my hand. We both know it's not okay. Maybe it won't be for a while, but I guess it's a start. Maybe it's a step toward that nebulous place called
Better.
I can only hope that when we get there, we'll recognize it.