The Weakness in Me

“It’s been two years since you walked away from Jason, and you’ve only dated like two guys since then,” Jessica said, matter-of-fact.
“Aren’t your girl parts aching for action?” she whined.

Samantha did a double take at her baby sister’s words.
“What do you know about aching girl parts? You’re still a zygote!”

“I’m almost 19!” her sister screeched.
“And don’t act all appalled and horrified,” she continued, flipping her chocolate brown hair over her shoulder. “We
all
know you and Jason were going at it like rabbits when you were my age.” Jessica’s green eyes glowed with knowledge. Two things all of the Castle girls had in common: thick chocolate brown hair courtesy of their father and beautiful emerald green eyes from their mother. They could easily pass for triplets, as all of the girls were barely over 5’3” and very petite.

Samantha sighed at her sister’s proclamation and rolled her eyes, not because it wasn’t true- it totally was- but Jessica was a baby!
She didn’t need Jessica in her relationship business like their other sister, Sara, was. “So, because I’ve only had two boyfriends since Jason, you think my body is begging for attention, and I need to go out with you to get it?” Samantha summarized, not wanting to reveal that two boyfriends
didn’t
mean she’d only been with two guys since she and Jason split. “You do realize you aren’t old enough to drink, yes?”

“I can, too!” she
countered, excitedly holding up an ID.

“You know this is
my
old ID, right? It might work when you go out with your friends or Sara, but the bouncer isn’t stupid, he isn’t going to buy two Samantha Castle’s going to the club together.”

“I know that!
But they see so many people in a night, I can go in first, and you can come in twenty or thirty minutes later!” Jessica gushed. “Scratch that,
you
go in, then I’ll follow, otherwise, you won’t show,” she changed her mind.

Samantha scrunched her nose at her sister and rolled her eyes, even though Jessica was completely right to scrap her original plan.
“Fine. But I’m not letting you drink.” She stormed to her room with the possibility of a small victory over Jessica as she found something acceptable to wear.

The pulse of the music rocketed through Samantha as she sat at the end of the crowded bar. She wanted nothing more than to go back to her apartment and curl up with a good book, because she was sick of having to fend off the cheesy guys that were trying to hit on her or get closer to her sister.

Jessica’s silver halter was so blinding under the flashing lights that she couldn’t look directly at her.
Yet, it was the reason they were attracting so much attention. Samantha could be grateful for the fact that they hadn’t had to buy a drink all night. She was much more subdued, though, in her basic little black dress, even if it fit like a second skin and revealed more of her cleavage than it concealed.

“
Pardon me,” a smooth voice said from beside her, “But I believe you have my rib,” he finished making her smile at the originality of and obvious cheesiness implied by the pickup line.

“
Wow! I haven’t heard that one before. But, I’m not convinced that I have anything that belongs to you,” she said. Looking to her right and up, she moved her gaze over his soft, short brown hair to his green flecked hazel eyes to his beautiful smile. He was easily an entire foot taller than she was. Why did a guy this attractive have to resort to such an obvious line? He was so far out of her league, with his custom-tailored suit and $500 haircut, that she knew nothing would come of their flirting. Her mind spun with the thoughts all of the trouble they could get into together. Well, until he figured out that he was too good for her.

“I’ll have to think of something else then,” his eyes sparkled as he looking into hers, “I’m Caleb, Caleb McKenzie,” he said, offering her his hand.

“Samantha…” she hesitated to give him her last name, “…Castle,” she finished, putting her hand in his.

“I’m happy to meet you, Samantha,” he said.
“Samantha?” he said again, as if her name didn’t fit in his mouth. “You don’t seem like a Samantha,” he shook his head.

“No?” she crinkled her brow in amusement
, wondering if this was going to be another line, but wanting to see if he was really as smooth as he thought he was.

“What’s your middle name?” he asked, taking the stool beside her
and leaning in to her.

“Um, Rose?” she
offered, confused at the direction of the conversation. It was going differently than she’d grown used to over the years.

“Yes!” his face lit up
, as if he’d just won the lottery. “Rosie!”

“Rosie?”

“Yes, you are definitely a Rosie,” he laughed, patting her hand resting on the bar. Samantha tried to ignore the sparks racing through her body at the small touch.

“Okay,” she agreed
with a smile. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it and shook her head before, finally, saying, “I’m surprised.”

“Surprised?” he asked, his eyebrows raised.

“Most men focus on my last name,” she shrugged, telling him that she knew he was different.

“Castle?
Why?”

“
Really?”
she chuckled in disbelief before offering the explanation of the pickup lines she usually had to suffer through. “
I’d like to storm your Castle? Is the fire burning in your Castle? My dragon wants to live in your Castle? Is the carpet thick in your Castle? ...I’d like to swim
your
moat?”
she imitated a chorus of tacky guys she’d sorted through over the last two years.

“I’d like to
swim your moat
?! How is
that
even remotely a sexy come on? It’s muddy, predator filled water!” he howled with laughter at her confession, endearing her even more.

“I have absolutely no idea, but he was quite serious about it.
There was a whole scenario he had worked out before I told him no,” she turned to face him fully.

“He must’ve been devastated,
” Caleb said after calming his laughter, wiping a tear from the side of one of his captivatingly beautiful eyes. “So when we get married, you’ll take my name.” he said, completely serious, taking Samantha off-guard.

Sirens pierced the once quiet corner, as every response service in King County flooded the scene. The ambulance raced as close to the lone vehicle as it could, before two men burst from its doors, life saving equipment in hand.

Jason
Wright opened up the passenger side door of what had been a silver Honda Accord and his breathing nearly halted.
‘Oh my God! It’s my Sammy!’
He thought as he looked for the catch on the seat belt. She had a deep gash on her head, her chocolate brown hair smattered with blood, her skin looked pale against the black leather seat, and her legs seemed to be pinned under the dash, but she was breathing, barely. Even though she looked incredibly small and broken in the seat, the tiny rise and fall of her chest told him she was still alive. “Thank God!” the words escaped before he had a chance to stop them. Taking a cleansing breath, he started to assess her injuries and take her vitals.

“Shit!” he heard his partner
, Toby, curse from the drivers’ side. “He’s gone. DOA.” His head slumped down and he shook it in disbelief. “There’s a baby seat back here, Jas. Can you make sure it’s empty?”

“Sure,” he said, noticing the white gold ring and diamond solitaire on Sammy’s
left hand, which was entwined with the drivers’ before moving toward the back seat. “It’s clear. What about the other car?”

“Took off, I think they were probably drunk.
The cops over there said the witnesses saw him come out of nowhere and run the light. Hit the drivers’ side nearly head on. Didn’t have a chance,” one of the first responders from the fire department offered. Jason had been so focused on the safety of Sammy and a possible baby, that he hadn’t heard the third party join them.

“
Wow, that’s-,” Jason felt anger stir deep within him that someone who had been drinking had done this to Sammy. He knew how much she’d already lost to alcohol, and he couldn’t believe how much more it had just taken from her. “We need to get her out of here, she’s still alive, but her legs are smashed under the dashboard,” he continued as calmly as he could. “Her pulse and respirations are weak and her blood pressure is unstable, so the sooner the better.”

“Get the C-collar so we can
put it on her. Jason, stabilize her neck. Don’t want to add to the problem,” Toby ordered, making his way to the passenger side of the car, as the other man raced back to grab the restraining device. When he returned with the collar and a stretcher, they carefully removed Sammy from the passenger side of the car and loaded her into the ambulance.

Jason took one last look at who he’d assumed was her husband and his heart broke for her, wondering if she’d awake in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and he’d have to be the one to tell her.
He couldn’t look into those emerald green eyes and tell her, not after being absent from her life for over five years, but how he longed to see those eyes again. They would look right through him like they always had, deep into his own cerulean blue eyes and see that nothing had changed for him in those five years they’d been apart. Though, it seemed, everything had changed for her. As they drove toward the hospital, he had visions of a five year old Sammy and how strong she’d been. He could only hold on to the hope that she’d grown even stronger with age.

**

Jason watched a moving van pull up to Jacob’s house and stop in the driveway. Folding his arms, defiantly, across his chest, he watched the new family pile out of the station wagon that pulled up beside the van.

The
man he assumed was the father of the family was tall, wearing a polo shirt and khaki pants. He opened the door to the backseat and pulled out a baby in a frilly pink dress, while the mother and two other girls, one that looked to be his age and the other one a little younger, jumped out of the other side.

Jason growled.
‘GIRLS?! My best friend moves out and is replaced by three girls?’
He was starting to think that even though he was only five, the world hated him. What was he supposed to do with girl neighbors?