Page 10 of Samuel's Heart

“Yeah. I’ll try,” he says, then smacks his forehead before talking again. “You’ll be on your own today. Martin is AWOL with Keegan, and Travis is working.”

It’s not ideal, as I’ll be inside my head all night, but there’s no one else I can call.

“I think I can survive on my own.” Maybe.

“I know, I know,” he says, bringing his arm up in surrender, waving the can like it’s a white flag.

“Idiot.” But I can’t stop my lips from curving up.

“Yeah, yeah. No one will believe you anyway,” he says, while pretending to brush non-existent dust from his immaculate white shirt.

“I thought you were leaving.”

“I’m going,” he says, before turning to the rubbish bin and throwing the can in like the best NBA player. Then he runs around the table cheering, as if he won a title.

He walks to the door, and after a curtsy, he leaves.

“Helping people can’t be that bad. You’re very good at it. The world needs more people like you,” he murmurs before closing the door.

That’s why we keep him around. Because when you need him, he’s there.

I stare at the closed door for a while, before deciding to make myself a sandwich and finally get that shower.

My problem will still be there tomorrow, but I’ll be in a better place mentally after a long night of sleep.

Chapter Four

Rory

It’s harder to wait for the information than trying to get it on my own and failing.

Being escorted away from a property by the police, booked, and given a restraining order should have been enough clues to stop me from asking around. But every time I try to refrain, images of John fill my mind and my restless heart pushes me to keep going, to keep searching, and to keep praying, so one day I’ll finally be able to say goodbye.

However, hope is something I’m not used to after having too many doors slammed in my face. But now that the seed has been planted, I’m eager and nearly delirious at the thought of what’s going to happen next. I’m not sure why, but I trust Samuel tocome through, find what I need, and bring it to me. Even if it’s only one name. One person I can touch as if I’m again touching John. Tears spring to my eyes. A mix of pain, hope of finding closure, having a chance to tell him I’ll be strong and make him proud, and that I still miss him every day.

From what I read in Samuel’s rigid body language, perceptive glances and pain, I knew I had to be sincere. No hiding between half-truths or concealing what looking for peace has done to me. I’d been sure it’d be painful; instead, it was liberating. Having someone listen to me, and not judging, it eased something inside of me—all the tension I’d lived with since losing John, and finding out I couldn’t see him one last time. For the first time in nearly two years, I can finally have a resolution to all my problems. Seeing him in others and knowing he’ll be live on, even if not in the form I’d known him in, makes his loss less painful.

Samuel’s offer is unbelievable. His presence, such as it is, in my life, makes everything real, and his generosity makes my heart a lighter place.

Sitting and waiting for my phone to ring is no use, so I stand up and look around, noticing for the first time in months—years, really—the floor flooded with dirty clothes, half-eaten plates of food, random boxes and bags. And for the first time, how far-flung I am from my life hits me.

I pushed the pause button on my life when I woke up from my coma, unable to function and unable to do anything more than breathe because the loss was too much to bear. Even now I’m lost, but I’m fighting to get answers.

With renewed interest in the world around me, I collect, clean, and set everything as it was in the beginning. Dirty clothes in thebasket, then into the washing machine, and for a while I watch the drum going round and round. While I do that, I think of how many months I spent trying to get rid of this loneliness and crying at the need to be part of something, at the need to belong. I’ve watched my life going round and round while wallowing in the same emptiness, with no place to call home and no one to call mine.

Now I’m finally moving again. I have focus, and maybe one day this place will go back to feeling like a home.

I concentrate on cleaning the kitchen, sorting between what needs to be washed and what needs to be thrown away. And with each piece of us I remove from my life, a piece of memory comes to mind, making me even lonelier than before. However, the good memories make my heart feel less heavy, as if they’re mending the cracks John’s death has created in me.

I’m not sure how many hours I spend cleaning, and when I’m done, I’m bone tired, but the kitchen and the living room are back to being liveable. I crash on the sofa, trying to relax all my knotted muscles while I look at the ceiling. How many times had I been in this position, with John on top of me, making me dream, pant, and come over and over?

I jump up from my supine position and sit with my back pressed to the cushions, trying to swat away visions of us. Visions of his beautiful, strong face, forest-green eyes and lips, with the bottom one slightly bigger than the top. The taste of his last kiss and his smiling mouth against mine.

I stand and walk to the fridge for a bottle of water. I’ve stopped buying alcohol as I was using it as a crutch to drown the pain and push my guilt away, living in an intoxicated state.

While there, I look at my phone, as the bone-deep desire to make that call becomes stronger. And like so many times before, I’m powerless to resist.

I pick up my phone from the counter, press two, and wait, with my heart thumping against my rib cage and my eyes watering, until the call engages. One, two, three, and on the fourth ring what I’m waiting for happens . . .

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