Page 11 of Samuel's Heart

“Hi, Rory and John are doing better things than waiting for the phone to ring. If you want, leave a message. Kisses.” I close my eyes when John’s voice floods the room, and I furiously wipe my eyes, over and over.

I don’t want to cry anymore.

I want to be doing something, so I can move forward from this crippling pain. I want to find whatever is left of him on Earth, so I can ask for forgiveness, and maybe be able to find peace. Or think about what we had together with joy and not with regret for what we lost.

When the answering machine beeps, taking away John’s voice, I press the red button, ending the call. Then, in my need to do something, I pick it up again.

This urgency to be doing something is too much to suffocate, but then defeat fills me and I put the phone down because I don’t have Samuel’s phone number, and there is nothing I can do.

Pushed by a curiosity I can’t stop, I sit on the sofa and pick up my laptop. Then when it’s running, I enter his name in the search bar, just to be left with my heart pounding and my mouth open, when his face appears on the page. A younger version of the man I met, but still him. I click to open the article and read through it. And now I understand his offer to help a little more.

He’s a fucking hero.

I’m left mesmerised by the difference between the man I met and the picture on the page. He seems to have aged a little, and the smile shining through the screen is a sparkling version of the one he gave me at the coffee shop. However, the light in his eyes is the same. The hunger to move, do, and be is exactly the same.

I look at his picture until a growl breaks the silence and the emptiness of my stomach surprises me. It’s been a long time since I felt the need to eat or have my body remind me about needing food to survive.

Something is changing in me, and I’ll take this as another sign. I follow my stomach to the kitchen to find an empty fridge. The decision to go out and buy something is another sign.

In need of a shower, I grab some of the freshly cleaned towels and head for the bathroom. I walk past our room, the door closed since the day I returned home from the hospital.

I spent that day crying and smelling everything John had left behind.

Since that day, the door hasn’t been opened. I took whatever I thought I needed and moved it to the chair in the living room. Then, at some point, I stopped caring. I only washed what I needed to go to the hospital to beg them to give me something. I did nothing to avoid making my world spiral down into the darkness. No one ever helped—until Samuel.

My need to run away from my life hits me hard, so I put on a jumper, take my wallet and keys, and open the door. A dark shadow in front of it has me stumbling backwards and looking up.

Samuel?

My heart beats way too fast, and my head feels dizzy, nearly making me fall to my knees. Confused about him being here, I just look at him, wondering if he’s really in front of me. Lost in thought, I don’t move, breathe, or talk, until he clears his throat and places a hand on my elbow.

“Are you okay?”

I shake my head, feeling waves of awareness up and down my body, making me take a step back.

Why is he having this effect on me?

No one should have that effect on me butJohn.

I shake my head again to make my brain work, and concentrate on the overwhelming feeling of hope invading my body instead of the sensations his touch had on me.

“Hi.” My voice comes out croaky because of the emotions clogging my throat.

“We need to talk,” he says, taking a step towards me, and then another, until he’s inside.

My mind is so focused on what he has to say, that I don’t realise what’s happened until I hear the click of the main door closing behind his back.

I move further inside the apartment. My body and mind are undecided about the reasons he’s here. Is it a good or bad sign? Whatever it is, I’m ready. Or I’ll have to be.

I can only hope he’s not here to rescind his offer, because that’d kill me.

Chapter Five

Samuel

The sound of my phone vibrating on the bedside table wakes me from my slumber. I reach out to pick it up, feeling like a bear coming out of hibernation.

“Yeah?”

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