Page 39 of A Very Oceanport Christmas
"It happened before you came back!" David defended himself. "I'd kind of forgotten about it, to be honest." His voice softened as his gaze dropped to the floor. "I didn't actually think they would take me either. I just... I wanted to know for sure."
"You wanted to know what?" I asked, torn between feeling angry and sad. Each of those emotions took up such a large part of my brain that I wasn't sure which to latch on to.
"I wanted to know if could get in. I never really thought about what I'd do if they said yes." David looked up at me. I returned his gaze.
"I don't believe you," I said flatly. "I know you too well. You wanted to go, you're just lying to yourself now, saying you didn't." But he'd talked about becoming a doctor so often when we were growing up. He couldn't do that without going to college. He couldn't do that if he spent his whole life stuck in Oceanport. He'd wanted to leave and strike out on his own just as much as I had. His circumstances had changed when his mother had gotten sick, yes, but none of that had changed who David was on the inside.
And now it seemed he didn't know what to say.
"Youshouldgo," I said, even though the idea of sending him away stabbed at my heart like a razor blade sinking into unprotected skin. I didn't want to be without him, but I didn't want to keep him from his dreams either.
"I don't want to," David insisted, but there was no force behind his words. He must realize by now that he couldn't lie to me. "Not like this. I don't want to go like this," he added, raising his voice a little.
"You need to think about it."
"I have thought about it!"
"Have you really?" I let out a long breath, an ache building in the back of my head, joining forces with the one pulsing in my chest. "Because I feel like you haven't really thoughtanyof this through."
"Sam, no! You can't mean--"
I held my hand up to stop him. "You're not in a good place right now, I know that, but I also feel like we're... Like we're racing headfirst into something neither of us is prepared for, and I was okay with that while I was thinking that we both had our hands on the wheel." The way we'd always had when we'd gotten into trouble together. "Now I'm just not so sure that's the case. I can't believe that you kept this from me." The betrayal hurt, more than anything. "I don't want you to use me as a reason not to go after your dreams. I don't want to be the thing that stands in your way. I don't want to tie you down." What I'd wanted was to lift him up, to crash through all the roadblocks in our way together. But how to do that when we were pulling in different directions?
Had I just been fooling myself when I believed that David could be okay with my pregnancy? That he didn't have some ulterior motive when asking me to move in so quickly? It had all seemed too good to be true--because it was. The baby kicked up a storm in my belly, as if he was just as furious as I was.
"I may struggle with accepting help," I started, then pointed my finger at David. "But you're just as bad. You've got a fucking white knight complex. You want to busy yourself with my and everyone else's problems so you don't have to take care of your own!" I accused. Because wasn't that exactly what David had been doing? First it had been his mother's failing health, then his Dad needing help with the ice cream parlor, even though I couldn't believe that Mr. Clark had ever asked David to stay, and now... now it was me.
David opened his mouth but no words came out.
Just as well.
There wasn't really anything he could say to change my mind right now, in any case. No matter how much I wished he'd somehow come up with something anyway.
I waited another moment, then I shook my head and grabbed my duffel bag from where I'd discarded it beside the bed. "I'm going to stay at my parent's place for a couple of nights."
"Sam, no," David tried again, laying one hand on my arm. The touch warmed me, even through the layer of clothes. Pulling away was painful, but I had to. "I love you," David said, and I could tell that he meant it by the level of sincerity in his voice. "It doesn't matter how much I want to go to college," he continued. "Or how much I wanted to go in the past. I want to be with youmore."
I gave him a long look, wishing so hard that I could just believe him. Forget about all of this and go back to the way things had been yesterday. But I'd never been one for complacency. "I let you help me because I thought you'd let me help you too, but I'm not seeing that here," I said, my throat dry.
"I love you," David said again.
"I know." I blinked rapidly, turning to the door. "I love you too."
I just wasn't sure anymore that that was enough.
12
David
Sam was gone. I stared at the door through which he had left. Part of me wanted to after him, insisting that I couldn't just let him go like that. Not now that we'd finally confessed our love to each other.
But I knew Sam, and I knew that following him now wouldn't do me any good. As much as I hated it, he was going to need time to cool off. I needed time too, to come up with some way to make him see that I was serious about this, about us. That I wasn't using him to ignore my own life. That we could be equal partners.
Sam's words repeated over and over in my head. All the accusations he'd flung at me. They echoed in my mind as I went to sleep that night, and they played on loop when I woke up the next morning, keeping me company as I brushed my teeth, ate the breakfast my dad prepared and eventually headed down to work. Everything I did, I did on autopilot.
What had Sam meant when he'd said that I was busying myself with his problems so I didn't have to worry about my own?
Was that really what I was doing?
