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"Why did you shut me out?" I asked, my voice quiet

He closed his eyes and sed hard, clearly struggling The world suspended itself around us Cars rushed by us, yet their headlights seemed to hold us still as a held breath My whole life was in this timeless minute, because I was about to hear the explanation for the unexplainable four and a half years later

"I’ve thought about that a lot, Amy I don’t have an easy answer," he said

I wanted to interrupt him but I kept my mouth shut He needed to tell me this, and it needed to be one-hundred percent on hiuess hoas somehow responsible for what Sam had done No matter how hard my insecure, unworthy self tried to turn this around into a blah, I couldn’t It was all him

"When you won," he said, slowly, "you won" He tipped my head up to look me in the eye--he was a head taller "You won decisively" He shook his head "I never had any question, and you were fine up there, on your ga my o

"But you were better," he said, si on that debate"

"We all did," I said

A pained expression covered his face "There’s so ht now, but please let me say what I can say," he stressed

I nodded Our legs began to walk in concert, left and left, right and right "OK," that was all I could think to say

"My dad," he said, the words co out bitterly, "told me that at all costs, I needed to make it into the top three And if I didn’t, I was a worthless piece of shit"

I felt slapped, i it on myself It hurt me to think that someone would hurt him like that "Oh, Sa out one hand, palm to me, his voice shaky, "because if I don’t finish, I don’t think I can do this"

"This?"

"Oh, I can do this," he stressed, strokingsoand turning toward me, his hands on my shoulders, his eyes serious "What I need to do first is this; I need to tell you what happened, or at least part of it" He sighed, his words taking on a gravitas that made time move slower "My dad told et the debate scholarship to one of my top three If I didn’t, it was Bible school And that was it So, you won and I left, knohat I was about to go hoo home to?"

His face hardened and he closed off

I could hear thousands of words in his silence, all of theh reliving that, so I didn’t press Not yet Someday, when he was comfortable, he would tell me, and I would hold him, and I would help him, and ould be OK Noas too soon It was too ently on the lips, standing on tiptoe "You don’t have to do this all right now, Sa in the air

We continued walking, both eager to see what came next "But I want you to understand that I wasstupid There’s really no other word for it I got home, uhthe world ended with my dad--that’s the easiest way to put it--and I just froze Everything changed, I had to scramble to survive, and I became someone else because I had to"

"What do you h his hair, his jaw clenched, his body tight and restrained "AmyI just" he stumbled "Can we leave it at that? Can we just say that it’s like I disappeared and a different Sa was about functioning, and nothing was about e out, because I learned a hard lesson that day at home"

"What lesson?" I whispered

"There’s no such thing as unconditional love"

I closed my eyes The thorned and barbed words were as I had expected What I wanted to say, what pushed against my lips so hard to come out, and yet, remained behind my teeth was--

Let me help you unlearn that lesson

Sa You would think that having a bunch of emotions inside me, it would be easy to just pick one and explore it It’s the hardest fucking thing to do in the world It’s so much easier to shut down, to close off, to protect nore my emotional past I’d put it in a box inside me, and I’d padlocked the box and thrown it and its key in separate oceans And now, here with A

We walked in silence for a long tih Words weren’t needed Most people fill the space between the if words are used like that Conversations that have , or that teach--that’s different But chatter for the sake of chatter is like crappy junk food

It just ret you ever partook

Aled into not-quite an L shape She punched a code into the security door and tookas ent in We walked up a set of stairs, and then another, and were in an apartment the size of a healthy walk-in closet

"Is this your apart?"