Great.
We're not in the bestplace right now.
It's the best I can do.Isure as hell am not giving her details.And I don't know what Samhas said to Tuck, but if he's finally decided I'm actually to blamefor things I've long known to be my fault, then I can't begrudgehim that.Especially since I've already decided it's the best wayfor him to move forward and for us to have a chance at salvagingour friendship in the long run.
Carl texts me a sad-faceemoticon, because she knows me well enough to know that if shewants more information, she's certainly not going to text it out ofme.
A full minute passesbefore she texts again.
You sure you're okay?Wantme to come over with FroYo?Not the fat-free kind, the goodsugar-loaded stuff you love...
I smile faintly down at myphone.Because while Carl is certainly attempting what she knows islikely to be a far more effective way to get her some details aboutwhy Sam and I suddenly aren't in a good place, I know that shereally does care.This isn't about gossip.It's simply aboutsupport.
Thanks kiddo, but I gottahit the books now that my calc tutor is pissed at me :(
I close out theconversation and click on the only other unread text, surprised tofind that it's Kendall.She says she'll be home from Chicago nextweek and asks if I want to get coffee.
If Sam and I hadn't justcomplicated everything all over again, I would probably accept herinvitation without hesitation.In all honesty, she’s been nothingbut nice to me.But now, I want to give Sam his space, and I worryhe might get annoyed if I hijack yet another one of his friends.Idecide to see how things go tomorrow after I see him in school, andreply to Kendall then.
I spend the rest of theevening sifting through my Cam box.I never made it past the albumfrom photography class the first time I opened it, and have onlygotten through one item at a time the few times I've felt strongenough to return to it.
But it isn't strength thatleads me to it today, it's loss.I need a distraction from howthings went down with Sam, and this box—this box is magic.It hasgiven me back random, small-but-significant pieces of the source ofthe greatest loss of my life, and I don't know any natural force onthis earth that can achieve something like that.Like I said,magic.
I slip it out from its newhome under my bed and take a deep, settling breath.
I hate that I feel as ifI'm somehow being disloyal to Sam.It's not rational, and it's notmy own doing either.
I was surprised by hisreaction to my calling him a friend—I hadn't expected him to derivemore hope from our intimate afternoon than there actually was.Ithought he knew nothing had actually changed.But I understand itafter the fact.I realize now that I'd led him on, confusedeverything, and that I hurt him all over again when I crushed thathope by calling him agood friend.I suspect he never would have hooked up with meif he knew I wasn't changing my mind about us.After all, he nevereven would have been here if I hadn't nearly fallen asleep behindthe wheel.
But his reaction to Cam'stee shirt still has me perplexed.I understood his jealousy when hethought there might still be something between Cam and me, but itdoesn't make any sensenow.Sam and me—we're not together,and that aside, he knows Cam is dead.
And he knows what Cammeant to me.What he'llalwaysmean to me.Even when Sam and I were still goingto make a go of it, the night I told him about Cam's death, heseemed to understand.So why the sight of Cam's varsity shirtseemed to further flame Sam's anger with me, I just don'tget.
I'll never understand you,Rory.
Yeah, well, that makes twoof us.But why I would have my dead best friend's old shirt—thatseems pretty self explanatory to me.As far as I go, it seemspretty normal.To want to hold on to this last piece ofhim.
I guess there are parts ofSam I'll never understand either.
But there was some senseof finality to those words.Because he didn't say he doesn'tunderstand me, but that he never will, and maybe that means he'sfinally accepting that I'm not worth trying tounderstand.
I peek down at the itemsthat remain in the box, running my fingers over the few visiblepieces of Cam that make up the top layer.I don't want to rushthrough the items that are left, nor am I emotionally strong enoughto withstand the overload of memories all at once.
I wish wholeheartedly thatSam wasn't at odds with Cam's memory.Because as much as I loveSam, as much as I'm sure I'll always love him, I won't choose onelove over another.I won't forsake one to appease the other.I'vebeen there, and it's my deepest regret, and now that Cam is gone, Ican't take it back.But I can learn from my poor choices and I canbe sure never to repeat them.Because if the fates take pity on meand Sam does forgive me, I still won't apologize for cherishing mymemories of my best friend, even if it means losing Sam all overagain.
I take out an envelope withphotos from our childhood.Not an album, just a few random, loosephotos in a wrinkled white envelope.There's Cam, Chip, and me downby the lake, still in our dirty little league uniforms from thatmorning's game, fishing off of the old wooden dock.There are fewmore like that—us digging for worms, me giving Chip bunny earswhile Cam tries to pants him for the camera, the three of uslooking like drowned rats after Cam pushed me in the lake and thenthey jumped in to join me on what I now remember was a particularlyscorching spring day.
Then there are a few fromthe game that must have taken place that morning.Cam, Chip, Nick,Perry and me sitting in batting order on our team's bench.There'seven one of me sliding home—an action shot with my long, unkemptbraid flying straight out, the angle showing exactly how thosebrown stains on the knees of my white baseball pants got there.Myfather must have taken it.We're only about eleven in them, and inthose days he never missed a game.
Everything was differentback then, when the three of us were still a family—before webecame little more than three separate entities, all coming andgoing within the same house.Before my father took the AssistantDistrict Attorney position, and then proceeded on to DA, and mymother threw herself into extra long hours at the Public Defender'soffice in what, in retrospect, seemed like an attempt to make upfor my father's selling out toTheMan.Before he cared more about networkingand politics, and golfing with Mayor Forbes than either my motheror me.Before I hit puberty, and it became more and more difficultfor him to deny that I was, in fact, a girl, after all.Before hebegan to openly resent me for it, whether he intended it to beobvious or not.Before I counted myself lucky if he spoke more thana single sentence to me in a given day, and later, aweek.
Life would've been so mucheasier if I could have just been born a boy.It's a thought I've had many times, even in my childhood, andeven more often over this past year.
I put the photos back, andpull out the item I know I'll find stuffed in the right hand cornerof my Cam box.I saw it the second time I opened the box, butcouldn't bring myself to take it out.
The Vermont Teddy Bear Ibought Cam for his sixteenth birthday.
We rarely got each otherserious gifts, or anything of any real value.It was eithersomething silly or sentimental, and this gift was nodifferent.
