Page 58 of Smoke and Glitter

"It doesn't."

"It mattered enough to change you."

His jaw sets. I hate myself for pushing here, and I hate him for leaving me no gentler place to go.

"I didn't need the whole story," I say. "I didn't need every ugly detail. I just wanted you to trust me enough to tell me one true thing that makes you you that I didn't already know because somebody else cared enough to warn me."

"Summer shouldn't have done that."

I almost laugh.

"That's what you're taking from this?"

"No. That's not what I meant."

"Then tell me what you meant."

He doesn't.

I stand there and watch him.

This is it. I know it. The last opening. He could say he was scared. He could say Elise wrecked something in him and he hasn't figured out how to put it back together. He could tell me he loves me and has no idea what the hell to do with that. He could say anything honest. Anything.

He doesn't.

Eventually Sam puts the beer on the counter and walks toward the couch.

He walks toward the couch instead of me.

He puts both hands on the back of it and looks down.

"This works."

My stomach drops.

"Sam."

"It does."

"Please don't."

"This works because it's easy."

There are sentences that hurt because you don't expect them.

This one hurts because I do.

He keeps talking.

"We don't ask each other for things we can't give. You've got your life. Summer, Jake, your career. I've got the bar. Nobody's trying to rearrange everything around somebody else."

I stare at his back.

Days ago I heard him say almost the same thing to Bex.

I had convinced myself it might sound different when he said it to me.

It doesn't.