Sam is Dead. Hannah Kirkell

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СКАЧАТЬ the accusation, Sam had stood and left, and he had done it silently, a very noncharacteristic thing for him to do. From what I’d seen, Sam always had something to say about everything. He had a sharp tongue and a quick mind, and he’d be damned if everyone didn’t know it.

      Before I could process all this and run, however, Sam caught my eye. He may have paled, but I may have imagined that. I felt frozen, unable to move. My words caught in my throat. And Sam?

      Well, Sam looked like a kicked puppy. His brow was furrowed, lips pursed, and shoulders slumped. The worst, however, were his eyes. For lack of a better word, his eyes were sad. As a high schooler who witnesses a high amount of sadness in his school, I thought I’d seen it all. But Sam?

      I’ve never really had a way with words, and in keeping up with tradition, none came. But if someone took a picture of just Sam’s eyes and had to analyze it, they’d say he looked like he just lost a child or like someone had just told him that he was responsible for a horrific tragedy.

      In typical Sam fashion, he collected himself and returned to his emotionless stare. I could probably coin a catchphrase off his name—I could call it “pulling a Sam” in which I describe someone who pushes their emotions down in an attempt to act fine.

      That rush of annoyance was enough to push me over the edge. With some sort of courage I’d found within me, I walked over to where Sam sat and wordlessly sat down next to him. I took the proffered cup, nodded my thanks, and took a sip. I was mildly shocked that Sam’d gotten my coffee order perfectly, one cream, two sugars, but I chose not to dwell on that. After all, it just wouldn’t do to dwell on the fact that an alleged murderer knew my coffee order.

      I can’t rightly say how long we sat there, but I’d be willing to bet that it was around twenty minutes. That may not sound like much, but it felt like an eternity. We sat there in complete silence, staring straight ahead, less than a foot away from each other. Once, I thought he was about to say something, but I may have been mistaken. After all, I wasn’t the intimidating one in our little situation.

      Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore. I stood, drained the last of my coffee, discarded the cup, and walked out of the shop without so much as a glance over my shoulder. As I walked out, I could have sworn I felt him staring. Somehow, that miraculously didn’t make me turn around. God only knows how I pulled that one off. Not to brag, but I’m the most weak-willed person I know.

      I purposefully walked in front of the window Sam was still sitting in front of. I kept my eyes straight ahead and managed to not even try to sneak one look.

      I felt his eyes on me the entire time I was in his line of sight.

      I remember wondering why on earth I’d caught Sam’s interest. Surely, it couldn’t just have been loneliness—not for a man like Sam anyway. There had to be something else, something beneath the surface, something more that’d brought us together.

      *****

      Unfortunately, I never quite worked up the nerve to ask him. Every time I mustered up the courage, Sam would go off on some sort of tangent—about the people he encountered, about the “shit music the radio station played,” seemingly about anything that would get him out of talking about anything remotely serious. Far be it from Sam to actually talk anything through.

      As much respect as I have, had, and probably will always have for the man, he was the one who acted like the child—and I, the actual child, the adult. I hated that about Sam. No matter how close we got, we were never close enough for that element of fear to fully go away.

      I wish things were different. I wish I could go back and do things differently, say them differently. But it is no use thinking this way.

      Because Sam is dead.

      Chapter Seven

      Sam is dead. I suppose I should be used to it by now, with half a year having gone by, but my inability to get Sam out of my mind remains and grows stronger still. I can’t seem to go a day without being sucked down a memory rabbit hole.

      To be quite frank, I can’t foresee any type of world in which I don’t think about Sam every day. It seems wrong, almost. Even if the man was horrible at times, he deserves at least one person to mourn him, to miss him. Doesn’t everyone?

      Death is a scary thing. It’s so permanent really. It’s hard to think about how one bad decision can lead to the end of your life and can result in unbearable sadness for another person.

      I just wish one other person in this town saw Sam for more than “a jerk who didn’t hold the door for people” and “deserved what was coming to him.” I only wish I wasn’t paraphrasing.

      Sam didn’t deserve what happened to him, right?

      Oh, well. It’s almost like it doesn’t even matter. Nothing I—or anyone for that matter—could say would make people remember Sam differently. After all, that was how he acted.

      I wonder, had our circumstances been different and had I not known Sam, would I be another person who let out a sigh of relief when they read about Sam’s death in the paper?

      Because Sam is dead.

      *****

      I avoided the coffee shop for days after our awkward encounter. I don’t remember exactly what I was thinking, but I was doing what all young men and women do at one point or another in their lives: I was running from my problems.

      This odd relationship I had with Sam was certainly a problem. Not an hour passed without bringing thoughts of Sam. I would wonder how he was doing, where he was, and, of course, if he was truly a murderer.

      So after days of running away from my problems and hiding behind the shield of naivety, I decided to return to the coffee shop.

      As I walked in the doors, I remember thinking, What am I doing? Which was closely followed by, Well, if he’s not here, then this’ll be the end of it. I’ll find somewhere else to get coffee.

      Fortunately for my taste buds, Sam was exactly where I saw him last: sitting at my spot by the window. The bleak look in his eyes made me question how many days he’d sat there before I finally went back in.

      When he saw me, his eyes lit up. It shocked me that he didn’t try to hide it more, him being Sam and all. Sam was too proud to verbally say anything, but his eyes seemed to beg me to go over to him. Now, I’ve never been too good at reading eyes either, so he also may have been just very disappointed about the local hockey team’s loss the previous night.

      To this day, I don’t know what exactly made me walk over to him. Was it pity? Was it curiosity?

      Either way, I found myself sitting next to Sam once again. When I sat down, he seemed to relax—at least to a certain extent. His shoulders loosened a bit, but I could feel his leg shaking through the floor.

      Once again, we sat in silence until I couldn’t bear it anymore. Instead of walking out, this time, I opted to speak.

      “I can’t take this anymore.”

      He seemed shocked that I spoke. “What?”

      “We can’t just keep sitting here in awkward silence for the rest of our lives.”

      “We, СКАЧАТЬ