Love in the Time of Serial Killers(87)

“I should probably get going,” he said. “I have a team meeting at the school.”

Ah. That explained why he was dressed up. I was hit by a sudden panic, that this would be it, that I’d never see him again, that I’d never have a chance to tell him how I felt. I didn’t know if this was love, this cold, sick feeling in my stomach, but I had to tell him how important he was to me, how much I’d valued our time together, how much I would miss him.

But the words stuck in my throat. It was different with Sam than with Alison or Conner. The stakes were so high. I couldn’t expect anything but rejection from Sam. I would deserve it, too.

“Here,” I said, reaching for my guitar, leaned against one wall. “Take this.”

He raised his eyebrows at me. “You still want me to fix your guitar?”

“No,” I said. “Keep it. You’d use it more than me, anyway.”

There were still a couple stickers on the back of it—one from the Amnesty International club I’d joined in high school, the other for a band I was embarrassed to admit I’d barely listened to but thought their logo was cool. I didn’t know if those made the guitar worthless, but it should still play, regardless.

But Sam didn’t reach for the instrument. “I don’t want it,” he said. “No offense, Phoebe, but I don’t want . . .”

He trailed off without finishing that sentence, which was cruel, considering he’d started it with two of the most dreaded words in the English language. No offense. He didn’t want what? To have anything of mine in his house? To remember me? To care about me anymore?

“It would be painful,” he said finally. “To see that every day.”

Which made total sense. But for some reason, it was suddenly more important to me than ever that I give him something and that he take it, that there was some external acknowledgment of all that had passed between us.

“So use it for parts,” I said. “Smash it up. That always looks really satisfying—when rock stars smash their guitars onstage. You can’t get that kind of catharsis from throwing a tambourine, that’s for sure.”

He didn’t smile.

“Please, Sam,” I said. “Seriously, I won’t use it. Take the pickups out of it or whatever you were talking about doing and then throw the rest of it away. Or put new strings on it and give it to one of your students who shows an interest. I don’t care. But please, take it.”

He grasped the guitar by the neck, hefting it in his hand. Then he set it gently back down on the floor, leaning it against the wall where it had been previously. My eyes felt hot and itchy as he stepped forward to envelop me in a hug.

His arms were warm and tight around me, his hands pressed in between my shoulder blades. I’d known he’d give great hugs, since that night of his party. I’d craved his touch, even then, wanted to feel his arms around me just like this. A sob caught in my throat, and I squeezed him back, resting my cheek against his shoulder.

I don’t regret any of it, either, I wanted to say. Except the very end. If I could go back in time and undo that last day, I would.

“Drive safe,” he said. Then he gave me one final squeeze, pressed a kiss to my hair, and was gone, the guitar left behind exactly where he’d put it.

Lenore finally crept out from under the bed, just in time to see me sniffle a huge bubble of snot from my nose.

“I know,” I said. “I’m not a pretty crier. I’m disgusting. Shall we go be disgusting together, seven hundred miles from here?”





TWENTY-FIVE





THE SEMESTER STARTED back up at the end of August, and it was a relief to get back into my old routine. Preparing syllabi for the last two classes I’d teach in my graduate career, finalizing my dissertation chapters for Dr. Nilsson’s comments, filling out paperwork to stay on track for graduation in December. Everything was back to normal.

Except it wasn’t. Now I had a cat, who seemed to only moderately like me more than she had in Florida, but who at least seemed to love the small screened-in balcony that came with her new home. And now I was having trouble sleeping, unable to fight off the melancholy if I had even a minute of unfilled time on my hands. I had a giant hole in my chest in the place where my heart should be, and nothing I tried seemed to fill it up—not reading, not writing, not grading papers, not mindless Netflix watching.

Conner and I talked on the phone at least once a week, and he’d put Shani on for her medical expertise if I happened to mention anything about my sudden insomnia. Her advice was sound and in keeping with what the internet said—no caffeine after two, no screens after eight, no using my bed for anything but sleep. But instead I sat up in my bed all night, drinking coffee and reading unsolved mysteries Reddit threads on my phone.

We’d had a few people look at our dad’s house, including Josue, who ended up saying it seemed like more work than he wanted to take on.

“It was the black bedroom,” I said on the phone to Conner, leaning down to peer into my almost-empty fridge. “I told you we should’ve painted it.”

“Actually . . .” I could hear rustling on the other end, like Conner was shifting around. No matter how many times I told him the mic on his earbuds was super sensitive, he insisted on doing things like refilling his cup with ice or playing a video game with full sound on while we talked. Once, I’d heard him taking a leak. I’d told him in no uncertain terms that he was ideally never to do that again while we were on the phone or, if he absolutely couldn’t hold it, at least mute his phone like a normal respectful person.