You've Reached Sam (76)
“Sam?”
I call his name a few times but no answer. Is he still here? I head to the bedroom to look for him. The hallway is somehow longer than I remember, and seems to extend farther and farther as I walk. For some reason, there are no doors on either side, only one at the very end of the hall. It’s covered with stickers, just like the ones Sam has on his bedroom door at home. I touch the knob, taking a deep breath before I turn it. A couple leaves roll into the hallway as I open it, followed by a familiar breeze.
Tall grass bends beneath my shoes as I step outside, and find myself standing in the middle of the fields. I breathe in the air, taking in the scent of barley. There’s something different about this place. The sky is overcast and I sense a strange vibration moving under me. A strong wind bends the tops of the grasses, nearly breaking them. There are no sounds of crickets, only a growing rumble coming from somewhere deep inside the earth. As more clouds roll in, I feel the first sprinkling of rain on my skin. In the distance, high above the line of mountains, lightning flashes. A storm is coming, and it appears I’ll have to face it alone.
Sam isn’t here anymore. Maybe he never was.
* * *
I used to live inside my daydreams. I spent hours planning the future in my head, imagining myself ten years from now, finished with college, living in an apartment in the city, getting to write for a living. I imagined the details of the rest of my life—the appliances I would have in the kitchen, the titles of stories I would publish, the places I would travel, who would be there with me. But then you get rejections in the mail, lose that person who meant everything to you, and find yourself back at the beginning with nowhere to go. I try not to daydream anymore. It only tricks me with images of Sam, filling me with the possibility that we can still be together, that there’s a future for us, until reality comes in like a storm to blow everything away.
Sam is never coming back. But somehow I keep on waiting for him. I’m not sure how many calls we have left, but the number is winding down. I spent the morning looking through the log of phone calls I’ve been keeping, remembering our conversations, trying to make sense of things. Since I let him speak to Mika, I noticed each call is shorter than the one before, the static coming sooner. How many more calls left before I lose you? It’s hard to worry about this when there are other questions we haven’t answered yet. Why were we given this second chance? Just to say good-bye? It’s as if we’ve been reconnected only to be torn apart again. Sam said that we should appreciate this for what it is, but I can’t help thinking there has to be a reason we’ve been connected again. But there’s only so much time left. Maybe I’ll never get the answer.
Every time I get off the phone with him, it feels like we’re getting closer to the end. Even though I knew this was coming, it still tears me apart inside. Like I’m losing him all over again. What am I going to do when he’s gone? I wish the world would slow down for us. I wish I could put coins into a machine to buy us more time. I wish I could save these last calls for as long as I can, so we can stay connected. I wish there was something, anything I could do to keep him with me.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” Sam said in our previous call. “We still have time together. I’m not going anywhere until we say good-bye, alright?”
“But what if I’ll never be ready?”
“Don’t say that, Julie. You have a whole life ahead of you. There’s so much to look forward to. And you’re destined to do great things, I know it.”
“And what about you?”
“I’ll be okay, too. You don’t have to worry.”
His answers are always vague. I learned not to push him on telling me more. I know he has his reasons.
“Promise me one thing,” I said before the call ended.
“What’s that?”
“That no matter what, this won’t be the end of us. That we’ll be connected again someday.”
A silence.
“Promise me, Sam,” I asked again.
“I’m sorry, Jules. But I can’t promise you that. As much as I want to.”
It was the answer I expected. But it still fills me with emptiness.
“So you’re saying, after our good-bye, it’s really going to end? And I’ll never be able to speak to you again?”
“Don’t think of it like that,” Sam said. “It’s just a different beginning, especially for you. And you’re gonna have a lot them.”
“And you? Where will you go after?”
“To be honest … I don’t really know. I’m sure I’ll be fine, though. At the very least, I can promise you that. So don’t worry, okay?” And then the static comes, as if on cue. “I think it’s time to go soon…”
I squeezed the phone. “Where are you now?”
“I still can’t say. I’m sorry.”
“Can you at least tell me what you see?” I asked.
Sam took a moment to answer.
“Fields. Endless fields.”
* * *
Rain drizzles down the windshield as we drive up the interstate toward Seattle. As we cross Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge, which floats over Lake Washington, the view of mountains fades behind us, replaced by concrete high-rises that cluster along ocean-blue water. I wasn’t planning on coming back here anytime soon. I was hoping to stay in bed all weekend, watching TV shows on my laptop. A trip out to the waterfront was Yuki’s idea. She wanted to see it one more time before we graduate and she has to fly back to Japan. When Yuki first asked if I would come with her, I said I couldn’t. I’ve been keeping to myself more lately. Since the film festival two weeks ago, I haven’t had much of a yearning for social interaction. But then Rachel caught the flu on Thursday, and I pictured Yuki taking the bus alone and getting lost downtown, and felt a pang of guilt. So I decided to go with her. When I told her yesterday at lunch, Oliver invited himself along, offering to drive. He even convinced Jay to ditch his weekly environmental club meeting and go with us.