I Love You to Death(5)

That was when their attention turned from me to him.
We tried to stop it, we really did. Alex and I tried everything, but there were just too many of them. And they all went after Nate. By the time I ran to find someone, Nate had probably already suffered the cerebral haemorrhage that killed him. One day later they turned off his life support and he was pronounced dead.
I struggled to face both Alex and Nate’s family after that. I felt so responsible for what had happened. If I’d never asked him to take me out, if we’d never left when I suggested we go somewhere else, if I’d never worn that outfit, maybe those *s would’ve missed us. Maybe they would’ve walked by if I wasn’t there and Nate would still be alive.
I missed my best friend so badly, but the guilt I felt for what had happened, was overwhelming.
Nate’s funeral was a pretty big event in the end. At college he was very popular, out and proud and had a lot of friends. I remember noticing how good they all looked, even in mourning they managed to look good. I also remember thinking how funny Nate would find it, that even now I was getting annoyed at how many good looking guys were gay.
"What, so you can have them all but I can’t?" he’d always ask me, a smile on his face.
"No, that’s not what I meant and you know it," I’d say, throwing something at him. "What I meant is all gay men are pretty and hardly any straight men are, so why do you get them all and I don’t?"
He would just laugh again and say to me, "Trust me Ash, there’s someone out there for you and he’ll be the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen in your life!"
I’d hoped he was right, but when I first saw Sam at the funeral, the only thing I thought was he had to be gay, because he was just so good looking.
Afterwards, there’d been a wake at Nate’s parent’s house. I didn’t really want to go because I didn’t know many of the people; Nate had left Providence and made so many friends. So instead, I sat on my own front porch and watched them all come and pay their respects to his family.
I was watching them when Sam came up to me.
"You don’t want to come and join us?" he’d asked, standing at the bottom of the steps in a black suit and tie, which he’d loosened along with undoing the top button of his shirt.
I looked up at him and felt something catch in my throat. "I don’t know, I don’t really know anyone," I somehow managed to get out.
He walked straight up my steps, stuck his hand out to me and said, "I’m Sam."
I reached out my arm and he took my hand in his soft, warm one. It was bigger than mine and I felt his fingers wrap all the way around, holding my hand completely in his. "Ash," I replied shyly.
"Now you know me, so come on over," he said smiling and still holding onto me as he pulled me up off the step.
I tried to protest but he ignored it, continuing to hold onto me as though he thought I might try and escape. We went into the house and Sam took us straight into the kitchen where he grabbed a couple of beers. He popped the tops off, handed me one and leant back against the counter waiting for me to do the same thing. I took a sip of the beer, tried not to choke on it and stood there staring at the floor and wondering why he was being so nice to me.
"So ah, how did you know Nate?" I finally asked him, after we stood there in silence for what felt like hours, but couldn’t have been more than seconds.
"We went to school together," Sam answered. "He and I both studied computer science."
"Oh so you’re a computer nerd too then?" I responded without really thinking.
Sam laughed. He had a great laugh that was deep and genuine. "I don’t know about nerd, that was pretty much Nate’s game. I battled through and was just glad he was there to help me out all the time."
"Yeah," I smiled. "He used to help me with my math homework in high school. I pretty much pretended to understand what he was talking about most of the time." I confessed, taking a sip of beer as I snuck another look at Sam.
He was looking back at me, watching me with an amused look on his face. "Yeah me too," he answered quietly. We both continued drinking our beers, neither of us saying anything more as we each remembered Nate. Suddenly Sam took one last swig, put the bottle down and stepped towards me. "Wanna get out of here?" he asked, his brown eyes taking on an intensity I hadn’t seen earlier.
"Sure," I said without thinking, quickly finishing my own beer.
I followed Sam out of the house and down the street to his car. He unlocked the door for me and we both slid in. As he turned the key, music came softly from the radio, one of my favourite bands. I recognised it instantly and leant over to turn the volume up without thinking. Sam just smiled at me and pulled out onto the street.
We drove for a while, neither of us saying anything, just enjoying the music and the comfortable silence between us. Eventually when Sam approached the Pell Bridge I asked him, "We’re going to Newport?"
"I don’t know," he said turning to look at me. "I didn’t know if you wanted to stop driving yet?"
I remember being struck then by how easy it was to be with him. How he somehow understood I didn’t want to talk about Nate and what’d happened. That I was happy to just drive along, listening to music. But my stomach betrayed me, so I answered, "Yeah, let’s go into Newport, I’m starving."
He eventually found a parking spot outside a pub. It was a pub I’d been to before, popular but not too busy. The kind of place you could have a drink and a conversation. After we’d sat in a booth and ordered some food and drinks, I decided now would be a good time to work out which team Sam batted for.