You've Reached Sam(60)

“Everything will be okay, Julie,” Sam says. “I promise. But I have to go now, okay?”

“Wait—go where?” I ask him. But he doesn’t answer this. All he says is, “I’ll talk to you soon. I love you.”

The call ends abruptly. I stand by the window in silence, wondering if I should call him back. But something cold I can’t explain creeps up my spine, telling me not to. That I shouldn’t. So I go back to the bed and hold the phone close to me. I stare at the blank screen all night, trying to stay calm.

Did I ruin everything again?





CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Something’s wrong with our connection. Something terrible. I don’t know how to fix it, and neither does Sam. It reminds me of when a storm comes, and thunder flickers the lights, throwing off all the electricity in the house, and nothing works. I keep waiting for the clouds to part, for the weather to change, but every time I look out the window the sky is still bruised and purple. It’s hard to not let it get to me, because I asked for this, didn’t I? This is my fault. I made Sam talk to Mika, and ever since then, our calls are not the same anymore. They have to be spaced further apart and don’t last as long. We used to be able to speak for hours, whenever I needed him. Now I have to wait for days to pass before I can call him again, and if our conversation goes longer than ten minutes or so, static comes through the line and it scares me. It hurts that I can’t even call him out of the blue anymore, even when I’m desperate to hear his voice. When I feel like I’m about to fall apart, I have to remind myself I haven’t lost him yet—I haven’t lost Sam. I know I messed up our connection, but he’s still with me. And as long as we plan our calls better, keeping them short, and finding those places where our signal is the strongest, we can make this work. We’ll figure it out. Maybe there’s a way to fix things.

It’s been two weeks since I told Mika everything. Since I let her and Sam speak to each other again. But not all good things come without consequences. During our last call, Sam told me something I refuse to believe. He said there’s a chance we only have a few calls left before our connection ends forever. The worst part is Sam warned me this could happen, but I didn’t listen. At least he got to speak with Mika one more time. The look in Mika’s eyes after their call made the risk worth it. At first, I was desperate to have someone else tell me these past few weeks have been real, that Sam’s voice hasn’t been all in my head. But once I reconnected Mika and Sam again, it became so much more than that. Mika looks like herself again, and the two of us are spending more time together.

I think the call gave her the peace of mind she needed and a new starting point to heal. And now that there are no secrets between us, it feels like we can finally be there for each other.

At least I haven’t said good-bye to Sam yet. And as long as I don’t, we’ll stay connected, right? Isn’t that what he promised me? I’m not ready to let him go yet. I hate imagining my life without him. I wish I could hold on to him, keep him with me for as long as I can. I don’t know what I’ll do when he’s gone.

This is all I think about now as I stare at my phone. I do this all day long when I’m not talking to him—on the off chance he calls me and I need to answer right away. So that our connection never breaks again …

“Are you expecting a call?”

I look up from the table as the room comes back into focus. Oliver is sitting across from me, waiting for a response. We are at a small table in the back of the café, Sun and Moon. The Moroccan lamps are on, flickering like real flames, even though it’s daylight out. At least it isn’t crowded this Saturday morning. The two of us have been coming here a lot lately. He always orders the chai latte with extra foam. I tried an Americano for the first time today instead of my usual coffee. I’m not quite sure what the difference is.

“You look like you’re waiting for a call or something,” Oliver says.

“Earth to Julie. You there?”

I blink a few times and come back to myself. “Sorry. I was lost in thought for a second. What were we talking about again?”

Oliver lets out a breath. “Graduation.”

“Right. What about it?”

“You really weren’t listening…” he says with a sigh. “It’s a few weeks away, remember? Cap and gowns? That one Vitamin C song? Tell me this is happening too soon.”

“I guess so. I’m trying not to stress about it.”

“Seriously,” he says, groaning. “I wish we had another month to figure stuff out, you know? Do you even know what you’re doing after, yet?”

I thought I did. I thought I had everything planned out. From the apartment I wanted to live in to the different writing classes I would take.

But it’s been hard to focus on school since I messed up our connection, so my final grades remain question marks. For some reason, Reed still hasn’t sent me my admissions letter. On top of that, I still haven’t finished my writing sample, so maybe a writing career isn’t even in the cards for me. It seems no matter how much effort I put in, and how much I try to plan things out, nothing ever comes together.

I stare into my cup, which is still steaming. “Not yet.”

“I thought you were going to that one school,” Oliver says. “Reed, right? You must have heard back from them by now.”