SAM IS SITTING at the edge of the dock, his feet in the water. The sun hasn’t risen above the hills yet, but its light casts a halo around the far shore that promises it will soon. My footsteps shake the wooden planks as I walk toward him, but he doesn’t turn around.
I sit beside him, putting two steaming cups of coffee down, then roll my pants up over my knees so I can dip my legs into the lake. I pass him one of the mugs, and we drink in silence. There aren’t any boats out yet, and the only sound is the distant, mournful call of a loon. I’m half-finished with my coffee—trying to figure out where to begin—when Sam starts talking.
“Charlie told me about the two of you over Christmas break when we came home from school,” he says, looking out over the calm water. I want to cut in and apologize, but I can tell he’s got more to say. And, at the very least, I owe him the chance to tell his side despite how afraid I am to hear it—to hear about what it was like for him to know what I’d done all this time, to hear him get to the part where he never wants to see me again.
His voice is husky, like he hasn’t spoken yet this morning. “I was in rough shape after we broke up. I didn’t understand what had gone wrong and why you would shut down like that. Even if you weren’t ready for marriage or to even talk about getting married, breaking up didn’t make sense to me. I felt like maybe I had experienced our entire relationship completely differently from how you had. I felt like I was going crazy.”
He pauses and looks at me from the corner of his eye. I can feel the shame tighten its grip on my throat and my heart beating harder, but instead of fighting it, I accept that this is going to be uncomfortable and focus instead on Sam and what he needs to say.
“I think Charlie thought if I knew what had really happened, it might somehow make it better, explain why you pushed me away.” He shakes his head like he still can’t believe it. “He told me that you did still love me, that you had immediately regretted it and completely freaked out.”
“I had a panic attack,” I whisper.
“Yeah, I kind of figured that part out at the wake,” he says, looking at me straight on. He’s so much calmer than he was yesterday, but his voice sounds hollow.
“I did regret it,” I tell him, hesitating before putting my hand on his thigh. He doesn’t move away or tense up under my touch, so I keep it there. “It’s the biggest regret of my life. I wish it hadn’t happened, but it did, and I’m so sorry.”
“I know,” he says, looking back at the lake, his shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry I lost it yesterday. I thought I had moved past it years ago, but hearing you say the words, it felt like hearing it for the first time all over again.”
I take his hand in mine and shake it. “Hey,” I say so he looks at me, and when he does, I squeeze his hand tighter and look him in the eye. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. Me, on the other hand . . .”
He smiles sadly and runs his hand through his hair.
“The thing is, Percy, I do.” I can feel my face scrunch in confusion. He brings one leg on the dock, twisting so he can face me. I take my feet out of the water and tuck them under me so I can do the same.
“You always thought I was perfect.”
“Sam, you were perfect,” I reply, stating the obvious.
“I wasn’t!” he says, adamant. “I was obsessed with getting out of here, and then when I went away to school, I was so terrified I was going to mess it up, that I had only seemed smart because I’d grown up in such a small town. It felt like any day they’d figure out I was a fraud. I was paralyzed with fear. I was homesick, too. I missed you like crazy. I didn’t want you to know how bad it was, to think less of me, so I didn’t call.”
“You were eighteen, and it was totally normal to feel that way. I was too immature to realize that.”
He shakes his head. “I was always jealous of Charlie. I think you knew that. He barely studied in high school and would just kill every test. Girls loved him. Everything seemed to happen so easily for him. And then you did, too.” My stomach feels like it just dropped forty stories.
“I felt like my future exploded when you said you couldn’t marry me,” he goes on. “But I thought one day you would change your mind. I thought we both needed a bit of time. But then . . . I didn’t take it well, hearing about you and Charlie.” He rubs his face. “I was angry. With you. With Charlie. And with myself. The way I felt about you was always so clear to me—even when we were young I knew you and I were meant for each other. Two halves of a whole. I loved you so much that the word ‘love’ didn’t seem big enough for how I felt. But I realize now that you didn’t know that. You wouldn’t have turned to Charlie if you knew that. And for that I’m sorry.” He reaches toward me, pulling my bottom lip out from under my teeth with his thumb. I hadn’t realized I’d been biting it.
I start to reply, to tell him he doesn’t need to apologize, that I’m the one who should be explaining herself, but he stops me.
“When I went back to school after Christmas, I just wanted to forget you and us and everything that happened,” he says. “I wanted to get you out of my system, but I think I also wanted to hurt you the way you hurt me. I studied like crazy, but I also drank a lot. I’d go to these big house parties—there was always a keg, and there were always girls.” He pauses. The muscles in my stomach seize at the mention of the other girls. He squints, as if he’s asking my permission to continue, and I take a deep breath and wait.
“I can’t remember most of them, but I know there were a lot. Jordie tried to keep an eye on me. He was worried I was going to catch something or screw around with some psychopath’s girlfriend, but I was relentless. It didn’t make a difference, though. All I could think about every day was you,” he says, his voice scratchy. “Even when I was with other girls, trying to erase you from my mind, you were still there. I’d wake up, sometimes I didn’t even know where I was, so full of shame and missing you so much. But I’d just do it all over again, trying to forget. And then one night at some party in a frat house basement, I saw Delilah.” My breath hitches at her name, and I rub my chest as though I can soothe the ache beneath my breastbone.
Sam waits until I meet his eyes again.
“You don’t need to tell me this part,” I say. “This part I’m pretty sure I know.”
“Delilah told you?”
I nod.
“I thought she would. She was a good friend to you.” I wince, remembering how terribly I’d treated her. I’d been mad and then when I got over my anger, I was too ashamed to apologize.
“I was out-of-my-mind drunk, Percy. And I made a pass at her. She told me off and stormed out of there. I think I puked all over myself, like, two minutes later.”
Exactly what Delilah had told me.
He lets out a bitter laugh. “I stopped sleeping around after that. I just ate, went to class, and studied. I was kind of a robot, but after a while I stopped being so angry with you and Charlie—and myself.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I hate that I did that to you.” I watch the ripples radiating from where a fish has jumped. We’re both quiet. “I deserved it,” I say after a little while, turning back to him. “The other girls. You hitting on Delilah. You yelling at me yesterday. For what I did to you, I deserved it all.”