I lower my gaze, unsure of what to say.
Mika blows on her tea and takes another sip. After a long silence, she says, “When I saw Taylor talk to you like that … I thought of him. I thought of what Sam would have done if he was there. He’s always better with his words than me, you know? That’s why everyone liked him better.
“Even though he’s gone…” she continues. “I keep expecting to see him again. Whenever someone comes through the door, I wonder if it’s going to be him. If it’s Sam. It’s those moments when I forget he’s gone and remember again, that I feel the most sad.” She stares into her tea. “I know you don’t like to talk about Sam, but I really miss him. I don’t know how people can let go so fast.”
“I haven’t let go,” I say.
“But you’re trying to.”
I shake my head. “That’s not true anymore.” That was me two weeks ago. Everything’s different now that I’m connected to Sam again. If only she knew this.
“It doesn’t matter anymore if you do,” Mika says, looking at Sam’s portrait again. “Sometimes, I wish I stopped thinking about him, too. I don’t care about the vigil. I don’t even care that you missed it. But you were so busy trying to forget him that you were willing to forget me. You forget there were three of us. It wasn’t just you and Sam. I was a part of that, too…” She pauses, and looks at her phone on the edge of the coffee table. “I know this will sound stupid, but I still read through our group messages. Between the three of us. I thought about sending something the other day, just to keep it alive, you know? So that it wouldn’t just end … But I couldn’t. Because I was scared neither of you would answer. And I don’t want to be alone in there—” Her voice breaks, sending a pain to my chest. I deleted our group chat. It never once occurred to me that I was deleting Mika, too. I want to say something to fix this, but I know there are no words good enough.
Mika stares deep into her tea again, and continues in almost a whisper. “The other day … my mom was looking for pictures of me and Sam together for a photo album. But she said it was hard to find one without you in it, too. So instead, she made it about the three of us.” She wipes her eyes with back of her sleeve, trying to keep herself composed. “You know, when it happened … When Sam died … I remember thinking, how are you and I going to get through this? What are we going to do, you know? I kept waiting for you to text back, return my calls, and show up at the door. But you never did. You didn’t even want to see me—” her voice gives out, as if she’s holding back tears. “It was like when I lost Sam, I lost you, too.”
She wipes her eyes with her sleeve, and goes on. “His family came over a few days ago. I guess his mom still wakes up to the shock that he’s gone. For the first few days, she kept checking his room to see if he might be there. Like it was a dream or something. She called my dad to come over to help move Sam’s things out, but then she changed her mind again. They’re just sitting in boxes in his room. Like she’s keeping it for him … in case he comes back or something.”
My eyes are watering at this point. I should have been there with her at the beginning. I should have shared some of this pain. I take her hand. “Mika, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you alone like that, okay? I promise I never forgot about you and Sam. I still love him, and I think about him every day.”
Mika pulls her hand away. “It doesn’t look that way to me,” she says through tears. “Seems like you’ve moved on with your life. I see you with your new group of friends. All of you at lunch, laughing like nothing’s wrong. Like Sam was never even here.” She wipes her eyes again. “Did you even cry once when he died?”
The question stabs me. I hate that she thinks of me this way. “Of course I have,” I answer. Had she asked me this back at the diner, I might have said otherwise. But I’m not the person I was then. Because I found Sam again. If only I could just tell her this. “I know it might not seem like I care about him, but I do. Of course I do, Mika. But it’s complicated. You have to understand—”
“I know when you’re not being completely honest, Julie,” Mika says. “I know when you’re keeping things from me, too. I also know you meant what you said at the diner that morning. How am I supposed to believe you changed your mind since then? Just like that—”
“Because something strange happened since then,” I tell her. “I wish I could tell you, but I cant. I’m sorry. You have to believe me, though.”
Mika dismisses this with a shake of her head. “I can’t do this, Julie. I’m tired of all these nonanswers,” she says. “And I can’t take being ignored anymore.”
“What do you mean?”