Page 46 of Resilience

He looked across the glen, toward the pond just beyond the trees. When he began to explain, his attention was on his hands rather than Athena. “At first it was the usual stuff, the same reason as always—jealousy of you, insisting that you had me in the way she wanted me. But then she ... she made a case. It wasn’t just complaining. It felt like ... I don’t know. Like evidence. Like proof—and it made me really think about it like I never had before.”

Getting the sense that Sam was headed toward a tangent when she needed him on the point, Athena reached out and tugged on his arm. When she had his attention, she asked, “What did she say? What proof?”

“I’ve been thinking about it so much since then I have it memorized. We were having the usual fight, and I was telling her what I’d told her and every other girl I’ve been with a hundred times. Then she asked if I think you’re pretty. I told her I have eyes so I know you’re beautiful. And that was the thing that pushed her over the edge. She made like a bulleted list. First, she said you’re my first priority in life. I always think of you before anything else. Then, that I know everything about you and do whatever I can to make you happy. She said whenever there’s some kind of trouble between her and you, I land on your side. I say I love you when I can’t say that word about any other woman. And she also thought it was meaningful that when she asked if I thought you were pretty, I said you were beautiful.” His head drooped. “All those things are true. I’ve always thought of them as signs of how close our friendship is, but Athena, what if it’s more? I do think of you before anybody else. Even my parents and brother come after you. That’s been true our whole lives. I do want you safe and happy. It is my first concern. I can’t stand anybody saying anything against you, and I cast girls aside with hardly a thought if they try to make me put them at the top. I’ve thought you were beautiful as long as I’ve cared about stuff like that, but I swear I never put any of that together and came up with the idea that I loved you as more than a friend. But now it’s in my head, and I think it's true.”

When he finally raised his head and met her gaze again, he looked desperately sad and afraid. “I’m so sorry. I don’t want things to change between us. I can’t imagine Sam without Frodo. Losing a girlfriend hasn’t ever been anything more than frustrating to me, but the thought of losing you is ripping my insides to pieces. I will get my shit together and be okay again. I’ll get over this. I promise.”

Athena had paid careful attention to every word he’d shaped, every meaning he’d formed. She’d studied his expressions, the wet gleam in his eyes, the tension at his jaw, the slump of his shoulders. The shake in his hands.

He was in love with her. And he was hurting almost more than he could bear.

Something else was happening. As Sam had explained Lark’s evidence that he was in love with Athena, he’d described things that were also true for her: Sam was her person, more important than anyone else, even her parents. His happiness was thus more important to her than anything else. She’d never tolerate someone’s demand to set him aside. And yes, she knew how handsome he was. She’d always thought duh, of course she did, her eyes worked perfectly well. But was it more for her, too?

She knew her friendship with Sam was unusual in its closeness, and she knew, obviously, that people assumed two cishet people of different genders who were such close friends were, at minimum, harboring unacknowledged feelings of a different kind. That had always irritated the fuck out of her—out of them both, in fact. Like, why did people assume men and women could not be platonic friends?

How incredibly annoying it would be if they’d all been right!

“Please say something,” Sam signed. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m trying to figure that out.”

“Is any part of that trying to figure out if you still want to be my friend?”

“Sort of?” she signed—but she hadn’t thought that through enough, and it was apparent immediately. What she’d meant was that she was trying to figure out if she felt the same way and wanted something more than friendship, but what Sam obviously read was that she was considering breaking up completely.

“Okay,” he signed sadly, and she grabbed his hand and pulled it to her heart.

“No. That’s not what I meant. You and I are never going to lose each other. Never ever.”

Relief rolled through his body, and he managed a smile. “Good.”

“What I meant ...” Could she say this? What would it mean if she did? What would happen?

It didn’t matter. Honesty: a pillar of her family ethos—and she was a terrible liar, anyway. She couldn’t even manage to keep a damn secret. “What I meant is ... what if she’s right?”

He went very still. “What do you mean?”

Now it was her turn for shaking hands. “I don’t know. Since yesterday, I’ve been thinking, rethinking, trying to make sense. Now you tell me you’ve been doing the same thing for not all that much longer, and it’s like what Lark said is a virus or something, because all those things are true for me, too, and now I’m also wondering what if. But Sam, I don’t know. I love you so much, but I’ve never thought of you in that way. Not so I realized it, at least.”

“Me either. Not until now.”

She narrowed her focus and really looked at him. “You never were thinking about sex around me before what Lark said?”

That made him laugh a little. “Well, there were a few years when I was a teenager I was almost never not thinking about sex around anyone and anything. But no, I never thought of you like that.”

“But you are now?”

He made a big sigh and looked away for a second before he answered. “I don’t know. That sounds stupid, but it’s true. I felt jealous for the first time up at the cabin. After Lark left but before Hunter ... hurt you. Watching you with him hurt, and that was a first. But I guess I’ve been so upset and confused, worrying that it might be true, and then realizing that it is true, I haven’t really thought about ... specifics, I guess.”

Sam wasn’t very smart about girls, obviously, so he couldn’t know how much ease his words offered Athena now. The most upsetting thing about this new development had been wondering how much of their friendship she’d misunderstood, how much time she’d spent not realizing that he was thinking about sex with her. She’d been combing through years of memories, years of touch, and feeling all her safety, all the love and comfort he’d given her, swirling down the drain. All of it lies.

But it wasn’t. Her memories were safe. He was and had always been exactly the friend she’d known him to be. She had been exactly as safe and loved and comfortable as he had always made her feel. It was all real.

If things had changed, they hadn’t realized it. Together, they’d missed it.

Even now, he hadn’t thought of sex with her.

So the one question that remained was if this new thing was real.

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