Page 22 of Without You, Scotch and Sammy 2

In my nineteenth year, with all that running, eating, and sleeping, I shot up an additional five inches in height, but I still didn’t get out like my mom wanted.

Antidepressants killed the sex drive that was once unstoppable. In the short time we had after our first time together, Sammy and I couldn’t get enough of each other.

My good girl suddenly turned voracious and insatiable. What started out as soft and gentle in a fancy hotel bed, turned to fucking at the lake and in the back room at Dixies. We fucked at The Shed more times than I can count, and Sammy lost her blow-job virginity by going down on me after she and I parked Ang’s old car up on lookout hill.

It was sloppy and noisy, and we giggled and moaned all at once, but it was my BJ virginity too, and it felt like heaven all warmed up.

Eventually, once I started to put on too much weight and the guys were ready to put me in a car and drive me into the lake, I ditched the antidepressants and started to see the sun more. Like I was on a mission of sorts, I went searching for the map that Sammy had shown me a million times before.

She’d marked out every town she wanted to live in back when she said she wanted to escape her folks. She told me what schools she wanted to attend, and what not-for-profits she wanted to work for. I spent two years of my life, and every single cent I owned, driving around the country – not necessarily in search of Sammy herself, because it was apparent by that point that her plans had changed and I was absolutely not a part of them, but maybe in search of her ghost. I wanted to see the places that a young and romantic Sammy wanted to see. I wanted to walk through the schools that she’d built fantasies around, and I wanted to meet the receptionists and see the offices she’d never work at. I wanted to drive the main streets of the cozy little towns that Sammy dreamed of living in, and I sat in the town squares and wrote songs about what I thought her new life was like.

In my mind, Sammy’s story is that of glitz and glamor. She left me behind and went off to live the life she was already accustomed to; fancy country clubs, five-hundred-dollar a head dinners, and exclusive restaurants that are booked out months in advance. Sammy has a twenty-carat diamond ring on her finger, and just maybe, another child or two have taken up residence in the same womb mine once did.

I can see the gowns and diamonds and chandeliers clearly, but that last point is still hazy.

Did Sammy not want children at all, despite her promises that she did? Or was it just mine she didn’t want? If it was the latter, then she might have tried again, and she might be a mommy by now. If the former, then maybe she’s just a trophy for her corporate man while her perfect body remains intact.

But in all my travels, I knew I wasn’t looking for the real Sammy anymore, because the real Sammy no longer existed. And now that I’m older and allegedly wiser, I realize that maybe she never did, because the Sammy I thought I knew, the Sammy I thought I loved, would never have chosen money over love, and she’d never have aborted a baby, not even one as surprising as ours was.

Neither me, nor my baby, were a part of her meticulously thought out plans, and it’s painfully ironic to me now that she warned me. I should have expected it. She told me ‘no’ over one-hundred and fifty times when we were younger, but I forged on. Then when it was time for the next step in her plans, she dealt with us the way she did, and she moved on.

It's poetically painful how I should have seen it coming.

Thankfully, even for poor unfortunate fools like me, life really does go on, even when it didn’t feel like it ever would. I finalized my road trip with a visit to the lake, I set fire to Sammy’s map, and while I watched the edges shrivel up and burn, I finally let her go. Like the smoke that rose into the dawn light, Sammy became an enigma, then she became nothing at all.

“Get off my wife, bitch.”

Jack steps into the living room as Britt jumps in my arms, then taking her for himself, she sighs with content as he pulls her against his own chest.

How the hell did my baby sister grow up enough to be married and a mom? Last I checked, she was nine and wanted to skate.

“You having a good birthday?”

“Yeah, it’s been good. Glad you guys made it. I’ve missed my Charlie bear.”

“Your date is hot.”

Britt pulls her arm back quickly and slams it into Jack’s shoulder, and he barks out a surprised laugh. “Don’t hit me!”

“Don’t call the bimbo hot, asshole.”

“Nobody’s as hot as you. I’m just saying, it’s nice he brought a date that has a heartbeat and a…” He stops when her eyes glitter with anger. “Never mind. I love you.”

“What did Jules want?” Britt asks once she stops glaring at Jack. She turns back to me, though she backs up so her back rests against Jack’s chest. They pretend to fight, but they both sigh in happiness when their bodies connect and his hands come down onto her hips. Gross.

“I dunno. She was being her usual vague annoying lawyer self.”

“You have a law degree too,” Britt laughs. “Does that make you annoying and vague, too?”

“But I use my powers for good,” I argue. “I don’t hurt people and say mean things on their birthday. And I get to the damn point instead of being vague and annoying.”

“Dunno,” Jack rumbles. “That sounded pretty damn vague to me.”

I step forward with a smile, because I actually really like this guy, clap him on the shoulder and continue to walk. “It’s only vague because I literally have no idea what the hell she’s talking about. But I have a date, she’s hot and has a heartbeat and… everything.” I wink at my sister, then I laugh and run when she escapes Jack’s arms and comes tearing toward me. I race into the kitchen, snatch baby Charlie from Alex’s arms and hold him up in front of me.

Charlie is almost the size of a damn toddler already. With a deep dimple in one side of his fat face, and a belly laugh that rolls up through his chunky belly, my thirty-pound nephew squirms and giggles as his mommy tries to get around him to hurt me.

“Stop hurting me, Brat. Teach your son to be a lover, not a fighter.”

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