Page 12 of Oblivion

Hearing the sound of her laughter through the computer screen is the worst kind of torture. It’s November, and Sammy still isn’t back at school. Her dad is back home and mostly recovered from the surgery he had after his heart attack. But no matter how many times she’s asked, Sammy won’t answer when she plans to come back to Kingsacre.

Her absence is like a phantom pain that circulates through the group, bouncing off me again and again while it ricochets off the others, only to reverberate right back to me once more.

I miss her. I miss her so goddamn much that missing her has become part of who I am.

Regret at not making her mine when I had the chance has overwhelmed even the guilt I feel over my behavior toward Starling, and now the two feelings are drowning me, dragging me beneath the surface of despair, and I have no idea if I can survive.

Every day, I fight the urge to go to her, to ignore the knowledge that I’ll break her and ruin her and just make her mine anyway. Maybe she’s my chance to make amends. Maybe claiming Sammy is my chance to prove that I’m not the monster I could be. Maybe she’s my chance to be better.

January has made Clay a better person. Her goodness has changed him, and I see it. We all do.

But Sebastian only became a bigger predator because of his love for his wife, and Hunter, the best of the four of us, has changed so much since he found Bunny that I barely even recognize him.

I don’t know what’s happening in his marriage, but the tension is so stifling you can practically taste it whenever we’rein the same room. I’m not sure the others have noticed. Clay and Bastian are too focused on their own women to notice the way Bunny only smiles when other people are watching. The moment they look away, her expression turns hollow and sad, the way Starling’s did when she was lost to my brother’s obsession.

Hunter and Bunny aren’t the happy newlyweds floating in marital bliss they’re pretending to be. A part of me thinks I should find out what’s happened to have that haunted, broken expression in Bunny’s eyes. But I’m too preoccupied drowning in my own self-commiseration to involve myself in my brother’s relationships again. It never ends well for me when I try to save one of the women that’s fallen under my friends’ radars.

Tuning out the other sounds in the room, I focus on Sammy’s voice, glancing around just enough that I can see her image on the screen of the laptop. I want to move closer. To take the laptop and have her all to myself, even if it’s only through a screen, but I don’t. We don’t speak. We don’t do anything other than steal glances at each other when we think we’re not looking, and just because I miss her doesn’t mean I have the right to change that now.

From this distance, I can’t see her eyes, but the messed-up part of me hopes she’s as lost without me as I am without her.

9

SAMMY

“Hey,” Starling says, her gorgeous face flashing onto the screen of my cell phone.

“Hey,” I reply, smiling tightly.

“How are you? How’s your dad?” she asks, the same way she does every time she calls me.

Back in August, I was eager for the daily calls from her, ready to hear about all the things I would have been doing if my dad hadn’t had a heart attack and ended up having a triple heart bypass. But as the weeks have rolled by, I’ve answered her calls less and less. I’m not really sure why I’m distancing myself from her. That’s a lie. I’m distancing myself from her, because if she’s just the friend I talk to once in a while, it’ll be easier for me not to go back to California.

“Sammy, what’s going on?” she asks bluntly.

“What do you mean? Nothing’s going on,” I hurry to answer.

“When are you coming back to school? Your dad’s much better. He’s home and has been for weeks. You barely answer my calls, and I know you see my messages, but you leave me on read.”

“I’m…” I trail off, then lamely say, “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? That’s it?” Starling snaps, showing me the fire she keeps hidden most of the time.

“I just…I thought it’d be better for both of us if we got used to not speaking every day,” I admit.

“You’re not coming back, are you?” she asks quietly.

“I don’t know. Drew is at Harvard, and he loves it. He thinks?—”

“Drew?” Starling asks. “Who’s Drew? Wait, Drew, as in your ex, Drew?”

“Yes. We dated in high school, but it’s not like that. We’re just friends now.”

“AndDrew, your only long-term boyfriend, who is now your friend, is at Harvard?” she snarks, arching an eyebrow at me.

Exhaling, I roll my eyes. “Yes, my ex, Drew, whoIbroke up with, goes to Harvard.”

“And he wants you to transfer to the same school as him?”

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