Page 8 of Oblivion

If I could, I’d follow her home and watch over her, but that’s something Bastian would do, and I won’t allow myself to become him. If I do, it’ll only be a matter of time before I slip up and let my obsession for her overwhelm me.

Three months will be an eternity without her, but she’ll visit, and I’m sure we’ll go to DC too. There’s no way the girls will be able to go that long without seeing each other.

Three Months Later

Three months isn’t an eternity, it’s a bottomless hole of misery without an ounce of light. That’s what my life is without her in it. I thought I could learn to live with the pain, but I don’t think that I can. Since the day Starling and Sebastian drove Sammy to the airport, all I’ve done is count down the seconds until I can see her again.

I assumed she’d be back to visit, or that we’d go to her, but Sebastian and Starling spent a month on vacation, and Clay and January have been locked up in their own world, fucking until they were too exhausted to touch each other again.

Hunter’s spent all summer forlornly staring at his cell, plotting things that I’ve helped him put into action, that I promised myself I’d never do again.

Guilt for playing a role in yet another girl’s downfall has a mountain of shame, warring with the longing I feel for Sammy until the pain seems almost unbearable. I promised myself that I’d never claim her, but that promise is becoming more and more frayed every time someone mentions her name.

I miss her. Even if she never utters another word to me, I’d still be happy just to be near her. That’s a lie. I want her. I want to touch her, kiss her, finally join my body with hers and worship her like the wild fucking goddess that she is.

But I refuse to break her, and I know if I allow myself to have her, that’s exactly what I’ll do, but I don’t know how much longer I can hold back.

She’s on her way here right now. Sebastian sent his family’s jet to fetch her, and she’ll be on it by now, soaring through the air, back to us. Back to me. I’m hoping she’ll stay. It’s less than two weeks until school starts again. It doesn’t make any sense that she’d go home, just to fly back again that soon.

Once she gets here, once she sees everyone, she won’t want to leave again, and maybe then my skin won’t feel like it’s burning me from the inside out. Maybe then, this desperate need will settle, and I’ll be content just to be near her again.

Or maybe I’ll finally snap and claim her once and for all.

7

SAMMY

I’m nervous. I shouldn’t be. Starling, Sebastian, January, Clay, and Hunter are my friends. I even like Bunny a lot, although I didn’t really get a chance to know her because she left California before summer break started to go back home to Florida.

I’m not entirely sure what happened that led to Hunter and Bunny getting engaged, and truthfully, knowing what the guys are all capable of, I’m not sure I want to know. But I’ll definitely be finding an opportunity to pull Bunny to one side to make sure she’s actually with Hunter by choice and not because he’s forcing her to be, like Sebastian did to Starling.

I haven’t seen any of my Kingsacre friends since the start of summer break. All of them, except Evan, have reached out to me, asking me to join them at the beach house they’d rented or on trips they’d planned. But even though I’ve missed them, I still said no to all of their invitations.

This summer has been eye-opening for me. Figuring out how the new me works in my old life has been harder than I ever expected. For the first few weeks after I walked through the front door of my parents’ home, my life felt like I was wearing clothes that were just a little too tight, and no matter how much I wiggled or stretched, they just didn’t fit.

For a while, everything about my home, my room, my life had felt just…wrong. But then my parents had invited my old boyfriend, Drew, and his parents for dinner. I’d expected it to be awkward, but oddly, it wasn’t.

Drew’s familiarity, his unchanged personality, and attention seemed to close the gap between Kingsacre Sammy and DC Samantha, and even without realizing it had happened, I found myself comfortably dressing and acting and performing the role I’ve played for most of my life.

Being with Drew is easy. Dress pretty, smile lots, be poised and perfect. It was even easy to ignore the way he laughs as he teases me by telling me I’m truly perfect when I’m quiet. It was easy to smile while he told others that the liberal arts degree he’s confident I’ll graduate with would be useless in the real world but perfect for me. It was even oddly easy to remember that the things he says are never quite insults but more barbs hidden within a compliment.

When he’d asked me to go to the movies with him, I’d said yes to be polite. He’d talked about our friendship enduring the time and distance of college, and honestly, because I was lonely and he felt like the only thing that “fit” quite right at home, I smiled and nodded.

When he asked me if I’d like to go with him to a party his dad, the mayor, was hosting, I said yes, glad to be out of the house and the loving but stifling attention of my mama.

When dinner at my house with him and his family, or dinner at theirs with me and my parents became a twice weekly thing, I went along with it, because it was easy and familiar and…nice.

Drew’s family is very similar to mine. The Merricks are an old political family. Wealthy, but not crazy rich. His dad was a senator before he decided to step down and became the mayor of the town we live in instead.

A month into summer break, Drew’s dad, John, asked me if I’d be interested in an internship at the mayor’s office. When Drew and my parents encouraged me to accept it, I said yes and somehow found myself working alongside Drew as his assistant, a role he’s spent weeks telling me I’m beyond perfect for.

Now, break is almost over, and I’m sitting on a private jet, being reminded in a very visceral way that my life and the lives of my friends are very, very different.

The moment the jet lands, I’m met by a car with a driver who ushers me into the back seat while he gets my bag from the flight attendant. The ride to Sebastian’s parents’ house gives me more time to think than I’d like. I have to tell everyone something, and I’m not sure how they’re going to react, but now more than ever it feels like the right thing to do.

My clothes once again feel wrong as I follow Sebastian’s parents’ housekeeper into the den. After spending so much time with my parents and Drew, I’ve fallen back into the habit of dressing much more conservatively than I did at school.

My bag is full of California-friendly clothes, and I loudly announce that I need to change before I even have a chance to greet my friends. Once I’m wearing shorts and an oversized shirt, something inside of me clicks into place, and I wonder how I’ve coped wearing suits and pearls the entire summer.

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