Eight Perfect Hours by Lia Louis

Chapter Thirty-Five

In the distance, the band play loudly, and the smoke from the barbecue billows like a smoke signal. I stand on the wet grass, hugging my body, relieved that I wrapped up in layers before I left tonight. But still, I shake. From head to toe, my teeth chattering.

‘Are you OK?’ asks Sam.

I look up at him, the wind turning the lines of tears on my cheeks, ice cold. ‘I think so. Are you?’

‘I think so,’ he says, and he brings one of his gorgeous hands to his chest and pats it once. ‘Heart’s still going.’

‘Mine too,’ I say.

Neither of us say anything else, and I watch as our breath clouds in the cold air of the field we both stood in all those years ago.

Sam was meant to get in the car that night. Drive, chaperone, keep Lee from speeding. I was meant to get in the car too. And if I had …

‘I would’ve met you,’ I say shakily, an icy breeze whipping through my hair. ‘If I’d gone with Daisy, to Lee’s car. If you hadn’t walked away––’

‘But if we’d got in …’ Sam stops, and he doesn’t finish his sentence. We would’ve died, I think, and something weighs down on my shoulders, unbearable. We were meant to meet in the car, that night. But if we had, Sam and I would’ve died. ‘He was lucky to get out alive,’ he carries on sadly. ‘We knew that, he knew that. The car was—’ He winces, his eyes closing momentarily, and I nod, because I know. Mangled, they said. Nothing but bent, crushed metal and smashed glass left. ‘He was in the hospital for two, three weeks. For a while, my uncle didn’t tell him what had happened to the girl. To Daisy. And I think he knew what would happen when he did—’

I open my mouth to speak, but I can’t – tears fall. Freely, one by one. A tragedy, for everyone. It really was. The guilt Lee would have let weigh him down, and the way Daisy, I know would’ve pleaded with him not to carry it.

‘He’d been out of hospital for two days,’ says Sam. ‘Then he did it. We’d been—’ He looks up at the sky, smiles so sadly to himself I feel my heart break right there, behind my ribs. ‘Playing video games. Mario Kart. And he convinced me to go out, grab some food and – of course I did. I was pleased that he was eating. And then – that was it.’

I wipe away tears on the back of my hand, the wind chilling them on my skin. ‘I’m so sorry, Sam.’

‘Me too,’ he says.

Distant music floats over from the reunion, guitars and a too-loud bass, and the silhouette of two people in the distance, drunkenly stumble over the wet field. ‘I wonder if – all this time, they’ve been trying again,’ I say, tearfully. ‘To make us meet.’

‘Who’s they?’ Sam asks, but he smiles at me, softly, blue moonlight reflected in his eyes.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Fate?’ he offers, but this time, there’s no teasing, piss-taking smile.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I like to think so. I mean I don’t even know what I believe, but I believed for a long time that it was fate that I met Ed, that it was fate that he stopped me getting in the car and then …’ I blow out a long breath into the air, the vapour from my lips, like blue smoke. ‘When Ed and I broke up, I thought, well, what was it all for then? Maybe it isn’t fate, maybe it’s choice. Maybe it’s always been choice. And then – I met you.’

Sam looks up from his feet, at me, his gorgeous eyes lingering on mine. ‘And then I met you,’ he repeats.

The band in the distance strike up with a new song and there are some cheers – wine and beer firmly in systems now, inhibitions thrown asunder, inaudible singing, shouty and out of tune.

‘Do you remember why you walked away? The reason you didn’t get in?’

Sam nods, drops his gaze to his feet again. ‘The keychain.’ He looks up at me, from under his dark hair. ‘I noticed it wasn’t on my keys and I turned, for – a minute really, that’s all, to look for it on the ground.’

‘The heather? The one on my keys?’

He nods. ‘I thought that’s where I dropped it. I mean – maybe I did, but I think––’

‘My keyring is yours.’

Sam’s face breaks out in a shy, reluctant smile. ‘I mean – it feels stupid to argue with that at this point.’

‘It is,’ I say. ‘I know it is. And – the heather. It did protect you.’

He laughs, drags a hand through his hair and gives a boyish shrug. ‘That’s my mom’s take, too.’

Someone is saying something down a microphone now in the distance, and something spits from the sky in the dark. Rain. Sleet.

‘Did you – were you really on your way to the airport?’

Sam gives a deep nod, his teeth grazing his lip. Sleet flurries down, the drops turning from falling to drifting, the longer we stand here. ‘I was. But I was going to swing by the college, pick up Bradley’s stuff and then – I don’t know, Noelle, I couldn’t face it, so I didn’t. I’ve never been able to face it, to say it out loud …’

‘And the camera. You were the one that called up asking for the camera.’

Sam nods again. ‘There’s a photo of us on there. Bradley and me. I don’t have any pictures of us together, and Daisy gave it to him.’

‘The camera?’

‘Yep.’ He smiles, his eyes drifting as if watching the projection of a memory play out that I can’t see. ‘She’d already handed her envelope in, completely forgot she still had the camera in her hand. So she gave it to him to put in his. He didn’t want to put anything in his. Wasn’t his scene really. The party part was, though.’ Sam laughs to himself at those final words.

‘So you met her,’ I say, the realisation a warm hug. ‘You met Daisy.’

‘Yeah,’ says Sam with a smile, as if he worked this out long before I did. ‘She was – a firecracker, right? This ball of energy, shouting at me to smile, to cheer up, look at the camera, look hot.’

I laugh – warm, belly laughter. Daisy met Sam. She died knowing who he was – the man I’m in love with. She met him before I had.

And I am as sure as I have ever been of anything, as I look at him now, across this frosty, dark field, the college lit up behind us like a stage. I love him. I love Sam Attwood. I do.

‘I knew there was a reason I kept bumping into you,’ I say, tears sliding down my cheeks. ‘I know you didn’t. But I did. I think I knew deep down, all along.’

Sam looks at me sadly. ‘I tried,’ he utters. ‘I mean, I kidded myself, I think. But I liked you from the second you got into my car. And then everywhere I turned, there you were, and when you weren’t, I couldn’t stop thinking about you and I – I tried. You were like this – I dunno, you lived in my head.’ Sam laughs, a hand at his straight jaw. ‘I couldn’t explain it. I can’t … how I feel when I’m with you, Noelle.’

My heart feels like it’s ten times too big for my body, that it’s full of helium, full of air and I’m going to float up into the sky like a balloon. And I think of Jenna. I think of their anniversary and Steve and bloody Miranda – and the tears fall faster.

‘I love you,’ I say, croakily, letting my arms fall to my side. ‘I really do, Sam. I know that it’s too late, and it’s inappropriate probably, and I talk too much, but I don’t talk about what I feel and what I want because I feel like it doesn’t matter, but – it does. And I don’t expect you to say anything back. But I do. I love you, Sam. And you can know that and walk off with it, and – take it up bloody mountains with you.’

Sam’s eyes shine under the moonlight, and he laughs, a flash of white teeth. He strides over, closing the gap between us on the dark, grassy field, and ducks his head. ‘Why would it be too late?’ he whispers.

‘Your – anniversary …’ I start to cry. ‘Steve and Miranda. The bridge. The …’

Sam brings a hand to my cheek. ‘Noelle, I never went to the bridge. Well, the bridge that’s a therapist’s office actually.’ He laughs again. ‘Well, I mean I went. But to say it was over.’

‘Really? But you didn’t text or call or …’

‘But I wanted to give you and Ed space.’

‘Me and Ed? But you knew that was doomed, that he was engaged and––’

‘Noelle.’ Sam takes both of my hands in his, strong and warm. ‘At the hotel, we talked, and he asked me not to tell you what he told Dad and me. And I said I wouldn’t, on one condition – if he was serious about you. But if he had no intention of being with you properly, then he should walk away. Because you deserve to be happy. And God, of course, I did not want you to be happy with him, like a selfish asshole. I wanted it to be me. But I know how much he meant to you – I didn’t want to be that guy that stood in the way––’

‘He doesn’t,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘You mean everything to me. You do.’

I hold his warm, handsome face in my cold hands, prickly, rough stubble beneath my fingertips. I have waited and waited for this. For him.

‘Ditto, Gallagher.’ He smiles down at me, then his warm lips are on mine, his hand cradling my face, fingertips in my hair, and our kiss is soft but urgent, as if it’s everything we’ve been wanting, finally realised. It’s a promise, this kiss, to the world, to the universe, to fate, that we are here. Finally.

Sam draws back, looks deeply into my eyes.

‘I’ve gone my whole life without feeling the way I do when I’m with you,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to go another day.’

‘Then let’s not,’ I say.

‘Let’s not,’ says Sam, as familiar snowflakes start to drift from the sky.