‘I’ll tell you what was different about her, Sam,’ I began, desperately trying to act like ‘just friends’ but knowing ‘just friends’ shouldn’t care this much. So what if Sam said his outlook had changed? I didn’t buy it, and I’m pretty sure Sam didn’t either, not really. ‘She’s gorgeous. She’s a doctor. You took one look at her and knew you’d do or say whatever—’
‘Jess, please. That is not what happened. I asked her out and we went for dinner and Jamie explained how much her faith meant to her. She was so full of life, so together, that I just thought… I thought, I wanted to find out why she was like that…’
‘And now you know?’ I asked, stung by the ‘together’ comment as I felt anything but. This was ridiculous. I wasn’t saying Sam should be with me – well, not really – but to be with someone who made him completely change who he was surely couldn’t be the right thing. She was successful, together. That part made sense at least. Heart-wrenching sense.
‘I think I do,’ Sam replied, his voice softening.
‘But you’re not sure?’ I asked. See, I knew he had doubts. I knew he wasn’t convinced.
‘Jess. This stuff’s pretty big, right? Sure, I have my doubts. But I’ve felt enough to make me doubt that God isn’t real.’ Sam hesitated for a moment, sheepish at sharing something so sensitive. ‘I’ve started to have a relationship with him and…’
A relationship with him? This was too much. Sam was not a Christian. He was a materialistic sceptic who had never given this stuff a second thought in the whole five years we were together. Brainwashed was a strong word, but he’d been surrounded by friends, colleagues and one persuasively hot girlfriend who believed this thing. It was bound to have an effect. It could have happened to anyone.
‘And your relationship with Jamie, getting married and everything.’ I stiffened beside him and Sam seemed to follow suit. ‘You’re pretty sure about that too?’
I shouldn’t have said it; I shouldn’t have said a lot of things. Not when I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer. But then how else could I explain Sam’s eagerness to see me, be near me? I needed to know what it all meant.
He sighed deeply again, not taking his eyes off the road as I felt myself going more and more off-piste. ‘I mean, do you feel… sure?’
He’d always felt sure with me – until, of course, he didn’t.
Changing lanes to avoid the traffic, Sam turned his head, eyes heavy with confusion. Trying to shake away the moment. He looked trapped, manipulated by his own mind. Confused about what he wanted even now. Now I was here. And he’d been the one to welcome me into his home, his home with her. And he’d said he missed me.
Sam’s phone started to ring on the dashboard: Jamie – always managing to get in the middle of things. Sam reached for it and turned the screen face down.
‘Woah, sounds like a sure thing at the weekend,’ Sam said as he turned up the radio to hear Saturday’s surfing conditions. So surfing was a sure thing, but what about Jamie? A woman so fundamentally different to me, so different to him, that he’d forgotten who he was in the first place. Sam’s change of topic drifted into the background as I tried to order my rising thoughts. He didn’t want to be surrounded, he wanted to question, he wanted to doubt; maybe that’s why I was here. Maybe it was fate after all. The reason I was here was to remind Sam of who he really was. Like Sam had said: what were the odds of bumping into each other here, after all this distance, after all this time?
Sam reached a hand to the radio dial and changed it back to his so-called music. Even the throbbing bassline of the track couldn’t drown out the voice in my head. I needed to save Sam from making the biggest mistake of his life, a lifetime of being someone other than the man I’d always known him to be. And I had less than two months, eight weeks, fifty-six flipping days to do it.
20 October 2012 – Brighton, England
His hand moved up my thigh, hungry for more. I grabbed it at the top, escorting it back down. I thought I was the spontaneous one but there was something about our being here that made Sam relax, become more messy, untethered.
‘Piss off.’ I looked up to see the figures of Zoe and Austin in the distance, Austin trying to trip her up whilst Zoe ran along the sand in search of ice cream. It was freezing, but true to form, Sam had had a picture in his mind of what he wanted our first trip to his hometown to look like. And I thought I was the artist.
‘To think that they could have ever been together.’ Sam laughed, shaking his head at the thought. It was never going to happen, but bless the boy for trying. I pulled Sam’s hoodie further around myself, snuggling into his side, our bodies morphing together: the perfect fit.
‘So, this is home?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, gazing out to the horizon. ‘See the old pier there? That’s where my cousin first took me out on a board.’ He grinned, eyes full of nostalgia. ‘He held me up on it and I felt like I was flying.’
‘Sure you weren’t just second-hand high?’ I nodded to the circles of youths lighting up under the pier. ‘What does it feel like?’ I asked, so used to seeing Sam passionate about patients and professionalism, not something so raw and instinctive as riding the waves.
‘Getting high?’ Sam raised his eyebrows, knowing that was not what I meant. ‘When I surf? I guess I feel like all the pressure just fades away.’ He was looking out over the water, grey-blue for as far as the eye could see. ‘All thoughts of grades and getting jobs and making the right choices and doing the right thing just disappear.’
I had always envied kids who went to private schools and grew up in posh houses until I met Sam. It seemed privilege was synonymous with pressure.
‘I leave all of that behind,’ he continued. ‘And all that’s left is the feel of the cold water, the sound of the waves, the taste of salt, and the feeling…’ His sentence trailed off, for the first time not knowing precisely where he was going. ‘Have you ever felt that way?’ he asked. I was feeling that way now, feeling the rest of our surroundings slip away until all that was left was Sam. But I had felt it before, in the smell of paint and the strokes of colour and the feel of my brush on a once-blank canvas.
‘I feel it when I paint. Maybe not the same, but similar. That can be your next class…’
‘Only when I get you on a board,’ he teased. I shook my head, breaking away to look out at the frosty ocean, laughing nervously at my own trepidation. ‘Guess we’re pretty different, right?’
He was a soon to be doctor with his future planned out. And I… well, wasn’t.
‘Yeah, I guess.’
He laughed again. ‘Good job I’ve been looking for something different, then, isn’t it?’
Chapter 17
4 August 2020 – Sydney, Australia
I walked into CreateSpace, head still buzzing, adrenaline pumping. Sam couldn’t get married. Not to Jamie. They were too different. He was too different. I had to make him remember who he was before that temptress came into his life. Well, temptress was a bit strong, but still, Sam couldn’t get married to someone who didn’t know who he was. The same damn kitten heels from the day before bit at my ankles as I smiled at the receptionists, striding past the gallery’s shop purposefully into the exhibition space. Do not bring personal stuff to work, I reminded myself. It had been my mantra at Art Today. Although, Tim’s insistence that I put on mascara before seeing my ex-boyfriend seemed to indicate he knew I had some extracurricular drama afoot. And everyone in Coogee knew about him and Carlo. Clearly, the line between work and pleasure was pretty blurry around these parts.