Bring You Back to Love

Chapter 2

I'm tossing my napkin on my empty paper plate as Calvin is telling me about his girlfriend he met at school. I'm trying my best to listen, but I can't help but wonder if Sam met anyone at school too. Suddenly I feel my stomach go into a huge knot.

Calvin must have noticed because he stopped talking and raised an eyebrow. "You ok?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah...I just ate too much." I lie just as I feel the other side of the bench on the picnic table we're sitting at get heavier.

I look to my right to a smiling Sam with a plate full of barbecue, chips, and cookies. "What are you talking about?"

"Well I was telling Mal about Kenzie, but she looked like she was about to barf." I feel my face get red as I glare at Calvin.

He laughs slightly and gets up, taking his and my plates to the garbage. With a mouthful of food, Sam speaks again. "You okay?"

I look at him and instantly feel the grin onto my face as I look at him. He's still the same Sam. "Yeah, I just ate too much." I lie again, before looking out at the crowd that's in my backyard. "So how's FGCU?" I ask, surprising even myself.

Sam puts down his sandwich and wipes his mouth before answering. "Good. It's going good. How's Vandy?"

I nod, scared to look at him now that Calvin put the idea of another girl in my head. "It's good, it's fun. Hard, but good."

"You can handle it. You're smart." He says confidently as he takes a sip of his sweet tea.

I can't help the smile that creeps on my face at his remark. I nod slowly without saying a word before he sighs beside me. "I wanna talk to you, but not here. Alone."

I look up at him to see a different look, one that I haven't seen in a very, very long time. Sam is rarely serious or sincere about anything, but this time, he is. I nod again and he smiles a bit. "I'll pick you up at midnight and we'll go down to the lake."

"Okay." I manage to whisper before my brother sits across from us at the picnic table, already yapping away.

---

It's 12:02 am when Sam’s truck pulls in front of my house. I see his headlights shine through my bedroom window, reminding me of how we did this too many times to count during high school and never once did we get caught.

With one last look in the mirror at my hair in a messy bun, yoga pants, and long sleeve Vanderbilt t-shirt, I’m sneaking down the stairs and out the door, wrapping my arms around myself as I hop into the passenger seat.

“To the lake?” Sam asks from the driver’s side.

I can barely see his face but from the moonlight, so I nod and reply. “To the lake.”

It’s only a couple minutes until we’re pulling onto the grassy area and getting out to go over to the dock. We both sit on the edge and let our feet dangle over the water.

It takes a minute, but Sam finally speaks up first, relieving me of the butterflies that were swarming in my stomach. “You’re here all summer, right?” I nod and he continues. “Well, I know we’ve drifted apart even though we said that never happen, but… I can’t do it anymore, Mal. Especially since we’ll be in the same town. I don’t like this awkwardness between us. So…I understand if you don’t want to, but… can we please just try our hardest to go back to best friends?”

My eyes linger up to his lips as he speaks and I feel a grin creep across my own. Still the same old Sam, making me smile when I don’t want to. I let out a sigh before laying my head over on his shoulder and looking out at the water. “Yeah, I think we should.”