Playing with Forever

Chapter 46: Credit Cards and Sandwiches

I was living. I was surviving. I needed it. I needed to do it... I just needed to. And Sam wouldn't understand that. "I'm fine, Sam. I'm surviving."

"That is not good enough for me. Take it."

"No."

He growled in frustration. "Abigail."

"Sam, trust me when I say that I need to do this."

"It does not make sense," he argued.

"With everything that's happened..." I trailed off.

"It still does not make sense," he replied emphatically. "You should move on from it, Abigail. You do not have to be poor anymore."

"It is helping me move on," I argued.

"Abigail, I am rich."

I sighed. "I know, Sam. Trust me, I know."

"Just take it."

"Not yet."

"This is so stupid, Abigail!" he shouted and I winced. Part of me wanted to give in just to make him feel better about it. But I couldn't. I had to do this for me.

"Sam, just let me. Just for a while longer."

"Fine." He glared angrily at the ground, shoving the card back in his wallet. "Things are going to change before college starts. You are trashing everything. Next year will be one enormous shopping spree. We will get you clothes from all the places we go—you will have a wardrobe from all across the globe. We are starting new."

That wasn't as long as I would have liked, but it was a compromise. "Okay."

He rolled his eyes and muttered, "You are so odd sometimes."

"You know you love it."

He sighed angrily. "That is true." He put his hand to my face, pulled me to him and kissed me quickly. "See you in Stats."

I didn't miss that he was still irritated. He still didn't understand. Oh well, I could only do so much.

"Why, Abigail?" he asked that Saturday afternoon as I wrapped the rest of the sandwich back up in the wax paper. We were sitting in Sam's backyard, making a picnic out of the sandwiches he'd bought at a local deli. My turkey sandwich was delicious, piled high with veggies and yellow mustard.

"The sandwich was as big as my forearm, Sam. Most people couldn't eat the entire thing."

"Why do you not eat?" he asked more pointedly.

I stiffened. Oh. That. "It doesn't make much sense," I eventually mumbled, ducking my embarrassed face behind my hair. I always felt so ashamed when he brought it up.

He brushed the hair back out of my face, not letting me hide. "Try me."

"I don't think you'd understand."

"Make me understand."

"I just don't, Sam."

"Why, Abigail?" he rumbled. I winced, but didn't say anything else. He would guess it eventually. It didn't take him very long to piece it together. "Is it because of him?"

I sighed, digging my heels into the ground. "Yes."

"He starved you."

"No, that was one thing he didn't actually do. It was more that..." I exhaled angrily, not sure how to put it into words. "He controlled everything else. This was the one thing that I had control over."

"Eating?"

"Yes. It was the only power over my life that I had: I got to manipulate it however I wanted to."

"So you stopped eating?"

I shrugged, my shoulder hunching. "It made sense then."

"You do not have to do it anymore, Abigail. It is over."

I sighed, knowing he was right, but knowing what I needed to do to cope. What I needed to do for me. "I know. But it's habit now... it's like my coping mechanism."

"Well. Not anymore."

"I am working on it," I told him, which, I hated to admit, was sort of a lie. I wanted to work on it, but I needed it for a little bit longer, whether it made sense or not. At least I wasn't getting worse.

"And you are going to continue working on it." Sam looked over at me, his expression softening, not wanting to sound so dominant. "For me."

"Yes."

"One more bite?" he requested, gesturing to my sandwich.

With a smile, I gave in. One more bite. But that was all.