H2O | ✔

Chapter Twenty-One : Hope = Disaster

"And the story unfolds,

You should take my life,

You should take my soul."

Xander

10 weeks after Mesi woke up...

"You coming?"

I glanced up to see Ryan standing impatiently in his driveway, while I sat in the back seat. Mesi was next to him, but she was staring at her feet. She and I hadn't talked since I yelled at her at the park. I knew I needed to apologize, and I wasn't really sure why I hadn't yet.

I nodded and stepped out of the car, following them up the path and into the foyer of the house I practically lived at for the majority of my life. While Sam's parents were strict and sometimes overly harsh, his mom made it clear that I was always welcome at their house. There were times I was scared to go home and they let me sleep over, no questions asked. I would never be able to repay such a favor.

Ryan stopped in the hall and turned back to us. "I'll look in the office and the kitchen. Mesi, why don't you check my parents' room and the living room? And Xander, you've got Sam's room. Those are the most likely places, and if the note isn't in any of them, then it's probably not here at all."

I gulped. Sam's room. I could still picture it in my mind's eye: the old cowboy comforter he insisted on keep though he'd outgrown it long ago, the light blue walls we drew clouds on with crayons as kids, the red chair shaped like a hand that he'd found at a garage sale for ten bucks.

At the moment, nothing was scarier.

As far as I knew, that room was exactly the same as it was the last time Sam slept in it. As far as I knew, all the answers to all the questions I'd been asking myself since his death would be in there. As far as I knew, Sam himself could be in there.

I wished and hoped and prayed with all my might that he was. That irrational part of me that liked to pretend my best friend could still be around took control. Suddenly, I was running up the stairs, frantically rushing towards the door that lead to the room that held it all. Sam was more there than anywhere else, so I told myself that there was even a chance that he was there.

I slipped. I let myself believe something impossible. I let myself believe, for a moment, that there was a chance that the past weeks, months, had been a dream and I would walk into his room and he would look up at me and say,"Hey, General." Then I would reply,"'Sup Sunshine?" with a nod of my head and a small chuckle.

My hand reached out for the cool, brass doorknob that lead to a world I hadn't visited in a while. A world I wasn't sure I would fit in anymore. I was like a square trying to fit into a circular hole without Sam there to smooth out my edges.

I pushed, and the door opened. Just like that, I was staring into his room. Into the archive of his life, his past life. Everything that he was, was on display in his room. Old trophies, notebooks filled with notes that would be useless after high school if he ever had finished high school, smelly shoes with soles worn from going on morning runs, and even a hamper still filled with dirty clothes—including the ones he wore the day before he died, the last day I saw him alive. The last Sam I ever laid eyes on still lived in that room. I guess in a way, it wasn't just hopeful thinking to wonder if he was still in there, waiting for me. He was, sort of. Just not the way I wanted him to be. Just not the way I needed.

I held my breath as I stepped inside, afraid I would mess up something, anything. I didn't want to disturb this room that seemed to have become a shrine to the last day of Sam. Preserved and protected, just like a museum of his everything.