Caged Birds ✔️

Chapter Six

Matt's P.O.V

"Do you wanna do somethin' later?" I asked Sam as we walked down the hallway at Riverside.

"What do you have in mind?" She cocked a brow.

I had a lot in mind.

My mum used to say that if you are a man that could dance, a respectful man, a man that could remember important dates and details, and a man that could say the things that lay at the bottom of his heart, then you are a man that every woman wants to be with and a man that every other man wants to be.

When my mum was a teenager she used to run away to a particular spot when things got hectic at home.

When I was little, she used to take me to that spot and she told me that when I find a woman that I want to be with for the rest of my life, take her to that spot and she'll be mine forever.

So, after school, I blindfolded Sam with a black piece of cloth and drove her to the secret spot.

I blindfolded her for two reasons, firstly to keep the location a secret and secondly to keep her in suspense.

We were driving for hours until we finally arrived at our destination which was an abandoned building, once owned by my mother's biological father and legally was owned by me.

"Watch your step" I begged as we climbed a flight of stairs.

"Where are we going?" Sam asked.

"You'll see" I smirked as I led her through the building and out the door that brought us to the roof. "Okay, sit yourself up" I placed her legs over the ledge of the roof and removed her blindfold.

The roof of my grandfather's building was pretty much empty back then. It had a little moss, rust and old bricks, stacked to look like a mailbox.

"Oh my god" she cried, looking ahead at the sunset and tall buildings.

"Do you like what you see?" I asked.

She smiled with seductive eyes.

The sky was growing dark, allowing the city lights to shine bright. I'll never forget that sunset at it was by far the greatest sunset that I've ever seen.

"My mum used to say that the sun and the moon were lovers waiting to meet, they would always collide and would wait patiently for the day they would combine as one and her days would become his nights and his nights would become her days" he started. "Love is about sacrifice, she told me, the moon loved the sun so much that he left every day just so she had the chance to live for a few hours and she would pay him back by allowing him to shine during the night"

"That's beautiful"

"That's life"

My mum would always tell me to remember two things:

Life is about sacrifice.

Things in life don't always go the way you've planned them in your head.

That's something that I learnt the hard way after Sam left.

"Your life?" Sam questioned.

I smiled, looking back at the view. I was falling for this girl, I was aware of it, but I hadn't figured her out yet and that scared me the most.

She was still a puzzle.

Something inside of me just wanted to solve it before it was too late.

"Spoiler alert, he didn't solve it in time" Noah interrupts as taking a seat around the table, "she left him before he could"

"Hi, Noah" I sigh.

"Did you find the bar okay?" Noah asks.

"Yeah, thanks for that" I nod.

"So why are you talking about?" Noah raises his brows in curiosity.

"Didn't you hear?" Daniel teases.

Noah rolls his eyes, "Hear what?"

"She's here" I announce, "I saw her at the bar"

I watch as the life drains out of Noah's eyes. He hasn't spoken to his cousin since she left town.

"Will you get on with the story?" Daniel begs.

I nod, picking up from where I left off.

"My life is complicated," I told Sam as we sat on the rooftop of my grandfather's building.

"How?" She asked. 

"It just is" I looked back at her firmly, "I Just got to wait one more year and I'll be free"

By then I would have saved enough money to get out of there.

"Free of what?"

"This life"

"I wish I could do that" she admitted, "I wish that after I finish school I just could pack up all my things and leave this place"

"So why don't you?" I asked.

As I said, I hadn't fully figured out her situation yet. I knew that Sam' parents were controlling and thought that they owned her but that was all I knew.

At that point, I was suspecting some kind of abuse.

"Do you have to tell him about all this" Noah rolls his eyes.

"C'mon Noah, you left the church a long time ago and her family are dead now—" I remind him.

"Sam's family are dead?" Daniel's eyes widen on disbelief, "Did Sam..."

"No, you moron!" Noah cries.

"Can I go on?" I rhetorically ask.

My mind goes back to that night.

"Well" Sam started slowly, "when I was fifteen, I told them that I was going to move out after I finished high school and they told me that if I did that, I can never come back"

I remember being confused and surprised at her confession.

"They'll really disown you?"

"They'll do a lot more than that" she confessed under her breath.

The abuse theory was proving to be more and more accurate with every conversation I had with Sam.

I knew first-hand what happens when you don't ask for help when you're being abused. I didn't want to let what happened to my mother happen to Sam.

"Sam I-" I started.

I had to know if she was in any danger. Not asking about it felt wrong to me. I felt like letting it happen was just as bad as the person hurting her.

"Don't you just love this view" Sam changed the subject.

"Sam-" I started again, holding her face with my hands, forcing her to look at me, "if you were in danger or some kinda trouble, you would tell me right?"

I looked firmly into her hazel eyes.

She never seemed to be intimidated by me which made me wonder about what she's been subjected to.

"Of course" she smiled, looking into my eyes with sadness. Then she kissed me."I love you"

I could always tell when people were lying to me. Everybody has a tell. That's a gift that got me in trouble with poker games years later, but I'll get to that.

Sam's tell was eye contact, she never would make firm eye contact with me unless she was lying.

"I love you too," I told her.

"The first course is served," the announcer said into the microphone as the waiters began to serve dinner.