Chapter 33 – Blowing Up (Angela Conrad POV)
I had been expecting to find Devin in Faith's room.
Finding Taylor Rosario instead does not exactly quench my suspicions. As of yet I couldn't trace the intrusion, I found in Ansel's system, not without alarming the hacker but I could tell who it was.
Devin.
They were almost able to follow Devin's internal footprints, except for one place. That's all it took for me to know that someone had used Devin's backdoor hack into Ansel's system.
Still, now, what was Taylor doing here in Faith's bedroom? And I ask her as much, "Samson told me to look at their assignment, make sure Faith emailed it to our instructor," Taylor shrugs after the shocked, caught look is removed from her face.
Not ready to let it be known that Ansel and I were on to her sister. Playing everything close to the belt as we had decided, I just nod, "Oh well I was on my laptop in the basement... thought Faith was home, wanted to check on her." Standing, I wait to wonder what exactly Taylor was looking for on Faith's computer because I surely didn't believe she was sending in an assignment for Faith.
Not with everything Ansel had told me when it came to how Faith, Samson, and Taylor clashed.
Or moreover, Samson and Taylor.
Plus, heck, I had eyes and Samson only had them for Faith. While it was easy to see that Taylor had them for Samson.
We have a beat or two of awkward silence where I'm just staring at Taylor, her eyes similar to my Courtney, but not quite. She's waiting for me to leave but I'm in the same boat. But as this is my brother's house, that bit of confidence I have is greater.
Instead of leaving Faith's room, I go to the chair right outside of her room, sitting down and keeping a polite smile on my face as I look at Taylor. She glances at the computer screen, her body tight and tense. One hand closed, a fist at her side, I flick my gaze around the area though I'm only focusing on Taylor.
One second. Then another. Two. Three. Turns into five. Six.
Without touching the laptop on Faith's desk, Taylor walks past me briskly, bidding me goodnight and taking the stairs two at a time until I cannot see her. Resting back, I decide to wait for a few minutes, but when I stand, I see Brennan standing at the bottom of the stairs.
Knowing as much as I did, it was hard to keep the disappointment from my face but all weekend, he had walked around barely holding it together. I knew that.
I was him nearly eight years ago. Different reasons of course but, I knew emptiness and self-loathing when I saw it.
Waving him up, I sit back again.
In the quite night we sit together, listening to the house go quieter by the minute. "When you... was it hard to tell everyone? About you? You know?"
"My preference romantically?"
He nods. "There was fear that my parents would reject me, or disown me, turn the family against me... or-" I swallow thickly, remembering the dark times. "Or that I'd be alone... or worse that... I wasn't brave enough to be my authentic self," I answer honestly.
My heart utterly full now, the memories assaulting me still causes me pain.
"I spent the day with Devin..." Brennan whispers, angling himself, "and – I love her but... I don't think I can give up my family to be with her, protect her when she's..." his bottom lip shaking.
I reach over, placing one hand on his knee.
"They're going to hate me," he whispers, voice croaking and rough. "And I understand it, I do, I – I just... I want them to tell me what to do to make it better-"
I shake my head slowly, "Brennan it doesn't work that way. You haven't told them your part in all of this, but you are already trying to rush them into forgiving you. You cannot go into this with the intention of rushing anyone to forgive you or see it your way. When I had to tell the family about me, it was scary because I knew that once the words were out, that nothing would be the same. I would have to deal with whatever reactions they had."
Brennan was in a tight spot, I knew that, but at the same time, he had to know that things would be bad before they could ever get better.
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Faith Ashlynn POV
"How do we know she will remember?" a dark skinned woman demands, frightened. "This is what she was made for... Fatima will warn the rest - that is what I saw," Wyatt snapped and with that thought I heard Imogen, everyone shouting. After the drugs had worn out, I had made sense of everything that happened after Samson left my room.
The house is filled with people, no one could leave since the bridge was down, so everyone that was leaving, hasn't. With strict orders to relax, I sit on my bed, my cell phone in my hand debating whether or not I could - or should - text Samson to come up to my room so that he and I could talk.
I wouldn't be seeing Nova until our Wednesday session, and with so much on my mind, I wanted to reach out to him. He had spent the good part of the night and morning at the hospital with me. However, he didn't seem like himself. He was tense and drifting off which said a lot if I could notice someone doing that since it really was what I did best.
I wasn't so far gone that it didn't cross my mind that his family and friends had been injured, and some nearly could have been, or worse had died and that maybe he needed to spend time with him. But when I entered my room, he stood outside my door a few hours ago and said that if I wanted something just call him. Lifting a brow, I wondered if he realized that I had a bad case of the headaches, not a broken leg.
Still here I was, wanting to be around him, near him and just hear his voice - tell him what actually happened with me. Deciding that if he is, in fact, busy, he can choose himself if he wants to come see me after, I send him a text asking him to come to my room.
In no time at all, my phone chirps in my hands: coming, do you want some tea? I smiled thinking of all the nice conversations I had with him over a simple cup of tea or chicken broth soup.
Yes, please. My reply goes, and I move to turn on the lamp on the bedside table, I fix my bed a bit and then wait near the door for him to come up so he wouldn't have to figure out a way to knock and hold our tea.
It doesn't take more than fifteen minutes before he's on my floor sitting on the bed, tense and not his usual calm and laid back self.
I want to jump right into what I had to tell him, ready to speak but again I take a good, long look at Samson, and I feel deep inside that something wasn't right.
So instead, "Are you okay?"
The question makes me roll my eyes, "Of course you're not... someone just blew up that bridge last night and your family was hurt," he shakes his head.
"I was worried about that, but more bothered because seeing that poof of smoke - it just - it reminded me of Silas... then I came back, and you were on the ground and - and," he shakes his head closing his eyes, lips pursed to one side.
"You're important to me Fatima, seeing you on the floor in this room, was far worse than seeing the aftermath of the bridge exploding... and my family panicked and hurt."
But I'm fine now, here sitting with him, "No... it's more than that, something's bothering you, I can tell..." I whisper back.
I reach for my tea after it's cooled a bit sipping, waiting and hoping that giving Samson time will help him find the words to tell me what's wrong. He had done that for me many times, letting me locate the phrase when I was drowning in all the wrong ones - so silent I remained until he found them.
"I was - I saw the mushroom of fire and smoke, and I didn't, I could help it, I was instantly back to the day my brother died. To the day that Silas died..." the hand holding his mug trembles but he doesn't look up at me, only staring down.
"He - Silas - had begged me that day to go out and do something with him but it was just such a horrible day. I didn't want to do anything he suggested so after nearly thirty minutes of begging he left and said he was going to go out with a friend of his - Brian." I sip slowly listening carefully because Samson had never mentioned his brothers' death the way he was now.
It wasn't like he was saying how much he missed Silas, or how often he thought of his brother, this was different it was like having information and wanting to push the words out from inside you. And challenging because when you did that... pushed them out, you couldn't take them back, you couldn't stop the ripples.
"Brian was a scholarship kid in the engineering program at the school, he didn't have a lot of friends, but he built this helicopter, and it wasn't the right weather for it, too windy. When Silas mentioned that we could go take turns flying it, I laughed at him, made fun and said that I wasn't interested."
It's a fleeting thought, but I can't help but be happy, relieved now that Samson didn't go then. I knew how this story ended; one decision had cost him, someone, he loved. To be left behind in a way, with the ugliest reminder he had told me once. Every time he looked in the mirror, he saw exactly what was lost in his self. I might have Dmitri and others in my head, I didn't know how hard it was for him, but I could imagine it was tough.
"I'm the logical one - I was - the - I still am-" he stops swallowing.
Putting my cup of tea on the table I scoot closer to Samson, offering him my hand, taking the one lying limply. The two of my hands cocoon him, he exhales, sighing deeply closing his eyes and resting his head back against the headboard, "Silas could talk you into anything - you could have your own corn field, and he could sell you corn. Brian wasn't popular, but he was great to be around, he would come here on the weekends-"
A knock on my door stops him abruptly. When we don't open right away, they knock again. I see the tear that falls when Samson closes his eyes back, putting his hand on the bed, planning to get back to my spot in a moment I walk to my door, opening unsure who's knocking.
I know that it's not Amy or Kalenah. Neither were silent knockers and so I'm surprised when it's Taylor. Her face splotchy, eyes red, I chance a quick look at my bed, and I'm shocked that in the ten - no more than fifteen steps it took to get to the door that Samson has put his cup down, slouched and was in a sleeping position on my bed. Turning back to Taylor, waiting for her to say something.
"Did you want something?" I ask when she just stands there.
I watch her glance behind me, I know that Samson said that if my door is closed you can't hear us speaking, sound proof and all, that to hear Kalenah she has to almost be shouting. But he also said that they had enhanced hearing so I wasn't sure if she actually bought that Samson was sleeping.
When her face focuses on mine again, I know that she believes he's asleep, "he doesn't want you, with all the history that we have together. There isn't anyone that knows him like I know him." her voice is so small that I have to tilt my head forward to hear her. She's trying to not have Samson listen in, I figure out easily.
"My mom nearly died, I needed him and - he's my best friend - you came and stole him," she whispers her eyes wet, her bottom lip shaking, I'm not sure what I should say to her, but I don't have too.
Taylor wasn't finished, "What kind of girl are you? You just met him, and he's in your bed, disrespecting Kalenah and Ansel like this? We've all suffered enough when this school year is over, and you go wherever it is your going, leaving us alone - I just hope we can put back together what you've ruined."
"They said he's mine I just had to wait. Other's may be willing to hold on, but Samson is mine Faith. Mine-"
"What the hell is your problem?" Samson shouts from behind me, and I watch Taylors eyes widen in surprise and in a few seconds I feel Samson behind me, next to me and then he's moving past me, "What you can only speak to someone that has nothing to do with what's wrong with you? Who's not to blame?" he's still shouting.
"You came all the way up here to find me, Taylor? Speak!" Samson's shouting, and I take a step back.
"When she goes back where she came from or wherever? You think I'll want you? What is your problem? How many ways do I have to say I don't want you? I have so little interest in you as anything Taylor!" Panting as though he's run miles and miles Samson takes another step forward, eyes wide and feral regarding Taylor.
"Who's they? Who told you all you had to do was wait? Brennan?" I had never heard Samson say his brother's name with such disdain.
"We were fine before she got here," he lets her have a word.
"Mom! Dad!" Samson roared before taking one almost menacing step towards Taylor. "This is it, stop!"
"I don't want you, I don't want to be your friend and after this weekend-" he pauses just as Kalenah and Ansel are coming up the stairs, Taylor's parents as well, "After this holiday she can't come here anymore - I can't take it! This whole time she's been here she's acted like some kind of stalker, and now she came up here to accost Fatima!"
Wheeling around to face a teary-eyed Taylor Samson looks like nothing I've witnessed before, "You lied for years about how you felt about me, Taylor! Years! So selfish, you seem to forget that I've been the one being honest, I had no interest in you, you were my friend a girl that didn't like me - did you even take a minute to realize that I would've pushed you away years ago if I knew how you felt? Because I would've because I wouldn't have wanted to lead you on, to hurt you because you're my friend, and I understand that you can't help who you lo - like-" he heaves taking a side glance at me, all the adults wide-eyed.
"And you - you're no help!" Shannon's eyes widened as he pointed a finger at her. "You think that she's entitled to something or me? That since Taylor has known me longer that I'm supposed to be with her Shannon? Asking mom for them to live here-"
"Hey! Hey! Samson, calm down-"
"God stop dad! I just wanted to talk to Fatima tell her how I felt - how - how it was all my fault with Silas. But Taylor is just always there - I can't get away from her - she's at school following me around. Mopping and begging me to give her a chance - wanting to change for me - trying to show up to a party naked - I just want you to leave me alone Taylor!"
"Taylor downstairs!" her father snapped while Kalenah watched Samson with glassy eyes, and Javier Senior pulled his wife - Shannon - with him.
"Samson - Silas-" Samson's shaking his head before Kalenah can even finish, "I don't - mom -" he seems to shudder as he shakes his head. "I just wanted to talk to Fatima, that is all I wanted." His voice shakes and with one long look, Kalenah takes hold of Ansel's bicep, pulling him down leaving Samson and me outside my door.
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