The Monday after our boating day, I spilled soda on my jeans during lunch, forcing me to wear my practice clothes home from volleyball rather than getting back into my sticky pants. Sam met me at home with an irritated expression.
"Why are you wearing those?" he asked, meaning my shorts.
"Because I obviously can't run around without them," I laughed.
"No, I mean, why are you wearing ones that are all ripped up?"
Crap. I didn't want him to notice. "I just wear them at practice. I don't want to throw them out just because they've got a hole or two." I was wearing my spandex under them for modesty.
In other words, I couldn't afford to replace them, not with Nate's birthday last month. I was still struggling without the money I had spent on his presents. I would have just made something, but he'd wanted a certain book so badly (a book that turned out to be eighteen bucks) plus the ten dollars that I had chipped in to buy him some shoes. That was a week of grocery money flat. I was trying as hard as possible not to chip into emergency funds, and I refused to call Mom again so soon and ask for the old child support from the man that fathered me.
However, my crappy shorts made an impression on Sam because he handed me something nonchalantly before school three days later.
"What's that?" I asked stupidly, knowing quite well what it was. I just didn't know why he was handing it to me.
"A credit card."
"Why are you giving it to me?"
"It's yours."
"Huh?"
"Your name," he gestured to the bumpy letters. There it was. ABIGAIL R SHEA. "It's hooked up to my account."
I gaped at him. "Sam, I can't live off your money!"
"You can. You are."
I tried to steady myself, put my thoughts into words he would understand, say it in a way that at least wouldn't offend him even if he didn't get it. "Sam, that is very kind of you, and I appreciate the thought. But let's wait for that." Would he understand that?
Of course not. "Abigail, that is ridiculous."
"No, it's not," I said, trying to force a casual smile. "Come on, just let me have my way. I need time to be independent a while longer before leeching off you."
He didn't smile back. "This is stupid." He was frustrated. Very, very frustrated. He didn't get some things in the least, and I had no way of making him understand. This was one of those things.
"No, it's not."
"My girl will not go around in ripped shorts," he snarled.
I tried to argue, "It's just one pair—"
"Everything, Abigail. You're flat broke. I know why you eat at my house," he accused with a scowl. "I know that you don't eat any other time because you can barely afford it."
I blushed and looked down at my shoes. I didn't know he had picked up on that. I thought it had just looked like I was starting to eat normally again. I had felt bad lying to him about it, but I let it slide, not wanting to get into an argument like that. And I'd only been doing it that month after spending my grocery money on the boys. I usually only half relied of Sam's food.
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.