Night had already taken over the sky and the stars started gleaming when we drove into Lucy's driveway.
"I just need to get something, and then I will take you to Sam," Lucy said as she pulled up to her garage door.
"Sam doesn't want to see me," I mutter, looking down to my feet. Although there was nothing I would have liked more than to tell Sam I had sex with someone else and actually don't feel guilty, I also knew that the man in his life would probably chase me away.
"Oh, don't sit there and pity yourself. You are so pathetic sometimes Elijah," Lucy said as she slammed the car door, leaving me with my own thoughts.
On the drive back we had barely said a word to one another. I didn't ask and she did not offer up any information about what had been said at Llaluna's. I was still trying to comprehend the idea of Lucy being Blake and Fynn's sister, but somehow even that did not feel real to me at all. I tried to imagine that the baby Lucy had lost might have been a little Blake. I could have in a way had a little bit of him back, even if I had to help raise his and tell him about the letters that Blake used to write to me. I could have bought him his own guitar. I could have maybe even gone for a course or two and help him write songs like the once Blake sang to me. It would have in a way made everything better, but here we were... In a way it almost felt like I was losing Blake all over again. The chance of having a small piece of him back and then losing him before I even got to meet him.
And then there was Timothy and Fynn. I had to admit that I was crazy about Timothy. Maybe for all the wrong reasons. Maybe I liked him because there was something in him that made me think of myself in a way? Or was it because he wanted to be with me the way that Blake wanted to be with me? It was impossible not to wonder if he had food to eat, a roof over his head, and to wonder where he was going tomorrow. I should have had Lucy help me track him down. I should have made a bigger effort to find him than just going to the coffee shop. I could have stayed another day, maybe even waited at the coffee shop until he arrived for his shift. There was so much more that I could have done, but as usual my fear of loving someone was standing in the way. In the past decade the only two people I have allowed near me was Lucy and Sam, and that wasn't saying much at all. Even my agent called me a mysterious enigma that he could not begin to figure out. I have never seen myself as an enigma. Secretive maybe, but not mysterious. I have always just been me, too scared to talk to the world, but somehow it seems like there are many words in my silence.
"Are you ready to see your daddy?" Lucy asks as she climbs back into the car. I try to see if there is anything in her hands, maybe something she needed, but I don't see anything at all.
"Don't make it sound dirty," I say, and for the first time today a small smile grazes over my face.
This has been a usual thing for Lucy to do through the years. Making sexual connotations between Sam and I. She finds it funny. I find it awkward.
"Just because you would like to screw a teacher doesn't mean I want too," I say for good measure. "Especially not the teacher who took me in and raised me as if I was his own son."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. I still think you should have done him before Michael came into the picture. He probably took you in because he was hoping for something," Lucy said with a grin as she pulled out of the driveway.
"Or maybe he took me in because he just really wanted to help a child in need," I answer. I like this bantering, even if it is at Sam's expense. "He was hot though. Have I told you that he used to have an entire closet full of band t-shirts and skinny jeans? He was legit emo when he was a kid. I have even seen some photos."
"He is still hot," Lucy intercepts. "And you should really get him to put up some of those pictures on Facebook. I need something to keep me warm at night."
I just laugh in reply. There is no use arguing with her that this is awkward, a little bit weird, and even pervy to say the least. I indulge her. Maybe she needs a laugh after this day, just like me.
"So why are we going to Sam?" I ask. "Can't I just go home for now and we can go and see him tomorrow."
"No." It is a point-blank answer. Her face barely moves as she says it, but the hissing it is said with ends the conversation about Sam.
"Are you going to try to patch things up between me and Michael again? He will never like me. You should rather just give up. Maybe he has the same ideas about Sam and I in his head that you have," I say with a smirk, hoping to bring Lucy back to her old self.
There has been many times in the past where I have wondered why I was friends with Lucy. She is not particularly nice, she is sarcastic, offensive, and most of the time just plain rude.
"It's because you're a good person," I say aloud before I can help myself.
"Sorry?" Lucy says, taking her eyes of the road to look at me momentarily.
"I was just trying to think why I am friends with you. I decided that it is because in your heart you are a good person."
This makes her laugh. It takes us from one red traffic light to the next for her to stop laughing and finally turn to me.
"You are friends with me because of my incredible hotness and my sassy mouth, and I allow you in my life because I have grown fond of you..." She thinks for a moment before she continues. "Like the way you grow fond of an old family pet you didn't choose, but has been there forever."
"You're a bitch," I mutter under my breath, but I can't hide the smile. It's the closest Lucy will ever come to say that she loves someone.
"Thank you," she replies as the traffic light turns to green and she pushes on the gas making the car shoot forward to fast that I am pushed back into my seat.
The thing is, I know I am lying if I say that I have never noticed Sam before in that type of light. It would be a lie to say that he wasn't extremely good looking, even though he is much older than me. I just always thought that my slight attraction must have been that he rescued me when I needed to be rescued. Sometimes we need a hero, and in my heart I know I have always been the kind of guy who likes the hero to rescue me, and then fall madly and deeply in love with me. It is no coincidence that my favourite Disney movie of all time is Cinderella. I am a suffer for falling in love with a hero. Had it not been for Blake's death, my attempted suicides, and ultimately the mourning period that lasted a decade, I would have probably made an advance on Sam a long time ago. I am glad I didn't. You can always lose a lover, but someone who has vowed to be your guardian, your parent, can't just throw you into the wind. They need to stand by you no matter what, and that is something that Sam has always done. No matter in how much trouble I have been in, he has gone to the ends of the earth to try and make it better. Even when he knew that his attempts were fruitless he tried his best to comfort and support.
"Wake up, my purple pucker," Lucy snaps me out of my daydream. I can hear there is something wrong with her voice. It is too sweet. Too forced. "We're here."
As if I didn't know. If there is ever a door I will never be able to forget in my life, it is the door I walked through the night Blake died. The same door I would leave, covered in my own blood, hoping that it would be the last door I pass through. It was also the door of new hope, second chances, and a chance to experience love and family in a way I had only dreamt of.
"Ah, I was wondering when the two of you would be getting here. Sam has been quite worried," a voice said to my right. Michael has appeared at my side of the car. He either moved so slow that I did not see him, or I was so caught up in my thoughts that I just didn't notice him walking up to me like he normally would.
"We got held up. I went to see Llaluna," Lucy said as she helped herself out of the car, while Michael opened my door for me. Being this nice was not in his character, but I didn't dare say anything.
"Did you confront her about Blake and Fynn?" Michael said as we walked around the car to meet Lucy on her side.
"Seriously? Did everyone know about this before me?" I ask. I wasn't meaning to say anything, but it was tucking on my heart that even Michael knew before we did.
"We don't all have the luxury to go on holiday and expect the world to stand still kiddo. Here life goes on," Michael sighs as if he is talking to a child. I hate his manner of speaking to me, but then again, he has never been outright rude to me. I have always felt like he didn't like me, but he has mostly always treated me with kindness, the last meeting between us being the exception.
"It was more than that," Lucy answers him before I even have a chance to defend myself. "There was much more to confront her for that you don't even know about yet, but I will tell you later."
It makes me feel a little bit better knowing that Lucy hasn't yet told Michael everything. That there were things only I knew about at this stage. It didn't make me feel any better that the other person that knew was Llaluna, but in time I knew I could maybe forget about her existence. She does not matter in my life anymore. Blake will always be alive in my heart, although he is gone. Llaluna might be very much well and walking this earth, but she was dead to me in a way that cannot even be described.
"We will need to set up a coffee date," Michael says with a smile as he hooks his arm through Lucy's. At this point I walk ahead of them, eager to see Sam and tell him everything I have been through in the last week. I will off course keep what happened between Timothy and me a secret. At least some of it. He does not need to know how old Timothy is, and it should not matter in any case. I will probably never see him again in my life.
I can feel my face lighting up as I enter the living room full of books, where Sam is with no surprise reading a book. I read the title; Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, before he notices me, drops the book on the floor and allow tears to wet his cheeks and spill to the ground.