Lis
06-16-2005, 07:53 AM
What Could Never Be
Sami watched in horror as her mother’s heart monitor began beeping out of control.
"No! Mom, wake up, you have to come back! You’re innocent, you have to tell them all that you didn’t kill those people. Come back and tell them you didn’t kill Daddy!" She turned and shot daggers at the despicable man she was forced to call her stepfather. "Happy, John? You finally killed her!"
She didn’t care what the rest of them said, there was no way her mother could be the serial killer. Sure, Marlena wasn’t exactly mother of the year, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t a good person. Her father was the only one her mother had truly loved, and there was no way that she would ever believed that she could have killed Roman.
"We have a pulse back, everyone. Looks like we got her back," Lexie announced as she pulled off her stethoscope and turned her gaze to the now slow, steady blips of the heart monitor.
"Hear that John? Looks like your plot failed. Get the hell out of here." Sami spat.
John shook his head. "I’m not leaving, Marlena confessed that she was the killer. I’m not trying to destroy her, Samantha. She needs help.
Sami shuddered at the use of her full name. Funny how only the people who didn’t give a rat’s *** about her or her well being used it. John, who abandoned her as a child, then refused to stay away from her mother and destroyed the family she finally got back by publicly screwing her mother and knocking her up. Of course most recently, accusing her of murder, hitting her head on with his car, grabbing her so hard her arms ached and deep purple bruises were already forming, then handcuffing her to her car in the rain while she sat with a concussion from striking her head on the steering wheel. Yeah, a real sweetie, that John.
Then of course there was Brandon. Brandon who cursed her when she refused to leave Austin for him, then slept with his stepmother when she finally did decide to start dating him. Let’s see, then he threw objects in her home at her, grabbed her and threw her into walls, forming bruises deeper than the ones she sported now from John and her falling mother. And all the while telling her she was nothing unless she obeyed him. And when she did everything in her power to make him stay with her, he sneered at her efforts and left.
Yeah, as far as she was concerned, anyone ever calling her Samantha again was immediately due some kind of physical punishment.
Just as she was about to answer, Marlena’s eyes fluttered open. "Mom!" Sami shouted in joy. "Mom, I’m so glad you’re awake. Tell these idiots that you didn’t kill anyone."
Marlena blinked, then looked at John, then turned her head to look at Bo. "I’m innocent," she whispered.
Sami nearly bubbled over with joy. She knew it! "See, I told you!" She threw herself onto her mother’s bed, wrapping her arms around her.
Bo chirked an eyebrow. "John, can I see you in the hallway for a moment?" The other occupants left, leaving Sami alone with her mother.
"I knew you didn’t do it, Mom," Sami whispered shakily, smiling through her tears.
"Of course I didn’t sweetie-girl. How could anyone, especially my own husband think that I could kill anyone, let alone the people close to me?" Marlena smiled to herself. This was too easy. John had no proof, it was her word against his. John was a trained killer, she was a counselor. Guess who won the battle of recognizance?
"John’s an @#$%!, Mom, you know that." Sami frowned and wiped a tear away. "He accused me of being the killer, of killing my own grandmother when I didn’t even know she had died!" A thought suddenly struck her. @#$%!. Grandmother. She wasn’t the only one who lost a grandmother. And she had completely blown him off.
"Mom, will you be okay if I go? I, um, still have to tell Will about Alice Horton. He’s going to be devastated." ‘Of course, Sami’ she thought to herself. ‘It’s just for Will.’
Just then Bo reemerged from the hallway. "Marlena, we are going to post a guard at your door. If you are the killer, we need to make sure you stay put. If you aren’t, you are a potential target. Either way, we want to make sure you stay where you are, safe in this room."
Sami shot her uncle a dirty look at the implication that her mother might be guilty, but Marlena responded before she could.
"As long as someone is here to protect me. I’d like to make sure my husband isn’t allowed in the room." Marlena shuddered. "I hate to think it, but the only reason I can think of for him to accuse me is to cover up his own actions and hope I didn’t wake up to dispute him."
Sami smiled at her mother. "John’s the guilty one, not you, Mom. We’ll make sure you are safe." She trained her gaze upon her uncle. "Right, Commander Brady?" she asked icily.
"Nothing will happen to her here," Bo responded back, equally cold.
"That’s fine then," Marlena piped in. "Go on Sami, you need to be with your son."
Sami smiled quickly at her mother. "Thanks Mom, I will be back first thing tomorrow morning. And if you need anything, call my cell phone and I’ll be here right away."
Sami gave her mother one last peck on the cheek, her uncle one last icy stare, and her stepfather one last harsh accusation of "murderer," as she made her way to her car.
She inserted the key into her apartment and found it empty. Lucas wasn’t anywhere to be found in the hospital, so she went to the Pub, only to find that Lucas had picked up Will a half of an hour before.
"Thanks for telling me where you went, jerk," she muttered to herself as she threw her purse down and slipped off her shoes. As she walked into the bedroom, her anger was slowly replaced by hollow pain as she realized he was just returning the favor. His grandmother, the only living person in the Horton family that gave a damn about Lucas, had died that night. And where had she been? Ranting and raving about her stepfather. Sure, she was worried about her mom, but she abandoned him when he needed her.
He never had. Lucas had been there through her father’s horrible death, her grandmother’s. When he had lost Maggie, sure, she helped with what she could, but she didn’t offer any condolences. Victor had been like a father to him, and she had simply made a smart *** remark. When they left for Doug’s wake, Lucas, and then Will begged her to go with them. They needed her.
She didn’t go with them.
Sure, she went later, but she only did it so that Lucas couldn’t hold it over her head later. If Will hadn’t asked, she wouldn’t have bothered.
For some reason, it didn’t occur to her to try and comfort him.
She never asked Lucas to be there. He just was. Whenever she needed someone, where was her family? Marlena was too absorbed in John, Belle in Shawn, and who knew where the hell Eric was this week. He couldn’t even be bothered to come home for his own father’s funeral.
But he had been there.
With a sudden shock, she realized why. He was there because he knew. He watched her, he knew that her family didn’t care. He knew that sometimes she didn’t want to talk, she just wanted to be held when she cried. He knew her inside and out, better than she knew herself. And when she opened her eyes and looked at what was in front of her, she always knew him too.
He loved her.
She loved him for loving her. No one else ever had.
God, why hadn’t she seen it? Out of nowhere, another flash of something hit her.
"Yeah, I love you. I’ve always loved you. You’re the only woman I ever really loved."
The cave! My God. He said that. He admitted it to her. It must have been too much, that’s why she blocked it out. Why else wouldn’t she have remembered the sweetest words ever spoken to her.
Shaking her head, she headed out her door. Enough time had been wasted.
Not bothering to knock, she pushed open Lucas’ door and found him on the sofa, a sobbing Will cradled against his chest. Lucas didn’t look much better himself.
Without a word, she sat next to them and pulled Lucas to her, wrapping one arm around his shoulders and the other around Will’s thin body. It was awkward, but she wanted to hold them both.
They sat that way in silence for a long time.
Finally, Lucas raised his head from her shoulder to look down at Will, who had cried himself to sleep. "I’ll put him in his room. Poor kid is devastated; how many more people can we lose?"
Sami got up and followed him, and together they pulled the blankets up over their son and each kissed him goodnight.
Lucas went back out to the couch, and Sami took one last peek at her sleeping son before shutting the door behind her. Walking around, she sat next to him and worked up the courage to speak.
Enough time had been wasted.
"I’m sorry," she murmured.
Lucas gave her a confused glimpse of his melted-brown-sugar eyes. "For what? You didn’t kill any of these people."
Sami took a deep breath. "I’m sorry I left Alice’s without saying something." He opened his mouth to speak but she held up her hand, then continued.
"I’m sorry for not going with you to Doug’s wake; I should have, I just wasn’t thinking straight. I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you like you have been for me." Now, time for the bombshell. "I’m sorry I didn’t remember what happened in the cave. I must have freaked out and blocked it out."
Lucas was still puzzled. "But how would you know, you blocked anything out? You don’t remember anything we said," he responded glumly.
"See, that’s the thing," Sami answered. "I do remember."
Lucas’s head shot up. "What? What do you remember?"
"Everything." She swallowed the lump in her throat so that she could continue. "I remember telling you that I love you. I remember you telling me that you loved me, that you had always loved only me." She looked him in the eye. "Did that happen?"
Lucas looked away and nodded. "That sounds pretty accurate," he whispered brokenly.
Tears filled her eyes and she took his hand, lacing her fingers through his. "Good. Now that we got that straight, what do you say we stop being so damn stupid? How much more time are we going to waste? Are we going to throw all of this away because we’re scared?"
Lucas inhaled sharply and turned to look back at her. "What are you saying?"
Capturing his gaze with hers, she forced back the fear and let the words her heart wanted to say come to the surface. "I’m tired of running away. Life is too damn short for this ****. I love you. Let’s get married, take Will and go away; start over where no one knows us and build something real."
"You’re serious?" Lucas whispered back in utter disbelief.
"I mean it. Will you marry me? Will you run away with me?" Sami held her breath as she waited for a response.
Slowly, the shocked expression on his face was replaced by a sly smile. "I’ll get my suitcase."
Tearful giggles escaped from her, and she leaned in, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him thoroughly.
Breaking it, he pulled back and grabbed her hands, staring into her eyes. "I love you too."
She felt as if her heart might explode from happiness, and a white glow enveloped the room. Her happiness was replaced by panic as she suddenly realized she couldn’t see or feel Lucas any more.
"Lucas!" she screamed. "Where are you? Lucas!!"
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Lucas looked up from his book. "Sami?" He could have sworn he heard a faint noise come from her, but all he could hear was the medical machinery as it tracked and recorded every heartbeat, every breath.
He looked at his watch. 6am. He had to get back, it was time to wake up Will and get him off to day camp, then he had another long day in the land of evil, doing the cover up for Tony’s latest plan. He was down to about three hours of sleep a night, but late nights were the only time he could see her. Her family hated him, blamed him for her tumble through the glass doors.
He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, he just didn’t want her married to that abusive scumbag.
He’d seen firsthand the violence Brandon was capable of, and he found out that Walker had managed to hide the two previous child abuse suits brought against him by the parents of children at the other hospitals he worked at. He was trying to protect Sami and his son from that monster.
He didn’t mean to hurt her.
He closed the book and stood up, walking over to the bed. "I’m sorry Sami. I know it’s much too little, much too late, but I am. I never wanted to hurt you. I just wanted you to love me. But you never would, never could." He shook his head as tears filled his eyes. "I’m sorry I couldn’t let go of you. You would have been better off never having met me."
He ran his finger lightly across her cheek, and then down her arm. He stopped at her hand and picked it up in his. "I won’t hurt you anymore. We can share Will, but I’ll stay away. I’ll move out of the apartment and we can arrange pickups at the Pub so that you won’t have to see me. I promise, Sami. I’m tired of fighting, tired of hoping that someday we won’t anymore, then hurting you whenever that hope dims again."
He let go of her hand and backed out of the room. "I swear Sami, this time, I’ll love you enough to let you go." He turned away and walked down the hallway to the elevator, his heart mourning the death of his dream.
He was still alone. Always alone. He couldn’t have her.
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The bright light was still there, but now it looked like a light fixture. Blinking a few times, she gazed groggily around her. A hospital room. What on earth?
Looking at her arms, she noticed cuts and scrapes, and she lifted one hand to discover a huge bandage around her neck. In a flash, she saw it. Tony’s leering laughter. Lucas’ terrified screams. Falling. Pain. Red. Then blackness.
Lucas!
She blinked again, trying to make sense. The fall was last year. She and Lucas were getting married. She had everything she ever wanted. She loved him. It was never Brandon, or Austin, or, god forbid, Franco.
It was always Lucas.
Frantically, she tried to yell. Where was he? He was her fiancé, he would be here if she was hurt, right? She screamed again, her mouth forming the word over and over again. Lucas.
But nothing came out.
In terror, she put a hand to her neck. Had she cut her vocal cords again? What happened? Did the serial killer attack her? Was Lucas okay, was Will? She jabbed at the call button repeatedly.
A nurse hurried in a few minutes later. "Ms. Brady! Good to see you back among the living! You gave us quite a scare falling through those glass doors.
Sami tried to talk again. What was going on now? The damn glass doors were a year ago!
Wasn’t it?
The nurse checked her EEG reading. "Wow, you must have had some good dreams! Your REM stage sleep is the most active I’ve ever seen!" She walked over to the window. "Let’s let in some of that nice June sun, and I’ll call Dr. Evans and Captain Brady and tell them you’re awake. They’ll be here soon." The nurse patted her hand and she walked out.
June sun? But it was only April. And her mother was in the hospital. And her father was dead.
Weren’t they?
"Wow, you must have had some good dreams! Your REM stage sleep is the most active I’ve ever seen!"
It had been a dream. All of it. All of the people she loved and lost were still alive. Her mother was fine, Her daddy was still a Police Captain, which meant Abe was okay too. And it was June. She just fell through the doors. No one was murdered, Jack was fine, Maggie, they were all okay. There was no Salem Serial Killer.
And she hadn’t spent the summer restoring her friendship with Lucas. There had been no stolen kisses, no dance lessons with Will. They hadn’t made cookies, hadn’t spent Christmas together. He hadn’t held her in his bed when she was scared, hadn’t kissed her after Will had a nightmare. He hadn’t confessed his love in a cave. She didn’t go over and propose. They weren’t happily running off to start over in a new place as husband and wife.
She wanted to scream, to cry out in frustration at the unfairness of it all. It had been so beautiful. Full of sadness, but also full of hope. She wanted to shriek and yell until the heavens heard her and fixed it, until they brought back the happiness she had as she and her best friend admitted that they were in love.
But it wasn’t real.
And the heavens couldn’t hear her. No sound came from her throat.
She sank back into the pillows and let the tears stream down her cheeks. It didn’t happen. Lucas wasn’t with her. She was alone.
She was always alone.
She turned toward the window at the bright sunlight, which held no warmth for her. She mourned in her heart , grieving for what had never been.
And what could never be.
The End
Sami watched in horror as her mother’s heart monitor began beeping out of control.
"No! Mom, wake up, you have to come back! You’re innocent, you have to tell them all that you didn’t kill those people. Come back and tell them you didn’t kill Daddy!" She turned and shot daggers at the despicable man she was forced to call her stepfather. "Happy, John? You finally killed her!"
She didn’t care what the rest of them said, there was no way her mother could be the serial killer. Sure, Marlena wasn’t exactly mother of the year, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t a good person. Her father was the only one her mother had truly loved, and there was no way that she would ever believed that she could have killed Roman.
"We have a pulse back, everyone. Looks like we got her back," Lexie announced as she pulled off her stethoscope and turned her gaze to the now slow, steady blips of the heart monitor.
"Hear that John? Looks like your plot failed. Get the hell out of here." Sami spat.
John shook his head. "I’m not leaving, Marlena confessed that she was the killer. I’m not trying to destroy her, Samantha. She needs help.
Sami shuddered at the use of her full name. Funny how only the people who didn’t give a rat’s *** about her or her well being used it. John, who abandoned her as a child, then refused to stay away from her mother and destroyed the family she finally got back by publicly screwing her mother and knocking her up. Of course most recently, accusing her of murder, hitting her head on with his car, grabbing her so hard her arms ached and deep purple bruises were already forming, then handcuffing her to her car in the rain while she sat with a concussion from striking her head on the steering wheel. Yeah, a real sweetie, that John.
Then of course there was Brandon. Brandon who cursed her when she refused to leave Austin for him, then slept with his stepmother when she finally did decide to start dating him. Let’s see, then he threw objects in her home at her, grabbed her and threw her into walls, forming bruises deeper than the ones she sported now from John and her falling mother. And all the while telling her she was nothing unless she obeyed him. And when she did everything in her power to make him stay with her, he sneered at her efforts and left.
Yeah, as far as she was concerned, anyone ever calling her Samantha again was immediately due some kind of physical punishment.
Just as she was about to answer, Marlena’s eyes fluttered open. "Mom!" Sami shouted in joy. "Mom, I’m so glad you’re awake. Tell these idiots that you didn’t kill anyone."
Marlena blinked, then looked at John, then turned her head to look at Bo. "I’m innocent," she whispered.
Sami nearly bubbled over with joy. She knew it! "See, I told you!" She threw herself onto her mother’s bed, wrapping her arms around her.
Bo chirked an eyebrow. "John, can I see you in the hallway for a moment?" The other occupants left, leaving Sami alone with her mother.
"I knew you didn’t do it, Mom," Sami whispered shakily, smiling through her tears.
"Of course I didn’t sweetie-girl. How could anyone, especially my own husband think that I could kill anyone, let alone the people close to me?" Marlena smiled to herself. This was too easy. John had no proof, it was her word against his. John was a trained killer, she was a counselor. Guess who won the battle of recognizance?
"John’s an @#$%!, Mom, you know that." Sami frowned and wiped a tear away. "He accused me of being the killer, of killing my own grandmother when I didn’t even know she had died!" A thought suddenly struck her. @#$%!. Grandmother. She wasn’t the only one who lost a grandmother. And she had completely blown him off.
"Mom, will you be okay if I go? I, um, still have to tell Will about Alice Horton. He’s going to be devastated." ‘Of course, Sami’ she thought to herself. ‘It’s just for Will.’
Just then Bo reemerged from the hallway. "Marlena, we are going to post a guard at your door. If you are the killer, we need to make sure you stay put. If you aren’t, you are a potential target. Either way, we want to make sure you stay where you are, safe in this room."
Sami shot her uncle a dirty look at the implication that her mother might be guilty, but Marlena responded before she could.
"As long as someone is here to protect me. I’d like to make sure my husband isn’t allowed in the room." Marlena shuddered. "I hate to think it, but the only reason I can think of for him to accuse me is to cover up his own actions and hope I didn’t wake up to dispute him."
Sami smiled at her mother. "John’s the guilty one, not you, Mom. We’ll make sure you are safe." She trained her gaze upon her uncle. "Right, Commander Brady?" she asked icily.
"Nothing will happen to her here," Bo responded back, equally cold.
"That’s fine then," Marlena piped in. "Go on Sami, you need to be with your son."
Sami smiled quickly at her mother. "Thanks Mom, I will be back first thing tomorrow morning. And if you need anything, call my cell phone and I’ll be here right away."
Sami gave her mother one last peck on the cheek, her uncle one last icy stare, and her stepfather one last harsh accusation of "murderer," as she made her way to her car.
She inserted the key into her apartment and found it empty. Lucas wasn’t anywhere to be found in the hospital, so she went to the Pub, only to find that Lucas had picked up Will a half of an hour before.
"Thanks for telling me where you went, jerk," she muttered to herself as she threw her purse down and slipped off her shoes. As she walked into the bedroom, her anger was slowly replaced by hollow pain as she realized he was just returning the favor. His grandmother, the only living person in the Horton family that gave a damn about Lucas, had died that night. And where had she been? Ranting and raving about her stepfather. Sure, she was worried about her mom, but she abandoned him when he needed her.
He never had. Lucas had been there through her father’s horrible death, her grandmother’s. When he had lost Maggie, sure, she helped with what she could, but she didn’t offer any condolences. Victor had been like a father to him, and she had simply made a smart *** remark. When they left for Doug’s wake, Lucas, and then Will begged her to go with them. They needed her.
She didn’t go with them.
Sure, she went later, but she only did it so that Lucas couldn’t hold it over her head later. If Will hadn’t asked, she wouldn’t have bothered.
For some reason, it didn’t occur to her to try and comfort him.
She never asked Lucas to be there. He just was. Whenever she needed someone, where was her family? Marlena was too absorbed in John, Belle in Shawn, and who knew where the hell Eric was this week. He couldn’t even be bothered to come home for his own father’s funeral.
But he had been there.
With a sudden shock, she realized why. He was there because he knew. He watched her, he knew that her family didn’t care. He knew that sometimes she didn’t want to talk, she just wanted to be held when she cried. He knew her inside and out, better than she knew herself. And when she opened her eyes and looked at what was in front of her, she always knew him too.
He loved her.
She loved him for loving her. No one else ever had.
God, why hadn’t she seen it? Out of nowhere, another flash of something hit her.
"Yeah, I love you. I’ve always loved you. You’re the only woman I ever really loved."
The cave! My God. He said that. He admitted it to her. It must have been too much, that’s why she blocked it out. Why else wouldn’t she have remembered the sweetest words ever spoken to her.
Shaking her head, she headed out her door. Enough time had been wasted.
Not bothering to knock, she pushed open Lucas’ door and found him on the sofa, a sobbing Will cradled against his chest. Lucas didn’t look much better himself.
Without a word, she sat next to them and pulled Lucas to her, wrapping one arm around his shoulders and the other around Will’s thin body. It was awkward, but she wanted to hold them both.
They sat that way in silence for a long time.
Finally, Lucas raised his head from her shoulder to look down at Will, who had cried himself to sleep. "I’ll put him in his room. Poor kid is devastated; how many more people can we lose?"
Sami got up and followed him, and together they pulled the blankets up over their son and each kissed him goodnight.
Lucas went back out to the couch, and Sami took one last peek at her sleeping son before shutting the door behind her. Walking around, she sat next to him and worked up the courage to speak.
Enough time had been wasted.
"I’m sorry," she murmured.
Lucas gave her a confused glimpse of his melted-brown-sugar eyes. "For what? You didn’t kill any of these people."
Sami took a deep breath. "I’m sorry I left Alice’s without saying something." He opened his mouth to speak but she held up her hand, then continued.
"I’m sorry for not going with you to Doug’s wake; I should have, I just wasn’t thinking straight. I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you like you have been for me." Now, time for the bombshell. "I’m sorry I didn’t remember what happened in the cave. I must have freaked out and blocked it out."
Lucas was still puzzled. "But how would you know, you blocked anything out? You don’t remember anything we said," he responded glumly.
"See, that’s the thing," Sami answered. "I do remember."
Lucas’s head shot up. "What? What do you remember?"
"Everything." She swallowed the lump in her throat so that she could continue. "I remember telling you that I love you. I remember you telling me that you loved me, that you had always loved only me." She looked him in the eye. "Did that happen?"
Lucas looked away and nodded. "That sounds pretty accurate," he whispered brokenly.
Tears filled her eyes and she took his hand, lacing her fingers through his. "Good. Now that we got that straight, what do you say we stop being so damn stupid? How much more time are we going to waste? Are we going to throw all of this away because we’re scared?"
Lucas inhaled sharply and turned to look back at her. "What are you saying?"
Capturing his gaze with hers, she forced back the fear and let the words her heart wanted to say come to the surface. "I’m tired of running away. Life is too damn short for this ****. I love you. Let’s get married, take Will and go away; start over where no one knows us and build something real."
"You’re serious?" Lucas whispered back in utter disbelief.
"I mean it. Will you marry me? Will you run away with me?" Sami held her breath as she waited for a response.
Slowly, the shocked expression on his face was replaced by a sly smile. "I’ll get my suitcase."
Tearful giggles escaped from her, and she leaned in, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him thoroughly.
Breaking it, he pulled back and grabbed her hands, staring into her eyes. "I love you too."
She felt as if her heart might explode from happiness, and a white glow enveloped the room. Her happiness was replaced by panic as she suddenly realized she couldn’t see or feel Lucas any more.
"Lucas!" she screamed. "Where are you? Lucas!!"
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Lucas looked up from his book. "Sami?" He could have sworn he heard a faint noise come from her, but all he could hear was the medical machinery as it tracked and recorded every heartbeat, every breath.
He looked at his watch. 6am. He had to get back, it was time to wake up Will and get him off to day camp, then he had another long day in the land of evil, doing the cover up for Tony’s latest plan. He was down to about three hours of sleep a night, but late nights were the only time he could see her. Her family hated him, blamed him for her tumble through the glass doors.
He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, he just didn’t want her married to that abusive scumbag.
He’d seen firsthand the violence Brandon was capable of, and he found out that Walker had managed to hide the two previous child abuse suits brought against him by the parents of children at the other hospitals he worked at. He was trying to protect Sami and his son from that monster.
He didn’t mean to hurt her.
He closed the book and stood up, walking over to the bed. "I’m sorry Sami. I know it’s much too little, much too late, but I am. I never wanted to hurt you. I just wanted you to love me. But you never would, never could." He shook his head as tears filled his eyes. "I’m sorry I couldn’t let go of you. You would have been better off never having met me."
He ran his finger lightly across her cheek, and then down her arm. He stopped at her hand and picked it up in his. "I won’t hurt you anymore. We can share Will, but I’ll stay away. I’ll move out of the apartment and we can arrange pickups at the Pub so that you won’t have to see me. I promise, Sami. I’m tired of fighting, tired of hoping that someday we won’t anymore, then hurting you whenever that hope dims again."
He let go of her hand and backed out of the room. "I swear Sami, this time, I’ll love you enough to let you go." He turned away and walked down the hallway to the elevator, his heart mourning the death of his dream.
He was still alone. Always alone. He couldn’t have her.
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The bright light was still there, but now it looked like a light fixture. Blinking a few times, she gazed groggily around her. A hospital room. What on earth?
Looking at her arms, she noticed cuts and scrapes, and she lifted one hand to discover a huge bandage around her neck. In a flash, she saw it. Tony’s leering laughter. Lucas’ terrified screams. Falling. Pain. Red. Then blackness.
Lucas!
She blinked again, trying to make sense. The fall was last year. She and Lucas were getting married. She had everything she ever wanted. She loved him. It was never Brandon, or Austin, or, god forbid, Franco.
It was always Lucas.
Frantically, she tried to yell. Where was he? He was her fiancé, he would be here if she was hurt, right? She screamed again, her mouth forming the word over and over again. Lucas.
But nothing came out.
In terror, she put a hand to her neck. Had she cut her vocal cords again? What happened? Did the serial killer attack her? Was Lucas okay, was Will? She jabbed at the call button repeatedly.
A nurse hurried in a few minutes later. "Ms. Brady! Good to see you back among the living! You gave us quite a scare falling through those glass doors.
Sami tried to talk again. What was going on now? The damn glass doors were a year ago!
Wasn’t it?
The nurse checked her EEG reading. "Wow, you must have had some good dreams! Your REM stage sleep is the most active I’ve ever seen!" She walked over to the window. "Let’s let in some of that nice June sun, and I’ll call Dr. Evans and Captain Brady and tell them you’re awake. They’ll be here soon." The nurse patted her hand and she walked out.
June sun? But it was only April. And her mother was in the hospital. And her father was dead.
Weren’t they?
"Wow, you must have had some good dreams! Your REM stage sleep is the most active I’ve ever seen!"
It had been a dream. All of it. All of the people she loved and lost were still alive. Her mother was fine, Her daddy was still a Police Captain, which meant Abe was okay too. And it was June. She just fell through the doors. No one was murdered, Jack was fine, Maggie, they were all okay. There was no Salem Serial Killer.
And she hadn’t spent the summer restoring her friendship with Lucas. There had been no stolen kisses, no dance lessons with Will. They hadn’t made cookies, hadn’t spent Christmas together. He hadn’t held her in his bed when she was scared, hadn’t kissed her after Will had a nightmare. He hadn’t confessed his love in a cave. She didn’t go over and propose. They weren’t happily running off to start over in a new place as husband and wife.
She wanted to scream, to cry out in frustration at the unfairness of it all. It had been so beautiful. Full of sadness, but also full of hope. She wanted to shriek and yell until the heavens heard her and fixed it, until they brought back the happiness she had as she and her best friend admitted that they were in love.
But it wasn’t real.
And the heavens couldn’t hear her. No sound came from her throat.
She sank back into the pillows and let the tears stream down her cheeks. It didn’t happen. Lucas wasn’t with her. She was alone.
She was always alone.
She turned toward the window at the bright sunlight, which held no warmth for her. She mourned in her heart , grieving for what had never been.
And what could never be.
The End