Sam is Dead. Hannah Kirkell

a bit. “Yeah, they do.”

      We shared a hesitant smile, and I became aware of all the eyes watching our interaction. I turned to see most of the people in the coffee shop staring unabashedly at the two of us.

      “What?” I asked, unable to stop myself. “What’s the problem?”

      Sam glanced down and kept his eyes trained on the floor. “Just…drop it.”

      I felt a rush of anger that I couldn’t explain. “The hell is your problem?”

      “He’s a murderer,” one of onlookers hissed. “That’s the problem.”

      I sat there in complete confusion. I helplessly looked at Sam, but it appeared that the older man had found something fascinating about the hardwood floors. I placed a tentative hand on his shoulder and jerked it back when I felt how violently he was trembling.

      “Sam?” I asked.

      He didn’t answer. After a minute or so of complete unbroken silence, Sam rose, pushed his chair in with a piercing screech, and walked out, keeping his eyes locked on his shoes.

      *****

      I still kick myself when thinking of the unbridled pain in Sam’s eyes. I’m not sure what I could have done, but I wish I’d done something, anything.

      There’s a bit of a recurring theme found in my memories of Sam: me failing to help him when he needed it most. I’m not sure what I could have said to the man, but it always hurts to be insulted—even if the insult is true.

      As he knew far too well, death isn’t a disease that can be cured.

      And now, Sam is dead.

      Chapter Six

      Sam is still dead. Now that five months have gone by, you’d think I’d finally be able to accept the fact that he is dead, but I still catch myself wondering when I’ll see him again. Of course, I catch myself, but the fact that I still think of him as alive at times is salt on the wound.

      Sam is dead, and I miss him.

      I often wonder what I could have done to prevent Sam’s death, if anything at all. Isn’t it funny? At a young age, we are taught how to speak. We are taught basic manners. We are taught what not to say. We are taught that tone of voice carries more weight than the spoken words themselves do—and don’t even get me started on body language.

      My point is actually quite simple. Words are a very powerful thing. They are how we communicate, how we address other people, and, most importantly, how we affect their lives.

      It makes me wonder, had I chosen my words differently, more carefully, would Sam be alive today? Would I be drinking my coffee with him instead of drinking it alone?

      At the end of the day, all those thoughts are meaningless. Thinking that way can only result in more pain for me. It is futile to dwell on the words I said or did not say to Sam.

      Because Sam is dead.

      *****

      The day after our catastrophic coffee-shop incident, my spot was occupied. There, in the seat I always sat at, was Sam, holding two cups of coffee. His face was devoid of any emotion, but the chair shook with how violently his knee was bouncing. His eyes darted around the shop, and he drummed the fingers of his right hand on the counter.

      The moment I saw him, the first thought that went through my mind was to turn around and run far, far away. What do you say to someone after what had happened?

      All night, I had been replaying the scene over and over in my head, trying desperately to come up with a scenario in which Sam was not, as Kyle—Kyle? Clive? Cliff? Oh, it doesn’t even matter—said, a murderer. And all night, I couldn’t find anything.

      After the accusation, Sam had stood and left, and he had done it silently, a very noncharacteristic thing for him to do. From what I’d seen, Sam always had something to say about everything. He had a sharp tongue and a quick mind, and he’d be damned if everyone didn’t know it.

      Before I could process all this and run, however, Sam caught my eye. He may have paled, but I may have imagined that. I felt frozen, unable to move. My words caught in my throat. And Sam?

      Well, Sam looked like a kicked puppy. His brow was furrowed, lips pursed, and shoulders slumped. The worst, however, were his eyes. For lack of a better word, his eyes were sad. As a high schooler who witnesses a high amount of sadness in his school, I thought I’d seen it all. But Sam?

      I’ve never really had a way with words, and in keeping up with tradition, none came. But if someone took a picture of just Sam’s eyes and had to analyze it, they’d say he looked like he just lost a child or like someone had just told him that he was responsible for a horrific tragedy.

      In typical Sam fashion, he collected himself and returned to his emotionless stare. I could probably coin a catchphrase off his name—I could call it “pulling a Sam” in which I describe someone who pushes their emotions down in an attempt to act fine.

      That rush of annoyance was enough to push me over the edge. With some sort of courage I’d found within me, I walked over to where Sam sat and wordlessly sat down next to him. I took the proffered cup, nodded my thanks, and took a sip. I was mildly shocked that Sam’d gotten my coffee order perfectly, one cream, two sugars, but I chose not to dwell on that. After all, it just wouldn’t do to dwell on the fact that an alleged murderer knew my coffee order.

      I can’t rightly say how long we sat there, but I’d be willing to bet that it was around twenty minutes. That may not sound like much, but it felt like an eternity. We sat there in complete silence, staring straight ahead, less than a foot away from each other. Once, I thought he was about to say something, but I may have been mistaken. After all, I wasn’t the intimidating one in our little situation.

      Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore. I stood, drained the last of my coffee, discarded the cup, and walked out of the shop without so much as a glance over my shoulder. As I walked out, I could have sworn I felt him staring. Somehow, that miraculously didn’t make me turn around. God only knows how I pulled that one off. Not to brag, but I’m the most weak-willed person I know.

      I purposefully walked in front of the window Sam was still sitting in front of. I kept my eyes straight ahead and managed to not even try to sneak one look.

      I felt his eyes on me the entire time I was in his line of sight.

      I remember wondering why on earth I’d caught Sam’s interest. Surely, it couldn’t just have been loneliness—not for a man like Sam anyway. There had to be something else, something beneath the surface, something more that’d brought us together.

      *****

      Unfortunately, I never quite worked up the nerve to ask him. Every time I mustered up the courage, Sam would go off on some sort of tangent—about the people he encountered, about the “shit music the radio station played,” seemingly about anything that would get him out of talking about anything remotely serious. Far be it from Sam to actually talk anything through.

      As much respect as I have, had, and probably will always have for the man, he was the one who acted like the child—and I, the actual child, the adult. I hated that about Sam. No matter how close we got, we were never close enough for that element of fear to fully go away.

      I wish things were different. I wish I could go back and do things differently, say them differently. But it is no use thinking this way.

      Because Sam is dead.

      Chapter Seven

      Sam is dead. I suppose I should be used to it by now, with half a year having gone by, but my inability to get Sam out of my mind remains and grows stronger still. I can’t seem to go a day without being sucked down a memory rabbit hole.

      To be quite frank, I can’t foresee any type of world in which I don’t think about Sam every day. It