The first thing I feel when I wake up is luxury. Sam’s bed is soft, and the blankets are silky. I’m wrapped up in them naked and I love the feeling. The second feeling is like I’ve gone to the gym and pushed myself way too far. Holy shit, I never knew that sex could make you ache. It’s not a bad ache, the feeling of having been used, but I’ll definitely be wincing for a couple of days. I can’t say I regret it, though.

I roll over and find the bed empty. The light coming in the windows still has an Eastern slant, so I haven’t slept too late. I don’t have a shift today, so I have time, but I am supposed to meet Rose later. Bride’s maid dress shopping.

We didn’t exactly bother cleaning up last night, and my clothes are still strewn across the floor where Sam discarded them when he peeled them off me. I dress gingerly, testing to see just how sore I am. It’s not as bad as I thought, and I’ll be able to deal with it. Still, I’ll probably skip the gym for a few days so I don’t add to the soreness. You know you’ve had a good sex workout when you decide to skip the gym.

I wash the smudged make-up off my face, noticing my lips are swollen from kissing Sam, and I head downstairs. The minute I leave Sam’s bedroom I can smell that he’s cooking. It smells like bread and sugar, and when I come into the kitchen, I see that he’s making pancakes, a stack already set on the bar in front of the stool that I’ve kind of taken ownership of. “Good morning,” I say.

Sam spins, smiling that smile that makes the day seem brighter. “Good morning. How are you?”

“Sore,” I make a face at him. “I think you owe me a professional massage.”

He raises an eyebrow. “I can make that happen.”

“Kidding,” I say, waving a hand. “But I am very sore.”

Catching me around the waist, he pulls me in for a kiss, sneakily using his hands to massage what parts of me he can reach. “Does that feel better?”

“Yes,” I bite my lip, “but likely to lead us to more of what made me sore in the first place.” I break away from him and go to the plate of pancakes. “These look delicious.”

And oh my God, they are. They’re buttery and fluffy and some of the best pancakes that I’ve ever had. A perfect blend with the syrup. I find myself making noises that sound entirely sexual while I’m eating them. “I don’t care what you think, Sam. You’re a really good cook.”

He laughs. “You’ve only had two things that I’ve made. I could just be really good at making alfredo and pancakes.”

“Who gives a shit? They’re really good alfredo and pancakes. And don’t forget, you make a mean ice cream sundae,” I say with a wink.

“That’s true. My skills with dessert can’t be overstated.” He has his own plate of pancakes, and leans against the kitchen counter to eat them. “Can I see you again? Like this?”

“As friends?” I ask.

“Or maybe more.”

It’s so easy to ignore things at night. Everything seems a little more magical, and the impossible seems possible. All of our ideas seem a little harsher in the daylight. And I can’t ignore our history any more. But there’s a hope I can’t squash down, that maybe after last night, Sam will be more willing to talk about it.

“Twenty questions?” I ask.

He looks suspicious. “We never seem to get to the end of the game.”

“Someday we will.”

He gestures for me to continue. “Why did you do what you did on prom night.”

Sam goes rigid. “Please don’t ask me that. Not during the game.”

“Why not? Because you have to tell the truth during the game?” He places the plate of pancakes to the side and assumes a pose I know all too well. Crossed arms, clenched jaw, averted eyes. He’s not going to tell me. “Even after last night, you can’t just tell me? God, Sam, it’s been ten years. I just want to know the truth. I just want to know why. It’s like this gaping wound that I feel whenever I look at you and I know that it’s never going to start to heal if I can’t have closure.”

He looks up at me, and his eyes are angry. “I didn’t do what you think I did.”

There’s a prick of anger in my chest that grows. This is the most he’s ever said about it, and that’s what he chooses to say? “That’s all? That it’s not what I think?” I lean forward, hands on the counter. “Why does this have to be this hard? If it’s not what I think, then just tell me. But you won’t. You’ve never wanted to, and after what I saw, what else am I supposed to assume?”

It feels like there’s electricity in the air, a storm about to break open. I said last night that I could pretend that this never existed, but deep down I didn’t. Deep down I hoped that I could show him that I was worth it. That I could prove that it would be kay if he told me whatever he’s been hiding all these years. That it might still work between us if we can get past it. Tears prick at my eyes and I blink them back. I will not cry. I will not.

“We were together for a year and a half. I assumed that you would give me the benefit of the doubt. But you decided what had happened, and I never saw you again.”

“Because it hurt,” I say, my voice breaking across the room loudly. “It hurt to look at you, knowing what I’d seen and that you wouldn’t tell me what really happened. You wouldn’t explain. My heart was broken, Sam. Shattered.” I try to keep myself from crying. “Shattered.”

He comes to the bar opposite me, leaning on it, challenging me. “You don’t think my heart was broken too?” His voice has an unfamiliar rasp, a depth of emotion that I’ve rarely seen from him. “I loved you. More than anyone thought I did. More than you thought I did, and you didn’t trust me. Didn’t believe me. And then you disappeared for ten years. We live in the same fucking town and I didn’t see you for ten years.” His voice echoes off the walls. “You’re not the only person who needs closure.”

“Is that what last night was? Closure?”

He laughs sadly. “I wish. I had hoped it would be. But all last night did was make me want you more. But we’re still here having the same fight, over and over again.”

“Then tell me what happened.” I beg. “Please.”

“I CAN’T.” He yells it, and I see on his face that he regrets it. “Believe it or not, Fiona, you’re not the only person affected by this. And I can’t tell you. I can’t. I wish I could. It would make all this so much easier.”

There’s silence in the kitchen, and nothing to say. I don’t know what I would even if I had the ability to speak. Slowly, Sam comes around the counter and stands next to me. He reaches for me, gently gathering me into his arms, and I don’t have the strength not to let him. His lips press against my hair and I close my eyes, tears flowing out even though I don’t want them to. “Please, Fiona.” Sam says softly. His voice is close to breaking. “Please. We found each other again. Let us have this chance.”

I lean into him, giving in to a final weakness. “I want to. And if I’d been mature enough to have this conversation then, things might have been different. But it’s been too long, Sam. It eats at me every day. Everything you do is deliberate. Every single thing. I need to know why.” I pull back, and look him in the eye. The emotion simmering there almost makes me change my mind. Almost. “Until I do, I can’t. I’m sorry.”

He lets me go when I move away, and that adds one more little crack in my heart. Because even though I’m choosing to leave, I really wish that he would fight to make me stay.

* * *

I can’t seem to stop crying. I mean, I knew it was coming, but I hate it. And on top of crying, my body is sore, which the crying makes worse. And I can’t stop thinking about the way in which I got sore, which makes the crying worse still. I had to pull over on the side of Sam’s rural road and just let it all out. Because if feels like my heart is breaking all over again. I remember this feeling, this painful ache in my chest, like a knife was lodged there. I woke up with that feeling in my chest for years.

My mind plays it back, and I have it memorized at this point. Even though I don’t want to see it, I know it’ll be faster to relive it. To purge it and move on. God knows that I’ve done that hundreds of times before.

I can still remember the way it felt to put on my dress—a gorgeous princess ball gown in a burgundy. I searched through what felt like every store in Hawthorne—and some in Boston—to find Sam a tie that perfectly matched my dress. It seemed so important at the time, that we match exactly. And we did. He in turn brought me a corsage with a rose that color. I still have that corsage, dried. Even though it’s a painful reminder, I’ve never been quite willing to get rid of it.

Sam had come to the door and I remember the way my heart felt full. Full of life and possibility and love. We’d only just told each other that we love each other a few weeks before, and the sensation of being able to say it was still new and exciting. My father and Rose took pictures of us. I don’t know which one sent him the picture that’s in his parents’ house. It doesn’t matter now. After we’d taken pictures for what felt like hours, we left for the dance. Sam’s father had just given him a car, and even though I could tell my father was nervous about two teenagers alone in a new car, he let us go.

It was just as glamorous as I’d dreamed. We made a perfect entrance, stared at by both our friends and our enemies, took cliché pictures in the photo booth, and danced until we were both breathless and laughing, ready for a slow song. Sam and I had made plans to leave early and spend some time together alone. My father would have had a fit if I’d spent the night out, and so we needed to make time before I had to be home for curfew. I remember that Sam’s parents didn’t seem to care whether he stayed out or not.

We were getting ready to leave, to go to the hotel room that Sam had reserved for the two of us at the fanciest hotel in Hawthorne, when he excused himself to go to the bathroom. I was having some punch, laughing with some of my friends when it all came crashing down. Another of my friends came rushing up to me, out of breath like she’d been running, telling me I needed to get behind the school. She’d just seen Sam go back there with one of the cheerleaders—Lacy Davis. I told her that was ridiculous, that we were about to go to our hotel. She wouldn’t listen, dragging me with her across the dance floor and through the halls of the school to the quad out back.

And there he was—I could just see him around the corner, with an unmistakable female hand wrapped far too closely around his waist. I called his name, and I remember the shock and horror on his face as he turned, and the way he shoved her away. Lacy’s lipstick was smudged, and her face was smug as she walked past me into the school. She even had the audacity to give me a little wave.

I asked Sam what happened, and he said nothing. He just stared at the ground, arms crossed, jaw clenched. He wouldn’t say anything even though I screamed at him, even though I begged him to tell me what I saw wasn’t real. The only thing he did was to shake his head and say that he couldn’t say anything. I was gutted. I felt like someone had taken a saw and carved me open and my guts were spilling out on the ground, the same color of my dress.

I barely remember anything after that. I remember crying and being on the school’s bathroom floor, some of my friends with me. I remember Rose coming to get me, and I remember falling asleep, still in my dress. I tried to get Sam to talk to me a couple of more times, but he wouldn’t budge. That same stance, that same shake of his head, and then I let him go. I made a plan to cut him and his family out of my life forever.

Until Rose had to go and fall in love with his younger brother. Just my luck.

I wipe the remaining tears from my eyes and take a breath. I don’t understand why he won’t just admit it. That he cheated. If it was a mistake, it’s been ten years. And even though I’ll be pissed, I could get over it. If it’s something different, then I need it explained. Otherwise I’m going to have that horrible, brutal moment stuck in my head forever. Always wondering why I wasn’t enough. Always wondering how he got behind the school with Lacy. Always wondering why he’d make that decision.

Putting my car into drive, I pull back onto the road. I need to get back to my house and change before I’m supposed to meet Rose. And I desperately need to wash my face so it doesn’t look like I’m a drowned rat when I get there.

* * *

Rose knows something is up the minute I walk into the dress salon. I don’t know how. I went home and made sure my make-up was perfect so that absolutely no one would know that I’d been crying for a couple of hours.

“What happened?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She gives me a look. “That’s bullshit. Sam messaged me. He told me that you fought again, and that he’d like you to call him.”

I did notice that there were a few missed calls from him on my phone. I didn’t respond. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Seriously, Fiona, what happened?”

The girl from the salon approaches us at that moment and I get a glorious reprieve. I’m marched through the store and have to choose dresses I like that fit within Roses color scheme—silver and blue. Once I settle on a style and color she’ll pick a color for the rest of the bridesmaids. Since I’m the Maid of Honor, she wants me to be a little bit different. Armed with half a dozen dresses, our attendant ushers me into a fitting room while Rose lounges outside.

“I think you should call him,” she says.

“No.”

She sighs. “Didn’t we just talk yesterday about how you two were going to be civil to each other? That you were going to put all of it aside for the sake of the wedding or whatever?”

“Yeah, well we tried,” I say, wiggling into a navy blue gown that I think goes well with my skin tone. I push out of the fitting room and the attendant arranges me on one of those pedestals in front of mirrors, politely trying to ignore our obviously personal conversation.

I see her raise an eyebrow in the mirror. “When between yesterday and today did you have time to try?” She motions for me to spin, and I do. It’s a pretty dress, draped and empire waisted with a vaguely Grecian feel. It’s pretty, but I’m not stunned by it.

Doing my best to not meet her eyes, I say, “We had dinner last night. Agreed to have a truce about the whole thing. Give it a shot as if we’d never met each other.” I rush into the dressing room as I see her jaw drop and the attendant helps me out of the dress. I grab the robe that the salon has for in-between dresses, and I smile at her. “Do you think you could give us a couple of minutes.”

“Sure.” She scurries out of there almost faster than I can get the robe closed, and I step outside, arms crossed.

“Fine, okay? Fine. We had dinner.” I give her an overview of what happened, the basic rundown of what we agreed, and how we ended up spending the night together. I don’t tell her the glorious details—though she asks. I don’t tell her just how many times we fucked and how I’m sore enough that I can still feel his hands on my skin. But I fill her in on what happened this morning. How he said it didn’t have anything to do with me and he couldn’t tell me. “I can’t do it, Rose. I’ve lived with that memory for ten years. I can’t just pretend that it didn’t happen. It would eat away at us like acid until we fell apart all over again.”

“But you would do it?” she asks. “You would be with him all over again?”

“Yes.” The word is instantaneous. Of course I would. I never stopped loving Sam. They say you never forget your first love, and with us it’s like it was crystallized. Frozen but not quite broken. I can still hear the pain in his voice this morning, and I know he’s there with me too. He’s said so many times that he wants me. I just wish I could want him without knowing. I wish I were strong enough to move on. But I’m not.

I sit down on the couch beside Rose and put my head in my hands, and she rubs gentle circles on my back. “What do I do?”

“You should talk to him,” she says. “Maybe he’s changed his mind. If he reached out to me, he’s desperate. Sam and I aren’t exactly close.”

“Why would he just change his mind after all this time?”

Rose shrugs. “Maybe after last night he realizes just how badly he wants you back? Maybe he’s decided that you’re worth more than this secret?”

“I don’t know, Rose.”

“When I screwed it up with Thomas, you told me to go get him. You told me that it’s never too late and that’s true. Now if he’s asking to talk to you, and you want to be with him, you need to suck it up and talk to him.”

“Fine,” I say, sighing. “I hate it when you’re right.”

We call the attendant back in, and she helps me into the various dresses that we’ve picked. And we do find one—a lovely silver gown that reminds me a little of what I wore to her engagement party. But in my head I’m somewhere else entirely. I’m with Sam, wondering what he’s thinking and what he wants to say to me after our conversation this morning. I think Rose knows that’s where my head is, because she’s smiling whenever she has to repeat something or get my attention. Finally, after I’ve been pinned within an inch of my life, Rose lets me go. But not before telling me, “Go get him, sister,” with a wink. I’m eating my own words now.

I’m walking to my car when my phone buzzes again. I look at it, and find Sam’s name on the screen. Might as well get this over with now. I pick up, “Sam, I—”

“Fiona,” he says, voice frantic. “Zeus ate half an onion. I’m making chili and he stole it off the counter. He keeps trying to throw it up and he seems like he’s in pain.”

He doesn’t have to say anything more. “I’m on my way.”