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It was another late night. Jen had just got home from the hospital. It had been another grueling shift, but she'd had worse days.
Now she was home, doing her usual routine of heating up her Lean Cuisine, sipping a glass of red wine, and reevaluating what her life even was in the deafening silence of the home she lived in alone.
She felt the wine seep into her body, soothing the dark emotions she was having. She knew that eating would perk her up too. There had been no time during the day. She was running on coffee and a single cigarette she'd bummed off of her charge nurse.
A knock at the door startled her. She looked over her shoulder to the door, and was reminded of her current task as the beep of her microwave startled her yet again.
Quickly pulling the microwave door open and shutting it to silence it, she sat her glass of wine down and hurried toward the door. Before she could get there, another knock sounded. Softer, less urgent than before.
"Who is it," she rasped on, voice weak from having talked constantly all day, only to come home and have not a soul to speak too.
"It's me," she heard a familiar voice come from the other side.
Sammy.
Jen opened the door for him and stepped aside, welcoming him in. He was in his casual detective dress of wranglers, tennis shoes, a polo shirt and his leather jacket. His eyes were bagged heavily, curls a mess like he'd been running his hands through them.
"You look like you need a beer," Jen said, closing the door and walking back to the kitchen, Sammy hot on her heels.
"You have no idea," he replied. Jen grabbed him one from the fridge, twisting the top off and handing it to him.
She picked her glass of wine back up as Sammy slid into one of her island chairs and took a long swig. Jen's eyes moved towards the microwave where her dinner was, but thinking again she didn't care. She wasn't hungry.
"I'm sorry for crashing your night. If you need to eat or anything don't let me keep you from it," Sammy said before taking another drink.
Jen shook her head, "It's ok. I'm not that hungry anymore."
She sipped her wine.
Sammy's presence always brought a unique mix of emotions. On one hand, Jen cared for him deeply. She'd loved the guy her whole life. And then there was that sick feeling that brewed in her stomach. From pain, from betrayal. Because in the end, Sammy didn't choose her, he chose Tammi...
Breaking away from her thoughts Jen said, "So what's going on now?"
She was trying hard to be empathetic, but she was drained from her day. She also knew it was silly to ask. She knew what the problem was...
"It's Tammi," Sammy said and shook his head. Now that Jen looked at him, she could see tears streaming down his face as he cried quietly. "So there's this kid I've been looking after, trying to catch him before he ends up in a gang. But he shot and killed another kid today. Two lives ended, just like that."
Sammy sobbed into his hands.
Jen felt her senses come to her and she went to him at the bar, putting one hand on his back, and the other on the opposite side of his head, gently pulling him into an embrace. She wasn't sure what this had to do with Tammi, but she could hardly bear to see him so torn up.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered, placing her cheek atop his head.
At this point he'd melted into her, arms around her and grabbing onto the back of her shirt as he sobbed in her shoulder.
His sobs became less violent, and then he pulled it together to speak again.
"And as if having one of the worst days this job could ever give me isn't enough, I go home to find Tammi passed out because she got high with some dumbass kid, who stole her camera which I bankrupted myself to get her because I'm trying to support her aspirations and-," another sob cut him off and he gripped onto Jen tighter, pulling her closer to him.
She hated how upset he was, but in her own selfishness, she couldn't help but enjoy the moment of vulnerability he was sharing with her. The way they were touching each other. One would think she'd have felt guilty, but she didn't. And maybe she was shady for that, but Tammi was bad news and always had been. Jen didn't like her anyway, but she had liked her less and less through the years as she saw what she had done to Sammy and his life.
"It's ok Sammy. It's ok. Come on," she said peeling him off of her and out of the chair.
Pulling him by the hand, she led him into the bathroom with her.
Summer 1988
Jen watched as the big moving truck pulled into the house next to where she lived. She'd heard her parents talking about how the house had sold and that they were going to have new neighbors.
Behind the truck pulled in a car, where she saw a lady was driving, but more intriguing to her was the boy in the back seat. She stared at him and he stared right back.
That was the day she'd met Sammy. Turning to him, she saw that he'd pulled his jacket off. Stepping toward him, she undid the top buttons of his polo for him, before releasing the tie on her scrub pants.
Jen reached into the shower, turning it on so the water would be hot by the time they both finished stripping.
It was more than clear to the both of them that their friendship wasn't normal. There was a lot of blurred lines, lack of boundaries, but it was just how they were. Sometimes they felt guilty, but it never stopped their times together.
Deep down, Sammy knew he was the reason that Jen had never settled down and got married, never seriously dated anybody. And Jen knew that for as much as she didn't like Tammi, the relationship she had carried on with Sammy was wrong.
They never had sex. At least they hadn't since they were teenagers. The tension was there, and it would always be there, but they had never crossed that line.
This thing they had going on now was much less cut and dry than some kind of physical affair. This was about comfort. About familiarity. It was emotional, spiritual.
Silently they both got into the shower, switching back and forth who got to be in the water, taking turns scrubbing the other with Jen's loofa.
Sammy was now facing away from Jen as she scrubbed his back, lost in the freckles across his broad muscular shoulders. She'd done this far too many times.
1992
"Sammy!"
Standing in the creek, she looked down at all the small fish and tadpoles that swarmed around her ankles.
Sammy came running from where he was, about 20 feet up the creek from her.
She glanced up to see him running to her and felt her cheeks grow warmer than the sun could ever make them.
Her and Sammy had been best friends since him and his family had moved into the neighborhood four years ago, but something was changing between them.
As embarrassing as it was, they had both hit puberty around the same time, and they were both silently observing the physical changes they each were experiencing.
Sammy's features had grown sharper as his baby face faded away. He'd also grown much taller than Jen in just a short amount of time, baby fat melting away and filling in with muscle definition, becoming more handsome by the day.
Likewise, Jen had also shed her baby weight as her curves filled in and she morphed into a beautiful young woman.
It didn't help they were both steeped to their eyeballs in hormones. But despite these new and weird feelings, they still had their friendship that had bloomed in childhood innocence.
Sammy stood next to her looking as Jen pointed in the water. As he watched, Jen's entire body heated up as she realized their proximity. It made her head swirl, and then she was painfully aware that she was nearly naked, just in a bikini next to him.
Suddenly her knees buckled, and she crashed into the water, scaring away all of the animal life that they had been observing.
"Jen," Sammy said, coming to stand over her. He grabbed her by her shoulders and hauled her back to her feet like she weighed nothing. He brushed off the bits of leaves and small rocks that had stuck to her wet skin. "Are you ok?"
Her heart raced as she realized the way he was holding her sides.
"I'm ok. I think I just got too hot," she managed. Her mouth was dry. Her cheeks were on fire. How could someone be so embarrassed but so thrilled at the same time. Avoiding his eyes, she looked down at Sammy's hands.
Sammy watched her and felt embarrassed himself when he finally realized.
"I uh-," he cleared his throat and slowly released her. His cheeks now flushed in red, ears becoming hot. Like Jen, he realized how close together they were, and how very little clothing they were each wearing. It also had made his head spin to know the effect his touch had on her.
That was the last time they'd went to the creek together. That had been the end of the simplicity between them.
Silently, Sammy turned, taking the loofa from Jen, where he began scrubbing her back now.
1995
Sammy sat on Jen's bed while she stood across the room staring at him.
She was mortified. This was the first time she'd seen him cry since they were little.
Her heart ached for him.
This was the day Sammy's dad had died.
Their friendship changed after the incident at the creek, sure. But Sammy's dad dying was when everything really went off the rails.
Jen sat next to Sammy softly.
"I don't know what to say," she said.
Sammy sniffed and wiped at his eyes with his fingers.
"You don't have to say anything. Just... thanks for being here for me," he said.
Jen put her arms around his shoulders, and sat her chin on his shoulder. She breathed in the familiar, comforting smell of him.
Sammy moved his head, allowing it to rest against hers briefly. They both readjusted, coming eye to eye. They paused, inches from the other’s face and then suddenly they were kissing each other.
The feeling was indescribable. Like they'd both just taken their very first breath.
And then their kisses became more heated, more hungry. They grabbed at one another, both inexperienced but instinctually knowing what to do because of the invisible thread that had always connected them.
Jen's hands flew to Sammy's pants, unbuckling his belt, and undoing the button and zipper of his jeans. He moved, leaning his back against the wall, half sitting up.
Jen could feel him through his boxers, and turned him loose. She quickly pulled her cotton sleep shorts to the side and they joined together.
Their lips only broke apart for only a short time, to mutually breathe out in relief at the long awaited release of this tension.
But they both knew there was more to it than just lust. They loved each other. Loved each other in a way they didn't know they could have loved another human being in.
Jen felt tears slide down her face as she faced away from Sammy. She had to get it together or she would have a full on melt down. She felt when he was done scrubbing her back and turned around to face him, taking her loofa back.
She avoided his eyes as she rinsed it, but he grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him.
He was frowning with concern, "Are you ok?"
She swallowed the lump in her throat and put on her best normal voice, "Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"
Sammy searched her eyes. She could lie right through her teeth, but he knew her too well for her to get away with it.
"Because that's the face you make when you're about to cry."
1996
Sammy watched Jen from across her room as she pulled dresses from her closet and held them over her body as she looked in the mirror, chatting with him as she always did.
Since the day his dad died, and what had happened between them after, he'd put distance between himself and Jen.
His dad dying had fucked him up. It hurt so bad. And in a way, the distance he had worked hard to create between him and Jen was a result of him not wanting to love anyone so much again, that when something inevitably happened to them, that it nearly killed him too.
In their time apart, he'd fallen in with a different crowd. The burnouts he guessed they were. Creative and artsy, potheads. Anything that didn't remind him of who he was before his dad died.
"Oh hey... I kind of just assumed we would go together, but just to confirm, you're going to go to prom with me right," Jen asked him as she turned to him.
She was beaming, which was why it killed him for what he was going to say next.
"Um... well... that's kinda what I needed to talk to you about," he said nervously.
Jen immediately felt sick to her stomach but she tried not to let it show.
Sammy patted the spot on her bed next to him and she quickly came to sit there.
"What's up," she asked, trying to remain cheerful.
Sammy swallowed hard before he spoke.
"So... I kind of already have a date to the prom... with Tammi... because she's my girlfriend now," he said.
No matter how gently he broke the news to her, he knew it would crush her.
He watched Jen and saw how her eyes seemed to flash through the five stages of grief. And then there was that look.
A vacant stare, taut jaw. He watched her swallow again and again. Choking down her feelings as her eyes became glossy, tears pooling in them.
"Oh man," she finally said, standing up with her back to him. She tried to nonchalantly wipe her tears with the sleeve of her hoodie. She felt like she'd pulled it together enough to face him. Turning, she plastered on a huge fake smile and said, "Wow. That's awesome." She willed her tears to stay in her eyes as she forced herself to say, "I'm so happy for you."
And then a tear fell down her face.
Just as a tear fell down her face now as Sammy looked at her.
She didn't have to tell him why. He knew why.
"Come on," she said in the strained tone she always had when she was feigning that she was ok.
He said nothing, just followed her lead.
Out of the shower now, they dried off, and headed to Jen's room without exchanging a single word.
Jen went to the drawer where she kept spare clothes for Sammy and tossed them to him before picking out her own pjs and climbing into them.
She was ok now. Able to reflect on the past that hung on between them.
Her and Sammy had been the kind of kids who grew up on the right side of the tracks, did well in school. It was perfect.
But when Sammy's dad died, he changed. Suddenly he didn't care about school anymore, didn't seem to care about Jen anymore either.
She remembered the way he'd separated himself from her. She knew he was hurting, and just thought he'd needed space, which was certainly true. But his vulnerability had made him prey to the new group he'd fallen into.
They were too cool for school. And they smoked pot. A lot of pot. And that was the outlet Sammy had chose to deal with his grief. That was how he met Tammi.
But eventually he'd healed and his priorities changed, but Tammi's hadn't. Somewhere along the way, her development stunted.
Sammy had grown up. He quit being a stoner, became a cop, worked up to be a detective. He had a mortgage, made Tammi an honest woman. And now all he wanted was a family.
And as this had happened, his relationship with Tammi had become strained. He loved her. Loved her in his own way. But the way she was still acting at the grown age they were at had him reevaluating the way he'd been living his life.
And when he did this, his mind had always returned to Jen and what life could have been like with her. Even what life could be like with her...
When they were young, Jen burned bright like the sunshine. Always warm, always cheerful. But as an adult, she had changed.
The girl he knew was buried deep down, and there were times that the familiar sunshine would peak through the cracks of the safety walls she had built around herself.
He saw it when she'd smile, when he'd get her to laugh; it was within the tenderness she used when she touched him, or fixed his coffee just the way he liked.
But the years of pining, heartache, and burying herself in her job at the ER had dulled her shine. And Sammy knew it was all his fault.
Him and Jen had carried on like this for years. There was a while when they hadn't talked. After graduation they had went their own ways, going to college, living their own lives.
Then Sammy proposed to Tammi. And more than anything, he wanted his best friend at his wedding.
He'd tracked Jen down and sent her an invitation. Day after day he'd anxiously awaited her RSVP to come through but it never did. And then came the big day.
Jen never showed.
It gutted him, but he understood.
Jen could have never been ok if she had went to Sammy's wedding. She was really going to try to be there for him but the thought alone made her sick to her stomach. And instead of going, she spent the day in her bathtub getting wasted. She knew it was pathetic. Even more so when she woke up covered in her own vomit.
After that, Sammy decided it was best to leave things as they were. That was until Tammi had been Tammi, and pulled her first stunt in a long line of them that would disappoint Sammy more and more as time went on.
He had no one else to turn to.
And that was how he'd found himself on Jen's doorstep.
Reuniting had been weird. At first they'd just stood and stared at one another, and then Jen invited him in. They did small talk as much as they could, but then the big question came up as to why Sammy was here. And he broke down in her arms.
It was the first time she'd seen him cry since they'd buried his dad.
And that's the way it had been going for them. Always turning to one another for their break downs and upset.
Somehow Tammi never knew, but to Jen that was red flag number one. Did she not care enough to know what her husband was doing on the nights they'd fight and he wouldn't come home? It was late and he'd been here an hour, and not once had she called him.
They both laid in bed now, taking their usual position of Jen facing away from Sammy while he held her tightly to his chest. She was comfortable and she loved being this way with him, but she stared at the wall, knowing sleep would not come to her.
"I'm sorry, Jen."
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"What are you sorry for Sammy," she asked. She didn't need to. She knew.
"That this is all we have," he said. She felt herself start to cry again. "I want you to know that I regret not building my life with you. I should have married you."
Jen sniffed, "Well, it certainly would have saved us a lot of headaches, huh?"
"Yeah," he said softly, pulling her closer to him.
"You know," she said, feeling brave. "I have loved you my whole entire life, and it's caused me unimaginable suffering. But I want you to know that I don't regret a second of it."
And it was true.
Sammy swallowed, "I can't take much more of the way things are. Things will start changing soon."
"If they do, I'll be around," Jen replied. "Just like I always have been."