Page 109 of Never Forget
"How do you know that?"
"And Sam didn't go with you. Did he?"
I didn't know how to respond.
"That's because he's been with me, Jamie. I'm so sorry. I wish you didn't have to hear it this way."
She's making this up,I thought.
She reached into her purse and pulled out an envelope. "I don't know if he's mentioned it. But my father has offered to send him to college for a while now. So he could quit firefighting.”
"He doesn't plan to quit firefighting."
Amber held the envelope out to me.
"I know it sounds unbelievable. But I have his acceptance letter right here."
I didn't take it. She held it closer until I did.
My hands weren't shaking yet. I told them not to.
I opened it.
An acceptance letter. Sam's name. The university logo at the top. A start date in the fall.
I read his name three times.
"We were talking about it the whole time you were away," she said softly. "I told him he really ought to tell you before your trip. I suspect he didn't."
"He didn't mention anything."
"He wouldn't have. That's Sam, isn't it? He's not a confrontational kind of guy."
Her tone was too careful. Too rehearsed. Like a line she'd practiced in a mirror before she got out of the car.
"I wanted to tell you because I thought you ought to know. I know what Bryce did to you in high school."
The cold hit me before the words did. The specific cold of being sixteen. Of a Havensworth hallway. Of everyone knowing.
"That's none of your business, Amber."
"It is. He's my cousin. The whole family knows." She said it the way you'd mention the weather. "And when I realized Sam hadn't ended things properly with you, I came to let you know myself. I couldn't live with myself if I let him humiliate you the same way Bryce did."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
"Girls have to look out for each other, don't we?" She tilted her head.
"I don't know if I want to believe you, Amber."
My voice came out even. I didn't know how.
She reached back into her purse and pulled out a set of keys.
I recognized the shape of his before she said anything. I'd used it. My body knew it before I let my brain name it.
"I still have his key, Jamie. He's never asked for it back. I really think you ought to ask him why."
She held it up between us long enough for me to see it, then dropped it back into her purse.
