Page 110 of Never Forget
"Goodbye, Amber." I turned toward the driver's side.
"If you won't believe me about that," she said, "maybe you'd want to know the truth about what happened to your brother."
"Don't youdarebring Jack into this."
"Jack wasn't supposed to be working that night, Jamie." Amber's voice was soft. "He was only there because Sam asked him to cover for him. Sam was with me."
I couldn't answer her.
The parking lot was there. Amber was there. My hand was on the door of the car. I knew all of that the way you know things when the rest of you has stopped working.
"Maybe that's why he couldn't tell you up front. Because he feels guilty." Amber tilted her head. "He's playing you, Jamie.And I thought you ought to know so you can make an informed decision about whether you really want to be with Sam Reeves."
She paused.
"If you won't believe me, ask him."
CHAPTER 28
Sam
I came off shift at 7:00 a.m., drove home to my apartment, slept for three hours I didn't know I needed. Showered, and grabbed a change of clothes.
Jamie had asked me to move in before she left for New York. I'd told her I wanted to. But moving in wasn't a matter of a suitcase or two—it meant closing out my apartment, figuring out what to keep and what to sell, and deciding whether we could fit everything into her place or whether we needed to look for something bigger. That was a real conversation, not a quick one. And Jamie had spent the last two weeks emptying out her life in New York. I wasn't going to pile my logistics on top of hers.
I was at her door a little after noon.
I let myself in with the key she'd given me and called her name from the entryway. She was at the kitchen counter. She turned when I came in. I crossed the room and kissed her, and she let me, but her hands didn't come up to my jacket the way they usually did.
"Hey."
She smiled at me but it didn't reach her eyes.
Something in my chest tightened before I'd done the math on it.
"Is everything okay?"
She didn't answer for a second.
"You're late."
"Yeah. I went back to my apartment. I needed a shower, and I was low on clothes here." I opened the fridge and grabbed a drink. She was still at the counter, looking at nothing.
"Jamie?"
She turned around.
"I saw Amber yesterday."
Amber's name landed in the middle of the kitchen.
"She gave me this."
She picked up an envelope and held it out to me.
I took it. It was an acceptance letter that had my name in bold, a start date in the fall, and the logo of a university I had never sent an application to.
"I don't know what this is." I read it again, because I wanted to make sure I wasn't losing my mind. My name was spelled right. The address was mine. The start date was September. "Jamie, I never applied anywhere. I've never seen this letter. I never filled out?—"
