You Mustn't Give Your Heart To A Wild Thing

“Have you packed everything you need?”

I groaned loudly and adjusted the messy bun I’d pulled my hair into atop my head, raven tendrils spilling from the worn elastic I’d secured it with; tickling my cheeks and dropping into my eyes. “I think so” I mumbled, shifting closer on my knees to the suitcase led at the foot of my bed. “ ‘ow do I know what ‘m gonna need? The last time I went there it were winter”

“And you went dressed in shorts” Sam quipped, her eyebrows crooked in amusement.

“Tha’s really helpful, Sam” I applauded, scanning the room for the pumps I knew I’d retrieved from my car and spotting them on the hamper beneath the window. “Keep the encouragement comin’”

“Sorry” She offered, and awkward smile flashing across her peach lips. “I’m just anxious about you leaving, for the whole summer”

I froze to the spot, each pump dangling from my pointed pinky fingers. “Ye don’ need t’ worry about me. I’m goin’ to Baltimore, with Alex, ‘m hardly gonna slip back into my old ways when I’m surrounded by ‘is family now, am I?”

She was nodding feverishly, “I know that” She assured, “I know, you’ll be fine. It’s just, for once…for once I’m not worried about you.” She took a deep breath in, and drug her bright blue eyes to meet my murky browns. “I’m worried about me, and what I’m gonna do without you. All summer”

She seemed more than a little shocked at my launching of myself at her, or so I gathered from the shrill shriek that burst from her when our bodies collided and the way in which we both stumbled a good foot or two across my messy bedroom.

“’ll be back for our friend-aversary” I breathed into her fiery red hair, clutching onto her tight and giving her a light squeeze. “We can go out an’ celebrate that day when ye came an’ bailed me out”

“Wasn’t that the same date you left England?” She asked, speaking mouth before brain; something I knew she realised a second too late, “Shit. I didn’t mean to…”

“It were the date that ye gave me a fresh start” I smiled, pulling myself from her and letting my arms go limp at my sides. Would papering over one momentous date with another work, I wondered. Would it go towards freeing myself from the guilt I felt when I though about the way I’d left home and everybody that was there? “Or at least helped me make one. I wouldn’ be ‘ere without ye, ye know that right, ye aware that without ye I’d probably be long gone”

Sam gulped loudly; a lot louder than she’d expected, before bustling across the room to fetch the sweater I’d caught her eyeing a few minutes before. “You should take this. I know it’s summer, and it’s probably just as hot in Baltimore as it is here, but it might rain, or it might get really cold at night…or something”

I took the navy FIDM sweater from her and folded it neatly on top of everything else that I’d just haphazardly thrown into my case. “Ye the sister an’ the best friend that I never ‘ad at home, ye know that right?” I encouraged, “Hell, ye the Mum I’d ‘av loved to have”

“Hey!” She exclaimed momentarily, her face softening the second she noticed the panicked expression on mine. “I’m younger than you, you know” She mumbled.

I chuckled softly and reached to envelope her in my arms once again. “Ye know what I mean, so stop”

I felt her smirk against my shoulder, and caught the offending curl of her lips as she pulled herself back upright. “When’s Alex coming to get you?” She posed, swiftly changing the subject.

“Once he an’ your man-candy ‘av had a hug not dissimilar to ours” I joked, folding to my knees next to my luggage. “ ‘e said ‘e had to pick up a few things from the store, for his Mum” I answered sincerely, my brow crumpling as I noted the two pairs of jeans lying at my side. “D’ye know if I put these here f’ a reason, or…”

“Pack one” Sam advised, throwing a quick glance in my direction. “I sincerely doubt you’ll need even one pair of pants with you, in this weather, but like I said, it might get colder at night or…I’ve never been to Baltimore, I wouldn’t know”

“Ye should come visit for a few days” I reasoned. “ ‘s more than enough room for ye at Alexs parents, they ‘ad the ‘ole family there at Christmas. It were ment…”

My words trailed off into nothing as I remember the previous Christmas. The plane ticket to Leeds and Bradford airport, and the blazing argument that ensued.

“You and Alex need some time alone over there” Sam said, as if she’d spent the last minute reading my mind and everything that was plaguing it. “I’ll be fine living vicariously through your postcards or something”

“Ye want me t’ send ye postcards?” I mused, “ ‘m only gonna be goin’ t’ one place, a picture of the same damn view ‘ll probably get a little tedious after a while”

“You can probably get a multi-pack or something” She grinned, “Besides, I’ll need something to liven the apartment up a little bit while you’re gone”

“Ye gonna replace me with small rectangles of card?” I exclaimed, pressing an open palm to my chest and feigning to be more than a little hurt by the suggestion.

“Pretty, small rectangles of card” Sam teased, “well the prettiest you can find in Baltimore, which, I don’t know…it could be a, what do they have out there?”

“Nothing that can replace me in ye life” I scorned, “for long anyway”

“I’m not looking for a replacement” She smiled small, “Just a substitute for when Buffy re-runs are on, or, y’know, when Danny pisses me off and I feel like barricading myself in the apartment for a few hours…or days”

There was something hiding between and beneath each of her words. I’d say she was picking her words incredibly carefully despite the light banter, I’d say that there was something bothering her…and nothing ever bothered her. Well that she shared, anyway.

“What’s up sugarplum?” I enthused.

It was startlingly obvious that I didn’t have the first clue as to how to ask her how she was, how she really was; mainly because it had never been necessary before, but I feared that it could be down to me not paying enough attention to know that there was something up. I hated to admit it , but my thoughts worked on a steady rotation, home, school, Alex, repeat.

“I mean are ye…” The corner of my lip caught beneath my teeth and I urged her to meet my gaze silently. “Ye okay Sam aren’t ye? ‘s nothing wrong?”

She jammed her hands deep into her pockets, and kept them there. “Sam. Ye…”

“Your brother” She mumbled, quietly and with no further explanation. Sam was silent, completely silent…and Sam was never silent.

I watched closely as she shuffled carefully between my case and the intricate metal frame of the bed, and towards the door. “That’s it?” I questioned, raising both eyebrows in her direction. “Ye jus’ gonna say ‘ye brother’ an’ leave?”

A small, hesitant smile creased across her lips and she motioned towards the hall. “I’m going to get something to show you”

I moved to follow her but she quickly shooed me away with a soft ‘wait here’. And I did. I waited patiently through what sounded like her room being torn apart and I waited whilst she composed herself just outside my door. I could see her shadow on the wall opposite.

“The package was open when it arrived” She babbled, cutting short any questions posed. “I didn’t open it, well I did, but not originally. I was concerned, y’know, an open package in the mail. I just…it’s from Jake, for you. I should’ve given it to you sooner but I couldn’t find the time and then, you and Alex, you…”

It was then that she seemed to fade away again.

That afternoon it was as if Sam were an old television set struggling to work. Every now and again I’d get a flash of the picture, a flicker of what I wanted to see, but as soon as it appeared, it was gone again, and I was just left with nothing. Completely blank. Where the Eskimos have hundreds of different words for snow, Sam usually had thousands to describe her mood. But not today.

I could see the words had formed a large lump in her throat, one that she was having trouble swallowing back down. “Sit down” I instructed, throwing myself into the centre of my mattress and hoping that she’d follow suit.

“Look at me, I’m pathetic, I can’t even…”

“Sit” I repeated, patting the space beside me.

“Aren’t I the demanding one usually?” She questioned, climbing across the comforter and sitting crisscross applesauce next to me. “And you’re the one being told to sit or whatever?”

I shrugged slowly, my eyes settling on her balled fist lying in her lap. “ I guess so“ I reasoned, “‘s this what ye…”

“Wait!” She exclaimed, snatching her hand from my grasp and holding it loftily in the air above our heads. “Just, you haven’t let me finish. Let me finish the story, okay?”

“I wasn’ stopping’ ye love” I sighed, treading carefully; keeping my observations that it was in fact her stopping herself, to myself.

She crooked her head from one side to the next, rolling her shoulders a little as she did so; as if she were warming up for the one hundred metre dash. “I wasn‘t sure you should see it” She continued, unexpectedly cutting directly to the point she’d been skirting around previously. “I mean of course you should, it‘s yours, I‘ve no say in the matter, I just…I‘m wary that it‘ll do more harm than good. I know you thought things with Jake and Alex went well and this, this isn‘t to say that it didn‘t, it just might make you second guess something…even if that‘s not its intent”

“Wha’s in the parcel?” I interrupted swiftly. Afraid that if I didn’t we’d never get to the bottom of this and Alex and I would never get to Baltimore this Summer, or any other for that matter.

“He sent you some things from home” She stated simply, “some things of Olivers”

It was my turn to freeze. I was entirely motionless bar my eyes that were searching the corners of her mouth for the smirk that would giveaway the joke, this joke. “Wha’s in the parcel” I repeated, unable to think of anything else to say. “What d’ye mean things of Olivers?”

Her lips parted to explain, but the words never actually left her mouth. Instead she thrust the package towards me, sending it tumbling into my lap and pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her forehead against them.

The parcel was surprisingly light on my thigh and I could see that it had been damaged in the top right corner; the brown paper looked chewed and torn revealing the white box within. “Ye said this were open when we got it”

Sam nodded but didn’t look up. “When ye picked it up from downstairs, it were like this?”

I didn’t mean to sound sceptical and I wasn’t trying to point an unsure finger in anyone’s direction; to be honest I wasn’t even sure of the crime I was trying to pin on her, but any distraction was welcome. Concentrating on the state of my parcel was keeping me away from its contents.

“It was open as if someone had already looked inside”

“’s convenient”

I hadn’t meant to scathe, or even talk.

She drug her head up slowly and I met her bloodshot blue eyes with mine. She looked lost, and that wasn’t Sam, Sam was never lost. She knew where she was and even more so she knew exactly where she was headed.

“I shouldn’t have given it to you” She mumbled, making a misjudged grab for the package.

“Ye shouldn’ have taken it in the first place” I argued, her wrist caught in my right hand. “Ye don’t see me keeping stuff from ye. I’d never dream of stealin’ ye post, I wouldn’ even…”

“I thought it was for the best” She retorted, straightening herself up and snatching her wrist from me. “You’re just getting straight. You’re in love with a good guy and you’re happy, Verity. You are happy”

“What makes ye think that whatever’s in this…” I enthused, waving the package loftily above my head. “will change that? D’ye really think that there’s something of Olivers that can make me think ‘ye know what, fuck this, fuck Alex, ‘m goin’ home’?”

She breathed slowly in and out for a few seconds before parting her lips. “Take a look”

She hadn’t answered either way, which made me even more wary of what it was I could possibly be holding. I couldn’t imagine Jake sending me something of Olivers that would upset me, although to be honest I couldn’t imagine him sending me anything of Olivers at all. We’d spoken about Oliver when Jake had visited a few weeks before, but it was nothing. It was brief, it was in passing. Jake had waxed lyrical about Alex and the way I was with him, the good thing we had going. Why would he send me something to the contrary?

“It’s not something that’s going to have you running home” Sam offered, somewhat reluctantly.

‘today, at least’ lost in the jumble of Alexs excited entrance.