"Now what?" He asked his friend, and right at this very moment his rock.
"Now Sammy, you need to let her go, slowly, or all at once. You can decide but you need to let her be free." Oliver responded putting and arm around his brother, holding on tightly.
"But I don't want to let her go. I don't want her to be free, I want her here; with me." He couldn't stop his mind from racing, he just wanted it to stop; all of it, he wanted it to just stop. The clocks to stop ticking, time passing, the world turning he wanted all of it to just stop. He felt like he couldn't breath like his lungs forgot how to do their most basic function, and to be honest he hoped they would.
"I know you don't want to Sam but you need too. It's going to hurt everyday, it's going to hurt like hell, but you're going to get up, and move on. But for today, right now, we can sit here, for as long as you want, we can sit here but eventually we need to get up and go." He felt helpless all he could do was watch his best friend slip away, he wasn't going to recover from this, Sam would never be the same again. He would look a little broken everyday for the rest of his life, and that tore Oliver apart.
"I feel, like I can't go on, I feel like I'm lost, like I'm walking around on a dark, foggy night alone, and there's no way for me to get home." He paused, as the tears formed in his eyes, "I'm never going to find my home again, my home was right here, she was my home, Ollie.." He stopped again, and let out a shaky breath. "Ollie, what do I do, what do I do without her?" He asked, and Oliver didn't have an answer. "She was it, she was all I had, all I every wanted and she's gone, and I have nothing, I am nothing."
He wanted to just turn his brain off, turn off all emotions, all memories of her, because this, this state he was in, was killing him, he wouldn't survive, he couldn't.
"You're still you, you're still Sam Swarek, the most caring, protective son-of-a-bitch I know, and the man who I thought could never truly love someone but you proved me wrong brother, you loved her, and she knew you did, you showed her since the say you met her, you let her go when she was with Luke because you thought that it would make her happy, you let her go with Nick because he made her happy, Sam you loved her so selflessly, and I couldn't be prouder than I am to say that watching you love her made me a better person. But Sammy, brother, you need to let her go."
He knew Oliver was right, but there was a huge part of him that hoped she'd walk up to them up at any moment, or his phone would ring as she called him asking where he was, or buzz with some goofy text message asking what he wanted for dinner, knowing full well he'd be doing all the cooking.
"Ollie, I can't do this, I don't know how to do this." He paused again and shook his head, "And I don't know if I want too."
"Sammy, remember when you called me and told that there was an accident, and you couldn't handle it..." He stopped speaking for a moment, "And uhh guess what , you did, you handled it, you kept it together for every single one of those people in that waiting room, you kept it together for Nash, for Diaz and Epstein, even Gail."
"And after we found out, you still kept it together, you drove Nash home, you made sure she was okay..."
He was cut of by Sam, "Stop! Stop! I don't want to talk about that! I couldn't keep her together, I couldn't get her there fast enough!"
This was the first time, Sam had talked about that night. "I couldn't get to her, I couldn't save her! And know she's DEAD, Andy McNally is dead and I am numb, I can't feel anything, I can't love, or hurt, I feel dead, I can't breath, I can't sleep, everything I close my eyes, I see her! I hope that when I open my eyes that this has all been one big nightmare that I'm going to wake up from and she's going to be there. She'll be there, sleeping next to me peaceful. But then I open my eyes, and I feel this pain in my chest because she's not there, she's gone, she'll never light up a room with her smile again, she'll never tackle me to the ground, or fill up an entire room with rambling because she hates the silence. She can't do any of that stuff anymore, because she's gone and she took my heart with her when she did."
Oliver just waited, not saying a word. He was right Andy McNally, was gone, and she was never coming back.