Sunday Night

Insomnia kept Sami trapped in its sharp, unyielding claws. The covers tangled around her body, trapping her in a sticky spider web that disabled her to move or breathe and locking her in a cocoon of worries. She had too many thoughts to sleep.

She was thinking about the turmoil that boiled inside—a turmoil so fierce, it turned her stomach over and made her feel sick. The same thoughts kept circling through her mind: You've created a mess, Sami. You started this. Duder and you are caught in the middle of a mess, and it's too late to get out of it. You can't avoid karma forever; sooner or later, there'll be consequences. And it's all your fault.

But something else was pestering her mind. It was a trivial thing, compared to the dangerous predicament of Kevin's music—yet it bothered her just as much as the first issue.

That matter was Toby.

He'd called her on Saturday, and she hadn't picked up. He'd left her another message today, when his call once more went unanswered. Sami wasn't exactly sure why she was ignoring him, and why she didn't want to talk to him; she just knew that she couldn't. She couldn't hear his voice, the voice that sent knotted emotions into her chest.

Sami wasn't mad at him. She was confused, unsure of what to do and of what she felt. She didn't want to have to sort out her feelings about him and figure out what they were, because she was afraid of what she would find. And if she talked to him, she'd have to deal with her feelings.

Sami buried herself deeper into the cocoon and refused to feel.

She could try to push aside her feelings, but no matter what she attempted, her thoughts and anxieties would not leave her alone. She could put off figuring out what she felt for Toby, but she couldn't prevent her mind from wandering and dwelling on him.

She remembered kissing him with a sudden vivid wisp of memory. Her fingers flew to her lips and touched them, as if to make sure the incident really had happened, and that her mind wasn't just making it up. The wisp of memory roared to life and become a wave, crashing into her with unbelievable force, and suddenly she could taste it. She felt the fire in the harmony of his mouth on hers, and the warmth of his soft hand against her cheek. She felt her skin tingle.

She felt the ferocity of Tanya's eyes burning into hers as the other girl stood in the doorway, her expression shattered with the broken pieces of what she just witnessed.

Sami closed her eyes, as though that would erase the image, but it only burned brighter under her eyelids.

Even Toby was something she hadn't been supposed to do. She had known he was with Tanya and she'd kissed him anyway. Sami had hurt Tanya, and they'd almost become friends. Everything she did was a mistake that wounded someone. She had pushed down everyone who could have been her friend.

But that was what she wanted to do, wasn't it? That was what she'd been trying to do for two years, ever since it happened.

If you don't hurt people, they'll hurt you. She had learned that the hard way. It was a survival tip she had been following for so long, sometimes she forgot the reasons behind it, or that she hadn't always been this way. It was such a normal part of her now, such a natural behavior upon which to act.

What had she been thinking? Her old, soft, vulnerable self had slipped from behind the layers of walls she'd constructed in front of it, and had started to show through to Toby. But she knew better than to let that happen. Sure, Toby was nice, and he seemed like he'd never do anything to hurt her. But so had Briana and Kristen.

You can't trust people, because they always go and stab you in the back. She shouldn't have showed her raw self to Toby, because the last time she'd opened up ... No. Sami forced herself not to remember.

It was a torment-filled while before sleep embraced her that night.