Part III

Chapter Forty-eight

Better to Burn Out than to Fade Away

Ouch I have lost myself again
Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found,
Yeah I think that I might break
I've lost myself again and I feel unsafe
(Breathe Me-Sia)

Sam's reflection in the bathroom mirror was obscured by post-shower steam. He ran his palm across the glass and he saw his face. Well his eyes to be specific.

Crying in the shower for 45 minutes had burst many of the blood vessels around his irises. "Attractive." He said in a raspy voice thick with self- critical sarcasm.

He found Amber sitting in her lazy-boy chair biting her fingers and looking outside like she had something on her mind.

"Um…I was wondering if you had any clothes I could borrow. Mine are…" he couldn't really finish. His were…they still smelled like overpowering aftershave and cologne. Just the scent that had soaked itself into his clothing brought him back to last night for a moment. A fist grabbing Sam's hair, pulling his head back so his cheek brushed against the stubble of the middle-aged man's face. He made a deep, throaty sound, his exhale against Sam's ear. Sam shivered, chills running through his broken body.

He was sent back to the present by the feeling of his own gagging. His body lurched and he fell to his knees in a fit of gags. That morning's breakfast spilled out onto the hardwood floor.

"Oh, shit. I'm sorry." He apologized shamefully.

"It's okay. Don't be sorry. You didn't do it on purpose."

"I just.." he almost told her. ALMOST.

He felt like such a fucking pussy, but his voice cracked on its own accord. He fell into a heap on the ground and sobbed.

Amber was there in a second, wrapping her arms around him and rocking him back and forth soothingly. "Tell me what's bothering you. Please. You know I won't judge you."

"If I tell you it'll make it more real. I just want to pretend it was a dream."

"What happened? And why have you been wandering around? Don't you have a little a thousand baby showers to go to?"

"She lost it."

Amber was silent for a moment. "Oh." Jesus freaking Christ, how much more could the boy take? "I'm so sorry."

"After that things between Alyssa and me changed. I mean we were hanging in there. She was. I tried to overdose a few days ago. She said she'd had enough and broke up with me."

Amber stroked his wet hair. "I'm sorry, pumpkin. If there's anything you need, I'm here."

"You sure you're not sick of me too?"

"I could never be sick of you. I love you like the little kid I never got to have."

He squeezed her tightly. "You'd be an amazing mom, Amber."

She cupped his face and wiped the wetness away. "And you would be an amazing anything if you only believed in yourself." She planted a loud kiss on his cheek.

He smiled weakly. "I love you."

She smiled. "I love you too. I'll go and get you something wear, cutie."

Amber thought it felt odd going through her husband's things. If anyone could lay an eye on the little dresser drawer full of his clothes they'd say Amber needed to move on. They'd say that keeping painful memories of him was self destructive, that it would keep her in the past. But she concluded that many of those people had probably never lost a loved one. There was no way you MOVED on. Sure the absolute searing pain, the shock became dull around the edges after a few years. But all you needed to do was see someone die in a movie or hear a sad song and it would slam into you like the blunt end of a club. And there you would be, right back in that same grief you felt the day you lost that person. And it wouldn't matter if you burned every picture and threw away every shirt. It wouldn't matter if you absolutely erased every physical trace of them from your life, because one day you'd be taking a walk and you'd realize with sadness that this particular stretch of asphalt was where your loved one tripped and fell and you laughed at them mercilessly. You couldn't get rid of that person because one day you'd be at the local supermarket and you'd remember that this was where you shared your first kiss. It wouldn't matter what you did. They would always be with you even if you didn't want them to be.

Amber found a polo shirt that was a subtle shade of powder blue and ripped jeans. Her husband had a similar physical build to Sam. Tall, but impossibly thin so she was sure the clothes would be a good fit.

Her hand came upon something plastic. She pulled it out. It was a set of boxers she had bought for her husband but had never got the chance to give him. She remembered she had crucified him for wearing briefs or man panties as she had called them. She wished she could say sorry. She opened it and took out a gray pair.

Sam was leaning back against her couch, his legs going on for miles over the finished wood of her living room. His head was ever so slightly tilted to one side and his eyes looked…dead. Like decay. They were a gorgeous shade of green-blue, a cloudy mix of jade and a pale azure. But that couldn't hide the fact that he looked emotionally damaged. Those brilliantly hued irises couldn't conceal the fact that he was rotting inside.

She put the clothing on the coffee table beside Sam. "You know where the bathroom is, love."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Amber poured some hot earl gray tea into a mug decorated with daisies. Sam was lying on the couch in the middle room. He was absentmindedly tracing crop circles into the plush fabric of the couch cushion. She found it endearing. Like a little boy lost.

"Sam." She said quietly.

He sat up. She smiled at how good-looking he was in her husband's clothing. It made him resemble a rugged model in a Ralph Lauren catalog. "Yeah?"

She was silent.

"What?"

"You look…so handsome." She said softly.

"Please don't go all Mary-Kay Letourneau on me." He said dryly.

She burst into some much needed laughter. "Sam! You're half my age! That's disgusting!"

'Well I'm glad we settled that. Cause I'm not into older woman."

"Should I be offended?"

"You're a decent looking woman. So no you shouldn't be offended."

"It's just that I'm so old that I should break out my walker and go back to the nursing home where 80 year old Vietnam veterans find me attractive."

He grinned smugly. "What did you want to tell me?"

"Tea for my little baby."

He raised an eyebrow and took the mug.

For a moment his biting wit had come out. But whatever had happened last night found its way into his features. His expression looked hard, like he was trying to fight something off. When he put on his safety-pinned jacket and walked to the door without a sound Amber ran up to him and hugged him.

"If you ever need a place to stay."

He squeezed her. "Thank you."

She stood on her tip-toes, barely tall enough and planted a kiss on his cheek.

"See you later."

Amber genuinely hoped it was see you later and not good-bye forever.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

A few hours later Sam sat in one of Corey's friends' basement. The room reeked of crack. A guy in his twenties with track marks on his own arms and an impossibly gaunt face held a lighter under a spoon. With deft skill he filled a syringe and tied a tourniquet around Sam's arm. He tapped at Sam's inner elbow, coaxing the vein up and inserted the needle.

The high was incredible. So much so that he didn't care that he could catch diseases from a needle he was uncertain was clean or from the stranger who violated him the night before.

Besides he wasn't going to live for that much longer. Sam doubted he'd ever make it past his early twenties. And this was the perfect way to go. Kurt Cobain said it was better to burn out than to fade away. Sam decided he agreed and spent every penny he had.