(a/n: trying to make my chapters longer...last one did that...not so much this time)
I hate waking up in the morning, and I'd bet more than most other people. But, as this valley's prime exporter of parsnips, I cannot let my farm go without care. As I stepped outside into the crisp morning air, I realized it must be the first day of summer.
"Oh my god...who murdered all my beautiful parsnips...?" Summer had. Summer had taken my precious vegetables.
"I'm in a silly mood," I said to myself, giggling. My mind was still racing from my time with Sam last night. Had I really kissed him? Did he really say he loved me? It's impossible. I must have been dreaming. What would we do now? The possibilities are limitless. How long has he felt this way? How did we both know? How could I be so lucky? Overjoyed, these thoughts circulated in my mind as I cleared out the corpses of my parsnips, taken from me all too soon.
I must have been so caught up in my daydreaming that I hadn't even realized the burly voice calling my name.
"Yo, (m/n)!"
"Huh?"
"You alright?"
"Oh, just fine."
"Glad to hear."
"Why are you here, Alex?"
"Well, like I said, I never back down from a challenge. I also don't like to lose, especially to inanimate objects. That boulder of yours may think that it's won, but it's in for a world of hurt." He pounded his fist into his hand.
"You don't have to do that, you know?"
"Oh, yes I do!"
"If you insist," I let Alex try his chances with the boulder again, I had much more important things to think about, such as how I would blow off starting my farm work to see Sam.
The night of the incident, Sam was getting home much too late for his mother's approval. He saw all the lights were out and assumed the coast was clear. He undid the latch holding his window closed, raised the pane, and crawled through. Unfortunately, the tip of his sneaker got caught on the sill and he fell about three feet to the ground, landing with an impressive thud.
Dammit! I hope Mom didn't hear that, and just at Sam's thought, the hallway light flicked on.
So much for that.
"Sam, is that you?" Jodi sounded both concerned and furious. Sam wasn't eager to find out which she really was.
Sam stayed silent.
Jodi opened the door and flicked on Sam's room's light.
"Oh, honestly, Sam?! It's past midnight!" She refrained from raising her voice to avoid waking Vincent, but her anger was evident in the intensity of her voice.
"Mom, I-"
"I don't care what you have to say. How can you think this is okay? Not only is this incredibly irresponsible, but you scared the living daylights out of me! I know you can take care of yourself but as long as I am your mother and you are living under my roof, the least you can do is try and abide by my rules..."
"Listen, Mom, I'm sorry, I lost track of time, and, and, I wasn't...you know...I'm really sorry. It won't happen again, I promise. I'm sorry."
Jodi took a deep breath "I know you are, Sam, but please try and keep others in mind more often. I can't bare the thought of something happening to you. I know we're in Stardew Valley and you're an adult but just," Jodi hugged her son, "please, be careful."
"I will. Mom."
"Now, what on Earth were you doing out at a time like this?"
"Uh...about that..."
"Sam, you have to tell me."
"Well, you see..."
"Was it bad? If it was, we can talk about it."
"The thing is...I'm not sure if you..." Sam was stalling. Fortunately, this paid off, and as Jodi was losing her patience Vincent walked into the room.
"Mom, what's going on?" Vincent said, rubbing his eyes.
"Oh, Vince, honey, I'm sorry. Nothing's happening, go back to bed, sweetie." Jodi turned and led Vincent back out of the room. She looked over her shoulder. "We'll talk about this later."
Sam swallowed. He noticed he was sweating.
I decided the best course of action if I was going to see Sam today would be to walk toward his house. Certainly this was a good plan. On my way I bumped into Pam, the local drunk. That was mean. The local bus driver, I should say.
"Hey, kid. You got any good grub on that farm?" She asked with a sly look.
"Not since my beautiful parsnips succumbed to the summer heat." I took a gamble with something witty, so I backed off my usual snark when I said this.
"Ha! Well, when you get things back up and running again, don't forget to save some for me!" She said, winking. I don't know why, I hardly knew her. I guessed people were just nice around here. I appreciated that. While I contemplated the true bliss of this place, I actually found Sam skateboarding through the town square.
"Were you just gonna ignore me all day?"
"..."
"Or are you still gonna ignore me?"
"..."
"Sam!"
Sam looked up and fell over his skateboard. I only now noticed his earbuds in.
"Ah! I'm sorry, are you hurt?" I rushed over to him. He flashed me a grin.
"Perfect." I smiled back.
"So?"
"So what? You came to me."
"Don't play dumb. What do we do as our first day as a couple?" I normally would not have said something so frilly, but I felt giddy. To my dismay, Sam looked around and seemed nervous.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"...Nothing, don't worry about it. Let's walk around."
I decided to ignore it. Sam and I walked a bit, as we had usually done. Despite us getting familiar last night, he seemed rather uncomfortable. I did not want to acknowledge it for fear of an upset reaction from Sam. We decided to walk toward my house.
"Had she said that before?" I asked, in the middle of a conversation.
"...If I'm being honest, (m/n), I can't remember...And to be more honest, I don't wanna talk about it anymore."
"..."
"Sorry." Sam grabbed my hand, and I felt instant relief.
We walked, hand in hand, onto my land. Sam was about to say something when Alex walked over to us, saying, "Uh, why are you guys holding hands?" I had completely forgotten about him.
I stopped walking and Sam's face flushed red.
"What?! We weren't! What are you talking about, Alex?" Sam reacted with a hostile expression, instantly removing his hand from mine. I was confused.
"I'm pretty sure of what I saw, Sam."
"Well, you must have seen wrong!" I was hurt by Sam's words, but he was obviously upset so I ignored it.
"And what's the problem if we were?" I entered the conversation.
"Well, that's really weird...and...you know..." The uncomfortableness had shifted to Alex.
"No, Alex, I don't know." I said with earnestness.
"Well, I would probably have a problem with it."
I was shocked. I hadn't expected discrimination here. Oh, well, Alex is the alpha male, raised by his grandparents. It only makes sense.
"Huh," I looked at the ground. "You can go now, Alex."
"Uh...okay...Sorry, I guess," I felt kind of bad, watching him leave. I turned to Sam, hoping to console him.
"You, okay, Sam?"
"..." He was faced away from me.
"Buddy?"
"That was...too close."
"What...what do you mean?"
"You know what I mean."
"Does Alex have a thing against," I hated phrasing it like this, "against people like us?"
Sam, who had already sat down, put his head in his hands. "More or less."
"Well, we can deal with him, then. Don't let this get you down."
"Don't you understand, (m/n)?" Sam stood up now.
"What would Alex do?" I laughed nervously a little bit.
"It's not just Alex..." Sam took a deep breath. "This town is small, rural, old, religious... Wouldn't it seem natural that this place isn't exactly rushing to push a liberal agenda? If people knew about...about us, we could be outcasts. It's gonna take a lot to change these people's minds, trust me."
I understood now what Sam meant. I had never expected oppression in a place like this. I had never even encountered it before. I could tell by the look on his face that Sam felt a mix of shame, fear, and frustration. Much the same could be said for me.
"Well..." I was not at all sure what to say. "Well, let's not...give up." I mentally chastised myself for my poor word choice.
"Of...of course not."
"And, we'll work something out. Let's take things easy, slow. For now, I know it'll be hard, but let's keep it under wraps. We don't need the confirmation of others."
"Of course...I couldn't imagine what my dad would say if he ever found out about this."
"I'm sure there are certain people in this town we can trust, naturally."
"Of course." Sam was cheering up.
I gave him a light smile.
"As of right now, why don't you come inside." I motioned with my arm, pointed with my thumb.
Sam gave his traditional half-smile and blushed.
"Of course."