Chapter 3
1159 Words
Sam was sitting on her childhood bedroom floor, leaning back and chuckling at the sight of papers everywhere around her like a homework storm had hit her room.
She was sure she was crazy to even think she had a shot.
A soft knock on her door had her stomach dropping in terror. This had been the night that gave her nightmares for years.
The temptation to act like she wasn't there was so strong, but he hadn't knocked, so she turned her voice hesitant, "Yes?"
She watched the doorknob turn, and her mind was racing with survival techniques to incapacitate a man larger than herself.
"Can I come in?" Jack's head popped around the door frame, and then he saw the mess.
"Whoa, what happened here?"
Sam looked at her normally tidy teen room, and she laughed at the absurdity of what she used to think was important "homework."
"Do you need help?" Jack sat down across from her and picked up the closest paper. "Why are you making a water need chart per person?"
Sam plucked the paper out of his hands and smiled, "It's the first thing overlooked, and it's the thing that kills you."
"Is this about your bad dream?"
Sam took a deep breath, looked at him, and all she could see was the man who had collected buckets with her to create a makeshift rainwater capture system. "Yeah," she smiled.
"Can we stop fighting?" Jack leaned forward and placed his hand on top of hers.
She didn't trust her voice and just nodded her head. His crooked grin closed the distance between them. "Want to kiss again?"
The question made her laugh, and she leaned forward just the inch needed to press a kiss to his lips.
"I have a better idea."
He watched her shove the desk chair under the doorknob before turning back toward him.
"Stay tonight."
Jack blinked.
"Sam..."
"Just stay."
Her voice cracked on the last word.
Something in his expression softened instantly.
***
Jack ran his finger across her bare back.
"When did you start sleeping in the nude?"
She turned around in her twin bed, forcing him to lift up so she could land under his body on her back, on the narrow twin bed.
"A cold winter made it necessary." She stopped explaining as she watched his eyes travel down her body.
Smiling, she places a finger under his chin to lift his face up, but his eyes don't leave her chest.
"Do you trust me?"
Jack nodded as he lifted his eyes back up to her face.
"Since the day I kissed you in the pool, and you didn't slap me?"
Despite everything, Sam laughed quietly.
Sixteen. Chlorine. Summer heat. Him dripping water all over the patio like an i***t and kissing her like he'd been planning it for months.
It felt like another lifetime.
Because it was.
She placed her hand on his bare chest.
"I need you to trust me."
Something in her voice must have landed, because the teasing faded from his face.
He nodded once.
"Ok, right now?"
She narrows her eyes at him, "What do you think I am going to do?"
His cheeky smile and the glance down between their bodies made her realize they were having two different conversations; his teen brain had only one track. Lifting an eyebrow at him, she grinned.
"Do you want to make a PB and J sandwich?" The old code they had used during the group migrations with other survivors slipped out before she realized it.
Proved his one-track mind with a quick nod as he pulled the blanket over both of them.
****
The next day, the bank smelled like old paper and air conditioning.
Sam sat across from a woman with perfect nails and signed away the future she was supposed to want.
Instead of lecture halls and student loans, all she could see was red brick, greenhouse glass, and enough storage to survive a nuclear winter.
Her real dad had started this college fund when she was born. Every birthday, every Christmas, every overtime paycheck before he died, he added to it.
The pen shook in her hand as she signed to close the last legacy of her dad's.
When they stepped back outside into the summer heat, Jack stared at the envelope of cash as if it might personally offend him.
"PB," he said, "that's your college fund."
She said nothing.
"You need that. You're supposed to go to State. It's our plan, you, me, and a college dorm."
His voice softened.
"That was the plan."
Sam thought of Saint Mercy's greenhouse.
Thick brick walls.
The cold storage rooms.
Dormitories.
A thousand meals from one kitchen.
While everyone else her age was planning dorm life, she couldn't stop calculating how long the convent could keep her alive.
Sam looked at him.
At the boy standing in the sunlight, still believing plans were promises and not just things life liked to break.
"No, J."
Her throat tightened.
"You need to go to military school."
He groaned immediately.
"Not this again. It's not happening."
"In Iceland."
"Still no."
"It's safe there."
Now he stopped smiling.
"Safe from what?"
Sam looked away.
From everything.
From feeders.
From famine.
From the way he would die with blood on his hands and her name in his mouth.
From her.
"When you graduate," she said carefully, "I'll meet you in Iceland."
Jack stared at her as if she had fully lost her mind.
"No, Peanut Butter. I'm staying here. I'm not leaving you alone with my dad."
That almost broke her.
Right there, on the sidewalk outside the bank, with strangers passing and summer sunlight warming the pavement.
Because that was exactly who he was.
Even before the world ended.
He chose her.
Again and again.
Sam stepped forward, rose on her toes, and kissed him.
Slow.
Careful.
Like a goodbye he wasn't allowed to recognize yet.
When she pulled back, she kept her forehead against his.
"I promise I'll meet you in Iceland."
The lie tasted like blood.
"As soon as you graduate. We'll go to college there. We'll be ridiculous and poor and argue about dishes in another language."
He smiled then.
That real smile.
The one that made her believe impossible things.
"You promise?"
She smiled back, smaller.
"I promise I'll be there."
Then, because if she didn't joke, she would cry,
"Unless there's a zombie apocalypse."
He laughed, warm and easy, and kissed her again.
And Sam looked over his shoulder so he wouldn't see her face.
Because by the time he would have graduated last time, the airports were empty.
The roads were graveyards.
And Iceland had become a story people told each other at night, like heaven.
There was no world where she made that promise and kept it.
Only one where he lived long enough to hate her for breaking it.
And she would take that.
Gladly.
- Writer
