Sam

Millie was in my room.

I don't know what I had been expecting when I got home from Brandon's house, but finding Millie Clearwater lying on her side in my bed, flipping through something on her phone was definitely a surprise, to say the least.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, sliding to a halt as I entered my bedroom.

Millie barely looked at me. "You should probably shut your door before your parents see me."

Of course, she was right, but I found myself slightly annoyed as I kicked my door shut behind me, reaching out to press the lock down on the knob. Something about Millie's voice wasn't sitting well with me — it hit me in a place that made me feel weak and cowardly. The way she looked at me was practically condescending, like she knew so much more than me.

It had been four days since Millie had been loaded in an ambulance and I'd had to battle EMTs the entire way to the hospital just to continue holding her hand, since she refused to let go.

In those four days, Angel and Drew Clearwater had graciously informed my family that they weren't planning on pressing any charges for what I'd done to Millie — but they'd appreciate it if I could please leave Millie alone for the remainder of her recovery, which Drew had said could last anywhere from a month to the rest of summer. He'd gone on to say that her stomach muscles had been shredded, but she was expected to have a full recovery...if she was left without any stress.

It had been made very clear Angel and Drew saw me as a stress source for Millie. I didn't blame them, since I was the reason the car had gone over the bridge and into the water below, but it still hurt. It had hurt even more when Millie hadn't even tried to reach out to me, despite our close proximity.

"What are you doing here?"I repeated, throwing my backpack across the room.

"I wanted to see you, and I didn't think your family or mine would appreciate that."

I frowned. "You wanted to see me? What about all the texts and calls you ignored?"

Millie looked up at me, her dark lashes sweeping over her cheeks. "For one thing, Angel had to get me a new phone because mine was left somewhere in the lake. I just got it today. Secondly, I felt like our conversation would be much more appropriate in person than over text."

"Why does it sound like you rehearsed this?"

Millie shrugged, tilting her head. "I did a little bit. I wasn't sure what I wanted to say, so I pretty much planned out every scenario."

Watching her bottom lip twitch, I grabbed my desk chair and dragged it over to the side of my bed, swinging it around so I could straddle it and face her. "Are you nervous, Millie?"

Millie's eyes widened a fraction, but just enough for me to catch it. "Why would I be nervous?"

"Because you're alone with me."

"I was alone with you before."

"Yeah, but last time we were alone, I made you laugh and smile and then I almost killed us both. Also," I said, raising and wiggling my eyebrows, "you weren't on my bed last time."

Millie started to smile, but her eyes went all glassy before she could fully relish in my humor and all traces of warmth vanished from her expression. With a pained huff, she pushed herself into a sitting position, resting one hand on her abdomen. Immediately, guilt flooded through me.

She must've noticed my expression, because she leaned toward me. "Sam — this wasn't your fault."

"Millie, I was driving, and then I fell asleep . . ."

"That wasn't you, though. Something happened."

"What happened?"

"I can't say, exactly. But I know it wasn't your fault."

I looked at her face, trying to understand what she was really trying to say. Her words were innocent enough, but the forcefulness behind them was a bit much, and her eyes were hard and glinting in the dim light from my desk lamp. Everything about this conversation just seemed wrong, like we were talking about different things.

When my eyes dropped down to her stomach, she glanced down, too. Through her white, flowing tank top, I could just barely make out the edges of white gauze and a wraparound Ace bandage.

"Sam?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you want to see?"

My eyes shot back up to her face. "Excuse me?"

"Do you want to see my scars?"

Shivers raced up my spine. "I don't know if that's a good idea."

Ignoring me, Millie scooted to the end of the bed, trying to keep herself as still as possible as she did, obviously fighting off the pain of trying to use torn muscles. More guilt flooded through my body, making it almost entirely impossible not to reach out and touch her.

When I did, resting my hand on her knee, she didn't move away from me. Instead, she offered a small smile before pulling her shirt up.

At first, I didn't look. She was unwinding the Ace bandage, which had been secured with four little metal latches. She tossed them at her feet on my carpet, not seeming to care where they went. Once she was done with that, she set the bandage behind her and went to work gently pulling the tape away from her skin, one layer at a time.

By time she had finished, she was shirtless, in nothing but her shorts and a sports bra, guiding my hand to her stomach.

Of course, when I'd imagined Millie Clearwater in my bed, taking her shirt off, asking me to touch her, I hadn't thought that underneath her shirt, I'd be more intently focused on the scraggly looking stitches that wound across her abdomen than her chest. They were disgusting looking, not because they were ugly, but because I knew that I had done that to her.

"I want you to know that Drew might've exaggerated my condition," Millie said, looking at her stomach. She trailed a finger over the stitches lightly and added, "My stomach muscles aren't really shredded. I think he was just trying to scare you away. I didn't cut that deep, Sam."

Even though I knew she meant to assuage my guilt, I didn't feel any better. She'd come so close to being gone. She'd lost so much blood, and she'd been so delirious...

"What's this?" I asked, touching design on her hip bone. It wasn't small, but medium sized, a pale filigree that stretched over her hip, beneath her pants and up her waist. If I didn't notice the intricate detail, I'd almost think it was a birth mark, how close in color it was to her skin.

"Another battle wound," Millie replied, her voice thick.

I didn't say anything at first, and neither did she. Millie seemed to be carrying a lot of battle scars — too many for her to count and too many for me to understand.

The truth was, I didn't get Millie. She was sort of like a mythical creature: I could see her, and touch her, and I knew who she was, vaguely, but her true self seemed to elude me. Any time I thought she was really there, something changed, shifted, and another Millie came into view, one not quite as convincing as the last.

I didn't understand how someone could have lost so many people in such a short span of time and then come close to losing their own life and just be okay. Or, if not okay, Millie wasn't screaming from the roof tops or throwing herself off a cliff.

She was tired, maybe, and kind of sad.

She was just Millie. 

"I don't blame you," she whispered quietly as I let the edge of my finger brush a stitch. She gulped in air. "I — Sam, look at me." I did. "I don't hate you. I'm not mad at you. It wasn't your fault."

"Millie, I crashed the car."

"Yeah," she said, smiling sadly, "but I was in it."

I shook my head. "That doesn't make sense."

"Yes, it does. It would, anyway, if you were me." She watched me, and gently, reached out, putting her hand on my cheek. "You look perfect, though. You weren't hurt at all."

"Perfect?" I grinned, unable to contain myself. "You think I look perfect?"

Millie's blank expression didn't change, but her eyes seemed to sparkle.

It felt like the normalness of our nonrelationship had been a life time ago, not just a few days.

I couldn't say that Millie and I were suddenly best friends or even good friends, but we'd gone through something together. I didn't think even Millie could deny that we were something, because of that.

"Sam, have you ever really wanted something, but you know you can't have it, no matter how badly you wish things were different?"

Her words seemed to drive deep into my heart and I glanced away.

Millie sighed. "I have to go. I told Angel I was taking a walk because I had been cooped up for too long. She's going to start wondering where I am."

I pushed my chair back and bent to grab her silver latches on the ground. Without looking at me, Millie began to reapply her gauze and tape. As I sat back up, she wound her Ace bandage back around her stomach, secured it with the latches, and pulled her tank top back over her head, never once seeming even a little self conscious about the fact she'd been shirtless in front of me.

When she got up to go, I reached out to steady her, rising, too.

She smiled in a sad sort of way that made me wonder what she'd really come here for. I had a feeling that when she'd rehearsed her speech earlier, she hadn't planned to say any of what we'd talked about.

She was at my door, checking the hallway to make sure it was clear, when I finally spoke up. "You know this isn't fair, right?"

She looked back at me, eyes dark from a distance. "What?"

"This. What you're doing. You just came here and — what? Wanted to tell me it's not my fault and then show me your scars? I don't get it. You're not being fair." I gulped and tried not to look like I was as devastated as I felt. "Millie, I care about you, and I..."

Millie sighed, letting her fingers brush against the doorframe, where eighteen years of Sam White had been measured. Her eyes were weirdly flat when she said my name, the tone of her voice oddly reverent. "I'm not here to be fair, Sam. I'm here to say goodbye."

I didn't reply, and before I could blink, Millie was gone, my door shutting softly behind her wake.