“What does this mean?” I ask.
Her expression tightens, but she keeps her hands on my chest, my jacket balled into her fists. “I don’t know, but I . . . I don’t think I’m ready for this, Sam. Maybe we can try to be—”
“Don’t. Don’t say we can be friends.” I put my hands over hers, pressing them deeper into my chest. “I can’t live in that in-between hell with you. Not you.”
“Why not? If we try being friends, at least we’ll see each other.”
I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I’m done pretending. Seeing you and not being with you . . . it would be torture. It’s too uncertain—”
“That’s living, Sam. It’s always uncertain.”
I close my eyes, squeeze them until I see bursts of color in the blackness. “Hadley, please . . .”
Her hands tighten on mine. “So maybe we don’t call it friends, or the middle, or that scary, gray in-between place. But I need time, Sam. I need time to figure this out for myself. To get to know my parents again. To figure out where I am in my own life.”
I nod, biting my lip to keep from saying anything else. I know she’s right. Same as Hadley, I need to get used to my family the way it is now, not the way it’s been or the way I hoped it would be. I need time too.
But I don’t want time. I want to do all that with Hadley.
I meet her gaze, watch her search mine, imploring me to understand why she’s asking this of me, of herself. I let my eyes have their fill of her features, not knowing the next time I’ll get to look at her like this, so close and soft and beautiful.
I breathe in, breathe out, searching for Better—or at least the belief in it. Looking at Hadley, I can tell something has changed in her. It’s in the gentle set of her shoulders and clear glance of her eyes. She believes in Better.
“Sam.”
I close my eyes and pull her arms around my neck. I let her voice, wrapped in my name, fill me up. I let the feel of her fingers curling into my hair transfer some of the hope I see in her eyes. I let Hadley hurtle me forward, even as I feel her pulling back.
“Don’t,” I say, tightening my grip on her. “We don’t have to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Say goodbye.” She sighs and sort of sinks against me, so I keep talking. Anything to keep her here as long as I can. “This is just you and me, remember? You said that to me, right here on this hill. Hadley and Sam. No last names. We can just be here. We can just be us.”
Chapter Thirty-four
Hadley
Infinite images, poetry and light, flood my mind with Sam’s plea. I’m drowning in them. Or maybe they’re drowning in me. Like Livy’s photographs of us, all soft lines and possibility.
Two days ago, my parents and I dug out some old kites and flew them at Percy Warner Park in Nashville. Now, holding on to Sam, the breeze circling us like a blanket, I think about the way the lines felt both loose and taut in my hands, the way the wind picked up the kite and flung it here and there, how only my grip kept it from disappearing into the horizon.
Letting go.
And holding on.
Sam and me—star-crossed and still entangled up on a hill overlooking the city. On top of the world. I almost laugh at how ridiculous it is. How silly it is that we found each other, that we grounded each other, that we gave each other a sense of freedom and a home. Now I fear we’re stuck in doubts and our heavy pasts and tenuous futures.
But we’re here. Together.
“This shouldn’t make sense,” I say.
“What?”
“Us. You and me.”
He presses his forehead to mine. “But we do. Maybe it’s crazy, yeah, but it makes sense. We make sense.”
I lace my hands into his silky hair, holding him so the moonlight spills across his face and I can see him. I kiss him. Softly, and just once. He pulls back far enough to look at me and he smiles. A sad but hopeful thing.
I smile back.
Acknowledgments
Any writer will tell you that writing a book is a strange process. While working on Suffer Love, I vacillated daily between self-confidence and complete self-loathing and every neurotic shade of gray in between. It’s isolating and scary and exhilarating, and I would not have made it to this point without the support of so many lovely people.
To my agent, the amazing Rebecca Podos, who loved this book so much you helped me love it even more: From that first phone call, you made this story better and this entire process feel like an adventure. Thank you for supporting me at every phase and for fielding my panicked emails with finesse and humor. I could not ask for a better champion.
To my editor, Elizabeth Bewley, who understood my vision for Hadley and Sam, believed in it, and helped me communicate their story in the best way possible: Thank you for talking through that one pesky character with me until we got her right, for your wisdom and passion for this book, for knowing when to push and when to pull back, and for bringing me into such a wonderful family. Thanks to the whole team at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
To Destiny Cole, my first reader, first champion, first everything on this wild journey: You believed I could get here and you listened to me rant and rave during every peak and valley along the way. Thank you for helping to make Suffer Love presentable and for your infectious optimism.
Miranda Kenneally, thank you for the early read and the query rescue. Those three hundred words really would’ve been the end of me without your generosity.
Thanks to my wonderful writer community and everyone at SCBWI Midsouth, which is chock-full of the best people I’ve ever known: Courtney Stevens, for the early read, words of encouragement, and for inviting me into the fold. My critique group—Sarah Brown, Paige Crutcher, and Lauren Thoman—your constant faith inspires me every day. Thanks for the words, the wine, the laughter, occasional tears and terror-stricken emails, Zac Efron GIFs for all occasions, and, above all, the queso. Lauren, thanks for helping with the last-gasp round of edits and for falling so hard for Ajay. I’ll write you that novella some day. Alisha Klapheke, for laughing at all the right moments while reading Suffer Love next to me at the coffeehouse. And to the rest of my coffeehouse girls—Paige, Lauren, Rae Ann Parker, and Erica Rogers—Friday is the best day of the week because of you ladies. Thank you for your kindness and for sharing your words and wisdom.
To my movie-witty-banter-and-just-all-around-amazing pals, Kathryn Ormsbee and Jennifer Gaska: You make the book world a better world. Thanks to the entire Twitter book community, for believing in stories, writers, positive change, and making me proud to be part of such a wonderful world.
Thanks to all the Sweet Sixteens for making this debut journey unforgettable. To my Sixteen to Read girls for all the love and support and general awesomeness. I’m honored to be among such talented, kind, and funny people. I’ve loved championing all of your debuts and can’t wait to champion every book after that.
To Mom, for always believing this day would come, even when everything I wrote sucked. I know you would’ve loved Hadley and Sam, and I truly wouldn’t be here today—in so many ways—without you. I miss you every day.
My family and all of their unending support. Brandon, Sara, Elliott, and Nicholas Herring, I love you guys. Brandon, you’ve always been my hero. Thanks for taking risks, for believing in your creativity and talents in a way that inspired me to believe in mine. Sara, I’m honored to call you sister. Pat and John David Strickland and the Todd family for unconditional kindness. All the Herrings, Blakes, and Cowns, who know all of my history and still like me.
Benjamin and William, I adore you a million trains and dinosaurs. Your love of life and the easy way you love me, even when my imperfections are glaringly bright, inspire me to be better every day.
Craig, thank you for loving me where I am. The way I am. Thank you for sticking with me on this wild ride.
And to all my readers, thank you for letting Hadley and Sam into your lives.
About the Author
/> Credit: Anna Groos
ASHLEY HERRING BLAKE is a teacher and writer who lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband and two boisterous sons. She would very much like to own a teacup pig one day.
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