In Your Arms

by Becky Andrews

  She liked it when she came up with something clever that made Phillip smile. She loved seeing him smile, it always made her heart skip a beat. She’d much rather think about him than about what had happened at school.

  “Ouch, Sam. Your criticism has stabbed me right in the heart,” Phillip said, pressing his hand to his chest.

  “Sammy is a good drawer,” Benjamin interjected.

  “Yes, I’ve seen one of her pictures,” Phillip replied, tousling Benjamin’s hair.

  “What did you see?” Sam asked, dreading his answer.

  “Well, that one time in detention—”

  “What? You saw my drawing of you? Oh man, I was really hoping you didn’t.”

  Phillip looked embarrassed. “It was a great drawing of me, Sam. I was really flattered. And when I saw it, I remembered what good friends we used to be, and I felt bad that I hadn’t talked to you in so long. I hope you know that I really do just want to be friends again.”

  Sam eyed him uneasily.

  “Sammy drawed all these for me,” Benjamin interrupted. “And she painted my walls.”

  The walls were painted in a Thomas the Tank Engine theme. “This is Thomas,” Benjamin said as he walked over to the painting of Thomas. And this is—”

  “Henry,” Phillip said.

  “You know Thomas?” Benjamin asked, beaming. Phillip had obviously just become his new best friend.

  “Yep. You did a good job, Sam. Painting, I mean,” Phillip told her.

  “Thanks, I won’t ask how you know Thomas the Tank Engine , though,” Sam said.

  “Are you awake, Sam?” Sam’s mother yelled up the stairs.

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “Ask your friend if he’d like to stay for dinner, then come down because the food is ready.”

  Sam turned back to Phillip and Benjamin. “Well, would you like to stay for dinner? I’m not sure what we’re having, but it’s usually good. My mother lives to cook.”

  Phillip smiled. “Usually, huh? I guess I’ll just have to take my chances—as long as you’re sure it’s no trouble.”

  “Believe me, my mother would love to have someone else at the dinner table.”

  “Yay!” Benjamin cheered then took both Phillip’s and Sam’s hands and steered them downstairs.

  “Are you going to join us, Phillip?” her mom asked, looking up from the stove.

  “Yes, ma’am, I’d love to join your family for dinner. You’re sure it’s no trouble?”

  “None at all, please have a seat.”

  Everyone sat down at the table, including Sam’s father, who had just walked through the front door.

  “Hello, everyone,” Mr. Baker said. “And who is this?”

  “I’m Phillip Corinodi, sir.”

  “Please, call me Mr. Baker or John, if you prefer.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Baker. I’m one of Sam’s friends from school.”

  “Well, it’s good to see she has more than one friend.” Her dad chuckled.

  Sam's cheeks heated at her dad's comment, she wasn't sure if it was out of anger or embarrassment.

  “Tonight, we will be having lasagna, green beans, garlic bread, and of course—”

  “We can’t forget the salad,” Sam mouthed along with her mother at Phillip.

  He smiled as he passed his plate down at the request of Sam’s mother.

  “All right, enjoy,” her mom said after everyone was served.

  After dinner, Sam’s mother cleared the table and her father went into the living room to catch the nightly news.

  “Like I told your mother, the food was delicious,” Phillip told her.

  “Thank you, but my mom deserves all the credit.”

  “Do you mind if I stay here a bit longer? I don’t really feel like going home yet,” Phillip asked.

  “Uh, yeah, sure. We can go back upstairs if you want. My mom’s busy anyway, and Ben is helping her.”

  Sam and Phillip made their way back upstairs. “We can hang out in my room. That is, unless you want to keep drawing. You know, to improve on your artistic abilities.”

  Phillip laughed. “No, your room is fine. I think I’ve embarrassed myself enough for one day.”

  Sam shut the door behind them and showed Phillip to her bed, the only other surface besides her desk chair that was suitable for sitting.

  “So,” Sam said, feeling confused and flustered by his presence in her room. “Why don’t you want to go home yet?”

  Why did she ask him that? What kind of answer was she hoping for?

  “Well, it’s just my parents—”

  “You don’t have to tell me. I don’t even know why I asked,” she interrupted.

  “No, it’s fine. We’re friends, and besides I’d like to tell someone. I’m just tired of hearing my parents always fighting over the same things. But here, it’s peaceful. Here there’s a homey feeling, I can be myself.”

  “So you can’t be yourself at school?”

  “Well, there are lots of reasons I can’t be myself at school. The team for one, Tracy, and not to mention the entire student body.”

  Wait, Tracy? He couldn’t be himself around Tracy? What did he mean by that? She didn’t have the guts to ask him though.

  “I see. I guess when you’re popular, there is that expectation to act a certain way,” Sam said instead.

  “Yes, but when you’re around, everything is different. Everything is easier,” Phillip said.

  Sam smiled. “What can I say? I was born to please.”

  Phillip laughed at her. “This is nice. I like it when you make me laugh.”

  “You mean when you laugh at me.”

  Phillip shrugged. “Yes, but I only admit it because you know it.”

  “I know you didn’t come to my house just to talk about how funny I may or may not be. So, what’s on your mind?”

  “Well, the reason I came was just to check on you, to see how you were doing, you know, after the…” Phillip trailed off. He obviously couldn’t even talk about it. How did he expect Sam to say something about it?

  “I was on my way to English when it happened,” she said, looking down. “Those shots terrified me. I just froze for a moment, you know. I couldn’t believe it was happening. Then I just ran, as fast as I could, but I kept hearing those shots behind me. I was so scared.” Sam fell silent. She hated lying about what happened, but she didn’t want to risk her family’s lives or Phillip’s. His best friend had shot Chris. If Phillip knew, what would he do? Would he confront Josh aggressively and end up murdered just like Chris?

  Maybe he would confide in Josh, after all, they were best friends. After all, if someone told her something like that about Alex, she would never believe it. She would immediately tell Alex what had been said. Anyhow, it was still early days and she hadn't told anyone else, so why start with Josh's best friend?

  To her frustration, tears welled in Sam’s eyes and streamed down her cheeks.

  “Sam? Are you okay? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have made you relive the…”

  “It’s okay, really,” she mumbled.

  Sam couldn’t seem to hold back the tears, no matter how hard she tried. He got up and sat closer to Sam.

  “It’s okay, Sam. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he kept saying as he held Sam in his arms. She continued to cry softly on his shoulder, remembering all the images, the things that had happened, and the fear of dying, or worse, seeing her family and friends in danger.

  Sam calmed down and looked up at Phillip. “Thank you. I’m sorry I started crying.”

  “No, it’s my fault.” Phillip looked into Sam’s eyes, then reached out and wiped a tear that had just rolled down her cheek. As he continued looking into her eyes, she felt like she was lost deep in the depths of his soul. She was drowning in the deep blue sea of Phillip.

  He leaned closer until his face was inches from hers.

  Sam could feel the warmth of his breath as his lips lingered close to her own.

  Phillip was
so gorgeous at that moment, so easy to talk to, and she wanted him to kiss her more than she’d ever wanted anything. Phillip’s lips hovered in front of Sam’s for what seemed like an eternity. He slowly drew even nearer. She closed her eyes and waited to feel the soft touch of his lips on hers.

  “Sam!” David, her brother, yelled outside her room. Phillip and Sam jumped apart. “Benjamin wants you to put him to bed!”

  “Uh, um, okay. I”ll—I’ll…be there in a minute,” she stammered.

  “I better get going,” Phillip said, standing up and running a hand through his dark hair.

  “Um, okay. I have to…” Sam pointed toward the door, feeling like a fool.

  “Yeah, well, I’ll see you when I see you,” Phillip managed to say as he grabbed his things.

  “Thanks again for stopping by,” Sam said, opening the door.

  “Bye, Sam,” Phillip said as he walked down the stairs. “Say goodbye to Benny for me.”

  “Yeah, sure,” she said as Phillip shut the door. “”Goodbye, handsome,” she whispered after he was gone.

  Chapter Six

  Sam woke up the next Monday morning to the sound of her mother yelling her name up the stairs. It had been almost a week since the school shooting, and the school was opening for the first time since that day. They had informed the parents they were implementing stricter security measures, more cameras, and metal detectors at the entrance. They also had informed all the students that there would be several councilors available if anyone needed to talk about what had happened. Sam wished she dared take them up on that offer.

  “Sam, you’re going to be late to school if you don’t get up. Now!” Sam’s mother yelled.

  “I’m up!” Sam screamed back, silencing her mother’s wake up calls.

  Sam hadn’t heard from Phillip the entire week, not once, not since that night in her bedroom. She had told Alex about his visit the next day and they spent the rest of the week at each other’s houses. She’d focused on analyzing what his new interest in her meant and tried to block out all thoughts of Chris and Josh. She’d badly wanted to tell Alex what had happened, but so far, she’d done a pretty good job of pretending everything was all right, that she was just like everyone else, and had gotten out of the building in time. But she was worried about going back to school. What would she do if she saw Josh or Billy?

  Sam quickly got ready for school and came downstairs. “Okay, Mom, I’m off,” Sam sad as she opened the front door.

  “All right, honey. Take care and have a wonderful day. Call if you need anything,” her mother said as she hugged Sam.

  Sam walked to her car and put her backpack in the backseat. She started the ignition just in time to see Alex pulling out of her garage on her motorcycle. Sam followed Alex all the way to school, just as they normally did, at least when Sam wasn’t late. After pulling into the school parking lot, Sam and Alex made their way toward the front entrance, as usual.

  “You ready for school?” Alex asked.

  “Not really, but ready as I’ll ever be,” Sam said as they walked into the school. “Whoa, what’s all this?” Sam looked around at the metal detectors and security officers.

  “Keep to the right,” one of the men said to Sam and Alex.

  “I guess they wanted to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Sam commented.

  “Yeah, this is a little too extreme, don’t you think?” Alex asked.

  “You can never be too safe, I think,” Sam said with a shiver. “I’ll just have to make sure to be early to school from now on, if I’m going to get past security before the bell rings.”

  Sam and Alex finally made it past the security and headed toward their lockers.

  “Hey, look. There’s your boyfriend,” Alex said.

  “What? Where?” Sam said as Alex pointed down the hall. “Don’t point!” Sam said as she pushed Alex’s arm down.

  “He’s not even looking, oh wait,”

  “What! Hide me! I can’t see him.”

  “Why not? You two almost kissed.”

  “Exactly, it’s going to be awkward. He’s still with Tracy. I mean, he hasn’t even talked to me since that night.”

  “Oh, you’re being paranoid. And besides, I don’t see Tracy anywhere around,” Alex said.

  “He probably didn’t even mean to—I mean, he’s just going to ignore me.”

  “Stop. Sam, he’s not going to ignore you. If he’s going to do anything, it would be to tell you off so you’d be too embarrassed to say anything to Tracy about what happened.”

  “Thanks, now I feel better. He’ll either say something nice to me or embarrass me, great.”

  “Oh, yeah, he’s definitely walking this way,” Alex said.

  Sam couldn't process all the emotions inside her. How could she still be so engrossed with the sparks with Phillip after all that had happened? She knew it was because on some deep level, she didn't want to think about the murder, but also because her interactions with Phillip were cultivating something inside of her she never knew existed.

  Unable to handle her feelings for him on top of everything else, Sam quickly made her way down the hall in the opposite direction of Phillip.

  * * *

  “I totally forgot to tell you,” Alex exclaimed after they walked out of Biology.

  “What? What did you forget to tell me?” Sam asked cautiously.

  “You’ll be happy to hear that after you ran off this morning, Phillip just wanted to say ‘hi’ to you.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, that and he asked what was wrong with you, kissing him when he had a girlfriend,” Alex teased.

  “What!”

  “I’m just joking, Sam. He was just wondering why you ran off,” Alex said.

  “What did you tell him?” Sam panicked.

  “I told him it was because you were madly in love with him and wouldn’t be able to control the burning desire to kiss him again.”

  Sam narrowed her eyes at Alex. “Ha ha, very funny, and we didn’t kiss.”

  “Okay, okay. I didn’t say anything. I told him I didn’t know why you ran off. Hey, Michael wants to know if you’d want to go ice skating on Saturday.”

  “Uh, I’ll see. I mean that is a little weird for me—you know—you two and then me, the third wheel.”

  “You could always invite Phillip.” Alex gave her a mocking smile.

  “Yeah, right. I’d never do that. It’s bad enough we almost kissed. I’m not going to turn around and ask him to go ice skating with us.”

  “Bad? I thought you liked him.”

  “I do, it’s just, he’s still with Tracy. I can’t be a backstabbing whore like Tracy, okay? No matter how much I don't like her.”

  “Whoa, don’t get all in a huff. No one truly likes her, I guarantee it. She just puts people down and makes them feel insecure. Besides, I told Michael not to count on having you come with us. I figured you wouldn’t want to ask Phillip—you know on account of you being scared.”

  “Hey, I’m not scared. I’ll go ice-skating with you two, and I’ll ask Phillip, too. Just you wait and see,” Sam said defensively.

  Alex grinned, because that’s obviously what she wanted all along.

  “Man, I can’t wait to get home. I don’t think I’ll be coming over today, Al,” Sam said.

  “Why?”

  “Well, lovebird, I don’t think I can sit around your room, watching you IM your boyfriend for an hour for another day.”

  Alex laughed nervously. “I did that?”

  “Alex, come on. This past week, I’ve been subjected to watching you laugh, giggle, and smile girlishly at the computer screen while you tell me what you and Michael are talking about.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize, I don’t have to log on until after you leave,” Alex said guiltily.

  “Forget it. I’m tired anyway. I think I’ll just go home and play with Ben. I don’t really feel like doing anything.”

  “I hear you. I’m so used to not being at schoo
l that—oh look, it’s your boyfriend,” Alex said, stopping mid-sentence to point out Phillip, who was running toward them as they made their way out of the school entrance.

  “For the last time, he’s not my boyfriend. And could you be any louder?”

  “I could,” Alex said with a grin.

  “Please don’t,” Sam said as Phillip caught up to them.

  “This is my cue to leave. So I’ll talk to you online later, Sam?” Alex asked.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Hey Sam,” Phillip said, catching his breath. “Uh, how are you?”

  “I’m fine and yourself?” she said, trying to pretend nothing had happened between them.

  “I’m doing fine. Did Alex tell you I said hi?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t get the message until just now.”

  “Oh, okay, because at first I thought that you were ignoring me. You know, after what happened and especially since I didn’t see you at lunch or—”

  “I was, uh, in the library. And I just thought that, uh well, I don’t know what I was thinking but—”

  “It’s okay, I was just wondering though if you wanted to hang out. As friends, of course,” he interjected. “I’m free this Saturday.”

  Sam smiled. “I’d like that, but, uh…” Sam mustered up her courage. “I already told Alex and Michael I’d go ice-skating with them.”

  “Oh, well, maybe some other time then.” He actually sounded disappointed.

  “Well, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind me bringing someone, if you wanted to come.”

  Yes! I did it! She finally asserted herself and asked Phillip to go with her. The only question was if he would agree to go.

  “Uh, yeah sure, it sounds like fun.” He smiled. “I’ll talk to you later about a time?”

  “Yeah, that’s fine.”

  “Well, I have to run. Football practice.”

  “It’s okay, I have to go get my math book, anyway. I forgot it in Mr. Steven’s classroom, and he locks his door early, so I should go too. Talk to you later then,” Sam said as she began walking backwards toward the classroom.

  “Bye, Sam,” Phillip called.

  “See you around, handsome,” Sam said then turned around and made her way down the hall. She didn’t want to see his expression, yet at the same time she yearned to see whether he was smiling at her or not.