Chapter Two | The Code
I didn’t answer.
The phone rang, but my hand never moved. I just stared at the screen, heart in my throat, pulse pounding in my ears. There it was—his name. Sam.
I couldn’t bring myself to touch it. Couldn’t open that door, not again. Too many possibilities lived behind that name. Too many old versions of myself still lingered there—hopeful, naive, unfinished.
And yet… I never deleted his number.
It sat there in my contacts like a bookmark in a story I swore I’d stopped reading. I told myself it was just habit, just convenience. But it wasn’t. It was hope. Fragile and foolish. The kind of hope you tuck away in the back of a drawer, where it won’t embarrass you daily—but you know exactly where it is. And the pain of needing to hear his voice also lingered. Forgetting it by each passing day.
Sometimes, in the quiet hours, I’d let myself imagine the impossible. I’d picture my phone lighting up with a call from Sam—no warning, just him at a drunk moment saying, "Hi."
And I would answer. Without hesitation, I’d drop everything and hear his voice. To hear that smirk through the phone.
Because that was what I always did for him.
He never knew that. Never noticed the rearranged schedules, the canceled plans, the way I made room for him even when it cost me. Sam never asked what I gave up to be there. He never saw the inner chaos I smothered just to keep things easy between us. The things I didn’t say. The feelings I folded neatly and hid behind quick wit and careless laughter.
But I believed he deserved it. Deserved to know what it was like to be cared for wholly—not for his charm, or his silence, or his brokenness—but for something deeper. I was certain no one had ever loved him quite like that. Not even in friendship. Especially in friendship.
And Sam, in his own twisted way, knew it too.
He liked the weight of my care, even if he didn’t understand it. He noticed the way I saw him—really saw him—and he both craved it and rejected it. There was always this quiet war inside him, between drawing closer and pulling away. He let me in just far enough to feel seen, then shut the door before I got too close to whatever he was hiding.
So when he called again—and again—I still didn’t answer. My fingers hovered each time, heart catching on the edge of maybe. But I knew better. Sam didn’t give me what I truly wanted. He never would. Not the way I needed it. Not him, fully.
Still, I wanted to hear his voice. God, I wanted it. Wanted to believe that maybe this time, things were different. That maybe he had changed. That he had chosen me. Not by accident, not by convenience. On purpose.
He knew I was overthinking. He always knew.
Sam could read my mind better than I wanted him to. He knew I’d spiral, playing out every version of the call in my head. And he knew that the more I cared, the more afraid I became of being the only one who did. So he did what only Sam could do—he reached me without reaching too far.
One text.
One word.
Our word.
A code we had created years ago, tucked away in a conversation that hadn’t seemed important at the time. But it was ours. Sacred. A secret stitched into the fabric of our connection, invisible to anyone else.
My breath hitched when I saw it.
That single word, glowing quietly on my screen.
The armor cracked.
This time, I answered.
