𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬. sam uley

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲-𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫

One day, when it was raining outside and Sam was too tall to sit in his mother's lap but small enough to fit under her arm, she told him about Joshua Uley.

Sam didn't know a lot about his father, but he figured nothing good could be said anyway. Anyone who could leave Allison Uley when the woman was a ray of sunshine did not have a heart--or at least, that's what Sam believes, even now.

In this case, it was his ten-year-old self that believed that.

And his mom had shushed him with a laugh.

"No, honey, I think your father had a heart," she said fondly, stroking Sam's long hair. "I just think it wasn't the right time for us. I wasn't the right person for him."

"You're perfect," Sam denied.

"A biased opinion from my biggest fan." Allison laughed, ruffling Sam's hair up. Sam shoved her hands away with a grunt. She laughed harder. "I appreciate it, dreamcatcher, but one day you'll realize I wasn't the right person for your father."

Sam still didn't understand. "Why did he leave, though?" He had grown up enough to realize that there was someone absent from his life, but not old enough to know why. He just couldn't wrap his head around it. To him, there should have been nothing that made his father want to leave his mother.

To his mom, though. . .

"I do not resent your dad for leaving," she said softly, soothing, as though Sam were the one who needed to be comforted and not her.

Sam pouted. "You should."

"No, my love, I do not. And one day you will understand why."

"But what about you?" Sam couldn't help it. He had to know. "How did you feel when he left?"

And Allison had smiled--smiled so sadly and so miniscule that he didn't believe it was real for a second until she kissed his head with tears in her eyes.

"It felt like. . . like he had died," she whispered to him like it was a secret only the two of them could know. Her voice cracked on "died." Sam winced as though he had been struck. He had always hated his mother's tears only because he could not stop them as much as he wanted to. "I felt--I felt hollow, Sam."

That was it.

That was all she said.

Hollow.

Sam weighed the word around, tested it on his tongue and then decided it was too little of an adjective to describe losing the love of your life. He had let it flow through his veins like water down a creek, and it was no more.

Now, he thinks about it, and the white wolf bites into his naked shoulder, drawing blood from his human skin, and knows that once again, Allison Uley has been proven right.

Hollow.

What a fitting word to describe the ache Sage had left behind, like a tree that had been worn out and then stripped entirely of its being, carved out until it was nothing but bark and dead leaves.

He expects it to be over then. He can feel the blood leaking out of the wound. It doesn't heal, and he wonders, faintly, about that, but the thought passes as quickly as it came.

The white wolf releases his arm, and Sam slinks onto the damp forest floor, sinking into mulch and moss. It's soft against his arm, but sticks poke into his wound and he hisses, closing his eyes. Praying it'll end soon, this misery. This constant ache inside him that worsens the longer Sage is gone.

The day rushes up to him. Sage's vibrant eyes, her hooded ones, the whispered promises on her lips. Her declarations to Aro, the rain in his fur, pelting him like lashes being beaten into him, each one heavier than the last. The flames, beautiful ribbons she danced with, burning into his eyes and then ash.

So much ash, he could have choked on it.

He sighs, and it goes through his whole body, like it needed that one breath. That reset. Sam wishes it would lessen this ache in him, would fill him up like concrete on a sidewalk. His tears prick and his lungs heave, softly, silently. A delicate misery.

The white wolf snarls at him, but it sniffs around Sam like it's confused. It can't make out his tears, his anguish. Or perhaps it thinks Sam is familiar. Sam had thought, for a second, it was one of his own when he was shifted. It was when no responding thoughts accompanied Sam's own that his own hackles rose.

His shoulder is still bleeding. There are bite marks slowly healing, but the pain is still present. Sam hisses, grabbing at it. The white wolf follows his movement with a growl.

"Enough," Sam snaps, because it must be of his descent—a shapeshifter from another tribe, perhaps--and at this point, he simply doesn't care. "You're the one who ran for me, not the other way around."

The white wolf tilts its head, then huffs, bothered. Sam wants to shift back, craves the emptiness of his thoughts when he is a wolf. He is nothing but instincts, and though they are animalistic (and when she pops up, the pain is so agonizing his wolf wants to howl until they are out of breath), it dulls everything else.

He is a human now, and she is all he thinks about. His heart twists painfully in his chest, like knots reassembling in different configurations over and over again. Cries stop at his throat, because the wolf is still here, staring at him as though he is familiar, like the pieces are slotting together. As though Sam is someone it recognizes. Sam will not allow another weakness to show.

His body quivers, shakes, like he is in the dead of winter, freezing. Sam presses his hands together, and a small, silent cry escapes his mouth, his legs curling into his chest as he rocks back and forth. Every time he shuts his eyes, he sees flames--smells smoke and ash.

He sees shadows, smells pine and dew on a morning rose. She is everywhere, surrounding him like her shadows encase everything in their wake. It feels like a hug.

Sam's breath stutters.

The white wolf whines, then, a low steady thing, and Sam recognizes it for what it is. Grief. Anger. Denial. The wolf has seen death, too--has lost someone.

Sam shifts. He can't not. The agony is ruthless and he is weak. He shifts, and the white wolf sniffs the black wolf, and then they run together, and while the ache doesn't disappear, there is something soothing about knowing he is not alone in his grief.

Later that night, when he's curled up beside the white wolf, confused and comforted all at once, he thinks of the word hollow again.

The white wolf snuffles his ear, sneezing, and the black wolf snorts and falls into a restful sleep.

The first one he's had since she's been gone.