LOVELESS

Chapter 54

2 WEEKS LATER

Sam wakes up disoriented, drenching in sweat. A few moments later, he reaches for his phone on the night stand and sees it's 4:25am. He also notices a voicemail alert from an unknown number, but ignores it. He looks over to the side of him where the bed is empty, and then immediately looks under the bathroom door. It's pitch black. He picks up his phone and calls Yemi.

He hears her phone vibrating on the other nightstand, so he ends the call. He stands up and leaves the room on a search and finds Yemi sitting on the couch using his laptop.

"What are you doing?"

Yemi's eyes are glued to the screen. "I'm looking up the classes we talked about." She turns around and does a double-take at the sight of Sam. "Oh wow. Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Why are you up so early?" Sam inquires while Yemi speed-walks to the kitchen, grabbing a few paper towels.

"I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep." She returns to Sam, and starts to wipe the sweat off his chest. Sam quickly snatches the paper towels from her.

"I got it," he tells her in a dismissive tone.

Yemi is shocked at his attitude, and mean-mugs him.

"What?"

"You don't want me touching you, now?"

"I didn't mean it like that, ma. I just don't want you wiping off my sweat."

"You act like I'm not all in your sweat when you're on top of me."

Sam smirks. "It's not this bad, though. I'm mad sweaty, right now."

"Did you have a bad dream?"

Sam nods. "About my mother."

"You wanna talk about it?"

He shakes his head, but then thinks about it. "...Did you ever have any fucked up dreams after your mom left?"

"Yeah. In one of them, I witnessed her getting attacked. But I couldn't run up to help her. It was like an invisible bubble was there or something. No matter how hard I tried to run up to her, I kept bouncing backwards. It was the worse feeling ever."

Sam squints at her, wishing there was something he could do to take away her pain that she masks so well. "...You said it was your mom's cousins that were there, right?"

"Yeah."

"How did you find out they were lying to you about who did it?"

"I overhead them talking about what really happened. They left the person's name out, so I barged into the room and demanded them to tell me who it was. But they made it seem like I was hearing things and that I was going crazy."

Sam curls his lip in disgust. "What's their names?"

Yemi gives him the side-eye, knowing exactly why he's probing.

"Why're you looking at me like that?"

"Why do you want their names?"

"Just wanna know."

"Sam..."

"What's their names, Yemi?"

"I'm not going to tell you. I don't want you getting into any more trouble."

He stares at her for a moment, deep in thought. "...Imma go take a shower. You're gonna be done with that when I'm out?" He asks, nodding at the laptop.

"Yes, Sam." She gently bites the bottom of her lip. "I'll be in the bed waiting for you by the time you get out."

Sam strokes her chin, and then kisses her forehead. He turns to walk away, but then quickly turns back around. "Happy Valentine's Day."