I never told anyone about Sam. It didn’t seem important at the time. She was just this girl in school, that’s it. Just a classmate who told me she had a pet guinea pig named Edward Sharpe and a police record. She didn’t tell me what for, but I hadn’t expected her to. I didn’t fully comprehend at that time that Sam was my friend. Friends just didn’t work out for me. I didn’t realize until later how important our friendship was. But it wasn’t the kind of important that means you have to tell everyone because they need to know. Oh, no. The kind of important that makes you lay on your bed over the old striped blue quilt that used to be your sister’s staring at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers on your ceiling at 4:00 PM on a Wednesday when you could be watching a new episode of Nova on PBS. The kind of important that you keep all to yourself because Sam Hilmarsson told you she had a police record and she trusted you with that and you’re the only person in the whole school who knows where Sam Hilmarsson’s parents were on her eleventh birthday. How did I not realize how important that was?

One day after chemistry when Sam was on her way to lunch I asked her if I could sit with her. She, like, freaked out. Her eyes got really big and you could see her pupils trying to decide how much they should show. She smiled. Why did she have to do that? It was painful.
“Yeah, you can sit with me,” she said calmly. She was looking right at me. I looked away. “You don’t have a fifth or sixth period, though, I thought?” she asked. It was true. I had an adjusted schedule. I didn’t like talking about why. But I knew Sam understood and so I could talk to her about that.
“Oh, uh, yeah, I don’t, but I have to stay and talk to a teacher… today…” I trailed off. The whole talking to people thing was not my forte.
“Oh my god, dude, it’s totally fine. Yes. Please. Sit with me. Us. That’d be great,” she said reassuringly. She was still smiling, and tugging at the ends of her ear length hair, and making me feel like a person. A person.
“Oh, who’s this?” a girl said when I walked up to their table in the cafeteria with Sam. Her face was all scrunched up like her agenda for the day hadn’t included dealing with some weird friend of Sam’s.
“Sarah,” Sam said, stepping forward. “My friend.” Oh, how I could listen to her say that for days. The girl moved aside and we joined the group.
So I sat with Sam and her friends from the volleyball team, and while they talked about spandex and Pretty Little Liars, I watched Sam. I did that a lot. I probably shouldn’t have. But I noticed things. Like how she would try to cross her legs under the table every few minutes but couldn’t do it because she was too tall. How she didn’t eat the food her friends shared with her. How she put it in her schoolbag and kept laughing and smiling and telling the best jokes I’d ever heard.
“So, Sam,” one of the volleyball girls asked. “Are you going to be at Chandler’s party after the game next week? Everyone’s invited.” She pointedly avoided looking at me when she said that. I got what she meant, and I wasn’t surprised. I don’t get invited to anything.
Sam looked around the cafeteria, squinting. Examining.
“Maybe. Probably not,” she replied casually.
“Oh,” said one of the other girls. “Do you have something going on? We were really hoping you’d be there…”
“Hmm. I don’t know what I’ll be doing. But I won’t be able to go,” she said. She traced the fake wood grain of the table with her red painted fingernails.
“Uhh, if you don’t want to go, just say so,” a girl across from us at the table huffed. Sam froze, like she’d realized something.
“Oh! No, it isn’t that- I have-” she sighed. “Nevermind.”
The girls looked confused, but then mostly ignored Sam. This happens sometimes.
I looked up at Sam. Like, way up, because she’s nearly a foot taller than me. She turned and looked at me. She smiled. That same damned smile she gave me when she was trying to distract me from her parents arguing downstairs. The one she gave me on that day in chemistry class when she asked where I’d gotten my nail polish. It was always that same smile.

I stayed until the end of the school day and took the bus with Sam. We were the last two stops.

The night before the volleyball game, Sam called me. It was 12:34 AM. I was awake.

“Hey. Sarah. Come over right now.”
“Sam, it’s the middle of the night…”
“Sarah.” Her voice wavered. “Please.”
“Sam, what’s going on?”
“Nothing. Honestly, nothing at all.” I had already gone out the back door and down the street. “Sarah, please. Come over.”
“Can you let me in?” I looked up from the side of Sam’s house. The curtains were open.
“Oh my god, that was fast.”
“Sam, let me in. It’s cold.” I was so glad I was able to talk then.
She came outside from the side door and we tiptoed up to her room. For all I knew, her parents weren’t even here. We went into her bedroom, full of sports trophies and music posters. Edward Sharpe was dozing in his little cage. A duffel bag was half sticking out of her closet.
“Sarah.”
I could barely see her, the moonlight shining in from the window and ghosting over her. It seemed a stupid thing to think at the time, but it really was like a dream.
“Sam. What’s going on.” My voice was shaking. She sat on her bed. I leaned against her desk.
“Nothing,” she said slowly, drawing out each syllable. “I just wanted to see you, what’s so wrong with that?” I showed her the time on my phone screen. She sighed and waved it away. “Time isn’t important.” She tilted her chin up as she said it.
“But you have a volleyball game tomorrow!” I said. You’re scaring me.
“Not going,” she said. She turned her head away from me. I pushed myself away from the desk, moving closer to where Sam was sitting on her bed.
“Sam.” I gritted my teeth. “What’s. Going. On.” I stepped closer, knees almost hitting the bed. Sam stopped swinging her legs. She leaned her elbows on her knees.
Head in hands.
“Everything,” she whispered. I’m scared. She started shaking. I grabbed her.

At three forty-six AM I left Sam Hilmarsson’s house. At nine thirty-eight AM Sam Hilmarsson was reported missing. Run away, they said. No note. Parents very, very worried, they said.
From five thirty to seven fifteen PM. Searching. Volleyball game. Sam. Sam. My neck was sore for a week. From looking. I didn’t find her. They didn’t find her.

I knew this would happen, didn’t I? Of course I knew. I just didn’t want to believe it. I wanted Sam. I wanted her friendship and I didn’t want to scare her away by trying to get her to tell me more about herself than she was comfortable with. The signs were there. I noticed, but I didn’t say anything. I was scared. I never told anyone about Sam Hilmarsson, and now I never can. Because there isn’t anything to say.