Sam never called on Saturday and when I called her it just went to voicemail. I considered calling Simon to see if she was okay, but I didn’t want to seem too needy. Then my world came apart at 8:17 Sunday morning while I was eating breakfast alone.
*Senator Samuel Green, the author of the controversial bill to reverse the 2015 Supreme Court ruling that legalized marriage for homosexuals, has died today along with his family in a plane crash just outside of Washington, D.C.*
The television reporter kept speaking, but a buzzing in my head drowned out his words. I stared at the picture of a much younger Sam with her family on the screen while my breakfast churned in my stomach. I sat there after the story ended with a spoon in my hand and my cereal turning to mush in the bowl.
I don’t know how long I sat there, but I eventually got up to put my bowl in the sink. I went upstairs, past Joe still sleeping in his room. When I pulled some shorts out of my dresser, I saw the empty space in the drawer I’d prepared for Sam. I shut the drawer slowly and pulled the shorts on under my t-shirt.