"I don’t want better…I want you."

- The Best of Me, in theaters October 17

Part Three

The years between 1956 and1960 were like a sweet, bitter poison seeping through her skin and into her bones. The kind of poison you kept drinking not because you liked the taste, but how it made you feel. There were two core reasons for this, and these reasons had names. Rosemary Devereux and Sam Bishop. It all started when she returned to Cathers for her fifth year. From the first moment she stepped back onto the school grounds, everything felt different, there was a sour feeling of change hanging in the autumn air. For instance, Ginger Collins did not like to be called Ginger any more. She insisted it was Virginia, plain old Virginia Collins and anyone who called Ginger would get a smack in the face.

Gwen Cooper had returned to Cathers bitter and impossibly cynical. Betsy O’Hearn had not returned at all, apparently she had moved to the Unites States. Marian Montgomery had her earlobes pierced, not once but twice and by the end of their sixth year, she would have her belly button pierced as well. A bold move that would have her expelled.

The biggest change of all had been Wanda Harding. She lost all the weight she had carried all her life, now she was skinny with long legs and cheekbones sharper than broken glass. Her once bright, frizzy red hair had flattened into smooth silk that could sell for two or three souls. In short, Wanda Harding was no longer that fat, goofy girl everyone pretended to like. Wanda Harding was now that thin, beautiful girl everyone pretended to like.

And then there was Rosemary Devereux. Rosemary Devereux had cut her dark brown hair into a sharp bob that made her look eighteen not fourteen. Despite only being five foot two, she looked older than any of the girls in their year and most of the girls in the year above. She had lost the chubby plumpness in her face and wide cheekbones that could rival Wanda Harding’s were slowly emerging.

Elara Song had not undergone any drastic changes like most of the girls in her year. Elara Song was still five foot six. Elara Song was still pale and quiet. Elara Song –much to her disappointment – was still Elara Song.

That year, the girls had truly left their childhood days and were now set on paths that would lead to womanhood. Or so, Mrs. O’Donnell told them during a school assembly on the first week back. Rosemary had rolled eyes and silently commented on the stupidity of it all. The path to womanhood, she explained to Elara later that evening as they sat in the canteen eating their dinner, was not direct, it was awkward and painful but also best years of your life. Elara had stopped wondering long ago how Rosemary knew such things. She chalked it all down to this; Rosemary and a deep knowledge of matters that surpassed her age went hand in hand.

That same weekend, Elara snuck off to the woods, eager and anxious to see Sam after so long apart. She was happy, and more than relieved to find Sam had not changed like all the others. He still had the same curly hair that kept falling into his eyes, the same bright green eyes and secretive smile and nimble fingers that were always fidgeting with something. Elara was so happy to see him, she crushed him into a hug and they stumbled into some lavender bushes. Sam just laughed and held her tighter.

*

“I met a boy.”

Monday, October 29th 1956. Rosemary Devereux and Elara Song were sitting at the back of the library, both engrossed in the deeply confusing Maths homework Mrs McCarthy had set the day before.

Elara looked up from the difficult equation she had been trying to solve for the past fifteen minutes. “What?”

“I met a boy,” Rosemary repeated. She had this smug, all-knowing smile on her lips as she twiddled with her pen. Elara could not pinpoint why but it made her nervous.

“What boy?” she asked, “when?”

“Summer holidays, I went to Belfast for my aunt’s wedding, I was there for two weeks,” Rosemary said, “he was at the wedding, apparently his dad works with my aunt. He’s awfully cute and he’s sweet and funny and oh, Elara if you saw him you’d understand.”

“Oh that’s nice,” she said, her attention returning to her homework. “Have you talked to him since?”

“No, not yet, but he goes to Ravensworth Academy,” she said, “we’re going to meet up this weekend.”

“Where?”

“Bellmoor,” she said, “I’m taking the bus there on Saturday morning and meeting in the town centre, you know near the big fountain? Well, he promised he would take me to see a film next time we saw each other so we’re going to watch Around the World in Eighty Days.”

Elara did not doubt that Rosemary had somehow coaxed the poor boy into taking her to the cinema. Rosemary Devereux had this way with people, she could get them into doing whatever she wanted with the right smile. It was a trait Elara both admired and feared.

Elara rubbed out the last answer she had written. “What’s his name?” she asked idly. “

She had to admit, she was intrigued now. She wanted to know more about this mysterious boy who had captured Rosemary Devereux’s attention, which was a near impossible fear since almost everything bored her.

“Sam.”

Elara froze. She slowly lifted her head to look at her. “W-what?” she stammered. She desperately hoped she misheard or perhaps this is another Sam. Not her Sam. Please not her Sam.

“Sam,” she repeated. “Sam Bishop.”

In that moment, Elara Song’s world did not shift. It shook and crumbled in on itself. It collapsed.

The grip on her pen tightened. It had to be another Sam Bishop. It had to be. In her desperation, she asked another question, “What does he look like?”

Rosemary smiled, “well, he’s a little taller than you. He has this ridiculously curly blonde hair and green eyes, the greenest green you ever saw.” She bit her lip and grinned, “he’s quite handsome and I…I think he likes me too.”

Elara could not breathe. The air was trapped in her lungs.

“Sam Bishop?” she whispered.

Rosemary nodded and frowned, throwing Elara a concerned look, “are you alright? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

Elara racked her memory, she thought of the last time she had met with Sam in the meadow. She vaguely remembered him saying something about a friend he had made in Belfast but he had not mentioned the fact this friend was a girl let alone Rosemary.

“Elara,” she said, yanking her out of her thoughts. Her frown deepened, “are you okay?”

“F-fine,” she forced her mouth into a convincing smile. “Just....I just really ought to get this homework done.”

“Oh, all right then.”

This was a problem. Rosemary knew Sam. Her Sam. The only sane thing she had in her life. This was a big problem. So, Elara dealt with it the way she dealt with all her problems. She smiled through it and hoped it would all work itself out.

*

“You like her don’t you?” Elara asked Sam the weekend he had met with Rosemary in Bellmoor.

Sam shrugged. He was pulling at the grass, refusing to look at her. He did that when he was nervous. When he could not bring himself to lie to her.

“Is that a bad thing?” he said.

Yes.

“No.”

“I’m thinking of asking her out again,” he said, this time grunting as he yanked out a particularly stubborn bundle of grass, “we both like footy so I might take her to the footy match in the Bellmoor Stadium.”

Football? She almost spat. Rosemary hated football.

“Unless…” he stopped pulling the grass and glanced at her. He brushed blond curls from his eyes, green eyes that were now skipping across her face, he looked like he was searching for something, “unless you think it wouldn’t be a good idea.”

Of course not, she wanted to say, she wanted to scream, Stay with me.

She fought the urge to glare at him. Why did he care what she thought? She shook her head, “no, uh, it’s fine. Have a good time.”

For a second, so fast she thought she imagined it Elara saw a flash of disappoint in his eyes before it disappeared. He stared impassively at her, his face blank and unreadable. It was startling because normally she could pinpoint every single one of his emotions. He was not one to hide how he felt.

“Right,” he said, his tone cold and clipped, he went back to pulling the grass and she got the distinct feeling he was angry about something. Which, in turn made her angry because he had no right since he was the one going on dates with the only friend she had at Cathers. He was the one breaking her heart.

Later, much later as she sat in third period Domestic Science listening to Miss Nelson critique Lucy Manor on her flat soufflé, she thought of her conversation with Sam. And she realised Sam had wanted her to say no. He had wanted to her to say, Of course not. Stay with me.

Her realisation came a little too late because by the end of that week, Sam and Rosemary were officially dating. She was the first girl in their year to have a proper boyfriend. It was all anyone could talk about.

Elara did not know to feel about that. So she chose not to feel anything at all. She swallowed the chasm growing in her chest and smiled when Rosemary told her the news.

She did not quite believe it and again she hope it would all work itself out.

*

Elara Song was sixteen years old when she finally, truly understood it would not work itself out. Sam Bishop and Rosemary Devereux had been dating for exactly two years, two months, three weeks and three days. Not that Elara was keeping track of such a thing. That would be odd. Elara Song finally, truly understood she never had a chance with Sam Bishop on the morning of May 19th, 1958. Elara had gone into the woods after a sour lesson of double Maths, she expected to find Sam lying on grass like always, she expected him to give her that smile and tell her he had found something interesting. The last thing she expected to find was none other than Rosemary Devereux. Elara froze, not quite believing her eyes. Rosemary was sitting in the shadow of an evergreen, Sam had an arm thrown around her shoulder and she had her head buried in his neck. It was a peaceful scene, romantic and so private she felt as if she was intruding on something too fragile to be seen. With her heart threatening to fall out of her chest, Elara quickly turned on her heels and disappeared back into the woods before either of them saw her.

And she ran. She did not care where she went, she just needed to get away from this place. She ran and ran and ran until her muscles ached and her lungs begged for air. She stopped sometime later at the edge of a river. Elara collapsed onto the grassy floor, breathing hard and ragged as she rolled onto her back and stared up at the cloudy, May sky.

She feel could the chasm in her chest grow wider and wider with each passing second.

She could taste the emptiness in her mouth.

It tasted like the ghost of a kiss she had shared long ago.

*

Sam and Rosemary split up when they were seventeen in the autumn of 1959. Rosemary had been in a sour mood, swearing and lashing out at any who dared to look at her the wrong way. The exact circumstances of their break up was unknown, Elara had been too scared to ask since neither Rosemary nor Sam were willing to talk to about it. It did not last long. The split was brief, barely a month before they were back together. They looked so nauseatingly perfect, so right, Elara wanted to jump into a bottomless cavern and never return.

“I don’t see much of you these days,” Sam said to her one Tuesday in the middle of November. It was one of those rare, rare times it was just her and Sam.

She knew what he was saying in that odd code they had crafted over years.

I miss you.

She would have liked to blame it on school and the all homework and upcoming exams they had but truthfully it was her. She found it hard to be around him without butterflies wreaking havoc in her stomach, without wanting to pull him close, to kiss him like he had kissed when they were fourteen. She wanted to tell him she missed him. Some days she missed him so much she could feel the ache in her bones. Some days she could hardly breathe.

She said none of this. She merely said.

“I know.”

I miss you too.

*

The closest Elara Song ever came to telling Sam Bishop how she felt was Friday, June 10th 1960. It was at the Leaver’s Ball, a formal dance thrown for students in their last and final years from both Cathers and Ravensworth. This year’s dance was taking place at Ravensworth, in a grand, beautiful hall that was as just as exquisite as the one back at Cathers. Rosemary Devereux had taken charge of organising the Leaver’s Ball. Elara had this hopeless, if not pathetic daydream that Sam and Rosemary would break up. For good this time. That she would walk into the meadow and Sam would be there, holding a bouquet of wildflowers. He would grin in a way that always made her breath catch and he would say, would you be my date to Leaver’s Ball?

She would not let the fantasy go beyond that. Not when Sam had already asked Rosemary. Elara had declined Rosemary’s offers to set up her with one of Sam’s friends. She was perfectly with going alone. She did not need a boy to have a good time.

Everybody looked beautiful that night, all dolled up and dressed in pretty gowns. Elara wore a puffy, summer blue dress that just stopped by her ankles and long white gloves. It was her mother’s, she had worn to her own Leaver’s Ball. Lucy Manor cried at one point in the evening.

“I’m going to miss you Elara, I’m going to miss everyone, even moody Gwen,” she snivelled, “God, I can’t believe it’s all over!”

Elara smiled, feeling sad at the prospect of leaving Cathers. “I know,” she said, “it’s gone by so fast.”

Just then, she turned and saw Sam by the refreshments table, filling up his cup as he bobbed his along to the music. Elara felt sudden surge of – of something. Without saying another word to Lucy, Elara walked over to him. She grasped whatever small scraps of courage she had left and grabbing Sam by his elbow, she pulled him out of the hall. The booming sound of Dion and the Belmonts became a quiet muffle outside in the fresh summer air.

“Whoa, Elara,” Sam said as she came to a stop near the statue of William Churchill in the picturesque garden. “Slow down.”

Elara took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye. It was now or never. Now or never. He had to know.

“Sam, I –”

He stared at her.

Here’s what she said.

Nothing.

Because, really, what was the point? They were all leaving and going their separate ways and God knows when she would see any one of them again, if she would ever see any of them again. What difference would it make if Elara said she loved him? Life would still wedge between them and send them on different paths. There was heartbreak on whatever road she took.

The futility of the entire situation made her laugh.

Sam smiled, although he looked just a tad confused, “what?”

“Nothing,” she shook her head. Elara sighed, “Nothing….I…” she bit her lip, “the music is so loud I was getting a headache…uh, care to take a walk with me?”

“Where?” he said. Green, green eyes brighter than she had ever seen them.

Sam.

Her Sam.

He may have been Rosemary Devereux’s boyfriend but Sam was unequivocally hers. Just like she was his. It was in their smiles, in the small, subtle touches that lasted longer than necessary, in their first kiss. It was in their bones.

She smiled, “Anywhere.”

Everywhere. As long as it was with him she would not mind.