Chapter 2: Who's Sam?
The next morning, the world felt wrong.
The kind of wrong that hides beneath normal things, the smell of coffee, the hum of traffic, the rhythm of life pretending everything's fine.
I stared at the half-empty mug on my desk, watching the ripples from my trembling hand. My notebook lay open beside it. The words "She was never written in My book" stared back like a curse.
I didn't remember writing them.
I didn't even remember sleeping.
I kept replaying the dream, Sam's pale face in the fog, her soft whisper: You promised me this would happen.
I didn't know what it meant.
I just knew she was gone, and the world wanted me to believe she never existed.
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At noon, I met CJ and Emman at the café near campus. The rain had stopped, but the air was still damp, heavy, like the sky was holding something back.
CJ waved from a corner table, his usual grin on display. "Jess! Over here!"
I forced a smile and sat down. My hands still shook.
Emman looked up from his phone. "You look like you didn't sleep. Rough night?"
"Something like that," I muttered, glancing at the steam rising from their mugs.
CJ leaned forward, playful as always. "You look like you saw a ghost, bro."
I swallowed hard. "Maybe I did."
He laughed. "What, Sam haunting you again?"
The words slipped out of him like a joke, but my heart stopped.
I froze.
"What… what did you just say?" I whispered.
CJ blinked, confused. "What do you mean?"
"You said Sam. Samantha Faith Flores. You remember her, right?"
Emman looked at CJ, frowning. "Who's Sam?"
CJ tilted his head. "You talking about some classmate?"
My pulse quickened. "No, my girlfriend. You've met her. We went to the cold spring together yesterday, don't you remember?"
CJ laughed softly, uncertain. "Jess, you went with us, yeah, but there was no girl. It was just me, you, Sofia, and Emman."
The sound in my ears dimmed. My chest tightened.
I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out my phone, swiping through the gallery. Photo after photo from yesterday's trip, just the four of us.
No Sam.
Even in the spot where she stood beside me, where I knew she had been, there was only mist, or an awkward gap between shoulders.
"Bro, you good?" Emman's voice was cautious now. "You're kinda scaring me."
I looked up slowly, searching their faces for a hint of recognition. Nothing.
It was as if her name itself erased something inside them.
"I'm serious," I said quietly. "She was there. You were teasing us the whole time."
CJ frowned. "Jess, are you okay? Did something happen after we got home?"
I pressed my fingers against my temples. "You're not joking, right? This isn't a prank?"
"No, man," Emman said. "I think you need some rest."
My chair screeched against the floor as I stood. The whole café went silent for a moment. I didn't care.
"She was there," I said again, more to myself than them. "She was real."
I left before they could stop me. The air outside smelled of wet earth.
I started walking. Nowhere in particular. Just away.
Every few steps, I'd glance at my phone, her contact list still empty. I typed her name again: Samantha Faith Flores.
No results.
No social media.
No old messages.
No digital footprint.
It was as if the entire world had been rewritten, and the part that contained her name had been deleted line by line.
At one point, I found myself standing in front of the bookstore we always visited. The bell above the door chimed as I entered.
"Hey, Jess," said the old clerk, smiling from behind the counter. "Haven't seen you in weeks."
"Hey," I said numbly. "Do you remember the girl I used to come here with?"
He looked puzzled. "Girl?"
"Yeah. About this tall." I gestured with my hand. "Long hair, beautiful eyes, kind of shy. She loved sitting by the poetry shelf."
The man frowned, genuinely thinking. "Sorry, son. I don't think I've seen you with anyone."
My throat went dry. "You must be mistaken. We came here all the time. She—she bought this."
I pointed at a small book behind the glass, Love Letters from the Forgotten. Sam's favorite.
The clerk followed my gaze. "Funny," he said softly. "That book's been there for months. Nobody ever bought it."
The world seemed to shrink around me.
I stepped back, muttering thanks, and stumbled into the rain.
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Later that day, Jess walk to Yummy Mango Brew Café, the place where everything began. It sat on a quiet corner near the old highway, the paint a little more faded now, the wooden sign half-eaten by time. The wind carried the familiar scent of roasted beans and something sweet mango, maybe.
He froze at the doorway.
That smell.
That was the smell of the day she laughed so hard she nearly spilled her shake, the day she leaned across the table and said, "If we ever forget each other, promise you'll order this for me."
He remembered replying to her playfully, "How could I forget you when you taste like mango and sunshine?"
Now the memory hurts.
Jess stepped in. The small chime above the door jingled, and a young barista looked up with a practiced smile. The place looked the same, cracked bricks, old posters of indie bands, fairy lights dangling by the window but something felt colder, emptier, like the soul of the café had been rewritten.
"Hi, uh," Jess said softly, his throat dry. "Can I get one mango shake?"
The barista tilted her head. "We haven't served that in years. Are you sure you're not thinking of another place?"
Jess blinked. "No… You used to. Mango shake, with a little Nutella flavor?"
She smiled politely, pity flashing across her face. "Sorry, sir. I've worked here for five years. Never heard of it."
He forced a nod and ordered plain iced coffee instead, his hands trembling slightly.
When he sat down by the window, their spot was like the past unfolded right in front of him. He saw Sam there, smiling, her brown hair glowing in the sunlight, her laughter echoing softly. For a moment, he almost believed she was still there, invisible but near.
He closed his eyes.
"You promised me this would happen."Her whisper brushed against his mind, soft, distant, and real.
Jess's chest tightened. The coffee shop's hum faded into silence. He looked outside, and for a split second, he saw her reflection on the glass, smiling, sad, and fading away.
He turned sharply one was there.
His pulse quickened. He reached for his phone and opened his gallery again. Nothing. Blank. It felt like being erased, slowly, memory by memory.
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That night, I couldn't eat. Couldn't think. Couldn't stop hearing her laughter echoing faintly in my head.
Her voice felt like a ghost brushing against my ears just enough to remind me she was real, but not enough to bring her back.
At 2 a.m., I sat in front of my desk again, staring at the notebook "Unwritten by God".
The pages were filled with messy ink. My writing. My story. The same story that was now my life.
Each word felt like a heartbeat, something written before it was lived.
I flipped through the pages until I reached the last one.
The line still glowed faintly under the lamplight: She was never written in My book.
And just below it, something new.
Words that hadn't been there before.
You keep trying to remember what Heaven erased.
Do you think love can outwrite God?
The letters shimmered faintly, then bled into the paper until they vanished completely.
My breath came in short bursts. "Sam…" I whispered. "What's happening to me?"
No answer.
Just silence and the low hum of rain against the glass.
Then, as I turned off the lamp, the reflection on the window shifted.
Behind my own dim outline for a fraction of a second, I saw her.
Standing in the rain, eyes sad, palms pressed against the glass as if trying to reach through.
"Sam!" I shouted, spinning around.
Nothing. Only the echo of my voice in the empty room.
And yet… when I turned back, there was one new thing on the windowpane.
A single word, written in the condensation, dripping slowly like tears:
"Why?"
That night, I dreamed again.
The cold spring. The mist. The sound of her laughter dissolves into the wind.
But this time, I wasn't alone.
From across the fog, a voice deeper than before whispered:
"She was not forgotten, Jess. She was forbidden."
Then came silence long, cold, and endless.
When I woke, the notebook was open again, and a white lily lay on the page.
Right above the title.
Unwritten by God.
End of Chapter 2.