Wants Vs. Weeds

I'm going to say this once and only once- I do not need Samuel Harris.

At the beginning of my freshman year in college, I met a rather strange individual in my communications class. (It's ironic since both of us are terrible at talking through speech and body language.)

We didn't have a reason to talk to each other until we got assigned partners for a project that was worth a large percentage of our grade. We both made it clear that we would rather work alone, but we were willing to compromise for a high grade. That was one thing we could agree on.

"Partners," Said Sam.

"Yeah."

This was the first time I heard his voice clearly.

At the start of the project, Sam handed me an outline that he'd created and said nothing about it. It was no surprise to me, but I was confused. When I went up to ask him about it later, he told me it was an outline and said he wanted me to read it. From that day forward, Sam took a more direct approach to communicate with me.

"Have you read the outline?"

"Yeah."

"Good. We can get started on research."

"Uh, Sam?"

"Yes?"

"Can we go to your dorm instead?"

I was afraid to ask him because we'd only met up in mine before. The only reason I did was that I was having problems with my dorm mate, Keith.

"Yes."

"Okay."

"Is there a reason why?"

"Just wondering what it looks like."

"Okay."

When we made it to his dorm, everything was organized and neatly placed. Not even just his room- the entire place. His room was really bland, though.

I sat on the floor next to his bed.

"Now that we're alone, are you going to tell me why we're really here?"

"What do you mean? I did tell you."

"No, you lied to me."

I stayed silent. For someone terrible at interpreting other people's emotions, he was great at reading mine.

"Why did you ask to come here?" He asked, "And don't lie again."

"My room is a mess."

"It was also a mess the last time I was there."

"Ouch. That's rude."

"What has changed since last time?"

Just when I was about to lie to him, his eyes met mine and I was forced to look away.

"Okay."

"Okay?" I questioned. "What do you mean?"

"We're going to your dorm."

He took my arm and stood up.

"You're serious?"

"Yes, I am."

As we started walking to the room, I became increasingly nervous. I was scared of not only Keith's reaction but of what Sam would think. The idea of worrying about Sam made me even nervous because I had no idea what I was afraid of.

"We should just go back to your room-"

"No."

He pulled me along until we made it to the dorm. He opened the door instead of knocking.

Keith was sitting on the couch, snoring loudly. We assumed that meant he was sleeping.

Sam slammed the door, jolting him awake.

"What's your deal, man!?"

"What?"

"You don't just walk in here like you own the place."

Keith got up from the couch, ready to get into a physical altercation with Sam.

"You've been hurting Atticus lately, haven't you?"

"Is that what he told you?"

Keith glared at me from across the room.

"He's exaggerating. This happens to all of the fresh meat."

"I didn't ask."

Keith grabbed Sam's collar, pushing him against the wall.

"Don't push too hard, kid."

"Guys, this is getting a little out of hand. How about we all just walk away?"

"Yeah. Just walk away." Keith said as he let go of Sam.

"No."

"What did you say?"

"Do you have hearing issues?"

Keith slammed his fist into Sam's face, throwing him to the ground.

"Get out of here before I do something worse."

Dusting himself off, Sam got up. His eyes bore through Keith's soul. I was scared and I was barely involved. I didn't wanna know what he had planned for Keith.

"No," He said, "How about you get out of here?"

"What?"

"Pack your things and get out of here now."

"Or what?"

Sam got closer to him, making him step back.

"Do you want to find out?"

Without saying anything, Keith scurried away from Sam and went to his room. Presumably to grab his stuff.

Sam moved in with me the next day.

Now that we were actively living together, it made it a lot easier to get our portions of the project done. Also, Sam kinda did everything.

He cooked, cleaned. He was basically a housewife. Not that I'm incapable of living alone. I'm able to take care of myself fine, it was just easier for Sam to do everything.

Since the moment we started living together, he started to seem a bit strange to me. He did everything he thought he had to do- no questions asked. He always exercised a certain amount of caution whenever we would talk.

One day while we were working on the project, I asked him how his childhood was as a way to get a casual conversation going.

"What do you mean?"

"Um..."

Where was I going with the subject?

"Just, are your parents as goal-oriented as you are?" I chuckled nervously, "You have to get it from somewhere, right?"

"My parents always wanted me to succeed where they couldn't," He said, "So, yes."

"Seems like a lot of stress to put on a kid."

"They've only ever wanted me to achieve greatness."

"What if you fail?"

"Fail?"

I started to realize that this might not be the perfect conversation to have with someone like Sam.

"Yeah. What'll they do if you don't succeed?"

"I would assume that they would be very disappointed."

Curiosity got the better of me.

"What would they do if they were disappointed?"

"Prepare me for success again."

I wondered if Sam had ever gotten to a point where he needed to do better. In my eyes, he was always perfect. He got amazing grades and had never gotten into fights as far as I'd heard. Well, he'd only been on the receiving end of them.

What kind of parents could raise someone and turn them into a Sam?

The people responsible for such a masterpiece were obviously geniuses. But that begs the question; why? Why would anyone feel the need to shape him this way?

Up to this point, I'd never seen Sam establish any kind of connection with a person. Not emotional anyway. He'd always stayed away from that kind of thing.

"Hey, Sam?"

"What is it?"

At this point, it looked like I was distracting him.

"What do your parents want you to do for them?"

"They want me to..."

He stopped talking in the middle of his sentence.

It's like he wasn't there but instead, taking a walk through his memories. Trying to find the right answer and the perfect way to phrase it. But he was at a loss. No amount of remembering could tell him what he needed to know- no amount of wondering could tell him why he had to be this way. I would've lost my sense of self-identity if I were him, but I was starting to ponder whether or not he actually had one.

"Are you okay?"

He kept staring off, thinking. I shook him. Why wouldn't he snap out of it?

"Sam!"

"Yes?"

He cocked his head, looking back at me like nothing happened. I stared in shock. I'd never seen him behave like this before. It was the strangest thing to me.

"Atticus?"

"Never mind," I said, "It's nothing."

After that day, it got a lot harder to keep all of my questions in. They kept piling up one on top of the other. I was so intrigued that I wanted to get to know him. Maybe even to befriend him. Just as a short little project, though. I just had to know.

I began approaching him regularly even outside of our dorm. I'd stop by between classes to say hello and observe his behavior. I had to do anything I could to find out who Sam was.

I even started to think there was something behind the meals he cooked for the two of us.

The day I asked him about it, he just explained that he gets the recipes offline and that there's really nothing special to what he does. His food was delicious though, so I asked him if he had experience. He told me that he'd been cooking since he was a kid. His parents bought private lessons for him so that he could excel in everything. I thought that was nice, given how he once told me that his parents were of the lower class. They were poor and barely scraping by as it was, but they managed to save up to get him everything he would need to succeed. All he did was nod and say he graciously accepted their help. But he didn't seem like he had a particularly close relationship with them.

Or any at all.

He never talked about them unless I brought up something specific.

On my quest to find out his true identity, I realized I would have to go to the basics. I'd have to think back to a time before I'd actually interacted with Sam- a time when we were only classmates. He was the smartest person in the class (other than me), and his parents constantly pushed him to succeed. Like I said before, that's a lot of pressure to put onto a kid. Instead of tip-toeing around him like I always did, I figured that a direct approach like I'd generally used would be better. He only responds to confrontation, after all.

It was on the weekend, and he was studying for our exams. He didn't look like he wanted to be bothered. So, I ignored the voice in my head that was begging me to talk to him about it. I guess I wanted to know pretty bad.

A few weeks had passed since then and nothing had changed. He was still studying relentlessly and we rarely started to see each other anymore. It was during this time that I realized that Sam's demeanor changed. His posture was worse- which was very unusual for him. It wasn't worse my much but it was very noticeable if you knew Sam. He wasn't one to slack off in any instance of his life.

The less we talked, the worse he seemed.

Almost sickly looking.

Sam always took care of himself. Always. Even when he was sick, he took small steps to help himself improve so this was, by far, the weirdest thing I'd seen yet. Maybe he had seasonal allergies but I highly doubted that.

Not talking to Sam was hard. Not being able to eat his home-cooked meals was harder. Not being able to come back to a clean dorm after a long day of treacherous work was torture.

I'd decided that I had to talk to him. I knocked on his door after we were done with our classes today. I even knocked which, I'll say, was very uncharacteristic of me. He didn't respond.

When I opened the door to papers scattered on the floor in an untamed mess, and he was curled up in the corner, I was sure that something was off. Something was more than off. He was sick and I was unable to see it.

I rushed over to him, wondering what was going on. What had happened? What was all of this?

He went to the hospital after I frantically called an ambulance.

I didn't have a special bond with Sam... No, not at all. It was just seeing someone who was generally so hard-core so fragile was heard. I didn't appreciate character breaks in literature and certainly not in real life.

I ended up sleeping in the hospital that night, next to his bed. Of course, I wasn't supposed to be in there, but I didn't really care. I just had to know if he was okay.

When I woke up, Sam was sitting up in the bed, reading The Da Vinci Code as if he wasn't severely ill the previous night. I was hysterical.

"You-" I said, "You're okay?!"

He closed his book and looked up, meeting my eyes for the first time in a while.

"Yes, I am."

"What happened to you?" I asked, sobbing.

"I'm sorry that I upset you," He said, "I should've known that this would happen."

"What exactly happened to you?"

"It was just a minor..."

"A minor what?"

"Seizure."

I was dumbfounded. A seizure?

"As I'm sure you know, I haven't exactly been 'myself' lately."

"What does that have to do with this?"

"I missed an assignment after exams, and I started to slip. Things started to build up in my head since work has always been so important to me. I should've stayed on top of it."

"You're saying that you were burned out?"

"You could phrase it that way. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. Wait- why are you asking me that?"

"You seem shocked."

"Well, yeah!" I said. (Maybe a little too loud for a hospital). "Healthy college kids generally don't have seizures when they miss one assignment."

"I'm perfectly healthy."

"Then why-"

"Atticus, why are you here with me?"

"Well, I mean..."

"Don't you have tons of assignments today?"

"I had a guy on the inside deal with that. Anyways, that's beside the point! I was just worried because you've been acting weird lately."

"We already addressed the 'acting weird' part, but thanks for bringing it up again."

"Whatever, nerd."

"Ouch. That hurt my feelings," Sam replied, "Just kidding. That was a joke."

"You know that 'ouch' is my signature. Also, saying that it was a joke takes all of the fun out of joking, dude."

"Sorry."

So was what a regular conversation with Sam was like. Trying to hold onto it before it slipped out of my grasp, I said:

"So, how is that book?"

"Personally, I'm not really interested in mystery/thrillers."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Then why are you reading it?"

"My father brought it here because it used to be my favorite book."

"No way!"

"Yes, I don't believe it either. This has never been an interesting genre for me."

"That's not what I mean. I missed the chance to meet your dad?"

"It's not anything I would like you to see." He whispered underneath his breath, "Regardless, it's not like he stopped by to say hello or ask if I'm alright."

"You're not joking again, are you?"

"No. He came here to remind me of my past failures."

"If a book as thick as The Da Vinci Code is a reminder of your failures, I seriously wonder what I'm doing with my life."

The two of us sat in uncomfortable silence for a moment before I finally decided to break it again.

"So, wait, your parents did make you like this?"

"What do you mean?"

"They forced a toxic idealogy about fulfilling their legacy onto you," I explained, "Thus, forcing you to work relentlessly and rarely letting yourself rest. They're the reason your anxiety built and you're in this situation."

"My parents only gave me the tools I need to succeed."

"You keep saying that, but all of this is for their success."

"What are you, a psychology major?"

"Well, no, but I had a phase."

We stared at each other.

"I think they just used to be very passionate people," He said. "My parents had me very young and had to give up on their dreams because of that."

"What does that have to do with you?"

He avoided the question.

"My mother used to say this thing about children. She said 'They're like weeds. You create them out of your life and you're forced to make them grow. Your resources, your energy, your dreams- they only bloom when they take everything from you."

"That doesn't sound like something you should say to a kid."

"Maybe my parents wanted me to become something beautiful instead of just a weed."

"Weeds can be gorgeous, you know."

"Oh?"

"They just need a little extra something to thrive."

"That's an interesting way to look at it."

The way he said it made me nervous. I starting to feel the need to crawl into a hole. He always made me so anxious.

"You're back to yourself. It's somewhat refreshing."

"I thought we agreed that you're the one who's been acting like a moron?"

"It looks like you've expanded your vocabulary quite a bit since earlier."

We started talking about the English language for some odd reason. He didn't look like he was going to have a seizure so we continued talking. Talking about English got me made me go into a bit of a tangent about our classes. Suddenly, it wasn't just me talking and Sam joined in too. Time flew by as we talked for a few hours, not even noticing. It was a different kind of interesting being around him this time. Not that I had to know, but I wanted to. I wanted to know more about him and what he thought.

When we started talking about how dumb my name was, he told me how idiotic conversation-starters like that (that I had used once upon a time) helped him open up. He smiled. Even laughed. It made me realize that maybe I wasn't just reliant on his amazing housekeeping abilities, but also him as a person. I didn't realize how lonely I was until Sam showed me that just existing with another person can be enough.

Maybe I just need a friend, or maybe it's just Sam.

I need a Sam.

No. That's not true. I just want him.

I want Samuel Harris.