Chapter 2

A little girl from Cat Island. A boy from Nassau who had promised her the world and then disappeared into it. That was how she remembered Sammy—not Sammy, not the man she was about to see, but the boy who had taught her to skip stones across the turquoise shallows, who had held her hand under the dock and told her he would never leave. She had been six. He had been eight. It had been thirty-five years, and now he was back, and she did not know what to expect.

Yes, my hero, best friend, rider, but my most catastrophic emotional intelligence, a spectrum of the most amazing thing about it is that when someone said something about it but he did something that I f****** didn't like as his best friend I don't I didn't care if he was my best friend but has his best friend I was like because he was not someone I wanted to be my best friend is like he was the damn best friend like here and so even though I don't know how how to find something at all of it it was the labor of love it was a labor of the student midget it's like my it was a teenager it was I know that you might hurt me again but it was yeah it was set in a standard and so I said the standard and was setting the standard there was so much of me that just got just collapsed because I was so operating on so much different levels when it comes to one person and so you became a it became a conundrum it became a successful of just still not being able to understand I didn't even respect and just do it right just be with God put you on this Earth to be because it's just a spiritual thing to be interacting with persons three different times in your life journey and so it's scary he's scary at the same time it's I don't know if writing this book of stuff the catalyst for me to rise above it because as I as I write I come to the realization and full moon between Earth flush Spirit God the holy Trinity purpose calling the fact that there's so much anarchy when it comes to is almost as if there is a force that is making sure that whatever if this is fine too and whatever it is that it does not happen because it's an amazing is amazing when everything is right I believed it really we would have a perfect relationship if everything is right that means it basically no using I just basically building a beautiful relationship s when it comes to this whole this whole being able to see the whole man man they don't even know that you know who they are being able to love on a level where it does not make sense but for some f****** reason IThis gives the book a much larger emotional architecture. The strongest thread isn't simply romance; it is what happens when a childhood bond survives decades of separation, addiction, motherhood, betrayal, forgiveness, responsibility, and unanswered questions.

I would also separate Chantel's lived experience from conclusions about Sammy's intentions or family relationships. That will make the memoir more powerful because the reader can see the evidence and feel the uncertainty alongside her.

Here is the next chapter section, continuing from the Rangers practice and then moving into the rehabilitation period.

Writing

When Chantel saw Sammy at the Rangers practice, she already knew about his daughter.

She knew enough to understand that there was tension between the two girls.

Simone was gentle. She had always been that way—a soft flower in a world that sometimes seemed determined to teach her how to become hard.

The other girl could be rough with her.

Simone was afraid of that roughness.

So she stayed in the car.

And Chantel stayed outside.

Then Sammy spoke.

That was all it took.

His voice.

The moment he opened his mouth, Chantel knew.

That's him.

After all those years, she hadn't recognized the face.

She hadn't known what the grown man would look like.

But the voice carried something the years couldn't erase.

She knew him.

The little boy on the dirt road was still somewhere inside that voice.

And then something even stranger happened.

He asked her to go for coffee.

Chantel almost couldn't believe what she was hearing.

Me?

Was this really happening?

Part of her wanted to laugh.

Part of her wanted to run.

And another part—the little girl who had waited on the crate for him to return—was listening.

But Chantel didn't take his number.

She didn't open that door.

She couldn't.

She was studying at the University of the West Indies. She was raising Simone. She had a life that demanded everything from her. She had served in the military, worked as a high-school teacher, and was balancing responsibilities that already felt enormous.

There was also a divorce battle unfolding around her.

There were relationships.

There were complications.

There was history.

And there was Sammy.

History was the problem.

He had hurt her before.

When he disappeared in Freeport, her world had fallen apart.

She had eventually rebuilt herself.

Why would she willingly open that door again?

So she didn't.

At least, not then.

Later, she saw him at a Defence Force passing-out parade.

He looked good.

Very good.

Chantel took two photographs from a distance.

And that was enough.

She didn't approach him.

She didn't ask questions.

She didn't try to reopen the past.

Sometimes protecting yourself means refusing to find out what might be behind a door.

Chantel had learned that lesson the hard way.

Then life took her somewhere neither of them expected.

Rehabilitation.

Nassau.

A place where people arrived carrying pieces of themselves they were trying to put back together.

Chantel was there trying to heal from addiction.

And Sammy was there too.

Neither of them entered that place as the people they had once been.

They were both wounded.

They were both trying to find their way back to themselves.

One day, a man came out of the sitting area and asked Chantel if he could show her a scripture.

She looked at him.

Something happened.

She didn't understand it.

She didn't want to understand it.

But his eyes held her attention.

She tried to avoid him.

Then she started looking for reasons to be where he could see her.

Sometimes she would put on an outfit and run into the hallway, almost as if she had somewhere important to go.

Then she'd run right back inside.

She was laughing at herself.

At the same time, she was terrified of what she was beginning to feel.

Neither of them fully understood what was happening.

They were two people trying to recover from addiction, and somehow, in the middle of all that brokenness, they were finding each other.

When Chantel was preparing to leave, Sammy kissed her.

It happened in front of a nurse.

And Chantel was stunned.

It wasn't the kind of kiss she had expected.

It felt like something had been waiting inside both of them for years.

Then reality returned.

Chantel left first.

And eventually Sammy left too.

But Chantel relapsed.

The healing she thought she had begun was interrupted.

Sammy had saved money.

He had bought a vehicle.

He had built something for himself.

He seemed to be standing in a place where Chantel desperately needed to be—but she wasn't there yet.

He drank.

Their relationship became volatile.

There were arguments.

There were incidents that frightened Chantel.

There were moments when addiction seemed to take control of both their lives.

And then came one of the most painful episodes of their story.

Chantel was at an open piece of property.

She had been swimming.

She was being herself—goofy, independent, doing what she did when she wanted to escape from everybody.

Then a man appeared.

Chantel already had a history of conflict with him.

She felt threatened and intensely angry whenever he entered her space.

She had confronted him before.

The encounters had become physical.

This was not healthy.

It was not safe.

And addiction had made an already dangerous situation even more unpredictable.

Then Sammy came running up the path.

He saw Chantel.

He saw the situation.

And before everything could be understood, violence erupted.

Chantel was injured.

Her face was cut.

The relationship changed again.

Whatever existed between them had been pushed into another dimension.

There was love.

There was anger.

There was addiction.

There was jealousy.

There was fear.

There were secrets.

There were things Chantel knew that Sammy didn't know she knew.

And there were things Sammy carried that Chantel could not fully understand.

For years, they would move through that complicated landscape.

Sometimes they worked together beautifully.

Sometimes they hurt each other.

Sometimes they were friends.

Sometimes they were lovers.

Sometimes they seemed like two people who had known each other too long to ever become strangers.

And underneath everything was that little boy.

The twelve-year-old Sammy.

The boy Chantel had met when she was five.

The boy she had drawn in the corner of her books.

The boy whose eyes she never forgot.

That memory never completely disappeared.

Neither did the friendship.

Even when Chantel was angry with him.

Even when she believed he had failed her.

Even when she wanted to walk away.

There remained something sacred to her about having known someone since childhood.

She valued friendship deeply.

And sometimes that meant she did things for Sammy that went far beyond what anybody looking from the outside could understand.

She cleaned his vehicle.

She helped with his projects.

She maintained things around him when she felt they were being neglected.

Not because she wanted to be his servant.

Not because she had nothing else to do.

But because, in Chantel's mind, there was a history attached to that man.

She wasn't simply looking at the man standing in front of her.

She was looking at the boy who had once said:

Wait for me.

And she had waited.

Decades later, part of her was still waiting for the grown man to understand what the little boy had started.

But eventually Chantel began asking herself a harder question:

What happens when loving someone becomes an excuse for allowing yourself to disappear?

That question changed everything.

Because Chantel had survived addiction.

She had survived heartbreak.

She had survived motherhood while carrying wounds she didn't know how to name.

She had survived the loss of the person she thought Sammy might become.

And somewhere along the way, she realized that love could not mean abandoning herself.

She could love someone and still walk away.

She could remember everything and still choose something different.

She could honor the five-year-old girl without allowing that little girl to control the woman she had become.

And perhaps that was the real purpose of Sammy's return.

Not necessarily to become her forever.

Not necessarily to repair every wound.

But to force Chantel to confront the difference between remembering someone and belonging to them.

She had spent decades carrying a drawing of a boy.

Now she had to decide what to do with the man.

The deeper book theme

I think the memoir is becoming less about “Will Chantel and Sammy end up together?” and more about:

Can a woman honor the love that shaped her without allowing that love to consume the woman she became?

That gives the book room for addiction, motherhood, faith, military service, education, friendship, betrayal, recovery, and ultimately healing and self-respect—without requiring Chantel to pretend that the love wasn't real.

And the Simone thread is especially powerful because she represents something Chantel couldn't have understood as a five-year-old: the past can leave fingerprints on the future even when we don't consciously choose it.