They’re too barfy for words.
We load up and Bjorn heads out of the city of Kahului, toward the village of Paia, where he and Sherry live, and where I’m meeting Sam. By the time Bjorn pulls up in front of the Fish Market, I’m getting sweaty palms. Sam and I have talked and texted a ton, but I haven’t seen her in ten days. It’s the longest we’ve been apart since we met, and a crazy part of me is afraid things are going to be different between us.
But then I see Sam’s crazy, curly hair through the window, and she turns to look out at the street, like she can sense that I just hopped down onto the sidewalk. Our eyes meet, my stomach flips like it always does, and it’s like no time has passed at all.
“Be home by eight, okay?” Sherry says. “Bjorn and I will be looking for you. I promised Caitlin I’d be super tough about curfew.”
“Yeah, cool, thanks,” I mumble, but I don’t turn to look at her when I wave goodbye. I can’t look away from Sam.
Her blue eyes are sadder than I’ve ever seen them, and her skin looks so pale she must not have been to the beach for days. All I want to do is pull her into my arms and hug her tight, but we don’t do that kind of thing in public—we both hate couples like that—so when I reach her table I keep my hands to myself.
“Hey,” I say, sliding into the seat next to her. “You okay?”
She shakes her head, then turns to me and puts her arms around my neck.
I sigh as I hug her close, relieved that hugging is okay right now.
I comfort her the best I can, petting her hair and running my hands in gentle circles between her muscled shoulders. Sam can be super girly when she wants to be, but she’s also one of the strongest girls I know. She has muscles all over—strong legs and arms and an intense six-pack—but she also has soft places.
When her softness presses against my chest, I can’t help the way my body responds. I’m more worried than turned on, but Sam just…does things to me. I can’t help it. Still, it’s embarrassing, and I’m glad the table is hiding the situation.
I want to make Sam feel better, not let her know what a hopeless horn dog I am.
“I’m so glad you’re finally here,” she says, sniffing. “I’ve felt like I’m all alone.”
“I’m here,” I say. “And I get to stay for at least a week.”
Sam pulls in a shuddery breath. “Let’s not talk about it. I can’t think about you moving away, or I’m going to completely freak out.”
“Okay,” I say, kicking myself for being such an idiot. “You want to talk about what’s up with your mom and dad?”
Sam pulls back, swiping at her damp eyes with the backs of her hands. “You mean, the fact that my dad is moving in with some rich lady old enough to be his mother?”
I pull a face. “Wow. You didn’t tell me that before.”
“I know,” she says, running a hand through her hair, making it stick up even more in the front, where her curls are tightest. “I just found out today when Penelope came by to help Dad move his things. She had a bunch of makeup on, and this tight dress, but it was obvious she was older, so I asked Dad about it, and he said she’s fifty-two. He’s only forty-two!”
“That’s ten years, Sam,” I say, lifting a brow. “That’s not old enough to be his mom.”
“Don’t play the No Bullshit game right now, Danny.” Sam narrows her eyes at me, but I can tell she’s not really mad. “I get to be full of bullshit, because my dad is moving in with an old rich lady, my mom is crying all the time, and my little brother locked himself in his room and won’t come out. If I hadn’t been throwing peanut butter sandwiches through Erick’s window, he probably would have starved to death by now. Even Hana is depressed. She hasn’t chewed any shoes for a week, even when I got Dad’s favorite sandals out of the closet and gave them to her.”
“Revenge by puppy,” I say. “That would have been pretty sweet.”
Sam shrugs, but her lips curve. “Yeah, well. I’m sure I’ll think of other ways to make Dad suffer. I tried smoking a cigarette I bummed from Devin at the skate park in front of him today, but it tasted so gross I almost choked to death, so…”
I laugh. I can’t help it.
“Shut up,” she says, nudging me in the ribs. “I’m a very badass person. Respect my badassery.”
I put my arm around her, so glad she’s close enough to touch. “I respect your badassery so much that I’m buying dinner. What do you want?”
“The usual,” she says, leaning into me, making my chest feel tight and things lower in my body threaten to start acting up again. “But let’s take it down to the beach. I don’t want to be around other people.”
“Sounds good,” I say, jumping up from my chair before I can embarrass myself again.
I place our order and they have it ready at the counter a few minutes later. Sam and I take our bags of calamari, fried shrimp, and three orders of French fries to the park down the street, stopping to give the homeless guys by the trash cans one of our orders of fries, because Sam can’t stand for people to go hungry, and I know what it’s like to go to bed without supper.
We settle in on the grass next to the beach and watch the waves do their best to kick the sand’s ass while we eat. We talk some, but mostly we’re quiet, the comfortable kind of quiet that happens when you’re with someone you know you can be yourself with.
We finish eating, take a long walk, and throw chunks of dead coral into the waves for a while, but eventually the sun starts to set, and I know I should start heading toward Bjorn and Sherry’s. I’m about to tell Sam I should walk her home, when she turns to me and says—
“Let’s run away. Just you and me.”
I take a deep breath, trying to think of the best, smartest thing to say. Sam’s usually more level-headed than I am, but she’s in a bad place. I need to step up, and take my turn being the responsible one. “We can’t. We don’t have any money, and—”
“Yes we do,” Sam says, a pleading look in her eyes that makes me afraid she’s serious about this. “I’ve got five hundred dollars saved up. We could get flights to Oahu, work odd jobs until we save up some money, and then find someone to make us fake IDs. And as soon as we’re fake eighteen, we can get real jobs, and an apartment and—”
“Sam, I—”
“Please, Danny,” she says, sounding like she might start crying. “Don’t make me go home. I hate it there. I feel like I’ll die if I have to go back there and try to find a way to make Mom stop crying, and go visit Dad and his new family on the weekends. It will suck so hard, and I won’t even have seeing you to look forward to.”
“We can talk every day,” I promise. “I’ll call all the time.”
“From Croatia?” she asks, doubt in her clear blue eyes.
“Yes. I swear.” I take her hand and squeeze it tight. “Caitlin’s boyfriend is crazy rich. I’m sure he’ll let me make international calls, and even if he doesn’t, I’ll find a way to pay for calling cards. I know how to make my own money and I…”
I pull in a breath and force the hard words out. “I don’t want you to forget about me.”
“Then come with me to Oahu,” she says, though I can tell she’s losing faith in the plan. “We could make it work. I know we could.”
“Or not,” I say, pulling her up the beach as a big wave crashes into the shore and the water rushes toward our place on the sand. “And then we’d end up like those guys we give French fries, except we wouldn’t be two stinky dudes with gnarly feet. We’d be a scrawny kid, and a pretty girl, and…bad things happen to pretty girls when all they have is a scrawny kid to protect them.”
“I’m tough, Danny,” Sam argues. “You know that. And you’re not scrawny. You’re all muscle.”
“Yeah, whatever.” I shrug like it doesn’t matter, but part of me loves the fact that Sam sees my muscles, not the fact that I’m underweight for my height, no matter how much I eat. “But I’m not as big as a grown man, and I might not be able to protect you, no matter how hard I’d try. And that wo
uld scare the shit out of me,” I confess, though I don’t like copping to being afraid. “I don’t care what happens to me, but I don’t want to think about you getting hurt.”
Sam’s eyes soften and start to shine again, but she doesn’t cry. She just squeezes my hand and studies me, while I study her.
We stand there, staring at each other, not saying a word, for what feels like forever. Our lips don’t move, but I swear we have an entire conversation in the way we squeeze fingers and watch each other’s faces turn gold in the sunset. It’s an intense moment I know I’ll never forget, and by the time she leans in to kiss me, I’m even more in love than I was before.
The kiss is a little sexier than our first kiss—there is a hint of tongue, and I manage to slip my free hand into Sam’s hair—but it’s sweeter, too.
It’s the sweetest, most amazing moment of my life so far, and when we come up for air, I can’t keep from confessing—
“I love you, Sam.” My throat is tight and the words feel scary, but good, too. Right.
She smiles her biggest Sam smile, the one that’s so wide and full of teeth one of her meaner girlfriends nicknamed her Sam the Shark, but I love that smile. I love it because it means that my best friend is happy.
“I love you, too,” she says and kisses me again.
We kiss for another ten minutes—or another hundred, I don’t know—I only know that it’s over too soon. I feel like I could kiss Sam forever, and never get tired of it.
But it’s past time to go, so we start back to town.
I drop her off at the gate to her house, promising to be back first thing in the morning, before retracing my steps to Bjorn and Sherry’s. I’m beat from the big day of flying, but I can barely sleep that night, even though I want to get my rest so I can get up early. But something inside me doesn’t want to let go of this day, the day the girl I loved told me she loved me back.
Sam and I spend the entire week together, logging as close to twenty-four/seven as her parents and Sherry will allow.
We skate and surf and read comic books on the beach. We make a picnic and hike out to her friend Janis’s house, and spend the afternoon helping Janis and her parents harvest mangoes and bananas from the trees in their yard. We splurge on an afternoon at the movies, and walk around the mall, and do other dumb things that don’t seem as dumb as usual because I’m doing them with Sam.
And then, all too soon, the week is over, and I’m back at the airport.
This time, no one’s jumping up and down on the curb. Sherry hugs me hard, and tells me to stay strong, Bjorn gives me a stern handshake, and then it’s time to say goodbye to Sam, who convinced her dad to let her come along for the ride, even though she’s supposed to be spending Tuesdays with him during the summer.
“Call me as soon as you get there,” she says, pressing her lips together, making me think she’s trying not to cry. I know I am. “I don’t care what time. I’ll sleep with my phone by my bed.”
“I will,” I promise, wishing I could think of something better to say. But Sherry and Bjorn are standing a few feet away making everything feel more awkward by being grown up when Sam and I aren’t yet.
“Okay, then…” Sam bites her lip before launching herself at me and hugging me tight. “Don’t forget me,” she whispers into my ear. “Okay?”
“Never,” I whisper back, knowing it’s the truest thing I’ve ever said. I will never, ever forget her, and I refuse to believe what I feel for her is going to fade away, just because we found it too soon.
As I turn and walk into the terminal, I promise that I will find a way to stay close to Sam, no matter how much physical distance separates us. It won’t be easy, but that’s okay.
I may only be thirteen, but I know that sometimes you have to fight for the things you believe in.
And I have never believed in anything the way I believe in Sam.
Present Day
Samantha
“What deep wounds ever closed
without a scar?”
–Lord Byron
The past ten hours could have been better, but they could also have been so much worse.
All in all, I’d say the flight was a success. I haven’t thought about any of the things I promised myself I wouldn’t, and Danny and I broke the ice after a long, difficult dry spell.
I’d been afraid being intimate again would be awkward at best, awful at worst, but it was neither of those things. After months of feeling nothing but numbness, interspersed with bursts of almost debilitating regret, I was shocked to find Danny could make my body do more than flutter. He’d made me burn, heating me up so quickly I’d already come on his hand by the time my mind caught up with what was going on.
It had caught up eventually, and done its best to ruin things, but I had managed to regain control.
I am in control.
I’m taking my life back and soon there won’t be anything anyone can do to stop me.
As we trudge up the Jetway, I slip Danny’s phone from the outer pocket of his pack and drop it into my purse without him noticing. I’ll take care of both of our phones in the bathroom. Once I do, there’s no way any of the bad things will be able to taint our fresh start.
Danny and I step out into Auckland Airport’s International terminal, where the afternoon sun is shining brightly through the floor to ceiling windows, and optimism floods through me for the first time in ages. My chest relaxes and my spirit lifts as we let ourselves be carried along by the crowd, through a massive ornamental archway where carved monkeys, birds, and a cat god with golden eyes stare down at all the exhausted travelers, warning us that we’re not in Kansas anymore.
As we pass beneath the warm, honey-and-sunset colored wood, a shiver passes through me. I can feel the new Sam slipping more firmly into place. I’m ready to throw my arms wide and embrace this adventure, and am positively giddy by the time we reach the restrooms just before customs.
“I’m going to run in and freshen up,” I say, giving Danny’s hand a squeeze before I release it.
“Me too,” he says. “Meet you by the water fountain.”
“Okay!” I practically jog through the burnt orange hallway into the mostly deserted bathroom. I can’t wait to pull the SIM cards from our phones and smash them to pieces.
I should have taken care of mine before we left Maui, but I wasn’t thinking beyond getting the hell out of the airport. But neither of us have turned our phones back on after we shut them down for takeoff, and I’ve been paying my own cell bill for years, so there shouldn’t be any way for Dad or Penny to trace my journey to the opposite hemisphere.
Penny offered to keep me on the family cell plan, but as soon as I could afford it I insisted on getting my own phone. I wanted to be able to call Danny as often as I needed to without anyone patrolling my texts or the times of my calls. Penny had stopped giving me shit for “wasting my life” on the phone years before, when she realized trying to shame me into spending less time texting Danny was a waste of breath, but I didn’t like her having that window into my life.
Even back then, before the—
I shut the thought down before it can reach completion and focus on locking the door to the handicapped bathroom behind me and slipping the SIM cards from the backs of the phones.
My thoughts are stupid sheep that keep wandering toward the cliff at the edge of the pasture, but if I keep catching them and shepherding them toward safer ground, they’re going to learn where not to go. Eventually, I’ll be able to relax my guard, and one day I might forget there was ever a cliff to begin with.
All things seem possible now that Danny and I are here with thousands of miles between us and danger.
I drop the cards to the tile floor near the garbage can and use the edge of my phone to smash them in half before throwing the pieces and both phones into the trash can with a satisfied sigh.
Now, no one can call me, and my dad can’t call Danny. There’s a chance I would have been able to get by with swapping
out the SIM cards, but on the off chance that Danny had Dad’s number stored on his phone, not the card, I couldn’t risk it.
I stand staring at the trash can for a long moment, the realization that I’ve just said goodbye to my family settling around my shoulders.
Mom never recovered from losing Dad, and has been more like an unpredictable girlfriend I don’t trust to borrow my shoes than a mother the past seven years, but I still love her. Dad is so far up Penny’s ass it’s ridiculous and way more impressed with the wealth he married into than anything I’ve accomplished in my twenty years of life, but I love him, too. I even love Penny. She’s tried to do the right thing by my little brother and me, stepping in to play Mom when my own mother couldn’t be bothered, and always making sure Erick and I had the best of everything.
I love all three of my parents, but our relationships have become too complicated, and I have no idea what they’ll think when they find out the truth.
Maybe they’ll hate me, maybe they’ll pity me—either way they’ll want me to do the right thing. My parents and stepparent are all very much into Doing the Right Thing, in facing the consequences of your actions and fessing up to your failings. They would want me to stop running, but I can’t and I won’t.
It’s best to end things now, with a clean break, without even turning on my phone to listen to the messages that I have no doubt are waiting in my voicemail box.
I take a deep cleansing breath and let grief wash through me and wash back out again, like a wave lapping against the shore before being absorbed back into the ocean.
The thought of losing touch with Erick hits harder than anyone else, but eventually I loosen my grip on that regret and send it out to sea with the rest. Erick and I aren’t super close, but we have fun together and I’ve always felt obligated to look out for him. To keep him from starving to death when my mom was mired in misery, and pull him aside for a long talk about not doing dumb shit when I caught him dropping acid on the beach with his friends. But he’s graduating from high school this year and going to college next fall. He’s starting his own life and doesn’t need me the way he used to.
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