PENNY.
SAM HOUSE
Today 11:36 PM
Home
Penny was half tempted to wait until two a.m. to text him back, as he’d done in the beginning, but she was too excited. She was in bed when her phone chimed. Jude had gone out and Penny wondered if Sam would ever come over to her room.
Her phone chimed again.
You do know that it counts right?
What happened to you counts
Tears sprang from the corners of Penny’s eyes as she lay on her back with her phone held aloft.
God. Sam was perfect. This was good and this is what he had to offer her, and Penny knew that she had to find a way to be grateful. What choice did she have? And even if one day something happened between them, something wonderful and terrifying that tested their friendship, what would ultimately come of it? Romance was volatile, and if they came out of it with less than they had going in, she would be devastated. Penny couldn’t go back to not having Sam in her life. This way, she could make sure they’d always be there for each other. As friends. As emergency contacts. That was the deal. That’s the deal it had always been.
Penny knew how lucky she was to have him at all. She trusted Sam and he trusted her. That was huge. They may as well have sliced their thumbs and pressed them together in a blood oath.
I’m glad you’re home
Are you still sleepy?
*eyeball emoji*
Penny was wired.
I may never sleep again.
CALL FROM SAM
Penny’s heart skipped. She picked up.
“Hey,” he said. “It’s Sam.”
She laughed.
“I dunno, I think we’re moving way too fast, Sam.” She could hear him chuckle. Penny pictured him on his scrawny mattress in the room down the hall. She liked that she knew where to orient him in the world.
“Right? We’re reckless,” he said.
“Crazy,” she agreed.
“Hey, let’s make a pact.”
“Sure.”
“Great, I’ll pick up your soul in a half hour. G’bye!”
Penny laughed. “What’s the pact?”
“Let’s be friends,” he said, suddenly serious. “Real ones.”
Penny nodded as tears coursed down her cheeks. “We are friends,” she said lightly. She breathed quietly so he couldn’t hear her cry.
“Yeah, I know that, but let’s be so good to each other.”
“Deal.”
“You know why I called?” asked Sam.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want you to punish me for knowing too much,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t, like, go away because you told me things,” he said. “Don’t decide things are weird.”
“I’m not the who decided last time . . .”
“I know,” he said. “Let’s both not is what I’m saying. Don’t drag the entire me folder into the desktop trash can so you hear the paper-rustling sound.”
“You can’t ask me that. The paper-rustling sound is too satisfying.”
“Just don’t be weird with me. And I promise not to be weird with you.”
“Okay,” she said.
They sat in silence.
“Do you think I should have reported him to the cops?” Penny had many sleepless nights thinking about that.
“I think you should do whatever is right by you.”
“What if he did it again? After me?”
“That’s on him, not you.”
“Do you think I should have told my mom?”
“Not if you didn’t want to,” he said. “I’m pretty sure whatever you want is okay.”
“Okay,” she said. “You know sometimes they make you pay for your own rape kit?”
“What?”
“Yeah, you have to go through the swabs when all you want to do is go home and then certain hospitals bill you for tests. And all over the country there are warehouses filled with rape kits that the cops don’t even process. Like hundreds of thousands.”
Sam didn’t say anything for a while.
“I’m sorry this happened to you,” he said.
“I’m glad I told you.”
“Me too,” he said. “I want us to talk about everything,” he continued. “I don’t want to ever not talk again. That was horrible.”
“Well, I don’t love talking about my stuff,” she said.
“Yeah, nobody does,” he said. “But it’s pretty big stuff, so sometimes you have to exorcise it.”
“God,” she said. “You’d think it would be cathartic, but it’s more like barfing after you thought you got it all.”
“I think once you’re puking so hard you’ll burst a blood vessel in your eye is when the real work happens.”
“So when it’s just thin stomach juices coursing out of you?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Sans chunks?”
“Sans, yeah.”
Penny could feel him smiling on the other side. It made her miserable.
“This sucks,” she said. “Why so much work?”
“The homework doesn’t end,” he said. “It’s piles and piles of emotional homework forever if you ever want to qualify as a grown-up.”
“How come nobody tells you?”
“Nobody tells you shit ever,” he said. “The trick is having a buddy.”
“An emergency contact.”
“Exactly,” he said. “That’s the pact.”
It was a good pact. It wasn’t exactly the pact she wanted, the one where they ran away together to Tahiti, but it was solid.
“I’m in,” she said.
“Cool,” he said. “Good night, Penelope Lee.”
“Bye,” she said.
Not ten seconds later he texted again.
Have a willie nice night!
God, he was such a jerk.