Thirteen
Someone knocks on the door a few moments later. James is slow to release me, but I know it’s because he’s embarrassed about crying, not because he wants to stay close. Though I’m no longer sure last night meant anything to Sam—or whether this makes me relieved or sad—I run back to the bathroom to comb my hair and brush my teeth, just in case it’s him.
I’m pathetic.
Whoever it is has already knocked three times by the time I accidentally swallow my mouthwash and race back to the entryway, just as James answers the door.
For the first time ever, Sam looks uncomfortable standing on our doorstep. “Hey,” he says, his eyes passing from me to my brother. “I, uh, came to check on Sarah. She seemed pretty upset last night, so…”
Beside me, James has gone rigid. “She’s fine, no thanks to you.”
Sam gives him a dark look. “Right. Because she would’ve been much better off hanging out with Alex and his idiots until the cops showed up? Hell, I’m surprised you’re even here.”
James grumbles something highly inappropriate under his breath. I glare at him. Clearly they’re incapable of handling this like adults. “I’m walking to the library. Why don’t you guys hang out today? You know, remember that you’re actually best friends. There’s probably a baseball game on.”
Baseball games remind me of the Dodgers, which reminds me that I still have Sam’s black sweatshirt balled up somewhere on my bedroom floor. After all the crying I did last night, there’s no way I can give it back until it’s been washed.
“I gotta work,” my brother says.
“Me, too,” Sam says. “Next weekend, maybe.”
James ignores him and gives me a hug. “I picked up a half shift today. Figured we could use the money. Promise you’ll leave?”
“Promise.”
“I’ll come by the library when I get off.” He hesitates on the doorstep, shooting Sam a sideways glare, then stalks down the walkway to his truck. “You and me need to talk,” he tosses back over his shoulder.
“Yep,” is all Sam says. As soon as James is out of earshot, Sam turns to me, his eyes the serious, storm-cloud gray I love. Used to love, I correct. “I don’t want things to be weird between us,” he says, “but if I made you uncomfortable—”
“You didn’t.” And then, because I can’t help myself, “Why? Have things gotten weird with all the other girls or something?”
He frowns. “What other girls?”
I desperately want to finish this conversation, to see if the perplexed look on his face means what I hope it does, but James backs his truck into the street and honks the horn way too loud and way too long for nine o’clock on a Saturday morning. All the dogs on our street start barking, and someone a few houses down screams profanities out their window.
Still frowning, Sam says, “I better go before someone calls the cops.”
From the doorway, I watch him cross our scraggly lawn and climb into his beat up car. My brother lets up on the horn as soon as Sam starts the engine, then guns it down the street toward the mill. I wait until Sam’s car disappears in the other direction before giving up hope that he’ll come back.
Sighing, I close the door and get started on the cereal and dish mess James left behind. I wash and dry his bowl and spoon, throw the milk carton into the recycling bin in the garage, wipe down the counters, sink, and table, and I am about to sweep up the last handful of crushed cornflakes when I hear it.
My father’s bedroom door.
I freeze, my eyes on the microwave clock.
9:21
He’s early. He shouldn’t be out of bed for another nine minutes, at least. Nine minutes that I now desperately need because I’m running behind and will be lucky to get all my things together and out the door by 9:30.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
The bathroom door clicks shut. I hear the toilet seat flip up and hit the tank, his groan of relief—
My hands fly to my ears and the broom clatters to the floor. I’ve got thirty seconds, tops, before he staggers out to the garage to get his morning beer fix. Maybe he’ll be in a better mood now that he’s gotten a full night’s sleep. Maybe he won’t punish me for James kicking his ass. Maybe he’s already forgotten about the spilled beer and the lesson he wanted to teach me.
I make a run for my room. I’ll just lay low until this blows over. If I give him a few days, enough time to lose his mind to the beer and come back around, I’ll be safe again.
The toilet flushes. I’m shaking too hard to open my bedroom door, let alone grab the keys, my purse, and a pair of shoes that are lying somewhere inside. He’s at least ten feet away, but I can sense him through the walls.
Someone knocks on the front door. I give up trying to get my stuff and dash to the foyer.
Please let it be someone I can let in to distract my father long enough for me to get out. Please, please, please.
The floor feels like it drops out from beneath my feet when I open the door and Sam gives me a timid smile. “I didn’t want to tell your brother, but I don’t have to work until five tonight,” he says. “Can we talk?”
I’m not at all prepared for my reaction to him. Sure, I’d been on the verge of grabbing whoever it was—Mrs. Espinosa, the FedEx guy, one of the local church missionaries—and throwing them into my father’s path, but this…this is something else altogether.
A choked cry escapes from somewhere deep inside my chest, and I fling myself into his arms. “I need to go to the library right now. Can you take me?”
His smile vanishes. “What’s going on?”
Behind me, I hear my father’s raspy morning cough that’s been getting worse for as long as I can remember. The bathroom door opens. Shuts. More coughing. And then my bedroom door opens. “Sarah? Where you at, baby girl?”
My stomach convulses, and I cover my mouth to keep in the panic threatening to escape. My bedroom is the only room in this house where I’ve ever felt safe. He’s never apologized for anything in all the years I’ve been alive—not for the beatings, not for the horrid things he’s called me, not for any of the lessons he’s tried to teach me over the years—so he sure as hell isn’t in there to say sorry.
Sam’s lips tighten into a grim line. He’s staring so intently into my eyes, I’m positive he sees my soul. “Do you have everything you need?”
I’m barefoot and my purse is still inside, but I nod anyway.
Keeping me locked to his body, Sam silently closes my front door and slips down the path to the driveway. I’m in the front seat of his car and we’re racing down the street toward the park before I dare breathe again. There’s no way I’m buckling up. Even the thought of being strapped to a seat freaks me out—no escape, no control, no room to breathe.
Sam must understand because he doesn’t force me.
Part of me hopes a U-Haul truck will slam into my side of Sam’s car so I don’t have to face another second in that house. The other part is dying to lean across the small emergency brake console that’s separating us and lay my head in Sam’s lap. James used to hold me like that when I was younger, but I stopped asking years ago. It feels too close now. With Sam, after the way I reacted to his touch last night, close is what I need.
But dragging him into my private hell isn’t an option. I need to get it together before he starts asking questions I can’t answer. Somehow, I doubt he’ll understand when I tell him about my father, or that James kissed me afterward. And, oh yeah, I’ve been in love with him forever, but now that he’s actually paying attention to me, we can’t be together because I’m too afraid my brother will kill him.
When we pull into a never-used gravel parking area behind all the trees, near the picnic table and shed where he, Alex, and my brother used to hang out after school, Sam cuts the engine, reaches across the console, and pries one of my hands from my knees. I’m shaking so hard, he probably thinks I’m trying to wriggle free of his grasp.
Calm. Collected. Apologize for acting like a freak, then send him on his way.
Except, when I see our fingers laced together, and how small my hand looks trembling in his, I burst into tears.
Crying in front of him is horrible and humiliating and I don’t want to do it. If I stumble off into the trees and wait until it’s dark, I can sneak into my house through the bedroom window. “Please let go,” I whimper. “I really need to go.”
Gaping emptiness swallows me the second he drops my hand. I barely comprehend him opening his door, storming around to my side of the car, and hauling me out into his arms. Even though I’ve wanted Sam to hold me for as long as I’ve liked boys, there’s no way to shut off the panic attack that’s been brewing since James left me alone in the middle of the woods and told me to go home to our father.
Sam has to feel me fighting against him, but he just holds on tighter.
My sobs get lost somewhere in the fistfuls of his brown t-shirt, which I’m clutching to my face and making a splotchy mess of with my tears. Big, dark splotches the same color as his hair. I want to tell him I never cry and he should leave me in the car until I get it out of my system so he doesn’t have to see me crumble into a blubbering mess, but I can’t get the words out. They’d also be a lie. James is the only person who can calm me down.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Sam breathes into my ear. “I will never hurt you.”
When he lifts me onto the hood of his car and stands between my legs, his hold on me becomes tender instead of restraining. I listen to him murmur the comforting things I’ve only ever heard out of James’s mouth.
“Sarah…”
I close my eyes and breathe in the sound of my name on his lips. I’m so selfish. Now that I’ve felt this, I never want to let go. The blistering heat pouring into me from every part of him replaces the memory of James lying on top of me. The hard lines of his body erase the memories of my father’s threats and fists.
I forget my father. I forget the hell I live in. I forget James. Even if it’s only temporary and I can’t allow myself to return it, I want to know what it feels like to be comforted by someone who doesn’t have to love me back.
I’m not prepared when he leans back to wipe the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs and pins me with an intense look that screams something I don’t understand.
I’m even less prepared when my body responds.
Heart pounding, my arms wind easily around his neck.
Breath catching, I stretch to meet him halfway.
Our mouths fit together perfectly, just like I always knew they would.
I should pull away.
I don’t.