It’s a ten-hour drive from Philly to Charleston.
We check out of the hotel bright and early—after I gave in and went for a five-mile run in a big circle around the hotel block. I didn’t check my email this morning, but the little icon says I have nine unread messages. Even if the majority of them are spam, I’d bet money I don’t have that one or two of them are from Mom.
I know I said I wanted the whole truth, the full story. But part of that was wanting it to have happened when it should have. Days ago, on the couch in the living room with the box of secrets open on the table beside us like tagged evidence during a trial. Years ago, each time I stepped onto a tennis court or asked Mom about her past or hugged her and told her I loved her.
A nobler person would say “better late than never” and be thankful that Mom has started to come around. A more compassionate person would argue that she’d been caught off guard the other night and that it wasn’t fair of me to expect her to explain everything perfectly and in a way that would make me forgive her on the first try. A smarter person would reason that I should be glad I’m about to get the crucial details I’ve been asking for.
But getting daily emails on the subject, and being dragged back to Francis and the little yellow house and a lifetime of struggle every time I check my phone, isn’t exactly what I meant. Not now, when I’m out here trying my hardest to be brave and find out who I am apart from Mellie.
I said all this to Sam last night. He understood, but he also thinks it’s great that she’s trying.
A couple hours into the drive, his phone dings with a new text message. “Who’s that?” I ask.
He presses a button quickly and turns his phone facedown in his lap. “No one. It was a notification from my game.” Sam’s obsessed with this stupid Viking game—he’s on it all the time, tap-tap-tapping his little men into formation. But I know the sounds that game makes, and I’m pretty sure that was a text message.
Something shifts out of place in my chest, causing a twinge. “Was it Mellie?”
“No. She hasn’t texted me. It really was my game.”
I glance at him, and he shrugs. I don’t know whether to believe him, but he doesn’t say anything else.
Somewhere in Virginia, we pass the body of a deer that tried to make it across the road and met an untimely demise. I wonder why the bodies are always on the side of the road, rather than right in the middle of the lanes of traffic, where they were likely hit. Surely the people who hit them don’t take the time to move them. Is it that the animals don’t die on impact, and instead try to crawl to safety before being unable to go any farther? Do they have families who are waiting for them? Did they have babies who made it across the road, only to turn back and watch their mothers get struck down?
It’s as I’m thinking this that the car is filled with a thunderous bang and the steering wheel jerks out of my control, the back of the car skirting with it.
“What was that?” Sam shouts as I scream and throw a hand over my hammering heart.
“I don’t know!” I manage to get the car under control a second later, but it still feels jerky and unstable. “I think we have a flat tire.” I got a flat once before, but it was more of a silent ooze and less like a freaking gunshot.
“Terrific.” Sam sighs, and shades a hand over his eyes, trying to calm himself down. “Do you have a spare?”
Uh-oh. He’s going to be mad. “Umm. I don’t think I replaced it after the last flat I got.”
“What the hell, Dara?!” Knew it. “And you didn’t think this would be important to take care of before going on a road trip?”
“First of all, I forgot all about it. Second of all, I didn’t think we’d be driving all the way to South Carolina, remember?”
I manage to make it to the next exit. We’re in the middle of Virginia. You know what they have here? Cow fields. You know what else they have? Motorcycle bars. That’s about it. Not a gas station or car repair shop in sight.
I pull into the parking lot of one of the bars and get out of the car. Yep. The back right tire is deflated like a subpar air mattress after a night of being slept on. I slide back into my seat, not bothering to close the door since we’re obviously not going anywhere, and call the number on the roadside service card in my glove compartment. The guy says it will be at least a couple hours before anyone can get here.
“Dammit!” I shout, slamming my hands against the steering wheel. I close my eyes and try to do some measured breathing. Doesn’t help. Can’t anything go right?
Sam doesn’t say anything. It’s like we’ve switched—now he’s the calm one. Maybe he figures my wallowing is more than enough for one car. After a few minutes, he says quietly, “Well, should we go get some lunch?”
I look up, blinking against the sun. The pub in front of us fits in perfectly with this country atmosphere, with its wraparound front porch and neon Pabst Blue Ribbon sign in the window. It’s barely afternoon, but the parking lot is packed with motorcycles and pickup trucks. A tractor is parked in a disabled parking spot. I wonder if someone drove it here. I wonder if that someone is actually disabled. I wonder if you can get arrested for driving a tractor while drunk.
The sign on the building reads THE OUTLAW SALOON. It’s not exactly the kind of place Sam and I frequent. I give him a skeptical look.
“What?” he says. “We’re from a small town. I’m sure we’ll blend right in.”
“Funny.” But it’s either this or sit in the car for hours. And I am kinda hungry. I unbuckle my seat belt. “Let’s go.”
We walk up the porch steps, and through the door.
Okay, we do not blend in. Luckily, it’s not like the movies where we walk through the swinging doors and the pianist stops playing, and everyone stops talking and stares at us. No one’s really paying us much attention, actually. But Sam starts quietly humming the “One of These Things Is Not Like the Others” song from Sesame Street. Apart from us, the dorky teenagers in Old Navy poly/cotton blends, there are two kinds of customers here: Leather and Denim.
Motorcycle riders and horse riders.
Bikers and cowboys.
The haze of smoke is thick and makes my lungs constrict. The sound system is playing country music. I don’t recognize the song.
There are only three women, other than me, in the whole place. Two are Leathers. One is wearing a red denim miniskirt, black cowboy boots, and about a half bottle of hair spray, and is dropping off plates of burgers and wings at the tables.
Everyone is white. Except Sam.
“Yeah, my bad,” Sam whispers out of the side of his mouth. He takes a slow step backward.
I back up a little too. But then a burst of genuine, easy laughter erupts from a nearby table of Denims, and they clink glasses. I find myself smiling for the first time since before I got Mellie’s email. Sam begins to turn toward the door, but I grab his arm. Link it through mine. Hold him in place.
“What?” he asks.
Everything that could possibly have gone wrong these last few days has, but there’s been a flip side to everything too. Finding out about Mellie has given me hope for things I’d never known to hope for: a family, a history, financial security, a real chance to take the tennis world by storm instead of having to sidle into it with one arm tied behind my back. Going to the wrong address yesterday gave Sam and me a pretty incredible day in Philly. And blowing that tire has led us here, to this half-scary, half-cartoonish bar we’d never in a million years have come to otherwise. I’m beginning to wonder if maybe the universe is telling me something.
Enjoy the ride, for once in your life.
I grin up at him. “We’re staying.”
Almost immediately, his demeanor turns suspicious. “Why?” he says, like I’ve led him into a trap.
“Uh, because we have literally nowhere else to go?”
He crosses his arms, waiting for the real reason.
I pull him by the sleeve to a little area away from the entrance and turn to face him thoroughly. “Name something you’ve done that I haven’t.” We’re directly under a speaker now, and I have to raise my voice to be heard over the music.
His forehead crinkles. “What do you mean?”
“Name something. Anything.”
He clearly doesn’t understand where I’m going with this, but he plays along. “Uhhh … flown in an airplane?”
“That’s true. What else?”
“Gotten an A on a math test.” He smirks.
I roll my eyes. “All right, show-off. What else? Think bigger.”
He stares at me and shakes his head. His eyes shine prettily in the light of the neon. “Just tell me what you want me to say.”
I sigh. “You’ve tried beer, right? Gotten drunk?”
He raises an eyebrow. “You know I have. There’s nothing else to do in Francis. Everyone has—” He stops himself.
“Right. Not everyone.” I nod. “You’ve also had girlfriends, who you made out with and did other stuff with.” A blush warms my face. I don’t like to think about how Sam is much more experienced than I am in that arena. “You’ve stayed out all night. You got to go on the school trip to Montreal, when I had to stay home to train.”
“Yeah, but those things aren’t as spectacular as you think they are,” he says. “Dating can be awkward. Drinking too much makes you sick. Staying out all night makes you feel like crap. I had to bunk with three other guys on that Montreal trip—you have no idea how bad that room smelled.”
I pin him with my gaze. “Do you regret any of it?”
He looks down. “No.”
“Exactly. So why shouldn’t I get to experience all the normal parts of being a teenager too? The good and not-so-good stuff.” I push my hair back from my face.
“Because you’re special, Dara. You have something the rest of us only wish we had.”
I scoff. “And I’ve given up almost everything to get it.”
“Wasn’t it worth it?”
“Of course. But … yesterday was fun, eating junk food and looking at art and jumping on beds. It was like a break in the shitstorm clouds. And I don’t really see what’s so wrong with making the most of this … adventure, like you called it.” I think for a moment. “I’m hoping finding my family will mean finding myself, right? The me I never knew about?”
He nods.
“Maybe this is part of that. And I’d like to do it with you, before you go away.”
Our eyes lock. Finally, he breathes. “Come on; I’ll buy you a drink.”
I squeal and throw my arms around him. “Thank you.”
His arms snake around me and pull me in close. He feels good. Warm. Strong. Protective. I had no idea how much I needed a hug until now.
I pull away and rub my eyes with my knuckles.
“Actually, let me go call my mom first. She texted me this morning asking me to check in. You go ahead and order. Whatever you want, on me.” He smiles. “You gonna be okay here by yourself for a few minutes?”
I nod.
“Be right back.”
I watch him through the window as he paces the bar’s front porch, talking to Niya. I wonder what’s going on at home. If anyone knows yet.
Stop thinking about Mellie. Today is not about her.
I spin on my heel, and go up to the bar.
The bartender, a big guy with a leather vest and a greased-back ponytail, raises an eyebrow at me. “You lost?”
I take off my cardigan and straighten up, showing off my defined shoulders and arms. “Nope. I’m exactly where I want to be. Two beers, please.”
“You got ID?”
Crap. I didn’t think a place like this would card. I stare at him, racking my brain for a believable reason why I wouldn’t have an ID that says I’m twenty-one. “I, uh …”
Sam slides onto the barstool next to me and hands a driver’s license over. “Here you go,” he says smoothly. “She doesn’t have hers because she locked her keys in the car with all her stuff inside. We’re waiting for the guy to come unlock our doors for us.” Saving me again, just like in third grade.
The bartender looks at the ID and then up at Sam, and back at the ID. My heartbeat tumbles like I’m in the middle of spinning class. Then he shrugs. “What kind of beer?”
I try not to exhale too loudly.
“Whatever’s cold,” Sam says, taking his fake ID back and tucking it into his wallet.
The bartender plunks two pint glasses in front of us and leaves to serve another customer.
Sam leans toward me. “Two beers, huh? I actually wasn’t going to drink—someone’s got to be sober enough to deal with the tow truck guy and drive us out of here.”
I ignore that. There’s no way I’m drinking my very first beer by myself. “Where did you get a fake ID?”
He smiles my favorite smile. “Jake Houston was selling them before the end of the year. I hadn’t had a chance to use it yet, though.”
“My hero.” We clink glasses.
Two hours later, I think I’m finally understanding what it feels like to be drunk.
At first I wasn’t sure I liked beer. It has kind of an earthy taste, with a bite to it that I wasn’t expecting. I thought it would be … I don’t know, sweeter? But now, three pints in, I think it tastes pretty good. Or, more to the point, it doesn’t taste quite like anything anymore. I wonder if being drunk changes your taste buds somehow.
Sam is feeling it too—I can tell because his cheeks are flushed and he’s got a permagrin on his face. But he’s still pretty together, if the fact that he keeps forcing me to drink water in between sips of beer is any indication. Even so, there’s no way either of us is driving us out of here any time soon.
He spins on his stool and takes pictures of the bar as he goes around. Every time the camera points my way, I make a stupid face and he clicks the shutter release. I grab the camera from his hand, throw my arm around his shoulders, kiss him on the cheek, and take a selfie of the two of us.
“Did Niya say anything about Mellie?” I ask as we separate.
He shakes his head. “She said she actually hasn’t been able to get ahold of her. She’s not answering the door, and she’s not picking up her phone.”
Normally, I’d be concerned by that news, but I finally checked my notifications after that second beer—there are three unread emails from her. I know she’s fine. “She’s avoiding her,” I say.
“Probably.” He pauses. “Can I say something?” His tone has changed, and his body language is screaming, I’m not sure you’re going to like what I’m about to say.
“What, are you going to tell me you’re transgender too?” Apparently, beer makes me so funny.
That makes him smile. “No.”
“Are you going to tell me you have a completely different identity and have been lying to me my whole life?”
“No.”
“Are you going to tell me this whole trip is a bad idea and that we should turn around and go back to Francis?”
He hesitates. Don’t ruin this for me, I plead silently.
But then he says, “No.”
Good. “Then go ahead. My threshold for surprise has been raised quite a bit these past few days. I’m not fragile.”
He nods. “The whole transgender thing … Do you really know anything about it? Not just with Mellie, but in general.”
“I know everything I need to know.”
He frowns. “But—”
“Therapy time is over. Thanks for playing.” I straighten up and down the rest of my beer. Sam does the same. The glasses are still frosty, even with nothing in them. We must have finished that last round pretty quickly.
I slide off my stool and march over to the jukebox. The song titles are fuzzy, and I have to squint in order to read what they say. It’s mostly country and some rock, and I don’t recognize many of the bands. I’m not sure if that’s because I don’t know much about country and rock, or if these bands are old and that’s why I’ve never heard of them, or if they’re new and I’ve been so out of touch from anything that doesn’t have to do with the tennis circuit and that’s why I’ve never heard of them. In the end, I choose a few songs at random, and dance back to the bar just as Marla—that’s the waitress’s name—brings us the plate of mozzarella sticks we ordered.
“I love you,” I tell her.
She laughs. “Thanks, sweetie.”
I grab a mozzarella stick and take a bite. This place’s food is legit. The cheese is hot and gooey, and oozes out of the tube of fried goodness. I catch the dripping cheese with my tongue and swirl it around, collecting it all in my mouth.
“God, that’s good.”
I pick up another stick to offer to Sam, and catch him watching me. It’s the same look he was giving me when I sank my teeth into the cheesesteak for the first time. Now I recognize it: It’s the kind of look guys give girls who are not me. The kind of look Sam gives girls who are not me. It’s a lost-in-his-imagination, that thing you’re doing with your mouth is turning me on look. It makes me excited and uncomfortable all at the same time.
Could I possibly look sexy when I eat this kind of food? Could I look sexy at all?
My head is pretty muddled, and before I know it the look is gone and Sam’s taking another sip of beer, and I think maybe I imagined it completely. Being drunk makes you feel really good and really loose and really fun, but it also makes things not quite so clear. The clock seems to be skipping entire minutes altogether.
“Want a stick?” I ask Sam, thrusting the fried mozzarella toward him.
He shakes his head. “No thanks. I think you need the food more than I do right now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Everyone needs mozzarella sticks.”
“I’ll order something in a little bit. You eat.”
“Sam! I demand you eat this mozzarella stick right this second!” I push it toward his mouth, but he keeps his lips tightly sealed. “Do it!”
He shakes his head in defiance, but I can see the laughter in his eyes.
I switch tactics. “Please, Sammy?” I say sweetly, putting on my best puppy-dog face. He snaps a picture. “Pretty please? Try the mozzarella stick? For me?”
Finally, he rolls his eyes. “Fine.” He opens his mouth and takes a bite. “Jeez,” he says after only a couple chews. “That’s really good.”
I jump around in triumph. “I told you.”
I feed him the rest of the stick; he doesn’t try to take it from me to put it in his mouth himself. His eyes are full of mirth, and I have a feeling mine are too, and we don’t break our gaze until the mozzarella stick is completely gone. I lick the grease off my fingers, and he watches—like the mozzarella stick didn’t quite satisfy his hunger.
There’s that look again. I know I’m not imagining it this time.
We’re only about a foot away from each other—Sam’s on his barstool and I’m standing. Something is happening. I can’t think clearly enough to name it, but it’s like the fun, happy beer clouds surrounding each of us join forces to form one snug, fun, happy beer cloud. And we’re in it together.
Right now everything feels like a good idea. Everything feels like the best idea I’ve ever had.
I just want to keep feeling good feelings. No Mellie, no flat tire, no reality.
I open my mouth and words come out. They’re entirely unplanned, and even I’m curious what they’re going to be. “Are you having a good time?” I ask Sam.
He nods. “I am.”
“I’m glad you’re here with me. Are you glad you’re here with me?”
“Very.”
“Isn’t having fun better than being serious?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to trust that I know what I’m doing from now on?”
He grins and holds up his hands in complete surrender. “Definitely.”
Suddenly, the cozy beer cloud around us vanishes, replaced by something more like a giant rubber band. Moving toward Sam is easy. Moving away from him is very, very hard. So I take another small step closer, and smile.
“Good. Because I’m wondering if you’d like to help me check another item off my ‘never done that’ list.” Where did that come from?
“What’s that?”
I want to kiss you. I don’t say it.
But his gaze travels to my mouth, and then back to my eyes, and I know his thoughts are in the exact same place as mine.
It’s so weird. This is Sam Alapati. My best friend. My neighbor. I’ve never kissed anyone before, and he knows it.
I’m not thinking this through, but that’s just it—I don’t want to think. I don’t want to talk anymore, either. No discussions, no cutting through the drunk haze to find the words to articulate what’s happening, to weigh the benefits and risks and be responsible about it all. I want to just do.
So I keep moving forward. With each inch, the rubber band seems to shrink, pushing us even closer together.
“Just one friend helping another out, okay?” I ask.
Sam nods.
“It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
He nods again.
I try to move slowly, to give Sam the opportunity for an out. He doesn’t take it.
And then he apparently decides that slow isn’t going to work for him, because he leans forward and crushes his mouth to mine.
That first instant of connection takes me by surprise. Not the action itself—that was inevitable—but the sensation that comes with it. I feel like sparklers have ignited under my skin. Sam’s lips are strong and confident and tender. I move mine with his, perfectly happy to let him lead.
I have no idea what I’m doing, but oh my God, I’m kissing a boy. I’m kissing Sam.
He wraps his arms around my waist and tugs me closer, so I’m nestled between his legs as he sits on the barstool.
Kissing is way better than beer. It’s even better than mozzarella sticks and Philly cheesesteaks.
Kissing is the best kind of delicious.