I shrug. “Sometimes. And sometimes my friends got me into fights. Some of them were pretty stupid.”
“The fights or the friends?”
“Both,” I say, smiling when she laughs. “But today was different. I’m really glad you’re okay. I hated seeing him hit you.”
“It didn’t hurt that bad. And it was worth it, you know? To stand up for what I believe in.”
“Yeah,” I say, even though I’m not sure I do know. I haven’t done much standing up for what I believe in. I’ve lashed out at the world for being shitty and unfair, and I’ve caused trouble because that was what was expected of me in a town where all the men in my family ended up in jail, sooner or later.
But now, I’m in a different place, and maybe I don’t have to be the same person I was. Maybe I can be the type of guy who stands up for things, for people. I’m not sure what I believe in, but I know I’d stand up for Sam again in a heartbeat.
“Want to eat lunch together?” I ask before I lose my courage.
“Yeah, sure,” she says. “I usually sit with Janis and Tia. You can sit at our table. They’re both nice, and sometimes our friend Pip sits with us, too. You’ll like him. We all go surfing together on Fridays. Do you surf?”
“No,” I say. “No ocean where I came from.”
“That’s okay, it’s not as hard as people think,” she says. “I could teach you if you want.”
“Yeah, that would be cool,” I say, but then it’s time for class to start and I do my best impression of one of those kids who pays attention in class, though really I’m still thinking about Sam.
We don’t get another chance to talk until lunch, but when I sit down with her friends, I’m immediately accepted because I’m with Sam. I sit there with three nice, pretty girls and a funny guy with long brown hair, who I think might be gay but I can’t tell for sure, and feel like one of the good kids for the first time in my entire life. By my first Friday at Haiku Junior High, I’m calling all of them friends, and by the second, I’m loading into Tia’s dad’s van with everyone after school, heading over to Baby Beach to learn to surf.
That year on Maui is far from perfect—Caitlin loses her baby, her friend Isaac becomes her boyfriend and things are weird at home—but every school day I get to see Sam, and slowly I become the kind of person who’s good enough to be her boyfriend. I learn how to control my temper, and stop looking for trouble. I start to understand what I believe in and how to make choices that show I’m better than the other predators who roam the school looking for easy victims.
I ask Sam to be my girlfriend at the Halloween Dance, and we start spending time together after school, and on weekends, too. Pretty soon, we’re inseparable. She’s the best friend I’ve ever had, and I want to kiss her so much it’s this gnawing feeling that chews away at my stomach lining every time we’re together. But I’m worried a kiss might change things, might make things too serious or something and then Sam wouldn’t want to be around me anymore.
I don’t think I could take that, so I wait.
I wait and wait and wait until the next summer, the day before we fly out for my dad’s funeral. I’m leaving the island for the first time since we moved, and a part of me is scared I won’t be coming back.
I finally go for the kiss in Sam’s backyard, after we’ve been jumping on her trampoline and are lying on the warm black surface, staring up at the sky as the stars pop out. The second my lips touch hers, I know that kissing is only going to make a good thing better, and that the love I feel for her is more than love for a best friend.
This is the real thing, this is what all those stupid songs are about, this is why Caitlin cried every night for so, so long.
Because she’d had this and lost it.
As Sam’s lips move beneath mine and her arms wrap around my neck with this little sigh that lets me know she’s happy, I swear on everything good in the world that I won’t lose her. No matter what I have to do, no matter who I have to fight, no matter what obstacles try to come between us, I will hold onto her forever.
Until the day I go into the ground.
Chapter Sixteen
Samantha
Present Day
* * *
“For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul outwears the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.”