“I don’t know. Looks like he’s going to stay in Florida and my mom’s going to keep the beach house. He’s angry and quiet. So I guess nothing’s new.”
These conversations went on throughout the fall. Some days they caught up like old friends and then talked about how much they missed one another. On those days they talked about moving out to Los Angeles. Sam had a packed junior year course load and was studying for the ACT, her ticket to either UCLA or USC. Wyatt just wanted to graduate and get his life started. On other days it was tense, especially if Wyatt asked about her parents.
“They seem a little better,” Sam said. It was November and the air in the apartment did feel lighter.
“So they go to a shrink a few times and suddenly your dad’s not chasing women?”
Sam’s chest went tight. She knew that making excuses for her dad just made Wyatt angrier, but she was coming around to accepting the whole thing, and if Wyatt could too, everything could go back to normal. “He says it was about his art, about being so desperate for a new idea that he lost his grip on reality.”
Wyatt let out a hard breath. “Remind me never to use my music as an excuse to act like an asshole.”
These exchanges were usually punctuated with “sorry” or “let’s not do this,” but their relationship was poisoned. It was impossible for Wyatt to think of his mom alone in that cold house without blaming Bill. He was constantly reacting to all the ways Sam was like her dad, even the things he used to say he loved about her, like her imagination and her directness. Sam could feel Wyatt closing off. Even the sound of his I love you lost its tenderness. He said it the way you’d say goodbye.
34
Wyatt
Wyatt couldn’t have imagined how his family could possibly be more screwed up until his mother visited him at school to tell him that Michael had been thrown out of college for repeated drunk and disorderly conduct. He was relieved when she left. His dorm room was too small to hold his family’s pain.
He sat on his bed, holding his guitar but not playing. He thought about Sam and how much he wished she were there with him. He wished the two of them could run away from their families and just go back to what they’d had. This was a peaceful thought, and he decided to call Sam while he had it, to make up for being so angry these past few weeks.
“Hey, Sam-I-am,” he said when she picked up.
“You haven’t called me that in a while. Is this the Wyatt I used to know?”
“I’m sorry, I’ve been such a jerk. I love you more than anything.”
He heard her let out a breath. “I love you too.”
Wyatt walked over to his window and pushed it open in hopes that a breeze or the sound of kids on the quad might wash away the ugliness that had enveloped his family. “So Michael got kicked out of school. Basically for being a drunk.” His voice caught as he said it, and he squeezed his eyes shut. “My mom was just here to tell me.”
“That’s awful. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, no kidding. I guess it’s just the last step in the total destruction of my family.” He could hear the anger creep back into his voice. He felt incapable of controlling it.
“How’s your mom?”
“She apologized a lot, like everything’s her fault. Mostly for never talking about anything and for letting things get this bad. She seems broken.” He stopped himself from saying Your dad broke us.
35
Sam
When, in April, Laurel announced she was pregnant, Sam knew her parents were going to stay together. Everything was different in their apartment. It was as if someone had thrown open the windows and relief had washed through the place. Without having taken her first breath, Gracie started to work her magic. Her parents were fine, and now there was going to be a baby.
Sam called Wyatt to tell him. “That’s disgusting,” he said.
“Well, yes, they’re old, but it’s kind of nice. Starting over.”
“Yep. Your dad’s a real ladies’ man.”
Sam was quiet on the phone while Wyatt’s anger simmered. She hated hearing Frank’s sharp sarcasm in his voice. She knew he just meant that it wasn’t fair that her family was growing when his was slipping away. But she couldn’t keep taking this.
“That wasn’t fair, what you said about my dad.”
“Nothing’s really fair, Sam.”
“If we’re going to be okay, if we’re going to go out to LA, be together, we need to get past this.”
“?‘Get past this,’?” he repeated. “For you it was a kiss in the kitchen, with a new baby to make it all better. For me, it was divorce, a dad I don’t see, a mother living alone, and a brother who’s totally screwed up his life. Everything is just so damn easy for the Holloways.”
“Wyatt. Please.” Sam was trying not to cry.
“You know what, maybe I’ll head out to LA early, skip the summer in that hellhole. You can come whenever.”
“You mean like in a year? Like I won’t see you for a year?”
“Yeah, that sounds good. Enjoy the new baby and your happy family.”
“Wyatt. Stop.” She was crying now. “Please come for the summer. You’ve got to get past it.”
“Oh, okay, let me get on that.” The call disconnected and Sam felt herself slip away.
* * *
Sam sat on a bench in Washington Square Park staring at her phone. She hadn’t heard from Wyatt in eleven days. It had been years since she’d gone a day without at least getting a text. She went to school most days but occasionally found herself derailed by her own feet and sitting on this bench until three p.m. She replayed the summer and the summer before that in her mind. She tried to remember what it felt like to laugh until your body shook or to follow a whim wherever it took you. She was currently having a hard time finding the energy to get up off this bench.
During these eleven days she had sent two texts that she was starting to hate herself for: Wyatt please, and This can’t be happening. Sipping her coffee and watching his reply not pop up, she felt small and rigid, like one of the flat gray rocks on the beach that just washed out with the tide. She felt a total lack of agency, like her legs and her spirit had stopped collaborating to move her forward. Her body no longer knew what to do.
She found relief in the water. She swam at the YMCA in the evenings, letting the ice-cold water shock her skin into feeling a different kind of pain. She wanted to tell Wyatt that her stamina had improved, that there would be no more breaks when they swam to the cove. She imagined his dramatic groan over this fact, and she ached all over again. With each push off the wall, she welcomed the throbbing of her muscles. If she could swim a full mile, Wyatt would call. If Wyatt would call, she would sleep a full night. If she slept a full night, she would be Sam again.
She returned to the apartment deliberately too late for dinner. The swimming served the dual purpose of wearing her out and keeping her from facing her happy-ish, healing parents across the table. She took a plate into her room each night and continued to make deals with God. If she finished her art history paper in less than ninety minutes, Wyatt would call. As she typed and focused on the Renaissance, she felt the brief relief of feeling in control. She was going to make Wyatt appear. When she completed her task and her phone was quieter than ever, she lay in her bed, numb. She had to stop playing this game. Actually, if she could stop playing this game for a full week, then Wyatt would call. She was in a loop of deals with God.
If she got a few hours of sleep, she’d dig herself out of the darkness and lean toward happier thoughts. She clung to the fact that Wyatt wouldn’t be able to keep this up if they saw each other in person. He loved her, she didn’t have any doubt about that. Even though she no longer knew who her father was, she knew exactly what was in Wyatt’s heart. He’d decide to come to the beach for the summer and everything would go back to normal. Senior year, USC acceptance, Venice Beach. All as planned.
Sam was telling herself this story on a Thursday afternoon as she let herself into the apartment. Laurel was on the phone in the kitchen and hurried to hang up when she saw her.
“What?” Sam asked.
“That was Travis. He heard from Michael that Wyatt’s not coming to the beach after graduation.”
Sam plopped down onto the couch and Laurel sat next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “Because of me?” Sam asked.
“Because of all of it. They’re renting out the house, and he’s going straight to Los Angeles.”
“I don’t mean to be dramatic,” Sam said, “but I don’t think I can handle this.”
“Honey, I’m sure he’s going to come around. His life has been turned upside down; maybe he just needs some time.” These were the right words to say, but Sam could see the fear on her mother’s face. Laurel, recovering from her own heartbreak, couldn’t bear seeing Sam suffer her own.