Wyatt wasn’t so sure he wanted to meet the terms; he kind of liked coming to Dr. Nick’s office. He still hadn’t talked about the thing between his parents, and he felt like he finally wanted to.
“I need you to go to class. Every class. I need you to eat. And every night after dinner, you are going to go to the music department for guitar lessons. First one’s tonight. Take this.” He handed Wyatt his guitar. Wyatt ran his hand along the smooth neck and let his fingers rest on the frets. He dared to pluck out a sound, and he saw it take shape the second he heard it.
7
Sam
The summer that Sam was fifteen she found herself safely tucked into a group of girls. They gathered on the beach in the late mornings and went to town or to each other’s houses when it got too hot. In the afternoons they’d swim or watch the boys surf until the sun went down.
There was a lot of talking in a big group of girls, and Sam tried to keep up. They talked about the boys on the beach, whom they simultaneously ignored and hoped would come talk to them. Every time the talking slowed down, Sam jumped in with a suggestion: swim out to the jetty, dig a hole big enough for all of them, bike to the bakery.
She still spent her mornings with Wyatt, swimming down to the cove and adding shells to her design. They never made plans to do this, but Sam would walk out onto her back deck each morning and find Wyatt sitting on the steps waiting for her.
“Hey,” he’d say, getting up.
“Hey,” she’d say, and they’d walk straight through the dunes and into the ocean.
On a morning in August, Sam came out for their swim with half a granola bar and a frown. “You okay?” Wyatt asked.
“I’m fine,” said Sam, and walked past him through the dunes. She really didn’t want to talk about it. Last night her closest girlfriend, Cayla, had called her and said that all of the girls were going to go to a boy’s house in Sunnydale. His parents were away and there was going to be a party.
“It’s going to be like boys and beer and stuff. Not really your scene, but I just wanted to tell you, like not to leave you out.”
Sam could have told Cayla that she’d love to go. But the truth was that it wasn’t really her scene. She didn’t want to go hang out with a bunch of strange boys; she didn’t want to drink beer. She just wanted to wake up early and collect shells. As she swam down toward the cove, she wondered what was wrong with her.
Sam swam straight to the cove without stopping. When they were coming out of the ocean, Wyatt stopped to catch his breath. “God, Sam. The only way I can do this is if you take breaks to look for shells.”
Sam wasn’t out of breath at all. “I forgot,” she said, and walked into the cove.
Wyatt followed her and watched as she moved a few shells around and then moved them back to where they had been before.
“Let’s just go,” she said.
“Sam, what’s wrong with you?”
She didn’t say anything. She looked at her shell collection carefully strewn around under the tree. She wondered for the first time what her friends would say if they saw this.
“You’re right,” she said. “This is weird.”
Wyatt walked over to her and took her hand. It was the first time he’d ever held her hand, and the feel of it completely distracted Sam from feeling sorry for herself. She felt like the heat from his skin on hers was moving all the way up her arm. She placed her other hand on top of his so she could keep this feeling a little longer.
“Come on,” he said. “I’m freezing. Let’s dry off.” Wyatt let go of her hand, and she followed him to a patch of sun at the edge of the cove. They sat looking up the beach, where the sun was still low on the unspent day.
Sam lay down flat on her back and let the sun warm her up. She felt the last drips of water on her skin evaporate. She could still feel where Wyatt’s hand had touched hers. She was afraid that if she opened her eyes, she’d stop feeling these things.
“So are you going to tell me?” Wyatt asked.
“What?”
“Whatever you’re thinking about.”
“I was just thinking how nice it felt when you were holding my hand.” Her eyes were still closed.
Wyatt laughed. “That’s not why you’re upset.”
“No, but it’s part of the same basic problem—I’m a total weirdo.” She sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees, suddenly aware of herself in a bikini.
“You’re not that weird, Sam.”
“My friends went to a party last night, like a real party.”
“And they didn’t invite you?”
“Well they told me about it but assumed I wouldn’t want to go. Which I didn’t. Because I’m a baby.”
Wyatt didn’t say anything, which she took as a sure sign that he agreed with her. He started scooping sand onto her feet. “They’re getting sunburned.”
Sam stared at the growing mound on her feet. His covering her with sand felt like he was touching her again. It felt protective.
Wyatt kept his eyes on the sand. “Trust me, Sam, you don’t look like a baby.”
Something new fluttered in Sam, but she gave Wyatt a shove.
He smiled at the water.
“Sometimes I just want to go back to playing Capture the Flag,” she said.
“That’s because you’re great at it.”
“I am.”
“You’re like a navy SEAL sneaking out of the water.”
“I am.” Sam was smiling at the ocean. This was true—she was great at Capture the Flag. She loved the beach. Either her friends would slow down or she’d catch up. And Wyatt would still swim with her every morning.
“I’ll race you back,” she said. She took his hand and led him to the shore, because she wanted to feel it again.
8
Wyatt
In the summer, there are a lot of last nights. The last night before the first kid leaves, meaning the last night summer is still intact. On the last night before Wyatt’s family was heading back to Florida, all the kids had a bonfire on the beach, right in front of Wyatt’s house. They sat around the fire on scattered beach chairs and blankets. Wyatt arrived late because the silence between his parents felt particularly charged, and he wanted to help pack up the car and stash the pool toys to smooth things over.
He spotted Sam with her friends but was stopped by Travis and Michael, who, at long last, were offering him a beer. “Did you soothe the savage beast, buddy?” Michael asked.
“At least I packed his car . . . we’ll see,” said Wyatt, taking a sip. He was surprised at how good this felt, being grouped in with the older guys. He wasn’t going to turn to check, but he hoped Sam was looking.
Olivia, a girl Michael knew from the restaurant where he worked, took Wyatt’s half-full beer away and gave him a full one. He felt like a celebrity. She pulled him down to sit next to her on a blanket by the fire and started talking about the other girls she worked with. It was almost white noise, a series of stories about small sins and failures that amounted to nothing. Wyatt tried to concentrate as the second half of a beer loosened him up. He wondered what Sam and her friends were talking about.
When he finally turned to look, he saw Sam get up, grab her towel, and walk back toward the dunes. She was headed home, and he was leaving at seven the next morning. He sat for a second watching her, knowing he’d get shit from his friends if he went after her, but also not understanding why she wasn’t saying goodbye. She might be coming back, he thought, but he couldn’t risk it.
He got up and followed her onto the narrow path between the tall grasses of the dunes. “Hey,” he said, and she didn’t stop. “Sam. Wait.”
She stopped and he caught up with her, her head still down. “What?”
“Are you leaving? You know I’m leaving tomorrow. I wanted to say goodbye.” She was still looking down. He put his hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”
When she looked up, there were tears in her eyes. “It’s just . . . The summer’s over. You’re leaving. And suddenly you’re a jerk with a beer and you’ve just left me already.”
“Sam, you know I was going to come talk to you. I always come talk to you.” His hand was still on her shoulder. “You’re my person on the beach.”
Sam wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m being stupid. I’m just sad.”
“Let’s be in better touch this year. Like text me sometimes and tell me what you’re reading, and I’ll tell you how boring it sounds.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Are you really going home already?” The thought of it was excruciating to him.
“Yeah, I’m not into all that out there.” She looked up at him, and this next part would live in his memory in super slow motion: her hair fell over her eye, the piece that she sometimes braided. He took his hand from her shoulder and touched it and brushed it away behind her ear. Now his hand was on her neck and his heart was racing and he had to stop this right now before he ruined everything.