“I mean, to Sam. If you had the chance?”
“Oh, well, I—” he stammers. His mouth opens and closes, as if he’s forgotten how to speak. As if something is stopping him. Seeing him struggle like this, I touch his shoulder.
“You don’t have to tell me,” I say.
Oliver breathes relief. “Maybe another time,” he says.
I smile and unlock the door.
“Do you think we can do this again?” Oliver asks.
“Go on another walk, you mean?”
“Yeah,” he says, nodding. “Or you know, hang out or something.”
I think about this. “I’d like that. But just knock next time. Or a text will do.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” he says. “Although I did text you. But you never responded.”
“When?”
“Earlier today. And yesterday, too.”
“You mean—more than once? That can’t be right.” I check my messages again to be sure. There’s not a single text from Oliver. Now that I think about it, there aren’t any new texts from anyone. Are they not coming through anymore? I’ve noticed this has been happening since I started talking to Sam a few days ago. “It might be my phone. It’s been acting strange lately.”
“That’s a relief,” Oliver says. “I thought you were ignoring me.”
“So you decided to show up and throw rocks at my window?”
Oliver holds back a grin. “What can I say … I’m annoying.”
“Maybe a little bit. Anyway, I should go inside.”
But before I do, Oliver leans in without a word and wraps his arms around me again. It’s a longer embrace than last time, but I let it happen. “Your shirt,” he whispers near my ear. “It still smells like him.”
“It does.”
We say good night. I close the door behind me and listen to Oliver linger on the porch before he eventually makes his way down the steps. As I get ready for bed, I keep wondering what Oliver would say to Sam if he had the chance. I wonder if he will ever trust me enough to share it. Or maybe it’s something I might have already known.
CHAPTER SIX
There is this song I listen to whenever I sit down to write. It’s called “Fields of Gold,” the beautiful live version by the singer Eva Cassidy. The song opens with a distant guitar and a sad voice that sounds like a wolf whimpering or a songbird crying. Every time it plays, I close my eyes and see myself there, standing in a field of golden barley, a cool breeze blowing my hair, and the warm sun setting against my back. No one is ever with me, only the endless rolling fields and the sound of a guitar coming from somewhere I can’t see.
Sam learned to play the song for me after he tapped my shoulder in class and asked what I was listening to. I remember one day while we were lying out on the grass, I asked him to sing it for me, even though I knew he was sometimes embarrassed of his voice, and he said “Someday.” I’ve asked him many times after, and he always had an excuse, like he hadn’t warmed up yet, or he was feeling a bit hoarse, or he needed some more practice. Maybe he was afraid he would ruin the song for me, because he knew how much I loved it. He’s only hummed it to me on a few rare occasions, like the night he sat with me on the porch after I helped my father move his things out of the house and watched him drive away.
As I listen to the song alone in my room, I suddenly realize I will never hear Sam sing it for me, and that “Someday” never came.
* * *
The next morning is filled with Sam’s music. I find one of his old CDs in my mom’s car and sit alone in the parking lot, listening to it before school. It’s a playlist Sam made me of live recordings he mixed in his bedroom, each song tugging me with beautiful acoustic guitar riffs he played over popular ballads that he made his own. He has an old taste in music he gets from his dad. Elton John, Air Supply, Hall & Oates. Even though no one really listens to CDs anymore, Sam always made them for me anyway, because he knows I prefer physical copies over digital counterparts. Just like with books, I like something real to hold in my hands. Sam recorded dozens of them over the years, each one longer and more thoughtful than the last, personalized to how he felt about me at the time—something I learned later. He loved a good slow song, something we had in common. One of his favorites was Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide.” It was one of his go-tos when someone asked him to play something on the guitar. The music scene in Ellensburg isn’t the best, but he made the most of it. He performed at school talent shows, weddings, in a few coffee shops that allowed him to, and a hundred times only for us. I always told him this place wasn’t big enough for him. He told me the same thing.