Hearing her say “Sammy” liquefied his guts.
She smiled.
“You ever think about how your last name in German is “baker” and that you bake, and Jude’s is Lange, which means ‘tall’?”
He blinked at her and shook his head. He wanted to crush her with the fierceness of his hug. Either that or he wanted to bite her on the face. Why so cute?
“I do,” she said. “All the time.”
Sam watched her go.
“Yo, text me when you get home,” she said just as the doors began to slide shut.
“Yo,” he said, laughing. “Got it.”
Sam thought of a million cooler things to say, but more than anything he wished he’d kissed her.
PENNY.
SAM HOUSE
Today 11:36 PM
Home
Penny was half tempted to wait until two a.m. to text him back, as he’d done in the beginning, but she was too excited. She was in bed when her phone chimed. Jude had gone out and Penny wondered if Sam would ever come over to her room.
Her phone chimed again.
You do know that it counts right?
What happened to you counts Tears sprang from the corners of Penny’s eyes as she lay on her back with her phone held aloft.
God. Sam was perfect. This was good and this is what he had to offer her, and Penny knew that she had to find a way to be grateful. What choice did she have? And even if one day something happened between them, something wonderful and terrifying that tested their friendship, what would ultimately come of it? Romance was volatile, and if they came out of it with less than they had going in, she would be devastated. Penny couldn’t go back to not having Sam in her life. This way, she could make sure they’d always be there for each other. As friends. As emergency contacts. That was the deal. That’s the deal it had always been.
Penny knew how lucky she was to have him at all. She trusted Sam and he trusted her. That was huge. They may as well have sliced their thumbs and pressed them together in a blood oath.
I’m glad you’re home Are you still sleepy?
eyeball emoji
Penny was wired.
I may never sleep again.
CALL FROM SAM
Penny’s heart skipped. She picked up.
“Hey,” he said. “It’s Sam.”
She laughed.
“I dunno, I think we’re moving way too fast, Sam.” She could hear him chuckle. Penny pictured him on his scrawny mattress in the room down the hall. She liked that she knew where to orient him in the world.
“Right? We’re reckless,” he said.
“Crazy,” she agreed.
“Hey, let’s make a pact.”
“Sure.”
“Great, I’ll pick up your soul in a half hour. G’bye!”
Penny laughed. “What’s the pact?”
“Let’s be friends,” he said, suddenly serious. “Real ones.”
Penny nodded as tears coursed down her cheeks. “We are friends,” she said lightly. She breathed quietly so he couldn’t hear her cry.
“Yeah, I know that, but let’s be so good to each other.”
“Deal.”
“You know why I called?” asked Sam.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want you to punish me for knowing too much,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t, like, go away because you told me things,” he said. “Don’t decide things are weird.”
“I’m not the who decided last time . . .”
“I know,” he said. “Let’s both not is what I’m saying. Don’t drag the entire me folder into the desktop trash can so you hear the paper-rustling sound.”
“You can’t ask me that. The paper-rustling sound is too satisfying.”
“Just don’t be weird with me. And I promise not to be weird with you.”
“Okay,” she said.
They sat in silence.
“Do you think I should have reported him to the cops?” Penny had many sleepless nights thinking about that.
“I think you should do whatever is right by you.”
“What if he did it again? After me?”
“That’s on him, not you.”
“Do you think I should have told my mom?”
“Not if you didn’t want to,” he said. “I’m pretty sure whatever you want is okay.”
“Okay,” she said. “You know sometimes they make you pay for your own rape kit?”
“What?”
“Yeah, you have to go through the swabs when all you want to do is go home and then certain hospitals bill you for tests. And all over the country there are warehouses filled with rape kits that the cops don’t even process. Like hundreds of thousands.”
Sam didn’t say anything for a while.
“I’m sorry this happened to you,” he said.
“I’m glad I told you.”
“Me too,” he said. “I want us to talk about everything,” he continued. “I don’t want to ever not talk again. That was horrible.”
“Well, I don’t love talking about my stuff,” she said.
“Yeah, nobody does,” he said. “But it’s pretty big stuff, so sometimes you have to exorcise it.”
“God,” she said. “You’d think it would be cathartic, but it’s more like barfing after you thought you got it all.”
“I think once you’re puking so hard you’ll burst a blood vessel in your eye is when the real work happens.”
“So when it’s just thin stomach juices coursing out of you?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Sans chunks?”
“Sans, yeah.”
Penny could feel him smiling on the other side. It made her miserable.
“This sucks,” she said. “Why so much work?”
“The homework doesn’t end,” he said. “It’s piles and piles of emotional homework forever if you ever want to qualify as a grown-up.”
“How come nobody tells you?”
“Nobody tells you shit ever,” he said. “The trick is having a buddy.”
“An emergency contact.”
“Exactly,” he said. “That’s the pact.”
It was a good pact. It wasn’t exactly the pact she wanted, the one where they ran away together to Tahiti, but it was solid.
“I’m in,” she said.
“Cool,” he said. “Good night, Penelope Lee.”
“Bye,” she said.
Not ten seconds later he texted again.
Have a willie nice night!
God, he was such a jerk.
SAM.
The next morning Sam woke up feeling good. Not sensational or anything foolish but supremely okay. Penny had already texted and all was right in the world. He fortified himself with coffee and headed out to pick up Bastian.
East Side Nectars, where Bastian’s mom worked, was a small operation in a strip mall on the North Side. From the highway, the neon signs in order read: CHINESE FOOD, DONUTS, JUICE, then GUNS. Juice was the only hipster outlier. Everything else was as common as corn bread.
There were only three stools in the front by the window and a kitchen area with a row of juicers in back. When Sam and Bastian walked in, the store was empty. Luz Trejo, a short, slight woman whose watchful eyes and delicate features had been inherited by her son, grilled Sam. As Brandi Rose would have put it, there was no slack in her rope. Bastian leaned up against the wall by the counter, scowling, holding his skateboard at the ready in case he had to scram.
“Hi,” he said. He nodded at Bastian, who engaged him in a complicated handshake that Sam didn’t attempt to keep up with.
He let Luz appraise him—his dark clothes and his tattoos. It didn’t help that he stank of cigarette smoke.
Luz asked Bastian something in Spanish and he rolled his eyes.
“What’s your name?”
“Sam Becker.”
“How old are you, Sam Becker?” she asked, wiping her hands on her pale blue apron. Her hands were at least twenty years older than her face.
“Twenty-one,” he said, suddenly nervous.
“German?” she asked.
“Half,” he answered. “Half Polish.”
“A mutt.”
He nodded.
“How is it that you’re associates with my fourteen-year-old Mexican son?” she asked.
“Mom!” protested Bastian, very much seeming exactly fourteen.
“He skates near where I live,” said Sam.
“During school hours?” she asked.
“Sometimes,” he said. No way he was going to get caught in a lie with Mrs. Trejo. Luz leaned over the counter and rapped her son on the head with her knuckles. Bastian glared at him.
“Snitches get stiches,” he hissed. Luz shushed him.
Sam kept his eyes on Luz and tried to look responsible.