And now I’m here, sitting on the hood of Maddie’s car, giggling to myself in the dark. I can’t believe I actually just said that to Stuart Shah. I feel like what a superhero must feel like. I feel like I can hear everything, see everything, still feel the vibrating air between us and the snap of the book in my hand as I shut it and the edge of his sleeve I brushed as I left. I can’t remember when I felt such a rush.
Probably when we found out we had gotten a good enough score to qualify for Nationals. Or, no, maybe when Mrs. Townsend told me that I was in the running to be valedictorian.
Oh god, I was reckless.
I was reckless but I feel like I won. Maddie told me to be brave, and I was.
And funnily enough, Future Sam, when I did it, I thought of you. I thought of you looking back on me in that moment and watching me melt into the background, or go home and feel sorry for myself, and I got angry.
If you are me later, let’s say… next year, after you’ve had your first successful term at college, I want you to be fucking cool. And not just cool as in a perfect, happy image of someone having a perfect time, the kind of stuff that I see in the photos people share at parties like this one, not a person defined by the captions you paste on your life. I think people fake that they’re having fun a lot of the time in photos, because they want people to think they’re having fun. Well, that’s not life, is it?
Sometimes life is really terrible. Sometimes life gives you a weird disease.
Sometimes life is really good, but never in a simple sort of way.
And when I look back, I will know I have tried.
But now I’m sort of stranded here on Maddie’s car. It’s probably been an hour or so.
She texted me: Where r u??
I told her, but when I texted her again to ask when we were leaving, my phone died. I don’t have Internet. I also didn’t get to warn Maddie about what I said to Stuart.
Shit, it’s gonna get lonely out here, Future Sam.
Okay, good. I can hear footsteps coming down the driveway. Probably Maddie here to chew me out and tell me to get back inside. Nooo way, I’m going to tell her. I said my piece.
I may be socially impaired but I know enough not to go back in there. I am going to pretend like I am typing something on my laptop because I am super busy as to effectively ignore Maddie.
Oh god.
It’s not Maddie. It’s someone dressed all in gray, looking around at all the cars.
It’s Stuart.
OH MY GOD
When he found me on the hood of Maddie’s car, Stuart just said, “Hey-y-y,” and started laughing, and I started laughing. The echolocation was overwhelming.
“Maddie wanted me to make sure you were okay,” he finally said.
“Yes. I’m okay,” I said. “Are you okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” he said.
Before he finished asking, I blurted, “Because I just dropped, like, an emotional grenade on you. I just took out the clip and threw it and let it explode.”
I realized I wasn’t looking him in the eyes, just staring a hole straight through his broad gray chest.
“Yeah, you could have at least yelled, cover! Or something.” He made exploding sounds with his mouth. I giggled, which I try never to do except within the comfort of my own home, which is saying something about Stuart and how he made me feel.
“Yeah,” I said. “I should have.”
Then we were quiet. And the full weight of what I had done started to sink in, like for instance, the fact that I probably stared at him a lot, not just when we were in high school together, but a lot over this evening, without saying much more than telling him (a) that I was obsessed with him and (b) that we would be in the same city next year.
I said, “Sorry if that was creepy.”
Stuart said, “No! No, don’t worry about it,” and by then, thankfully, we could hear Dale and Maddie and Stacia coming down the driveway after us, so we stopped having to talk.
I purposefully sat in the front, trying to shrug the whole thing off. Trying to forget what I said, believe it or not. I remember thinking, damn, I might just erase the whole night from your memory, Future Sam.
When we got to my house, I called, “This is me!”
As I shut the door, Stuart called from the backseat open window. “Sammie!”
And of course I answered, “What?”
“Come here!” he said.
I turned around, thinking I had forgotten something, probably a half-eaten peanut butter sandwich in a Baggie that fell out from my bag or something.
Then he took my arm—that’s right, you read correctly—he took my arm, and turned it over, as if he were administering a shot. He brought a pen out of his pocket, uncapped it with his teeth, and wrote his email. Each curve of each letter of his name was like, I don’t know, having sex. I have never had sex, but have you ever had someone write on you? Have you ever had a writer write on you? He might as well have been doing it with his fingertip.
“I’m not a great texter,” he said.
It’s been a day since the party and I still have the faded letters of Stuart’s email address written on my arm in marker. I have his email because he gave it to me, and now he has mine because I emailed him.
Holy. Saint. James. Iago. Joan. Of. Fucking. Arc.
I still can’t believe it.
Wait. He’s online now. HE EMAILED ME.
Sammie,