Sam drives the speed limit all along the interstate. It’s early and it’s New Year’s Day, so there aren’t many other cars out. We don’t speak. Maybe he’s thinking about what awaits him in Anniston.
After we pass Bessemer, its ugly shutdown steel mills off in the distance, Sam starts talking, like he’d been in the middle of a story and was picking up where he left off.
“I never went inside Kaylee’s house,” he says. “But I know where it is.”
“Is that where we’re going?” I ask.
He nods, staring ahead at the road. “Rusty stopped messing with me once I started seeing Kaylee,” he says. “He even acted happy for me, or pretended to. At first. But one night, after I came back from a date, he got up from the couch and was real quiet and weird, just staring at me. He had this lazy eye and it would twitch when he was mad or upset, and it was twitching right then. So I knew to be careful. And I was right to be. He said something about my piercings, how they made me look like a fag. ‘Does your girlfriend know she’s dating a fag?’ he said. Normally, I didn’t say anything back. But that night, I dunno. Something snapped. I said, ‘Fuck you.’ His eye twitched and he threw a punch at me. He missed, though. I was ready for him.” I see Sam, his jaw clenched, hands tight on the steering wheel, like he’s reliving that moment and ready to fight again. “Then I grabbed his arm. I’d gotten stronger. Doing push-ups and shit while he was at work. I grabbed his arm and twisted it and he let out this babyish sound, like he was in pain, and then I punched him a few times in the face. He broke loose and backed up. He was holding his face where I hit him, and he looked at me like he was afraid of me. I’d never seen him look that way. It felt so good.”
He stops, and I think that’s the end of the story, and part of me is relieved. But part of me knows I have to listen. And after a wave of silence, he starts in again.
“I was about to walk to my room . . . and he said to me . . . He said, ‘She doesn’t love you. She’ll never love you. No one will ever love you. Not after what I’ve done to you. I’m the only one who will ever love you now.’” Tears trail down Sam’s cheeks.
“It’s not true,” I say. My throat kind of closes up. I want to say more—to explain to him why Rusty was so wrong—but if I speak, I don’t know if I can come up with an explanation that makes any sense to him, or to me.
Sam wipes his eyes and then focuses on the road. We drive along in silence for a good while, before he starts up again. “It was a few days after that he got his idea.”
“What idea?”
“Of replacing me. Finding another kid.”
“Oh,” I say, my belly doing a violent flip. I think about the other kid he tried to take, the one who fought back, who managed to look at the license plate. I wonder if he has nightmares, or if he’s just gone on with his life.
It’s so easy to push things back in your brain, till it isn’t.
“He asked me if I wanted a little brother. I said no, because I knew what he meant. I could see the wheels spinning in his brain. That’s why he taught me how to drive,” Sam says, tapping the steering wheel. “At first he said it was in case he got sick and needed to be driven to the hospital. But that was bullshit.”
“What?” I ask, not following.
“The truck. He wanted me to drive the truck. When he took the kid.” He looks over at me, then back at the road. “He wanted me to help him.”
“Oh,” I say.
“I said no way. But I knew he’d do it without me. And he did.”
What was that kid’s name? I can’t remember. I can’t even picture him, though I’m sure his photo appeared in some papers. He was a hero, I guess. “What would have happened, if he’d . . . if he’d actually taken that kid?”
“I don’t know,” Sam says.
“Would he have let you go?”
“Let me go?” Sam asks.
I nod.
“He was never going to let me go.”
I turn and gaze out the window, the scenery rushing by an ugly blur. I think I might roll the window down. I need air. But I just rest my head against the cool glass, and I’m glad that we ride along for a few miles without any talking. Without any stories.
“Everyone thinks I must be so happy he’s dead,” Sam says, ending the silence.
“Are you?” I say.
“I mean, I am, in a way,” he says, focused on the road. He’s quiet for a minute or so, like he’s remembering something. Then he says, “I’m also sad.”
My stomach feels tight again. “Why?” I finally ask.
For a moment Sam focuses on driving, sticking to his lane. Then he exhales loudly. “There were times when . . . I don’t know. He was all I had. And there were times when . . . Never mind.”
“You can tell me,” I say. He’s told me so much already, but I know there’s so much more he hasn’t talked about. Might never talk about. So much that will only stay in his brain. That must be the loneliest feeling in the world.
“The thing is, there were times when he was good to me.” His voice is soaked with emotion now, and I see his chest heave.
He sniffles, takes a breath, and slows the car and takes an exit off the highway. Anniston. We’re here.
We drive along past a bunch of strip malls for a bit. There are hills in the distance, surrounding the city like a big high fence. Eventually, he turns into a neighborhood of small homes with hardly any trees. It all looks new, but not fancy. He pulls up in front of one house, redbrick, one story, with light yellow trim. Two cars are parked in the garage and one in the driveway. A wreath hangs on the front door. An inflated Santa Claus sways around in the middle of the yard.
Sam turns off the engine and we sit there a minute. He’s not even looking at the house. He just gazes down the street.
“This is where she lives.” He unbuckles his seat belt. “Come with me?”
“Yeah,” I say. I know he’s nervous. I am too.
We both get out and walk to the front door. He stands there for a second, then rings the doorbell. Another deep breath. It seems to take forever, he’s about to push the doorbell again, but then we hear a latch being undone. The door inches open. It’s a man, about Dad’s age, maybe older, with buzzed gray hair and an angry-looking face. He’s kind of bulky—a mix of fat and muscle—and he’s wearing a checked button-down tucked into jeans, loafers on. “Yes?” he says, giving us both quick glances.
“Hi, Mr. Clarke. It’s Sam.”
“Sam?” he says, sounding confused. He gives him a closer look. “Oh. Oh.” For a second I think he’s going to slam the door on us. “What are you doing here, son?”
“I want to see Kaylee.”
He just stares at Sam, then at me. “I’m his friend,” I say.
Mr. Clarke steps out onto the little porch and pulls the door shut behind him. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“Is she home?”
“How did you get here?” the man asks. “Your folks know you’re here?”
“Please, can I see her?” I can see something rising in Sam—panic, sorrow, desperation, all mixed together.
“Please,” I say. “We came all this way. Sam really wants to see her.”