“Sam,” I say, trying to steady my voice. He needs to hear me. “I wouldn’t be here if it was true.”
He lifts his head from the door and wipes his eyes with his shirt. Maybe he heard me, truly. Maybe he understands what I’m trying to say. He sniffles. He stands there, quiet finally. I feel relief pour over me slowly, like syrup.
A shout cuts through the drab air that surrounds us. My head is foggy, but it hits me that someone is yelling—someone is yelling Sam’s name.
CHAPTER 17
Home
Beth
I’m still combing through those damned articles, and I can’t find the name of the complex, and I think I might start crying.
Then my cell rings.
The number has a 205 area code, one I don’t have programmed in my phone. I think about letting it go, but I realize—maybe it’s Josh. Yes, it has to be Josh!
“Hello?” I shout.
“Beth? Is that you?”
The voice is familiar, but it’s not Josh. “Who is this?”
“It’s Tony. Tony Johnson. Do you remember me?”
“Tony?” Of course I remember. “Tony! I’m so—”
“He’s here, Beth!” Tony says. “Sam’s here! He’s outside his old apartment, yelling and kicking the door and stuff, he’s with some kid, he—”
“I’m on my way there now, Tony. But you have to tell me the address. Please, tell me the address!”
“Okay,” he says. “It’s 189 Meadowbrook Lane. And our complex is called Meadowbrook Manor.”
“Meadowbrook Manor at 189 Meadowbrook Lane,” I say back to him. I grab Donal’s phone and type in the address as the destination, my shaky hands somehow hitting the right letters, and the GPS starts recalculating. “Tony, don’t let Sam leave, okay? Call me if he does. I’m hanging up now.”
Up ahead I see a sign for the exit to Anniston. Donal’s free hand reaches over and takes mine and I hold on tight. Please stay there, Sam. I chant it in my head: Please stay there, please stay there, I’m coming for you, I’m almost there. Donal turns off the interstate onto the exit. He runs every yellow light, and I clutch his hand more tightly. Once he turns onto Meadowbrook Lane, he guns it up a hill.
I keep looking out the window for Sam, just in case, but mostly it’s crappy old shops
“Here it is!” Donal announces, making a left into a parking lot.
I scan the lot, which isn’t that big, but I don’t see my car. My hand grips the door handle but then I see it, almost hidden next to a minivan. “Stop the car,” I shout.
Donal hits the brakes. I unbuckle and run out across the lot and to a set of steps that lead down to a courtyard. That’s when I see him, straight ahead down a concrete walkway, leaning against a door. Sam.
Josh stands facing him a few feet away, frozen in place. “Sam! Sam!” I yell. I rush down the walkway. “Sam!”
Sam finally turns and sees me, his mouth open in surprise. “Sam,” I say.
His face is all red. He leans back against the door and slinks to the ground. I walk to him slowly, like I’m approaching a skittish cat. “Sam, I’m here.” What I want to do is start bawling. I want to clutch him and hold him tight. But I keep it together. It’s like my body knows I have to be strong.
I walk closer and kneel in front of him. The cement of the walkway is hard and cold, but it doesn’t matter. “Sam,” I say.
He looks at me like he recognizes me now. He closes his eyes and I see tears. “It’s okay. Let it out.” I touch his leg, and he doesn’t flinch. I sidle up next to him, and he latches on to me like I’m a lifeboat, his head in my lap, and in my arms he cries and shakes and I hold him. “It’s okay,” I say, again and again, softly. “I’m here.” Josh is crying, too, his arms clutched tightly in front of his chest.
Sam wipes his tears with his jacket sleeve, and, sitting up, puts his head on my shoulder. “I had to come here,” he says softly. “I had to see it again.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “I understand.” Though I don’t understand. I can only try to understand. All I can do is try—that’s all any of us can do.
“I saw her,” he says. “Kaylee. She, she . . .” and he starts crying again, and I move my arm around his shoulders and squeeze him more tightly. I don’t even know who Kaylee is. “She looked at me like she didn’t know me,” he says through tears. “Like, like . . . like she hated me.”
“Shhh,” I say. Kaylee must have been someone important to him, like Tony. “I’m sure that’s not true. And if it is true, then you’re better off without her. She just doesn’t know how great you are. How strong you are.”
He pulls back away from me, so that we’re looking at each other face-to-face, eye to eye. “You really think that?”
“Of course I do,” I say, fighting back the tears. Only someone strong could have lived through all this. We both lived through these awful years. And here we are. That’s something, I think.
More than something. It’s everything.
“I’m trying, Beth . . .” He takes a shaking breath. “I’m trying to move on, like Mom wants. But when I sit in bed at night . . . when I look in the mirror, all I can think about is . . .” His voice breaks, his lips quiver. He looks right at me then. “Who’s . . . who’s going to love me?”
If I breathe my heart will crack into pieces.
“Who’s going to love this?” He glances down at his body. “This fucked-up, damaged—”
“I am,” I say, grabbing his hands. “I’m going to love you. I do love you. Mom loves you, and Earl, and Aunt Shelley, and Dad.” I turn to Josh, his face streaked with tears. “And Josh loves you.” Hadn’t I known that all along? I feel so grateful for him now, for being Sam’s friend. His only friend.
I take one of my hands and rub Sam’s cheek, wiping away the wetness.
His whole life will be difficult. This place—that man—will never go away, not entirely. Not for any of us, really. People always say, Get over it. Like you can make some leap and then move on. But it’s not like that. Some things you can’t get over, not completely.
“Everyone here, in Anniston—everyone who knew me thought I was this kid named Sam Hunnicutt. I just don’t . . . I don’t know who I am.”
“You’re not Sam Hunnicutt,” I say, “you’re Sam Walsh. And you’re almost fifteen years old.” I smile at him. “And you’re an artist. And you have a whole life ahead of you. And I need you in my life.” I take a deep breath, because I can feel the tears welling. “I need you in it badly.”
With that, he sidles back over next to me and lets me put my arm around him. His head falls back on my shoulder. He seems tired. So tired.
I am too.
Donal is with Josh now, his arm around his shoulder, ushering him over to the concrete picnic table. He sits Josh down and pats him on the back, then nods over to me, like he’s saying, Everything’s going to be okay. And when I look upward at the second floor I see Tony, leaning on the rail, gazing down at us with those intense eyes. He gives a little wave when we lock eyes. Then he backs up, and quietly goes back into his apartment.