Chapter Twenty-Seven

Kate

January 1^st

11. Enjoy your alone time and your time with your friends and family.

 

HOW TO DATE LONG DISTANCE

It was my latest Google search. The top article had twenty-one tips on how to do it.

It was good to see we were starting out well before any research. Sam’s contract was all about being honest and communicating and we’d shared our schedules for the month.

And he had the pet names and dirty talk down.

And gifted me that pendant.

I’d changed into an old sweatshirt and fleece leggings when I got home and sat down with my phone and the remote to watch my recording of the Rose Parade. I watched it every New Year’s. It was one of the few traditions my mother had with me before she ran off, and Dad’s company had even volunteered once. It was messy and cold, but we were really proud of how that float went down the parade route on the big day.

My phone chimed with a text. Got through TSA. Heading to my gate.

That was efficient, I typed back.

My ticket gives me a few perks. Are you home?

Yeah. I held my arm out to take a selfie. Not unflattering, so I sent it.

Baby…

What?

I’m a lucky man.

What are you talking about?

The messy bun and off shoulder sweatshirt? So sexy.

LOL okay.

I’m serious. Your look is all yeah this is me, so what? It’s hot.

Your ex seriously lowered your standards, Sam.

Nothing to do with Mandy. This is all you, Kate. This was your home look in high school. Glad to see that hasn’t changed.

My jaw dropped. How did he remember what I wore twenty-plus years ago?

Leggings first came in fashion in the ‘90s, only we wore them with big long sweaters or sweatshirts then. Or enormous t-shirts for P.E. dance class. Now, too many chicks didn’t know the difference between leggings and tights and walked around with camel toe everywhere. No one wants to see leggings so sheer in public you can tell if the girl shaves her package or not. Have a little dignity, you know?

Anyway, Sam would come over to study sometimes and I always liked to be comfortable when I got home. This was before yoga pants, so the choices were sweats or leggings. Or pajamas, but I definitely wasn’t going to be seen in that in my teens.

I kept forgetting he told me he was attracted to me in high school because it was so beyond my brain back then. I’d thought I was alone in my feelings and when he complimented me, he was being polite and nice like a good friend. He only ever said anything when I dressed up, so a good manners thing.

But he liked me…just never acted on it. Yes, there was the kiss the day of the funeral, but I always chalked that up to a heightened emotional state moment.

Something that wouldn’t happen any other day.

Found my gate. Hope they won’t change it on me.

Oh, right, still texting. LAX did that to us when we came home. Three times.

Oh god. Knock on wood for me? None around here.

Okay lol. I sent a pic of my knuckles on the coffee table.

Thank you, babe.  Now I know where I need to be, I’m going to search out a cup of coffee.

I’m sure there’s a Starbucks.

I’m sure you’re right.

My phone went quiet and I refocused on what the hosts were saying about onion seeds and pampas grass. But my mind drifted to teen memories again.

If we’d taken a chance, would we have been high school sweethearts that turned into an old married couple? Like those stories of the couples that have been together for seventy or eighty years and rarely spent a night apart until they died within a week of each other.

I know I called Sam the romantic, but my heart wasn’t stone, and I used to have dreams like that before my world came crashing down at twenty years old.

Freshman year was busy and crazy with all the new, but I expected to see him for winter break, yet I had a research paper for Music Theory and he’d gone skiing with new friends. Then he didn’t come home for summer. He’d stayed at his university for summer session courses, being his overachiever self. Then…

I was twenty and a single parent and dropping out of school.

No one from the old days but Jane kept up with me then.

So I couldn’t help wondering how life might’ve been different if we dated in high school. We might’ve gone to the same university. If we’d been together at the time of the accident, would we have lasted through all the tribulations that came my way?

Hard to say.

If we’d been close and local, Jane would’ve offered to help me with Pete. I wouldn’t have been alone. But Sam would’ve been pulled between his obligation to his girlfriend and his ambition to be a lawyer and it might’ve been too much for us.

He could’ve resented me.

Yeah, I know, what-ifs will make you crazy, but examining the different possibilities of the past was how I worked through shit. I needed to acknowledge things so I could let them go.

Because there was no perfect path that would’ve spared me any pain.

The accident out of the equation, I still would’ve had breakups and heartbreak and disappointments. And we never know when we’ll lose a parent.

Sam’s dad wasn’t here to get to know his grandchildren.

I wanted more time because this Sam was pretty amazing, but I couldn’t forget that all his experiences leading up to now made him that Sam.

We were the sum of our lives.

I checked the time—about an hour left until his flight took off. He was scheduled for 12:19. I’d watched an hour and a half of parade recording, fast-forwarding through commercial breaks. How was I going to entertain myself while he was in the air four and a half hours?

“I’m not gonna revolve my life around a man again, that’s what.”