14
It rained Monday night.
That didn’t happen much in the summer.
One minute the sky was a star field, and the next a warm shower was falling from above.
Emily and Sam were lying on the grass on a blanket out back behind Sam’s apartment, and when the sky opened up, they ran for cover.
Now they were on the old couch that was under the awning at the building’s entrance.
Sam’s arms held her close, and Emily felt completely connected to the most interesting person she’d ever known.
He had spent years living on the road, held hostage by his unhinged father, and he now appreciated everything in a way that made the simplest events seem magical.
They were there for each other. They were meant to be together.
And they would be.
Emily inhaled and smelled soap and some kind of salty sweetness that was always present on his neck. The stubble of his beard was rough against her face. She felt foolish that she had worried about a meaningless girl in a gift shop. The outside world was no threat to what they had.
Emily kissed Sam, and the force of what she felt took her breath away.
So moments later it was as if icy water had managed to fall straight through the awning when he said:
“I think Robb is with Destiny.”
Did she hear him correctly? Was he talking about Robb Ellis and the drunken girl from the Thai restaurant who she hoped no one ever saw again?
“What do you mean—‘with’ her?”
Sam’s voice was even:
“With her. Like together as a couple.”
So that’s what was on his mind.
She and Sam were together in each other’s arms, and that’s what was in his head?
She struggled to sound as calm as possible. “Really? Why do you think that?”
Sam’s voice was unemotional. “I saw them together.”
“Where?”
Sam was matter-of-fact. “In front of the Orange Tree.”
Emily let this sink in. She didn’t work this past Monday at the restaurant. She didn’t need to be picked up.
So why was Sam in front of the Orange Tree?
She realized, now, that she hadn’t heard much about his day. He had a tutor and, of course, he always played his guitar for at least two hours. But she’d been at his apartment since after lunch. Why was he just now bringing this up?
But instead of asking that, she simply said: “Oh.”
And then she was silent.
Her “oh” hung in the air, and she saw it like a letter in the alphabet, not an expression.
O.
At some point in the day, Sam had gone to the Orange Tree.
O. O. O.
What did that mean? She focused on the letter.
O
O
O
The shape was appearing in her mind now like a zero. It was a circle. It was complete.
And then Sam said: “I went to talk to her. That’s when I saw them.”
Emily felt her left eyebrow arch. Involuntarily.
He went to talk to her?
Did he just say that?
O. O. O.
Yes, that’s what he’d said.
Emily opened her mouth but didn’t say Oh. Instead, with an even voice, she found herself asking: “Why did you want to talk to her?”
Sam didn’t look at her, but he also didn’t make it sound like a big deal.
“I wanted to tell her to leave town. I tried to give her money to do that. I know the kind of person she is. She would have taken it, but Robb Ellis got in the way.”
Emily opened her mouth again and in a whisper said:
“Oh.”
This time when she said the word it was:
Ohhhhhh.
The h’s had appeared.
The oh had two syllables.
There was disclosure happening.
And this news was now all a surprise to her.
He was honest about things.
The boy raised by the born liar was the truth teller.
Sam proceeded to explain to Emily that Destiny would use people. He could see it. She would take things. She would cause damage.
And now she was conning Robb Ellis.
He had known something like that was coming.
But what he didn’t say was that Destiny was also some kind of emotional magnet, and that he felt her pull. He didn’t say that her body was full and bursting out of her clothing and available to him.
No.
He was honest, but he wasn’t able to fully admit that to himself, much less to Emily.
He didn’t have to.
Because she knew.
Emily gave Sam a quick kiss good-bye in the car. Her car.
She hoped that she gave the appearance that nothing was wrong.
Because nothing was wrong.
Right?
Wrong.
Sam and Emily. Emily and Sam. This moment. Forever.
She couldn’t take a picture of them as a couple and put that image in a frame and call it done. As in, this is it. The two of us.
Pure joy and true love and even ecstasy were like all things in this world. They had limits.
And borders.
Sam Border.
One moment he could give her his heart and she could possess it completely, but what she had to hope for was that he moved in the same direction she did.
She had to believe that if someone else crossed his field of vision and grabbed his attention that it was fleeting.
Just a distraction.
The girl named Destiny had more in common with Sam than she did. They had fathers in prison. Mothers who were gone. They had lived on the edge of something.
Did that mean they understood each other in a way she never would? Did it mean that he felt drawn to her?
Emily saw the way Destiny looked at Sam. She was attuned to people’s emotions enough to know exactly what was behind that.
And she also saw some kind of understanding in his eyes when he looked at that strange girl.
She could see that he was afraid.
Not of Destiny.
But of himself.