“I know,” I say. “This isn’t ideal. Just see this through with me. Okay?”
I can’t stop now.
79.
once
“Shhh,” I told Sam when I opened the Millers’ door.
I’d never had a boy over while I was babysitting before. But the kids were all asleep. I had tucked them in, I’d read them stories, we’d eaten Push Pops on the patio and made a town in the tangled part of the yard by setting out rocks in squares for houses and lines for roads.
And then Sam texted me—Any chance I can see you tonight?—and the kids were all asleep and I wanted to see him so much. As he came up the walk, something about the way he looked at me, as I held the door open for him, told me that it was one of those moments, deep blue as a starred night sky. If you don’t stop and stand and stay in it, looking up, you will miss it completely.
“I really, really needed to see you,” he said, laughing, his face buried in my neck. He’d changed his clothes from Verity, but I could swear I still smelled ice cream in his hair. “I couldn’t wait until tomorrow. I know I’m being ridiculous.”
I smiled, even though he was now kissing my mouth.
Sam and I were hungry for each other. We pressed up against the wall near the door, where we’d be out of view if any of the kids wandered in.
Sam stopped and glanced up at the bookshelves in the corner of the room.
I followed his gaze.
“They don’t have a nanny cam or anything, do they?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said. They’d never told me they had one, anyway. Although once Sam brought it up, I realized he had a point. I wouldn’t put it past Hannah Miller. She was conscientious in every possible way.
I had an idea. I took his hand and led him out into the backyard, where globe lights strung on trees bobbed in the wind. Rain was on the way.
“Yeah,” Sam said, “this works,” and he pulled me down on the outdoor couch. I tucked in against him, even though it wasn’t cold and the rain wasn’t coming down yet. It was the swirl before the storm, when leaves are on the move and clouds cover and uncover the moon and stars. I loved the feel of Sam’s chest against my back, of my knees tucked right up against his.
I felt perfectly relaxed in his arms. We fit together. I wanted to ask him out loud the thing I’d been wondering all summer.
“How come you like me?” I asked Sam. “You could be with college girls. You could have Syd.”
“You’re more dangerous,” he said.
I laughed.
“I’m serious,” Sam said. He shifted again, and I turned to face him, resting my head on his chest. His hand found my hair. I closed my eyes at his touch, at his voice, low and warm and near my ear. “Don’t you know how dangerous you are?”
80.
now
“Sorry, bud,” I tell Yolo. “We might be here a few minutes.”
I set down Yolo’s backpack against one of the beds in Sam’s dorm room, and then I straight-up go through Sam’s things without any guilt. I’m interested to see what he’s kept. Who he has become in the time since we’ve seen each other.
I’m shameless, hungry for any details of his life. Who did he date? How did he do in his classes? Who were his friends? Are there any pictures? Was Howell everything he thought it would be?
I recognize some of the T-shirts. Not all. One Verity T-shirt, which he probably wears ironically now.
I find a Howell hoodie, worn and soft. When I lift it up, it smells like Sam, the soap he used. Underneath that, another sweatshirt, with an emblem—logo—on it that looks familiar.
In the split second it takes me to cross the room and pick up the hoodie, I’ve got it.
It’s the Alpha Kappa Sigma letters. One of them, the sigma, resembles an angularE. A backward3.
