What I Didn't Say (18 page)

Sam scarfed down her cinnamon roll faster than I ever could have, and after some insistence, I gave her half of mine too.  She licked her fingers clean when she was finished.

“Thank you,” she said, wiping her mouth with a napkin.  “You’d think after that huge meal your family fed me yesterday I wouldn’t be this hungry.”

I suddenly stood and walked to Sam’s tiny fridge and pulled it open.  I found a half gallon of milk, a small brick of cheese, and a few apples.  A half a loaf of bread sat on the tiny counter along with the crackers and banana that had been intended to be Sam’s Thanksgiving dinner.  Her frozen pizza had sat out too long yesterday and we’d thrown it out.  I glanced back at Sam.  She watched me, shame in her eyes.

Why don’t you get dressed,
I wrote. 
We’ll go to my house for a while.  Family’s off island today.

It didn’t take much more than that.  In less than three minutes Sam walked out of her bedroom wearing the same jean’s she’d worn the day before and a sweater that looked like it had been worn once before as well.  Not waiting for her to protest, I walked past her into her bedroom.  Looking around, it didn’t take long to find her laundry basket wedged into the corner.  Grabbing it, I walked right past Sam, who looked rather embarrassed.  Not saying anything, Sam grabbed our notebook off the table and followed me out to the Bronco.

Sam seemed relaxed in a way I hadn’t ever seen her before as we drove through town and to my house.  She was quiet as we rolled along, watching the trees and small shops around us.  It was one of the rare times she didn’t seem to have something on her mind, just enjoying the moment and being.

The house was unusually quiet when we walked inside.  Quiet was about as rare in that house as snowfall on the island.  It happened, but it seemed like something just short of a miracle when it did.

Sam followed me to the laundry room just off the kitchen.  There were piles of everyone’s clothes in the room and I found a load of Jamie’s things still in the washer.  It smelled just a little off, like it’d been in there for a day or so.  I shoved the clothes into the dryer anyway and started it.

Putting some detergent in the machine, I then poured Sam’s clothes in, pretending like I wasn’t seeing all of her underwear and bras.  Closing the lid, I turned back to Sam, finding her watching me closely.

“I’m impressed,” she said, nodding her head.  “I didn’t think too many guys knew how to do laundry.”

I just smiled.  When there were seven kids in the house, you taught your kids pretty early on how to do their own laundry.  It saved Mom hours of work every week.  Joshua was the only one who didn’t do his own laundry.

Next I went to the pantry, which was the size of a small bedroom.  When Mom went off-island she came back with the entire van loaded with as much food as she could possibly manage.  With so many people, shopping off-island was way cheaper than shopping on.  Finding an empty box on the floor, I started filling it with stuff.  Crackers, cereal, canned soups.  Anything I could fit in the box.

“Jake,” Sam said, horror filling her face.  “That had better not be for me.  I can’t take all that.  That’s like stealing.”

I shook my head, walking out of the pantry, Sam’s box full.  I grabbed the notebook. 
Trust me,
I wrote. 
Mom won’t notice.  And if she does, I’ll just tell her I got extra hungry today.

“Jake,” she protested, shaking her head.  “I can’t.”

Look,
I wrote, rolling my eyes at her as I glanced up. 
I’ll get Mom and Dad an extra nice Christmas present this year to repay them.

She stared at me for a long time, and I could see the internal debate she was having.  Finally she just shook her head, a small smile spreading.  Her stomach won out.

Digging up a small cooler, I filled it with a bag of left-over turkey, a couple bags of frozen vegetables, and a few pieces of frozen chicken.  Setting it next to the box of non-cold stuff, I went out to the garage, Sam trailing behind me.

It didn’t take long to find a pretty good sized space heater.  It would work a lot better than the one Sam was currently using.  She’d tried protesting against that too as I carried everything out to my car, but I just waved her off. 

Is there anything else you need?
I wrote when we got back inside.

“Really, Jake,” she said.  “This is all too much.”

I pointed at my writing again, turning my eyes on her.

A small smile spread on her lips and she closed the space between us.  She wrapped her arms behind my neck, burrowing her face in my chest.  “I’m okay.  Thank you.”

I kissed her cheek.  She turned her face to mine and my lips found hers, warm and soft.

Today they tasted like grape juice.

We turned the TV on and watched some bad comedy while we waited for Sam’s laundry to finish.  I couldn’t help but smile and lick my lips every so often, the flavor of grape still lingering.

It felt good to be helping someone else out, someone who really needed it.  Better than good.  I hadn’t felt like this in a long, long time.

19 weeks ‘til Sam’s birthday

For some reason I was nervous for school to start again on Monday.  Sam and I had both said that things had changed, but I really wasn’t sure what they had changed into.  We’d kissed a few times, grown a whole lot closer, I finally knew her secret.  But did that make her my girlfriend?  Would she consider me her boyfriend now?

The uncertainty was killing me.

Mom said she was feeling under the weather on Monday so I offered to drive everyone to school.  Jordan called shotgun, Jamie wedged herself in the backseat with James and Joshua.  I couldn’t help but notice the little smile that spread on Jordan’s face as we got closer and closer to the school.  She didn’t say anything but I knew she knew.

My palms were sweating like they had that first day I’d gone back to school after the accident. 

What’s going to happen today?
I wondered.

I stopped in front of the elementary school and Joshua and James hopped out and scampered toward the old red-brick building.  Jamie headed toward the middle school and I pulled into the parking lot of the high school.

I hadn’t thought of how Sam got to school these days.  She certainly wasn’t driving the motorhome.  I hoped there was a school bus that stopped close to where she lived.

“Hey Jake?” Jordan said, just as I was about to get out of the car.  I glanced back at her, already knowing what she was going to say.  “I’m really happy for you,” she said, giving a smile.  “Samantha seems perfect for you.”

I simply returned her smile and gave a little nod before climbing out of the car.  Jordan dashed ahead to join her friends.  I watched her as she went, feeling incredibly appreciative of everything she’d done for me.  Even though she was eleven months younger than me, Jordan had always felt like more of a big sister, even more so than Jenny ever had. 

Jordan always had my back, she always looked out for me.

I was disappointed when I didn’t see Samantha before school started.  Calculus felt like it took forever, as if the subject wasn’t bad enough.  My heart jumped into my throat when the bell finally rang for second period. 

But Samantha wasn’t in class.  And she wasn’t in our ASL class or AP English. I tried not to let myself have a total panic attack when I didn’t see her at all before lunch break.  Had I scared her away?  It would take some major scaring for Sam to skip school.

As I wandered in the direction of Sam’s locker just after lunch period started, I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder.  I turned to see Rain and Carter.

“Hey, how was your Thanksgiving break?” Carter asked, shifting his books from one hand to the other.  “Feels like I haven’t seen you in forever.”

I nodded, pulling out my pocket notebook. 
Fine,
I wrote. 
Yours?

“Boring,” Carter said.  “Just went up to Bellingham to my grandparent’s.  There was only six of us there.”

I nodded in Rain’s direction.

“Well, let’s see,” he said as we started for the parking lot.  No one at the high school really ate the food from the cafeteria.  It was a mass migration at lunch time to the deli at Island Market.  “I think every one of Mom and Dad’s hippy friends showed up.  It’s not quite a real Thanksgiving dinner when everything’s all organic, or raw, or vegan.”

Carter and I both laughed.  As much of a circus Thanksgiving was at my house, I couldn’t even imagine what it must be like at Rain’s.

We all loaded into the Bronco and headed for the Market.

“So Blake’s putting this party together, out somewhere in Olga this weekend,” Carter said from the backseat as he flipped through some of my notebooks.  I was grateful that mine and Sam’s was tucked safely in my backpack.  “Sounds like a lot of people are going.  You going to be able to make it, Jake?  Promise there’ll be no booze.  Everyone’s sticking to those pledges.”

My stomach clenched a bit at the mention of a party.  Especially one that sounded a lot like the one that changed my entire life.  And there were other things I had wanted to do that weekend, all of them involving Sam.  But maybe this would be the perfect time to make something public.

If there was anything to actually make public.

Finally I nodded, letting them know I was up for it.

“Awesome” Carter said as we pulled into the parking lot.

“Think you could invite Jordan?” Rain asked as he hopped out of the car.

I just gave a silent chuckle, shaking my head at Rain.  Rain was every bit as much of a chicken as I had been about Sam.

I’ll think about it,
I wrote, flashing the page at him.

“Thanks, man,” he said, punching me in the arm.

The Market was insane during lunch hour, being flooded by the high school students.  We all loaded up on chicken strips, Jojo’s, corn dogs, and burritos.  I glanced around the store briefly when we got inside with dim hope that I might run into Sam.  But she wasn’t there.

I went back to school after lunch with a heavy weight in my stomach.  School just seemed boring and dull without Sam around.  I didn’t absorb a single word Mr. Crow said in Government, I nearly chopped my finger off in Woodshop, and I almost got Carter’s chest crushed in weight training when I was supposed to be spotting him.  I just kept wondering where Sam was.

Everything in me was afraid she was avoiding me.

Maybe everything had been ruined.

It hadn’t felt like anything had been ruined over the weekend though.  Everything had felt like it was going great.  But sometimes girls were complicated like that.  You never could read them.

My heart leapt into my throat as I walked out to my car after school.  I saw Sam leaning against the driver’s door of the Bronco, her backpack resting at her feet.

“Hey stranger,” she said with a small smile as I walked up to her.  I smiled back, my chest doing weird things.

Really hoping I was doing it correctly, I signed something like
where were you?

“Yeah,” she said, dragging the word out.  “The owners of the house called someone out to work on the front deck.  It was a lot of fun trying to get the motorhome out of there without being seen.”

By then I had dug our red notebook out of my backpack.

Crap,
I wrote. 
Where’d you move it to?