Thirteen years old
Kath
I’ve been desperate for Sam to visit Devon for the last two years.
He’s heard me talk about it enough times that it almost feels like he’s been here before.
It’s one of my favourite places in the world, and Tom and I always spend the summer here, staying with Nan.
There are so many places I want to show Sam.
The sweet shop Tom and I used to go to, the fish-and-chip place right on the beach, the café that has an ancient but incredibly friendly spaniel that sleeps behind the till. I know he’s going to love it.
Tom keeps teasing me about my obsessive planning of this week, but I know how much it means for Sam to change his training schedule.
I want it to be perfect. I’ve already checked the opening times of the community pool so that he can do some training.
But it’s the other stuff I’m most excited for.
The seaside walks, the movies in the evening, the board games.
I wave like a maniac when I spot him at the station, and he grins, slinging his bag back over his shoulder and wheeling his suitcase towards the car. He curses under his breath as I squeeze him into a hug.
“Hi, Kath,” he grunts. “Please can I breathe again?”
“Yep.” I straighten. “You need to be able to breathe for all the things I have planned this week. Dying on day one is not on the agenda.”
“Sorry I have so much stuff.” He grimaces, picking up the handle of the suitcase again. “I had to bring all the kit for swimming including a kickboard, and it takes up way too much room. I hope it all fits. I told the coach I didn’t need the fins but he insisted.”
“Nonsense,” Nan says, walking around to the front of the car, a soft summer breeze ruffling her hair. “We can make it work.”
“Sorry.” Sam rejigs his bags and holds out his hand. “I’m Sam. It’s lovely to meet you, Mrs Ford. Thanks so much for having me to stay.”
“Oh gosh. You don’t need to be so formal. Call me Betty, or Nan. Mrs Ford makes me feel old, and by the time you two reach my age, you’ll be desperate to do anything to feel young.”
She doesn’t look that old. Her silver hair is swept up into a no-nonsense bun and she’s wearing a leopard print cardigan. It’s paired with muddy walking boots, but she looks cool. Nan always looks cool.
After ten minutes of looking at the boot of the car, which is already filled with our weekly shop, and trying to perform some sort of Tetris-type miracle, we end up with a bag wedged on my lap in the backseat of the car as we make our way from the station to my Nan’s bungalow.
I pepper Sam with questions about his summer so far, his training, the trip out here.
Nan raises her eyebrows at me in the rearview mirror.
“Kath’s made a timetable,” she tells Sam.
“She does love a timetable.” Sam smirks. “Did she use highlighters? And does it somehow fit with the five and ten year plan to study medicine?”
“Did she use highlighters? Of course she used highlighters; this is my granddaughter we’re talking about. If it’s happening, it’s fully organised, and colour-coded.”
I scowl at the pair of them as they laugh. Being ganged up on was not on the timetable.
“I knew it,” Sam crows. He twists to face me in the back of the car. “What’s on the agenda, oh fearless leader?”
“If you laugh at the highlighters, I’m not sure you deserve the plan,” I tell him and he puts his hands up in surrender.
“You know I love highlighters too, Kath.” He smiles. “I’ve been converted. Or did the set I got you for your last birthday not prove my devotion?”
Mollified, I start to list our activities. The plans I’ve made for the beach, the trip to go bowling, the black and white film we can go watch in the cinema in the centre of town which shows old films every Tuesday afternoon.
***
The next morning when the alarm goes off at 6 a.m., I have our bags for the pool already packed and by the front door.
I’ve been up for the better part of an hour.
Tom groans and rolls onto his front, pulling the pillow over his head as I step over my bed on the floor and poke Sam to get up.
The three of us are sharing the spare room, Tom and Sam in the beds, and me on the air mattress squeezed into the corner.
“Ready, Champ?” I whisper to Sam. He slowly climbs out of bed, looking surprisingly awake. Though I guess this is a lie-in for him.
“Champ?” he says bemused as I push him into the corridor.
“Yep. Swimming champion. I’m not going to be a detriment to your training. I’ve made us breakfast; the bikes are by the door. I’m ready to go. Let’s do this.”
“You have far too much energy for this time of the morning during your summer holidays,” Sam says, as I slide the bowl of porridge I’ve made towards him and start chopping a banana.
“I’ve made your usual pre-training breakfast,” I inform him. “I even got your mum to send me notes. And I’m going to swim with you.” He raises a brow but digs into his food without protest, letting out a grunt that could be construed for thanks.
“You don’t have to do that,” he mumbles around the first mouthful. “I doubt you’ll love swimming for two hours.”
“I might not do the whole two hours.” I wince. “But I’ll start. And anyway, I enjoy swimming with the school team; this will make me better for next year.”
“You’re actually pretty good already.”
I shrug. I’m OK at swimming, in the way that I can do most sports to a reasonable standard having grown up with an athletic older brother and outdoorsy family.
But it was almost comical when we had our first lesson at school and we all realised how good Sam was.
He absolutely crushed all of us like we were toddlers.
He’s always played it down, despite the headmaster constantly bringing up the competitions he wins in assembly.
But knowing someone was good and watching them beat you by over a length without looking like they’re even trying are two very different things.
Sam doesn’t train with our school team in the summer, but he gets to join the races.
He’s basically the only reason we ever win anything, smashing his individual events and salvaging our times in the relays.
Almost every trophy in the school cabinet is because of him.
An hour and a bit later Sam is halfway through his training plan, and I’m sitting beside the pool reading my book.
I managed forty minutes of swimming before deciding I was done.
Sam cuts through the water so effortlessly; it’s mesmerising to watch.
He looks less like a thirteen-year-old boy and more like a practised professional.
It probably helps that he’s a couple of inches taller than everyone in the year, and he’s always seemed more mature.
I think that all the training and competitions have made him grow up faster.
I love his drive. Being around it makes me want to be better too—not at swimming, but in my own way. It makes me push harder, stay focussed.
My friends tease me about how much I study, or roll their eyes when I bring up pre-reading or revision schedules.
But I like school, I like learning and I need to get good grades if I want to study medicine.
Most of them get it, but every now and then a comment slips through, some offhand joke about me being too intense, and it stings.
Like maybe I’m not fun enough. Like I’m too wrapped up in my plans to let loose.
But then there’s Sam. He never makes me feel like I need to be anything different. With him, being ambitious isn’t a flaw. I watch him for a moment longer before turning the page onto the next chapter.
***
By day five of the trip, Tom and Sam are firm friends, bonded by having to step over each other’s clothes every five minutes and a few too many rounds of competitive board games.
Tom even managed to persuade Sam to watch a history documentary with him and now they have weird jokes that I don’t get.
All of us have pink sun-kissed noses and are currently sitting on the beach just west of Sidmouth.
As per the colour-coded schedule, we hiked over the cliffs with rucksacks full of food earlier in the morning.
“Isn’t it beautiful here?” I smooth out the picnic blanket and lay back. The sun’s glinting off the sea, but there’s enough of a breeze to stop me from fully overheating.
“Kath’s obsessed with the sea,” Tom says. “Even though she hates the sand.”
“I don’t hate the sand,” I counter. “It just gets everywhere. So I wouldn’t choose to be on the sand all the time. But I love the water. Summer or winter, the sea is amazing.”
“Whatever,” Tom laughs, pulling a bottle of water out of the bag and handing it to Sam who’s standing admiring the view.
“As if you don’t love it too,” I shoot back. “I remember that poem you wrote when you were eleven. Something like ‘I love the sea, it makes me feel free’. Mum had it pinned on the fridge for a bit.” Sam snickers even as Tom glares at the two of us.
“Shut up,” he growls at me, turning red through his freckles. “You wrote worse ones!”
“Nope, mine were definitely better,” I tell him superiorly, before turning away from my brother’s disgruntled face to talk to Sam. “Want to go splash in the water? I promise it doesn’t count as a training session.”
“Of course,” he says, pulling off his T-shirt.
I shimmy out of my shorts and T-shirt, revealing my slightly worn spare swimsuit underneath.
My normal one’s still wet from training with Sam this morning, and this one has definitely seen better days.
It’s starting to feel more like a suggestion of clothing than an actual garment.
I frown and adjust the straps with the kind of subtlety that screams I’m not self-conscious, you are.
Of course, all self-conscious thoughts are instantly nuked by the sight of Sam changing. I mean, I’m not blind. Anyone with a functioning nervous system would notice that his abs could shred cabbage.
Not that I’m looking looking. Just… observing. Casually. Like a scientist. For data.
I shake myself. Sam would be so uncomfortable if he knew what I was thinking right now. Get a grip, Kath, I chide myself. Stop being weird around your friend.
I’m not the only one being weird. Sam was so awkward on the first night when he took his shirt off before bed.
We’ve had plenty of sleepovers over the years, I’ve seen him shirtless before.
It’s not exactly breaking news. But with Tom in the room, he made it weird.
Sam sort of stood there for a full ten seconds, then mumbled something about “how hot it is” in a voice that cracked halfway through.
Tom didn’t even glance up, just rolled his eyes and muttered, “Alright, Zac Efron, calm down,” before turning back to his Nokia.
I banish thoughts of topless Sam from my mind.
“Race you to the water,” I shout, turning and sprinting down the beach and jumping into the waves. When I break back to the surface, he’s close behind me, spluttering as a wave hits him in the face. We swim a bit deeper, and then turn to bob, watching the cliffs along the coastline.
“You have so many freckles,” he tells me, squinting at my nose in the sun. “There are almost too many to count.” He floats closer, and reaches out, almost touching my forehead. “I swear you don’t have these ones in winter.”
“You have some too,” I tell him, feeling slightly awkward at his proximity. I shake myself. Stop it, Kath. “And a great T-shirt tan line. I’m impressed. I didn’t realise you’d been out that much this summer.”
He laughs and ducks under another wave, shaking his hair out before turning back to me. He looks so happy, water droplets clinging to his eyelashes and bits of hair stuck to his forehead.
“It's amazing here,” he tells me. “The coast is beautiful. Thanks for inviting me, KitKat.”
“KitKat? When did that start?”
Stop blushing! I chide myself.
“Maybe since you started calling me Champ, and I realised I needed a better nickname than just Kath like everyone else,” he says, and now I can’t quite tell whether he’s the one blushing in this light.
“Also because you know how much I love naming things after chocolate bars. You have to accept it; it’s taken me most of the week to think of this and I don’t have enough brain power left to think of another one. You’re the clever one, not me.”
“Are you comparing me to your dog?” I gasp with pretend outrage, lifting my arm back and threatening to splash him.
“Well, I like you nearly as much,” he tells me with a grin, and I shriek and jump on top of him, sinking us beneath the waves.
When we resurface we’re both grinning as I cling to his back like a koala.
“Swim us to the shore,” I demand.
“Am I some sort of swimming form of transport now?” he asks me, starting to swim along whilst I cling to him.
“Consider it part of your training. And it’s in the code, remember?”
“I thought you said this wasn’t a training swim,” he teases me as I loop my arms over his neck. His skin feels warm against mine despite the chill of the sea.