Chapter 10
Sammy
This truck is bigger than anything I’ve ever driven before.
I reach down and try to move the seat closer to the steering wheel, but can’t manage it while I’m already driving, so scoot to the front of the seat just to reach the pedals.
I can barely see over the dashboard from here and I’m stretching as far as I can to keep my feet on the floor, but that doesn’t bother me as much as it should.
I just need everyone else to stay the fuck out of the way until I reach my destination. God help any small children who get in my way.
I’ll never be able to see them.
The thought shouldn’t bring a smile to my face, but it does, mainly because it’s a moment of levity in a very un-levity-like day.
First, we find out we have to move into Bear’s house more quickly than we expected.
Then I see the way that house has been standing on its own, empty and deserted, for so long.
The look on Cameron’s face in that room.
.. The idea that he’s chosen the big room for me.
.. And then the absolute elation of finding the new shop and realizing that I’m going to be able to give him a show room. ..
Followed by the black thundercloud of Bear suddenly showing up and accusing us of stealing Cameron’s equipment.
Stealing.
The thought gets into my veins and lights my blood on fire all over again, and I remember how I got in this too-big truck and where I’m going.
A glance at the bright clock on the dashboard tells me the time and I check it against my mental timetable.
Perfect. I have twenty minutes still before the next train goes by, and that gives me plenty of time to get to the crossing I’m thinking of.
I let my mind turn back to Bear for just a moment, settling on the expression he wore when he saw the equipment, and how it twisted when he looked at Cameron and straight out accused him of stealing things.
Cameron would never. He’s the straightest, most upstanding, most responsible person in this entire town.
He’d never take something that belongs to anyone else, and Bear would know that if he’d ever bothered to stay for more than five minutes.
Back when we were kids, when Cameron first moved in, the kid didn’t know up from down or right from wrong.
His mom had up and deserted him without even a goodbye, and instead of taking his son in his arms and telling him it was going to be okay, Bear dumped him in our house and left as quickly as he could.
My mom had been heartbroken at his desertion, and I’d been confused and mostly angry, but Cameron had been...
God, he’d been more lost than any person I’d ever met, his dark eyes large and wet with unshed tears, his hands always clenched at his sides.
He hadn’t spoken to us for the first six months, so withdrawn that we thought he might actually have something wrong with him, and though I’d only been seven at the time, if Bear had found his way back to town, I would have cheerfully killed him for what he’d done to his son.
It took me nearly a year to pull Cameron out of that dark place.
And I’ve spent the last eleven years making sure he never goes back there.
Which makes Bear’s sudden presence–and the accusations he brings with him–even more frustrating.
I growl and jerk the wheel, turning right and heading toward the edge of town, where I have an appointment with a railroad crossing. Enough emotions. Enough memories. They’re dragons that I almost never look at, because their teeth are sharp enough to cut, their talons deadly blades.
And I don’t have the kind of bandages I need to mend those wounds.
Two more blocks and I skid to a stop up against the concrete where the sidewalk ends and jump out of the truck.
The late-afternoon wind sweeps past me, molding my shirt to my body and tossing my curls, and now that I’m here, now that the emotions are gone, I find myself laughing.
The air smells like warm dirt and wild grasses, the sharp tang of hot pine coming off the mountain, and everything feels fresh and free and finally safe.
I turn my eyes to the railroad tracks in front of me and walk quickly toward them.
I should still have ten minutes, but I like to find the right spot with plenty of time left.
I’ve been coming here since I was a kid, seeking the escape it represents, and it’s never failed me.
Partially because this is where the train runs, and that train represents something I’ve been dreaming of since I was little.
I want to leave this town. Get out of here and actually do something with my life. Go down off the mountain into a big city and find my destiny. Figure out what I’m actually meant to do with my life.
If I were to do that, the train is how I’d go.
Shadowing that thought, though, is a bigger one.
The idea that if I was meant to be more than I am, I would have been born down there instead of up here.
And if I was actually capable of doing anything more than this meager existence, where I’m nothing but Cameron’s side kick and the local wild child–the girl everyone else feels sorry for–my father would have stayed.
My mother wouldn’t have killed herself.
Because surely if I was worth anything, they would have wanted to keep me.
Surely they would have wanted to stay.
The knife that slices through my heart at the thought is sharp and brilliant, cutting so cleanly that I almost don’t notice it. Slicing muscle until I’m bleeding freely and turning toward the darkness.
And on top of that, the next thought. The one I always have.
No matter where I go, I’ll still be the same old me, and I’ve spent a lifetime learning that I’m not enough for anything. It won’t matter where I go or what I do. I’ll still just be me.
I reach the tracks on that thought and step up onto them, wind rushing around me and thoughts chasing each other through my head at what I’m doing. When I hear the first train whistle, though, everything goes still. The wind dies and my brain goes quiet, giving me nothing but my instincts.
When I turn and see the train barreling toward me, my body remembers why I do this.
Because my brain has finally–finally–turned off and the voices are all gone.
The doubt, the fear, the crushing need to control things I can’t control, are all gone, leaving only adrenaline and the rush of being completely free.
My skin lights up and laughter bursts out of my mouth like bird song, until everything around me is buzzing with joy and something that feels like flight.
And Christ, for just a moment, I feel like I might have found perfection.
Then a body hits me from behind and we go flying, tumbling across the train tracks to the dirt of the road on the other side.
We hit the dust moments before the train thunders by, its wheels clacking and engines roaring, and for several seconds I think I might be dead.
The world is upside down and then sideways and I can’t breathe for all the dust and the spinning.
Then I come to an abrupt halt against a wall. I shake my head, trying to clear it, but find myself yanked to my feet before I can accomplish anything, then crushed to a large, heaving body, arms holding me so tight I can barely draw breath.
“You stupid, stupid fucking girl, what the fuck are you doing?” a voice asks above me, aggrieved and horrified and more than a little angry.
Cameron.
Of course it’s Cameron.
I squirm out of his grip and glare up at him, angry for reasons I don’t understand. “Stupid?” I snap. “What do you mean, what was I doing?”
He takes my shoulders and holds me still, leaning down to stare into my eyes. “Sammy, you were standing on the tracks with the train barreling down on you. What. Were. You. Doing?”
I snort at that, because it’s not like he’s never seen me here before. This shouldn’t be a big surprise to him.
“Cameron, I was going to move. I was just racing the train for a moment.”
I expect him to back off and laugh about it, the way he always has, but instead, he ducks down even closer, his eyes huge in his face and his mouth drawn tight.
“Racing the train?” he whispers. “Is that what you call it?”
This confuses me. “Cameron it’s not like I’ve never done it. I was going to move.”
He shakes his head, his forehead creased with concern or frustration or something like it, and puts a very gentle hand on my cheek. His eyes flutter shut for a moment, and when they open again, they’re wet with the start of tears.
“Sammy.”
My name is a prayer on his lips. A question and answer all in one, and something that feels like a promise he’s making.
And I don’t understand any of it, but a current is running from his hand into my body, something warm and electric skating along my skin where he’s touching me. I feel like I’m flying, though my feet are on the ground, and I want to fall into his eyes and drown.
Stop him from looking so sad.
Tell him that it’s okay.
That I was going to move before the train got here. I just needed to drown out the voices for a little bit.
He yanks me to him and holds me again, crushing me against his body like he’s trying to take me into his chest to trap me there.
“When are you going to learn how to save yourself like you save those birds?” he whispers.
It’s so quiet, the wind whipping around us, that I think for a moment that I’ve imagined it, and then decide that I must have. Of course I did. I scared him, that much is obvious, but he wouldn’t have said anything like that. He never gives me his emotions.
He knows I can’t hold them.
What the fuck is going on here? I know why he came after me–he always does–but he’s always acted like my antics don’t matter. He’s practically a professional at brushing them off.
They never lead to him acting like I actually almost died.
Then I remember the way he looked in that house, and the gift of the larger room. The attic above that room and the raw loneliness when he wondered about his toys.
And I wonder if something changed in him when we moved back into that house. If something shifted–and whether I can put it back.
Because I don’t like when the people around me change. Change isn’t safe.
Change is scary.
So I do the only thing I can think of and distract him from whatever’s going on in his head.
“Take me home, Cam. Please.”
This time when he looks at me his eyes are warmer and his mouth is actually smiling. “You are home, silly girl. I’m your home. You know that.”
I look up at him, taking in the broad cheekbones, the sharp chin with that dimple, and eyes so brown, so deep, that they’re pools I could fall into, though I don’t know if I’d ever get to the bottom, and I...
And I...
I yank away from him and walk toward the truck, fighting to keep my feet underneath me, because I cannot let my best friend become someone so confusing. Not right now. Not ever.
“Can you drive?” I toss over my shoulder. “I’m not feeling very well.”
He doesn’t answer. But I know he will.
He always does.