Chapter Twelve. Mackenzie #2
I’m about to say something else to deflect, but Sam doesn’t let me. “Are you still in touch with them?”
“We aren’t on bad terms,” I say quickly. “We see each other on holidays.”
Sam is still watching me, like he’s waiting for the rest. There isn’t anything else to say, until quietly, unintentionally, I’m saying it.
“But it’s funny. No matter what I do I feel like there’s this disconnect,” I hear myself saying. “Like they don’t want to understand what we do, so they’re not excited about it.”
It’s why I try to avoid them if I can. I sit down with them and just like that, I’m that little kid spinning her wheels again—trying to be interesting enough. Good enough. Worthy of their attention, of their love.
It took me a long time to accept that I wasn’t going to get it. It took me longer to understand that when I went looking for it somewhere else, it was in all the wrong places.
We’re both quiet for a long spell, me trying to stay floating, Sam keeping an eye on me.
“Well,” says Sam finally. “You’re the least boring person I ever met. And fuck anyone who made you think otherwise.”
I let out a breathy laugh, my attention split between the conversation and the lapping water. But Sam doesn’t laugh, his jaw ticking. He’s upset. Enough that it almost startles me.
He softens when he speaks again. “And from where I’m standing, you made a much better family than the one you got.”
It hits with unexpected weight. Thunder Hearts is its own family, tighter than any I ever thought I’d have. But now even the one we made is fractured.
I bite the inside of my cheek, casting my eyes down. Our legs ripple under the water, hypnotic and otherworldly in the half-light.
“I haven’t seen your mom since we started writing,” I say carefully.
“Oh, you will soon enough,” he says. “She’s our favorite taste tester.”
It’s a relief to know she’s all right. I’ve been worried about her ever since I saw Sam’s face fall earlier today. Worried about Sam, too.
“So that text earlier—it wasn’t from her.”
I’m worried it’s crossing a line to bring it up, but when I look over at him, he seems relieved.
“No. It was from—” He clears his throat. “Well, it was from my dad.”
My feet scramble to hit the bottom of the pool, only to realize that Sam has pulled us farther into the deep end. Before I start to panic, Sam has me by the hips again, holding me in place.
“You were doing just fine,” he says.
“Your dad? ” I manage. “I thought you didn’t know who he was.”
Sam pushes us back to the shallow end. “Well,” he says, “turns out he knew who I was. He actually got in touch with my mom after the whole situation with Ben blew up.”
He is remarkably calm about it. But he would be, if it’s been two years. I blink, trying to keep up without letting my shock get in the way.
“Did he say what he wants?” I ask as he lets me go.
Sam shakes his head. “Just to meet up, but other than that, no.”
Sam was right. I can float on my own now. I tentatively drift closer to him, head bobbing with effort.
“Will you?” I ask.
When his eyes meet mine, I know he’s remembering it, too—the only other time we broached the subject. That night we stayed up writing “Play You by Heart” and he made some crack about how if getting famous wouldn’t make his dad get in touch, nothing would.
When he confessed it might have been the reason he wanted to get famous in the first place.
“I haven’t decided,” he says. “Would you?”
If it were someone else, I might hedge. But he asks it so deliberately that I know he wants me to tell the truth.
“I think I might be suspicious about the timing,” I tell him. “If he wanted something.”
There’s no doubt this already occurred to Sam. But I can’t help but feel protective of him, especially in these past few weeks when he’s been quietly protective of me.
“He’s, uh—well-off,” says Sam. “So I’m not worried about that, at least.”
“But you’re worried,” I say.
He runs a hand through his wet hair. “I think if I met him—I don’t know,” he says. “I told myself a lot of stories when I was a kid. Reasons why he left, or if he was good or bad. If he’d even like me, when he got to know me.”
He meets my eye, and there’s an ache in his face I recognize. The ache of wondering why someone who is supposed to love you unconditionally just—doesn’t.
Over the years I’ve written myself in circles, trying to make sense of it.
But it’s enough for a moment just to share it with Sam.
Maybe the truth is there are no words that can make us understand that ache.
Maybe all we can do for now is understand each other, and wait until someday when we can understand the rest.
I look away, remembering there isn’t a someday for the two of us. There’s the few weeks it will take to write this album, record it, and perform the showcase. Then as far as I know, we’re done.
“He would,” I say sincerely. “It’s impossible not to like you.”
Sam starts to make a face. I reach out and squeeze his arm, fast and hard.
“I’m not just saying that,” I say. “Believe me. I tried.”
Sam lets out a surprised laugh. It echoes through the empty pool deck, warm and bright.
“You’re right,” he says. “If worse comes to worst, I could always win him over with my—‘bad-boy charm,’ as you call it.”
He’s the one deflecting now, but I let him. I’ve already come to terms with the situation with my own parents, but this is raw. I don’t want to tap too hard on an open nerve.
“As witnessed by these hallowed halls?” I ask. I turn my head back toward the main campus, nearly dipping below the surface when I lose my rhythm.
Sam’s hand is on my elbow again, a silent I’ve got you.
“I’ll let you in on a little secret about high school Sam,” he says, the mischief back in his voice. “But only if you tell me what it is you told my kid earlier.”
My mouth drops in surprise. “He didn’t tell you?”
“No,” says Sam, indignant. “But he’s been listening to Candy Shard all day. I’m worried he’s been bodysnatched.”
I hum as if I couldn’t possibly know what brought that on. “So what you’re saying is you want a secret for a secret.”
Sam nods, then leans in so close that his warm breath raises goose bumps against my cold skin. “I was a big dweeb in high school,” he stage-whispers.
I hold his eyes, stage-whispering right back, “That’s not a secret. Ninety-five percent of hot adults were.”
Sam makes a point of looking me up and down again, eyes gleaming when he settles on my face. “Jesus, Sparkles. Then you must have been the biggest dweeb of all.”
I tilt my chin at him, trying and failing to bite down a smile. “That’s classified.”
Sam looks way too delighted. “Were you a horse girl? A gamer girl? A fangirl?”
One of the above, but I’ll jump off the diving board before I confess. “Maybe I’ll tell you one day.”
“You will,” says Sam confidently. “But don’t think I forgot you owe me a secret in the meantime.”
“Oh, former big dweeb,” I say, reaching out to pat him on the cheek. “I didn’t technically agree to anything.”
His brow furrows, indignant. “Yes, you— Oh. Damn,” he says, replaying the conversation. “You’re gonna pay for that, then.”
He dips into the water, poised to splash me, but I plant my feet on his thighs and push myself back. I end up half launching myself on my back, paddling with the grace of a drowning bug, laughing only because I know Sam will put his hand on the small of my back to keep me afloat.
“Look at you,” he says. “That was practically backstroke.”
I lean into his touch to right myself, my toes skimming the bottom of the pool. “That was flailing,” I correct him.
“That was progress,” he insists. He puts his hands on my shoulders to brace me from the bobs of the water, his eyes catching on the base of my neck and lingering. “Wait. How have I not noticed that before?”
I touch the hollow between my collarbones, feeling the just barely raised skin prickling in the cold. Serves me right. I’ve been putting off this conversation so long that the universe decided to start it for me.
“I had surgery.” It feels strange to say it out loud. The few people who know I told before it happened, so I haven’t had to talk about it since. “There was a growth in my thyroid, so they took it out.”
Sam blinks. His hands stay on my shoulders, holding me in place. “Like—a tumor?” he says.
The word has so much gravity when he says it. I look away from him, keeping my voice light and the words fast.
“We thought it was at first. The biopsy came back ‘inconclusive.’ So they took it out pretty fast, just in case,” I explain.
“But it turns out I just have a thyroid condition. Hashimoto’s.
It just sort of—slows you down, is all. Probably wouldn’t have noticed it for a while if it weren’t for good old Joyce. ”
His eyes are still on my throat, unreadable. “Joyce?” he repeats.
“I named the growth,” I joke. “Weirdly, they didn’t let me keep it.”
His thumb is on the hollow of my throat, grazing over the thin scar so lightly that I can feel the tingle up my neck.
“And you’re… okay now?” he asks.
A little too okay in this precise moment, with my body this close to Sam’s and the soft lap of the water only nudging us closer.
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s easy to manage.”
I blink hard, because that’s a lie. Most of the time the medication makes the symptoms go away, but they can’t undo the damage. And now that Sam knows about the surgery, I can’t keep hiding what it did.
“That’s why my singing voice changed,” I say. “The growth—it was pressed against my vocal cords. The surgeon tried to avoid them the best he could, but it’s just one of those things.”
Sam’s grip on me tightens.
“Shit. I thought—I thought you just had nodes, or you were out of practice. How did I not know?”
I’ve never heard his voice so shaky before. The surprise and guilt of it pulls the breath out of my lungs. I spent so long convincing myself Sam didn’t care that it’s almost painful, feeling how much he does.