5. Samuel
SAMUEL
I NEED A SECOND
The waitlisted letter was still pinned to the wall above my kitchen table when I got back from the movie theater.
I had put it there after work as a reminder to do everything possible to get off that waitlist and into the college.
I was staring at it, while munching on a bowl of pre-made dumplings Mom had bought me this afternoon, when it hit me like a thunderbolt.
If I didn’t get in... this was it. This apartment. This town. This was going to be my life.
Two minutes later, the dumplings sat abandoned, dangerously close to the edge of the table, replaced by my reliable yet battle-scarred laptop.
And ten minutes later, I had a plan: write a second essay that would convince them why I deserved to attend their prestigious institution and land a scholarship.
That was what the people online suggested, and it was worth a shot.
My fingers flew across the keyboard as if they knew what they were doing. But even as the sun sank behind my kitchen window, clinging to the sky like it never wanted to go down, I was still typing a sentence, deleting it, then typing and deleting it again.
I stared at the white screen, and it stared right back at me.
I had no idea what I was supposed to write about.
Being gay in a small town? As if that was something special.
My life hadn’t been perfect, but it wasn’t some tragic headline.
My parents had always supported me, and they still did.
They helped me get a full-time job, not just a seasonal gig.
They helped me get my first apartment and even covered my bills for now, just until I found my footing.
And they still cared about me, like they had when I came out, when I got my heartbroken for the first time, or when every college I applied to said ‘no’. How was I supposed to spin that?
‘Look, my life’s not terrible... please pity me anyway.’
‘You can put my face on your brochures. I’m a safe kind of diversity.’
A groan crawled its way out of my throat as I jumped from my seat and paced my tiny kitchen.
“Come on,” I muttered to myself, slapping the back of my head like that would help.
“Don’t be like this. You can’t give up now.
” My eyes flicked back to the laptop screen, its white glow shrouding the kitchen in even more darkness.
“One sentence. That’s all you need to write tonight.
Just to give yourself a starting point.”
But that was easier said than done. Sometimes, one sentence is harder than ten thousand words.
I lunged back to the keyboard, placing my fingers on it like I could trick the words out of myself—but nothing came. Instead, an ache crawled through my shoulders as I stood there, rounding my back.
And then his face flashed before my inner eye— Benji —how his hands had casually gripped the ladder earlier, not buckling under the weight of his full picking bag, the way he frowned as he corrected me, telling me not to let my shoulders slump, and how he finally smiled approvingly when I got it right.
Even though he hadn’t been in a good mood today (obviously because Gordy dumped his responsibilities onto him), he still took the time to teach me properly.
Just as he had shown me, I now arched my lower back until it was straight, and the pain eased away. Then, a silly idea struck me. My fingers typed without thinking.
How I Learned To Correctly Straighten My Back, by Samuel Cauley.
Maybe it was dumb. Maybe staying up this late made my brain fuzzy, and tomorrow I’d regret thinking this mess was genius. But it was something.
And something was better than not trying at all.
Only sleeping five hours caught up with me the next day, leaving me weak when the sun demanded my sweat as tribute.
I gulped down water like I had never drunk anything before, finishing my second bottle already before noon.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if there had been even the tiniest breeze, but with all this fabric covering my body to protect me against a brutal sunburn, it was more like a choose-your-misery kind of situation.
Still, none of that could overturn the pride of having finished an essay no one had asked for.
I stepped onto the second-highest rung of the ladder, reaching for a ripe orange hanging almost at the crown of the tree, and let my gaze wander over the orchard.
The trees stretched farther than the hazy weather allowed me to see.
Luis, the guy with a mosquito net built into his hat, pulled hard on a branch a little further down the next row.
Gordy—still covering for his Dad—had assigned us to work together today, but since I only knew a handful of words in Spanish, and Luis knew just as little English, we were mostly doing our own thing.
My eyes kept scanning, searching for Benji, but I couldn’t spot him.
He’d been there during Gordy’s morning briefing, but we hadn’t gotten to talk.
I wanted to tell him about the essay and thank him for his unintentional help.
If I knew which row he was working in, I could’ve tried to catch him on my way back, but since he was nowhere to be seen, I had to hope for the end of the shift.
Placing the last orange of the tree in my bag, I climbed back down and made my way to the rubber bin ten feet down the row, right as a ping from my pocket screamed for my attention.
I emptied the bag, as work came first, then glanced around.
No one was watching. I pulled out my phone and opened the message.
Mr. Penton
Hi, Sam. I like the idea of a second essay. I’m free tonight. If you'd like, you can come over at five, and we can review what you’ve written.
My heart jumped. I had shot him a message this morning.
Mr. Penton was a new teacher at Red Creek High.
We met when I volunteered at the library last Christmas.
After a few chats—mostly about how a relatively young teacher, barely in his thirties, ended up in a place like Red Creek and how I wished to be like him someday—he offered to help me with my applications.
His advice had been invaluable so far. And with him now offering his help again, this could only work out. I could feel it in my gut.
A smile tugged at my lips as I quickly replied to confirm, before slipping my phone back into my pocket and heading back to my ladder.
I heaved it over my shoulder, the weight trying to pull me down, but I wasn’t planning to give in now either, not after everything I had already achieved this week.
I was going to prove that I could do both: get into college and handle this job. No matter how heavy it got.
Six hours later, I lifted the ladder for the third time, attempting to return it to the rack from which I had taken it that morning.
However, the picking bag slung over my shoulder pulled me backward, preventing me from raising the ladder high enough to slot it into place.
Groaning, I set the ladder down, shrugged off the bag, and, with both hands now free, heaved the ladder up until the satisfying clink of metal on metal told me it was secure.
I turned around and found a smug smile waiting for me.
“That was something for the ages,” Benji said, holding onto his own ladder.
“Hi,” I replied, caught off guard that he’d seen that.
He walked past me, lifted his ladder with ease, and stacked it above mine on the rack. “How’s your third day going, rookie?”
“Good,” I said, reaching down for the bag I’d tossed aside. “Still getting used to working in the heat.”
“It takes a bit, but you’ll adjust.” Benji beamed at me in a way I hadn’t seen from him before. He was relaxed, almost cheerful. Maybe he’d gotten good news about his mom?
“How was your day?” I asked.
“What can I say? Business as usual.”
We walked into the barn together and dropped our bags onto the pile of used ones waiting to be washed, when Gordy waved us over. He stood at the side behind a small standing desk, typing something into a laptop.
“So, Sam,” Gordy said as we joined him, still focused on the screen. “Luis said you did well today. You’re still not as fast as everyone else, but you picked more than yesterday.” He finally looked up at me. “I think you’re on your way to becoming a full-time harvester. Keep up the good work.”
“I’m doing what I can,” I replied.
“No need to play it down,” Benji chimed in. “You can be proud of keeping up.”
“He’s right,” Gordy added and glanced at Benji. “Want me to give you some praise, too?”
“Shut up,” Benji nudged him, but quickly pulled his hand away, scanning the barn. With Mr. Farley gone, they probably didn’t want everyone to think Benji was getting special treatment.
“Looks like we deserve a relaxed evening, huh, Samuel?” Benji asked. “Any plans? Another movie night with your parents? Dinner at a fancy restaurant?” He glanced at Gordy before flashing the biggest grin.
“I wish,” I said, laughing. “But I actually have more work to do.”
His eyes narrowed. “That doesn’t sound fun.”
“Oh no, it’s totally fine! I wrote an essay for a college application, and I’m meeting with—” Their eyebrows shot up simultaneously, like the word essay alone was suspicious. “You know what, it’s not that interesting. What about you?”
“Well, I’ll spend the evening with my mom. Probably cooking and watching TV.” Benji peeked at Gordy, then back at me. “She’s a big fan of that Ted Denzi Show. Not really my thing, but it’s nice to hang out with her.”
I pictured him chopping vegetables while his mom stirred something on the stove, the two of them laughing at a silly joke.
My mom had told me yesterday, when she drove me to my apartment, that Benji’s mother had cancer.
Hearing how much he valued their time together made something warm unfurl in my chest. He really wasn’t the bad guy people made him out to be.
“Sounds like fun,” I replied with a smile.