Chapter 28
28
S am wasn’t angry, exactly, but also...a little mad, yes. She’d texted Damon a simple question to check in. And all he had to do was send a response—any response, really. Something like, I’m fine and I know we had sex, so I want to acknowledge you as a human being , for example. She’d even take a “k” at this point.
But no, he hadn’t sent anything. So she was left to think that he’d either been swept away in the storm or was just plain avoiding her. Either option wasn’t great and left her feeling like no matter what she tried to grasp, everything was slipping through her fingers: Damon, Alt-Damon and keeping Bonnie out of her life.
She just wanted to be carefree Pilot Sam again. But for the moment, the only place she had was her room, and the only thing in it of any use was her phone and her CD player. The phone, however, was a reminder that Damon wasn’t answering her. And the CD player, well...the thing had started to turn her moments of voyeurism into confusion.
Still, the CD player would go back to happier visions. After all, there were just two songs left. And if she’d learned anything from aughts teen movies, the leads always got together in the end. Alt-Sam and Damon were endgame, and their love story wasn’t over—she just had to keep listening.
Sam cautiously returned to her bed, where the player waited for her. Two more songs would really just be a few minutes of her life. She could listen and see her very own happily-ever-after. Maybe even glean some insight from the visions to apply to her present-day no-text-back predicament. Crazier things had happened, like the magical playlist itself. She put the headphones on, settled into place and hit Play.
The plucking of strings was familiar, and within a few seconds she recognized “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” by Panic! at the Disco, which was a song about cheating. This was totally something she and Damon had listened to—everyone had. But if she was hearing a song about betrayal, then that might mean her happily-ever-after wasn’t about to hit her. She lifted her hand to yank the headphones off, but she plunged down and found herself unable to move until she landed on a chair.
Cold AC blasted and Sam quickly blinked her eyes open to the creamy white walls of the ice cream shop. She grabbed the sides of the bistro table and peeled off her headphones just as the band sang the catchy chorus over the shop’s speakers .
She had two minutes and fifty-five seconds left, and what she knew about the ice cream shop was that Alt-Sam worked there, along with...
Her gaze caught on Myles, lifting a tub of fresh ice cream into the glass case. Alt-Sam came out from the back and took her apron off to reveal skintight jeans with holes at the knees and a button-down plaid shirt.
Sam pushed up from the table and crossed her arms. She suddenly never wanted a cup of cookie dough with gummy bears again. Which was very sad indeed. But as if reading her mind, Alt-Sam grabbed an ice cream scoop, reached just past Myles and scooped herself a cup of cookie dough. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his khaki shorts and watched her as she worked, but Alt-Sam didn’t seem to notice. She then went to the toppings and loaded up with way more than a standard serving of gummy bears. She set the cup down on the counter, then hoisted herself up and started to eat.
“I just wiped that down and now you’re putting your ass all over it,” Myles said, though he didn’t sound annoyed at all.
“Don’t worry,” Alt-Sam said through a bite. “My ass does a better job of wiping these counters than you do.”
Myles raised an eyebrow. “The boss makes jokes,” he said.
“You gonna have any?” Alt-Sam asked as she shoved another spoonful into her mouth.
“That depends.” Myles put his palms on the counter and leaned forward. “Are you gonna take it out of my tips?”
“Totally.” Alt-Sam smiled as she chewed.
Myles rolled his eyes, then sighed as he grabbed the ice cream scoop and loaded up a cone with three scoops of chocolate fudge.
“You’ll get sick if you eat all that.”
“I’m not like your skinny jeans boyfriend. I play soccer. I need the carbs. More of a Jacob than an Edward, to speak your language.” Myles took a large bite, as if to prove his point, but then he held his palm to his head and groaned. “Brain freeze.”
“At least my boyfriend listens to me,” Alt-Sam said. “Unlike someone in this room.”
“Is that why you like him so much?” Myles asked, then took a smaller bite. “Because he does whatever you say?”
Alt-Sam frowned. “He doesn’t do whatever I say. It’s not like that.”
“I saw you two fighting at the brewery,” Myles said. “Sounded serious. You know, we’re way too young to be in sad relationships.”
Alt-Sam quickly raised her brows, then looked into her cup. “My relationship is none of your business.”
“I just can’t imagine only being with one person for the rest of my life.” He let the words hang there, maybe hoping she’d respond, but she didn’t. Myles licked his spoon and moved closer to Alt-Sam. “Is he the only guy you’ve ever been with been with?”
“Could we please stop talking about this?” Alt-Sam put the now-empty cup down on the counter and, as she did, Myles boxed her in with his hands.
“I’ve had a thing for you since forever.” Myles’s nose skimmed over the top of her head and he seemed to inhale the scent of her.
“Uhhh, girl,” Sam said to her younger self. But Alt-Sam wasn’t pushing Myles away. In fact, her eyes fluttered closed and she licked her lips.
“I can tell you’ve been down lately, but I can make you feel good, you know,” Myles said. “Are you going to tell me to stop?”
“Yes,” Sam said, waiting for Alt-Sam to say the same.
Her younger self made no sound at all.
Sam planted her hands on her hips and started to tap her foot. “Sam, come on. This is ridiculous.”
“We should stop,” Alt-Sam said.
“Exactly.” Sam blew out a relieved breath. But then, Alt-Sam’s little pinkie inched closer to where Myles’s hand was, and she touched his skin.
Myles looked down at her, and she looked up at him, trapped in each other’s gaze. Sam moved to stop them herself, but when she tried to pull them apart, nothing happened.
“Sam!” she yelled as loud as she could. “Do not do this. Okay? I know you’re hurting. You’ve been through so much. Way more than I went through. But don’t just hook up with this doofus. He’s not going to fix you. He’s a total asshole. Remember how he bullied you and Damon? Yes, being young is for making mistakes and trying things out, but not with him.”
Alt-Sam didn’t hear her, though, and Myles seemed to take her silence as a kind of agreement that he could kiss her, because he started to tilt his mouth toward hers.
And just like that, Sam opened her mouth and screamed “No!” with the force of a hurricane storm wind. “Both of you, stop!” Sam couldn’t stop them, though. There was no way for Alt-Sam to hear or feel her. Still, Sam took a step forward and, as she did, was pulled backward as the song on her headphones ended.
Sam came back to the room and found she was thrashing, but her arms were being held down.
“Sam! Sam, wake up!” Grandma Pearl and Bonnie shouted at her.
Her eyes focused and she saw both women standing over her with panicked expressions, which made her stop kicking her legs.
“Okay,” Grandma Pearl let out a relieved breath. “She’s okay.”
Sam realized that she was wet, and there was wind—hurricane strength wind—whipping through the bedroom. She looked up, and the crown of a massive palm tree had pierced through her bedroom window.
Sam shot up and the CD player fell to the floor, but she was too busy gaping at the tree in her room.
“Come on.” Bonnie grabbed Sam’s hand. It was the first time she’d touched her mom in over a decade, and Sam found that she felt nothing. Or maybe it was the shock of the tree in her room. “We have to get out of here and into the hallway.”
The hallway became a windowless hurricane fortress when all the doors were closed. This was the spot where they hid out during particularly intense storms, and a place where Sam and Damon used to play Flashlight Tag.
Sam swung her legs around, got out of the bed and followed them out.
“We thought you were dead!” Pearl said. “There was a big bolt of lightning, and we heard a boom and then the house shook.” Her grandma’s voice cracked, and Bonnie, to her credit, gave her an empathetic look.
Bonnie closed the door behind them, and they were in complete darkness.
After a click, a flashlight turned on and shined up directly at Jessie’s face. Pearl huffed out, “Jessie, can you ever not scare the shit out of me?”
Jessie gave a delighted grin. “It’s just too easy. I can’t help myself.”
Bonnie flipped on another flashlight and took the opportunity to pull Sam aside. “When we went to check on you, it was like you were in some kind of a trance. I was shaking you, and you didn’t respond. Are you feeling all right?”
Sam’s heart rate ticked up, and she swallowed down a lump in her throat. The CD player was still in her room. Every part of her wanted to stand up and retrieve it, but now that her mom was on high alert, she couldn’t without provoking suspicion. “That’s weird,” Sam said. “I must’ve been in a really deep sleep.”
Bonnie eyed her, then grabbed her elbow and leaned in. “Is there something going on, Sam? Something you want to tell me? Like my therapist says, I can be a safe space.”
“I think you lost all rights to knowing what’s going on with me when you left.” Sam shook her arm free from Bonnie’s grasp.
“I’m worried about you,” Bonnie said.
“Well, you don’t have to be. I was just exhausted.” Sam sat down on the floor and leaned back and into the wall for support.
“What are you two bickering about?” Pearl asked.
“Nothing,” Sam said. “Bonnie just doesn’t realize how potent Jessie’s hurricane punch is.”
“It’ll take the paint off your car,” Jessie said with the kind of authority of someone who’d actually tested it out.
Sam’s jaw clenched as she curled her legs into her chest. “I’m fine,” she said.
Bonnie smoothed the front of her button-down shirt, and the veins in her hands popped against her gently crinkled skin. In Sam’s mind, her mom had been permanently stuck at thirty three. So seeing her with two prominent frown lines, crow’s feet around her eyes and a silvery hue to her blond hair was like meeting a completely new person.
Her pencil-thin eyebrows that she’d plucked obsessively hadn’t ever filled out, though, so there was that.
Bonnie sat close to Sam. “I know you’re mad,” she said. “I completely understand. But I do hope—”
“Bonnie,” Sam started to say. She grabbed a couch cushion they’d dragged into the hallway and laid her head on top of it. “Can we just talk in the morning, like Pearl asked? I’m exhausted, if you didn’t notice.”
Bonnie opened her mouth as if to say something, but then seemed to think better of it. “All right.”
Sam closed her eyes and pretended to fall asleep. Eventually, Pearl and Jessie’s argument over Scrabble died down. The wind outside kicked up. And her mother’s breaths continued to come in evenly next to her.
When the threat of actual sleep came this time, Sam let it take her.