Chapter 19
19
T he comfort of holding Rachel’s hand evaporated as The Fray’s “Over My Head” started. Damon had loved this song about wanting so desperately to be understood. It was almost a ballad in the vocals, but undeniably an anthem in the power of the chorus.
When Sam opened her eyes, she was on someone’s lawn and her bare thighs rubbed against long blades of grass. She took the headphones off, and almost immediately heard Damon’s voice behind her.
“Keep your eyes closed.”
He walked up the driveway and led a blindfolded Alt-Sam behind him and toward a slightly rundown beach shack.
As they reached the front, he pulled out a set of keys and unlocked the door. Sam pushed herself up from the lawn and closely followed behind them.
“Okay, ready?” Damon asked.
“I guess,” Alt-Sam said nervously.
Damon undid the bandanna and her younger self blinked against the light. She took a pair of glasses out of her pocket and placed them on.
“Where are we?” Alt-Sam asked.
Good question.
“I know you want to get out of Pearl’s place.” Damon smiled. “So I got us one of our own.”
“Our own place?” Alt-Sam looked skeptical. “How?”
They were moving in together? And Damon had rented them a house without so much as asking Alt-Sam if that’s what she wanted? Well, that was certainly...bold, she supposed.
“Farrah knows a guy and he’s giving us a deal,” Damon explained. “I know it’s rough around the edges, but I can paint the outside, and the yard is big enough for a garden. It’ll be our own place. A project. And we won’t live here forever, just while I go to school and you save up money. You can figure out what you want to do, ya know?”
“Flight school,” Sam reminded herself. “She’s going to flight school.”
Alt-Sam smiled. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Damon grabbed her shoulders and Alt-Sam nodded back. Then he kissed her, lifted her up by grabbing her ass and she wrapped her legs around his waist as he walked backward into the house.
Sam walked through the front door to find Damon peeling off Alt-Sam’s shirt, while Alt-Sam got busy working on his belt buckle. “Now would be a good time to make a to-do list. A two-year plan. You want to focus. Flight school, leaving Tybee. The dream!”
But her shouts were not heard, as they never were, and Alt-Sam and Damon were nearly naked. When her teen self began to shimmy out of her jeans, a neatly folded piece of paper fell out of her pocket. Damon bent to pick it up.
“What’s this?” he asked, a curious look on his face as he began to unfold it.
“Weren’t you about to show me the bedroom?” Alt-Sam asked.
Damon grinned, then tossed the paper toward the door. “As you wish,” he said and picked Alt-Sam up again.
Alt-Sam buried her face in his neck, but her eyes stayed on the paper near the door. As they disappeared into the bedroom, Adult Sam tried to grab the paper, but it stayed face-up on the floor as her hand passed through it. The song neared the end climax, just forty seconds left. The lyrics about the singer being over his head rang out like a plea.
Sam squatted next to the paper and saw the Planned Parenthood stamp at the top. She scanned the document. They were test results. A pregnancy test.
Alt-Sam was pregnant.
“No.” Sam clawed at her neck. She couldn’t be pregnant. Pregnant at eighteen, just like her mom had been. She had to stop this, whatever it was. She couldn’t end up like Bonnie. She couldn’t! She started toward the bedroom door, but as she did, her body was yanked abruptly back with a whoosh . Then there was blackness and the unmistakable release of air as she sagged against the carpeted floor.
“Sam.” Rachel’s voice was tense. “Are you okay? You look like you’re about to be sick.”
And she was going to be sick. She managed to launch herself up just in time to grab the garbage bin tucked under her desk. She retched and retched and continued to vomit until her throat burned.
There was Rachel’s steady palm on her back, rubbing in slow and light circles. Sam’s shoulders sank as she carefully sat in her desk chair. She let her head fall against the closed Lisa Frank notebook as she wiped her mouth.
Sam didn’t like what she saw in the alternate version of her life. No flight school. Pregnant. Moving in with Damon. But maybe the alternate her was happy. She seemed mostly happy, didn’t she? Was it a bad thing to want a house and to start a family with Damon?
No, Sam knew in her bones that those things were totally fine to want and to have. But then, if Alt-Sam was happy living with Damon, would that mean that Sam had made a mistake all those years ago? Would she have a family with Damon, and eventually be a pilot if she’d kissed him?
“What did you see?” Rachel gently asked.
Sam couldn’t talk to Rachel about this because she wasn’t even sure if she understood what she was feeling in that moment. “I’m sorry. I think the beer from last night finally caught up to me.”
Rachel eyed her, dubious of her excuse.
“I don’t know if I can talk about this one, not yet anyway.” Sam rubbed her head.
Rachel nodded. “It was...a bit scary to watch, to be honest. You were totally still for a long time. And then you took in this big gasp of air. I tried to wake you, but you couldn’t even hear me. I took off the headphones and everything.”
Rachel waited for a response. But Sam hadn’t known that was what happened to her, either, and she was almost in as much shock. No one could snap her out of the alternate life when she was in it? That was unsettling.
“Let me get you some water.” Rachel moved to the door.
Being left alone gave Sam time to pore over the vision. She couldn’t imagine juggling flight school and being a new mom. Would she just go to school once the baby was old enough?
Her stomach churned from the unknown. She needed a break from the CD player, and Damon, while she processed all of her new feelings. So she tucked the player into a drawer, determined not to touch it again.