Freefly (21 page)

“So...where’d you guys meet?”

“Dad!”

“What?  You can’t expect your old man not to be curious.”
I take a deep breath and try to think of something other than
She fell from the sky, due to being shot. 
“We just sort of...ran into each other.”

“Do you have a lot in common.”

I can’t help but laugh.  “Absolutely nothing,” I say.  “Actually, I don’t really understand what she’s doing with me.”

Dad lets out a chuckle.  “Funny you should say that.  That’s what I thought about your mother back in high school.”

The stairs creak, and Dad and I turn.  In a light blue dress with a V-shaped collar, Sammie glides down.  There is shimmery stuff above her eyes, and glossy stuff on her lips, and her hair is pulled back in this complicated-looking bun.  I develop a strange breathing problem. 

“Damien, shut your mouth,” Dad hisses.

“D-dress?” I say. 

“One of my old ones,” Mom says, walking down behind Sammie.  The dress cinches around Sammie’s waist, then gets all long and flowy, like a rainfall.  I’ve never noticed how...nice she looks...in the body department.  I guess I’ve only ever seen her in baggy jeans and T-shirts.  She eyes me curiously. 

“Are you alright?” she murmurs.

I nod, but don’t manage to say anything. 

“Do you want us to drive you to the dance, Damien?” says Mom.

“Kay,” I say.

We all trek to the garage and load into the minivan, with Mom and Dad in the front and Sammie and me in the back.  The experience is surreal, a bit like when Sammie was in my high school.  From the seat beside me, she smiles.  Since I’m not certain I’ve regained my verbal facilities just yet, I smile back but remain silent.

We roll down MacRearigan road and, before long, swing into the school parking lot.  It’s packed with cars, with the sun on the horizon casting orange light off of rows and rows of rooftops.  Dad pulls into the line of cars inching toward the school’s entrance.  I recognize some of the people I see:  a quiet girl I usually pass on the way to physics hops onto the sidewalk in a short pink dress, followed by a group of guys from my calculus class in tuxes and neon-colored sunglasses.  I turn to look at Sammie.  She leans forward in her chair, her eyes on the scene outside.

Finally, it’s our turn to get out of the car.  I slide open the van door, but pause when Mom calls my name. 

“Have fun,” she says, and I’m shocked to see that her eyes all watery. 

“Mom?” I say.

“I’m fine,” she gargles. 

“We’re just very happy,” Dad says, looking a little choked up, too. 

I gape at them.

“Go on in,” Mom says, wiping her eyes.  “Have a good time.”

“Bye, Mr. and Mrs. Savage!” Sammie says she unbuckles her seatbelt.

“Um, bye, Mom and Dad,” I say. 

I hop out of the van, then turn around and hold out my hand for Sammie.  A jolt of happiness goes through me when she takes it and leaps out.  The van pulls away, leaving us standing on the sidewalk.  Sammie eyes the entrance of the school eagerly. 

“Should we go in?” I say.

She jerks her head, as if surfacing from a trance.  “What?”

“Are scary men going to rush in and capture you if we go into the dance?”

Her face darkens, and she turns to look out over the parking lot, her eyes traveling over the rows of cars.  “I probably shouldn’t stay very long.”

“How did you get free?”

She turns her head away from me. 

“Sammie?”

An SUV spills a crowd of seven or eight onto the sidewalk, and we’re quickly surrounded by squawking, giggling individuals.  I yank my head toward the entrance.  Sammie sees, and we walk toward it.

As soon as we’re through the doors, the song “Don’t Stop Believing” hits my ears, wafting from the direction of the cafeteria.  I hold my arm out, and another jolt of happiness goes through me when Sammie slips her arm through it.  We walk toward the cafeteria, Sammie’s shoes clacking against the oily yellow floor. 

“You look...really, really nice, by the way,” I say, keeping my eyes forward because I’m certain my face is flushed red. 

Sammie gives my hand a squeeze.  “You don’t look so bad yourself.” 

I let out a strange, strangled-sounding laugh.  Sammie laughs, too.  All at once, I’m reminded of how awful it was to believe that she was gone forever. 

“I was scared,” I say.  “That I’d never see you again.”

There’s a moment of silence.  Then, she says, “Me too.  That I’d never see you again, I mean.”

My heart skitters.  She’s never said anything like that to me before.  “Really?”

“Of course.”

I pull her aside.  “Please, stay here in Boorsville.”

She shakes her head and drops her face towards the floor.  “I can’t.”

“So you’re just going to leave again?”

“Don’t you think I’ve screwed up your life enough?”

“No!”  I say it loud enough that the people walking into the cafeteria turn and look.  More quietly, I say, “Look, you’ll be screwing up my life more if you say goodbye forever.”

She looks up at me.  “I don’t want to get you
killed
, Damien.”

“I don’t care.”

“Well, I
do.
”  She takes both of my hands and steps closer, so that I can see tiny gray flecks in the blue of her eyes.  “Why do you think I gave myself up for you, back when Thorne had you?  You think I’d do that if I didn’t...if I didn’t.”  She shakes her head, then releases my hands and pulls away from me.  “Thorne is dead.  I killed him.”

I take a sharp breath.

“I
—
I didn’t mean to,” she says.  Then her face goes hard.  “He made me angry.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t your fault
—
”

“Stop,” she says.  “I’m telling you this because it means you can be safe again.  With Thorne gone, the scientists are going to need to regroup.  By the time they do, they’ll have to start fresh looking for me.  And I’m not gonna be anywhere near Boorsville.”

“No,” I say, sounding choked.

She closes her eyes.  “Let’s just...can we just go into the dance?  Your mom got me all dressed up, and I’ve always wanted to go to one of these things, and I just want to pretend that this isn’t happening for a little while.”

“Sammie
—
”

“Please.”  She opens her eyes and stares at me, hard.

I let out a sigh and hold out my hand.  She takes it, and we walk toward the entrance.  The cafeteria is dark.  The chairs and tables have been cleared.  Spinning from the ceiling, a disco ball bounces spots of lights across the dance floor, while mob of students pulses in the center.  The outskirts of the room contain small clusters of students standing together and chatting.

We saunter inside, and just about every student not dancing turns to look at us.  My skin burns, and Sammie squeezes my hand.  I wonder if she realizes how much of an outcast I am, how badly Joe Butt’s bullying and my own hermitish-ness have alienated me from the rest of the student body.  I flush Butt from my mind.  This is the last night I have with Sammie, ever.  I am not spending a minute of it thinking about
him
.   

We make our way to the dance floor, but stop before we reach the mob of dancers, hovering near the edges.  The song, “Call Me, Baby”
—
one of those pop-culture diseases you manage to hear over and over, even if you don’t listen to the radio
—
booms from the speakers.  The tempo is fast, the lyrics stupid.  I turn to face Sammie.  The awkwardness of my body is tangible.  For the record, I dance about as often as I sprout leaves.

My helplessness must show on my face, because Sammie laughs and holds out her other hand for me to take.  I clasp it, hyper-conscious of the fact that my palms are clammy.  Sammie begins to bob back and forth.  I try to copy her, but can’t seem to get our rhythm in sync.  Sammie begins to laugh.  I pull my hand away from her and attempt the robot, and she laughs even harder. 

The song changes, and this time it’s a slow rock song.  The gravelly-voiced singer croons about how he promises to be someone’s crying shoulder.  It’s tacky, but at least it’s better than “Call Me, Baby.”  Sammie holds out her hands again, and I take them.  Perhaps possessed by some sort of school-dance bravery, I take a step closer to her, until we are almost touching.  In a moment that knocks my breath away, Sammie throws her arms around my shoulders and closes the gap between us.  My hands drape over her back, and her hair brushes my cheek as we bob back and forth, like before.  I change my mind about the song:  it may be the most phenomenal piece of music I have ever heard. 

When that song ends, the heavens smile upon me and another slow song begins to play.  Sammie shifts her head against my chest and adjusts her arms around my neck.  What I would give just to keep her here, like this.

“Can I ask you something?” she says, her breath puffing into my ear. 

I nod. 

“Why were you embarrassed that I fought for you?”

My spirits sink into my socks.  Why must she select this particular topic of discussion?  I feel the muscles in my back tense up, and Sammie must, too, because she pulls her head away from me to see my face. 

“Damien?”

“It’s complicated.”

She clenches her brow.  “What’s complicated about it?  He was going to hurt you.  I didn’t want him to.  So I punched him.”

“Do we have to talk about this?”

“Yes.” 

Before I can stop myself, I snap, “There’s a lot of things I want to know about you, but I don’t force you to talk about them.”

Her face falls, and she pulls away from me.  I grasp her shoulder.  She blasts forward so quickly that I know she used her flying power.  I freeze, confused.  Several people turn and stare at us. 

“Please put your hand down,” she says without turning around.

I drop it to my side.  “But...we were just touching, and it was fine.”

“It doesn’t matter.” 

The music switches to another fast-paced pop song, this one full of grunting and groaning.  I feel like swine.  I didn’t mean to snap something mean, then freak her out, especially the last time I’ll ever see her. 

“I’m sorry,” I say.

She turns around, looking sad.  “You’re right, I guess.  You never forced me to say anything I didn’t want to, so why should I force you?”

I take a deep breath, then jerk my thumb toward the outskirts of the cafeteria.  We walk over, and I lean against the wall.  Sammie leans next to me, her arm touching mine. 

“Guys are supposed to be able to defend
themselves
,” I say.

“Sort of like proving you’re tough?” she says.