What I Didn't Say (21 page)

My mom started traveling a lot when I was about ten.  We’d been really poor for a long time, after Mike left.  She’d been going to school part-time and working full-time.  Finally when she finished school, she got this new job.  She had to travel for a few days every other week and so I’d stay with my grandparents when she was gone.

I hated it.  My mom’s parents are the most un-grandparent type of people you’ve ever met.  Grandma only cared about impressing and outdoing her fancy “friends.”  Grandpa was absorbed in his stock trading world, or whatever the crap it was he did.

Mom knew I didn’t like staying with them when she was gone.  I tried not to make it hard on her, but she knew.  Guess that’s just part of being a mom.  One time she came back and gave me a present.  It was this package of six lip glosses, flavored, and totally little kid.  When I was ten it seemed so cool that they were all the way from New York, even though you could have gotten them anywhere.

I’d wear that lip gloss all the time when she was gone.  Even though they were all different, each one reminded me of her.  After that, whenever she went away, she’d always bring me back some new kind of lip gloss or Chapstick.  One time when she had to travel to Paris for work, she bought me this fancy make-up bag for me to put them all in.  Over the years I’ve filled the whole bag.  It’s a pretty big bag.

Seems silly, doesn’t it?  That just Chapstick makes me feel like Mom’s here again.  Sometimes when I put it on, certain smells make me think of what she looked like when she was making breakfast, or drinking her coffee out on the back deck.

It kind of scares me though, to keep wearing it every day like I do.  What happens when I run out of it?  Will I forget what she looked like?  What it looked like when the sun reflected on her hair?  The way her pillow always smelled like her?  Will my memory of her run out too?

I let the notebook rest on my chest when I was done reading, my head filled with a lot of rambled thoughts.  I almost felt worse and worse about every time I had felt sorry for myself these past few months.  Really, for ever feeling sorry for myself.

It seemed so simple, Chapstick and lip gloss.  I certainly enjoyed the million flavors that were Sam’s lips.  But it was so much more for her.  Those flavors and smells were someone who she cared for, who had meant more to her than anyone else.

I had this airplane when I was little.  Guess I shouldn’t say had.  It’s still sitting on my bookshelf.  You’ve probably seen it before and not even noticed it.  My grandpa gave it to me when I was like five, my mom’s dad.  I don’t even really remember him, he died when I was seven, I think.  But he was this old, shriveled up guy, who couldn’t even stand up straight, and always looked like he was scowling.  But I remember that he told stories about when he was in the Air Force.  I don’t really even remember any specific stories, but I remembered him telling them.  And then he gave me that old metal airplane on my fifth birthday.

It was pretty roughed up.  But I loved that crappy old thing.  When I was eight, one of the wings broke off and I bawled my eyes out until Dad finally found someone who could weld it back.

Guess that’s where I decided I wanted to get my pilots license.  I wanted to test out the skies, to see how the world looked from above.  I took that stupid metal plane up in the air with me the first day I few solo.  I was so scared I thought I was going to crap my pants.  But for some reason I felt a bit better having that little plane there with me.  Maybe my grandpa was flying with me that day.

Some days I miss flying so much it makes my entire chest hurt, feels like I can’t breathe sometimes.  I try not to think about the fact that I’ll never have thousands of feet of air between me and the ground again.  But it’s those times that I have to remind myself that at least I got the chance to do it sometime in my life.  A couple dozen solo flights are better than having never done it at all.

15 weeks ‘til Sam’s birthday

The weather took a turn for the worse the next day.  Tuesday dawned with a fresh blanket of snow.  And six inches of snow meant school was definitely canceled.  If Orcas got more than two inches, the entire island pretty much shut down.

Normally I would have been stoked, but considering the circumstances I knew Sam was living under, I felt pretty panicked and worried.  With everything in me, I wished Sam had a cell phone so I could call her and make sure her pipes didn’t freeze.  Or that she hadn’t frozen.  Instead I had to wait until almost eleven when the roads were semi-cleared to take as many extra blankets as I could steal without Mom noticing.  I told her I was going to spend the day at Sam’s.  She’d just told me to be home before ten so I didn’t get stuck somewhere in the snow.

Sam’s driveway was covered in a perfect, fresh blanket of white snow and for a minute I didn’t know if I was going to make it all the way into her place.  I wasn’t so sure I was getting out unless the snow started to melt. 

I shivered at the sight of the motorhome.  It definitely didn’t look warm.  I could only hope the small trail of steam coming through a vent on the side of it meant it was warm enough on the inside.

I knocked on the door just once before I let myself in.

Everything inside was covered with a thin film of dew, the warmth from the space heater battling the cold outside.  The motorhome was a mess, and there was no sign of an alive Sam.

Walking back toward her bedroom, I found her still zonked out in bed, buried beneath a pile of blankets.  She lay there with her mouth slightly open, her hair stuck to her forehead, which looked slightly damp.

My guess was that Sam was sick.  She wouldn’t have slept in like this otherwise, especially considering it was supposed to be a school day.

Deciding to let her keep sleeping, I closed her bedroom door quietly behind me.  Turning to her tiny sink, I set to doing her few dishes.  The water at least hadn’t frozen.

I slowly worked my way through the motorhome, straightening the kitchen, discarding wrappers, sweeping the floor.  It was humbling to fully immerse myself in Samantha’s new way of living.  She really had nothing.

“Jake?” I heard a croaky voice call from the bedroom.

Leaning the broom against the wall, I walked back towards her, grabbing our notebook from the table.  She had propped herself up on one elbow, squinting in my general direction.  She looked terrible.

“What time is it?” she asked, her eyes squinting, looking for the clock.  “What are you doing here before school?”

I held up one finger on one hand and two on the other, hoping it would look like twelve instead of three.  I could never remember the signs for any numbers above five.

“Crap!” she shouted, jumping out of bed.  She groaned as she did, her face looking pained as she searched around for clothes.

There’s six inches of snow outside,
I wrote. 
No school today.

“Oh,” she said, her frame instantly relaxing.  She slumped back into bed, pulling her pile of blankets around her. 

You okay?

She kind of shrugged her shoulders.  “I don’t feel real great today,” she said, nuzzling further into her blankets.  “I feel kind of achy.  I really hope I’m not coming down with something.”

I shifted on the bed, grabbing one of Sam’s legs from inside the blanket and pulling it towards me.  Pressing my thumbs into the sole of her foot, I started working firm circles into it.

“That feels really good,” she said, her eyes sliding closed, her whole body relaxing into her worn out bed. 

I glanced around Sam’s room.  Her clothes were everywhere, mixed with notebooks, textbooks, and random sheets of paper.  Sam was messier than I was.  I didn’t think girls were allowed to be sloppy.

On the tiny nightstand next to her bed, I spotted a golden colored bag with dark red, intricate stitching and beading.  It was unzipped a little bit, and inside I could see colorful tubes, the entire bag full of them.

The lip glosses from Sam’s mom.

It took me a minute to notice that Sam’s leg and foot had gone totally limp in my hand.  She’d fallen back asleep.  Setting her foot down gently, I lay next to her, a pile of blankets underneath me.  Resting my head on my arm, I just lay there and studied Sam’s face.

Her lashes fanned out on her cheek, long and perfect.  Yesterday’s make-up still clung to them.  Her nose was slender and rounded, it almost reminded me of a little kids nose.  All kids had cute noses; Sam never lost hers.  Her lips were perfect and pink.  For once it looked like there was nothing on them.

She gave a little sigh, rolling towards me just a bit.  Her arm rolled off of her and onto my chest.  Careful not to wake her, I took her hand in mine, resting my lips against her skin just lightly.

I thought about Christmas coming up.  Only four days away.  I’d never had a girlfriend before so I didn’t know what I was supposed to get Sam.  I wanted it to be something special, not just some stupid thing she’d say thanks for and never really look at again.  It was going to be all the harder to get something good since I didn’t have a job.

Sam slept for another hour, her eyes finally fluttering open and locking with mine.

“Hey,” she said, a small smile spreading on her lips.  I had never seen such a perfect sight.

I smiled back, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.

“I could get used to waking up next to you.”

I was surprised at such a serious comment from Sam.  I didn’t get to hear things like that from her very often.

But I’d take what I could get.

Me too.

“I feel gross,” she said, breaking the spell that had been weaving between us as fast as it had formed.  “Though I feel a little better.  Not quite so much like I’m cooking from the inside out.  I think I’m going to jump in the shower, if you don’t mind?”

I shook my head, trying to keep out thoughts of joining her.

Sam closed the door to the pocket-sized bathroom behind her and I heard the water sputter on.  I shoved a pair of her underwear with the toe of my shoe, trying not to imagine what she looked like in them. 

“So what do you want to do today?” Sam called from the shower.  I sat there for an awkward moment, unable to respond.  A little more quietly, I heard Sam mutter “Duh,” to herself.  I just chuckled and shook my head.

I couldn’t blame Sam for forgetting sometimes.  There were endless times when I found words forming on my lips, taking the short, un-thought about breath before the words came out.  But they didn’t.  They stayed trapped inside of me, eventually having to find their way out through my fingers and onto the page if they ever wanted to come out.

Sam and I ended up spending the entire day outside, romping through the snow.  She got creative with a piece of hard plastic and some rope, turning it into a sled.  Her energy seemed to come back as we threw snow balls at each other, rolled an entire family of snowmen, and created a pretty impressive-sized igloo.  I kept worrying about Sam and her wet hair while we were outside.  The ends of her dark auburn strands became icicles.  Sam teased me relentlessly about worrying over it, asking when I’d become such a girl.

It had been dark for well over an hour before we tromped back into the motorhome.  Our clothes were soaked, neither of us having any real snow clothes.

Sam’s teeth chattered as she peeled her coat off in the tiny kitchen/dining area.  My toes and fingers were completely numb.  I clumsily pried off my soaked tennis shoes.  We stood there awkwardly for a moment, both of us realizing we were soaked completely through, and I didn’t have anything to change into.

A smile started forming on Sam’s face, so slow I didn’t even realize it was there for a while.  There was a look that formed in her eyes that I’d never seen before.  It was the look of wanting something, and not wanting to fight against wanting that something.