TWENTY-SEVEN
“Beyah Grim?”
I practically jump out of my chair. My father stands up too, but I don’t want my father going in with me to see Samson. “You don’t have to come.”
“I’m not allowing you in there by yourself.” His statement is final, like there isn’t any room for negotiation.
“Dad, please.” I don’t know that Samson will feel like being honest with me if my father is sitting across from him. “Please.”
He nods tightly. “I’ll wait in the car.”
“Thank you.”
I follow the guard as he leads me to a large, open room. There are several tables and almost all of them are full of people visiting with other inmates.
It’s depressing. But not as depressing as I thought it would be. I assumed I’d be on one side of a window made of glass, unable to touch him.
My eyes immediately seek out and find Samson sitting alone at a table on the other side of the room. He’s wearing a dark blue jumpsuit. Seeing him in something other than his usual beach shorts makes this all feel more real.
When he finally looks up and sees me, he immediately stands. I don’t know why I expected his hands to be cuffed, but I’m relieved to see they aren’t. I rush to him and fall right into his arms. He pulls me against him with tightened arms.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“I know.”
He holds me for a moment, but I don’t want to get him in trouble, so we separate, and I sit across from him. The table is small, so we aren’t that far apart, but he feels a world away.
He takes one of my hands and holds it in both of his, resting our hands on the table. “I owe you so many answers. Where do you want me to start?”
“Anywhere.”
He takes a moment to figure out where he should begin. I bring my other hand to his until all four of our hands are in a pile on the table. “Everything I told you about my mother was true. Her name was Isabel. I was only five when it happened, but even though I didn’t remember much of my life before her death, I knew it changed drastically after she was gone. Rake is my father; I did omit that. After my mother died, he seemed lost when he wasn’t on the water. It’s like he couldn’t imagine being anywhere she wasn’t, so he pulled me out of school, and we lived on his boat for several years. And that was my life, until Darya took him from me.”
“So that’s what you meant when you said Darya broke your heart?”
He nods.
“Where were you when the hurricane hit?”
Samson’s jaw hardens, like that’s not a memory he wants to relive. He stares at our hands as he speaks. “My father dropped me off at a church. It’s where a lot of the residents took shelter, but he refused to stay with me. He wanted to make sure his boat was secured since it was our entire life. He told me he’d be back before dark, but I never saw him again after that night.” He brings his eyes back to mine. “I wanted to stay on the peninsula, but there was nothing left after the hurricane. It was hard for a thirteen-year-old to hide there, or even survive at that point, so I had to leave. I knew if I told someone my father was missing, I’d get thrown into a group home, so I just spent the next few years trying to be invisible. I ended up working with a friend in Galveston doing odd jobs like mowing yards. He was the guy you met at the restaurant. We were young and did some stupid shit. It eventually caught up with us.”
“What about the arson charge?”
“Technically not my fault. The owner had some shitty electrical work done, but had I not broken into that house that night and turned on the power, it never would have caught on fire. So, on paper, it was my fault.” Samson threads his fingers through mine. “Once I knew I had another warrant out for my arrest, I chose to come back here one last time before turning myself in. I don’t know if I was looking for closure or hoping to find my father, but I ended up finding both. But I also found you and never wanted to leave.” Samson brushes his thumb across the top of my left hand. “I knew I’d be in jail for a while, so I was trying to stretch out my time with you before you left.” He sighs. “What else do you want to know?”
“How did you know the alarm code for that house?”
“The owner uses his house number as his code. Easiest password to guess.”
It’s hard to judge him when that judgment would be extremely hypocritical of me. If anything, I admire his survival skills.
“What about the Air Force Academy? Was any of that true?”
He looks down, unable to meet my gaze. He shakes his head. “I wanted to go to the Air Force. That was my plan, until I fucked it all up. But there were things I lied about, like it being a family tradition. I’ve said a lot of things that weren’t true. But I had to back up my reasoning for being in that house with lies I never wanted to tell you. That’s why I wouldn’t answer your questions. I didn’t like being dishonest with you. Or anyone. I just…”
“You didn’t have a choice,” I say, finishing his thought. I get it. I’ve been there my whole life. “You’re the one who said wrong decisions come from either strength or weakness. You weren’t lying because you were weak, Samson.”
He takes in a slow breath, like he dreads what’s coming next. His entire demeanor changes when he looks me in the eye. The weight of this room begins to close in on me with that look. “Yesterday on the phone you mentioned you weren’t going to Pennsylvania.”
It’s a statement, but he intends for it to be followed by an answer. “I can’t leave you.”
He shakes his head, pulling his hands from mine. He runs them over his face like he’s frustrated with me, then he grabs both my hands even tighter. “You’re going to college, Beyah. My mess isn’t yours to clean up.”
“Your mess? Samson, what you did isn’t that bad. You were a kid who practically raised himself on the streets. How were you supposed to get back on your feet after you were released from jail the first time? I’m sure if you tell them why the fire started and why you broke parole, they’d understand.”
“The court doesn’t care why I broke the law; they just care that I broke it.”
“Well, they should care.”
“It doesn’t matter how flawed the system is, Beyah. The two of us aren’t going to change it overnight. I’m looking at several years, and there’s nothing either of us can do about it, so there’s no reason for you to stay in Texas.”
“You’re enough of a reason. How will I visit you if I’m in Pennsylvania?”
“I don’t want you to visit me. I want you to go to college.”
“I can go to college here.”
He laughs, but there’s no smile attached to his laugh. It’s an exasperated laugh. “Why are you being so stubborn? This was our plan all summer—to go our separate ways when you leave for school.”
His words are digging into me, twisting my insides. My voice comes out in a whisper when I say, “I thought things changed. You said we grew heart bones.”
Samson’s entire body feels that comment. He sinks a little, like I’m hurting him. I don’t want to hurt him, but he’s worth more than this. He wasn’t a throwaway to me.
“I can’t be that far away from you,” I say quietly. “Phone calls and letters aren’t going to be enough.”
“I don’t want phone calls or letters, either. I want you to go live your life and not be weighed down by mine.” He can see the shock on my face, but he doesn’t give me time to argue with him. “Beyah. We have been alone on islands our whole lives. It’s why we connected, because we recognized that loneliness in each other. But this is your chance to get off your island, and I refuse to hold you back for however many years I’ll be gone.”
I can feel the tears. I look down just as one falls on the table. “You can’t cut me off. I can’t do this without you.”
“You’ve already done it without me,” he says, his voice determined. He reaches across the table and lifts my face so that I’m forced to look at him. He looks as broken as I feel. “I had nothing to do with your accomplishments. I had nothing to do with who you turned out to be. Please don’t make me be the reason you give it all up.”
The more committed he is to the idea that he doesn’t want me to stay in touch with him, the angrier I get.
“This isn’t fair to me. You expect me to just walk away and not have any contact with you at all? Why would you let me fall for you in the first place when you knew this was going to be the end result?”
He exhales sharply. “We agreed this would end in August, Beyah. We agreed to keep it in the shallow end.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re the one who said people still drown in the shallow end.” I lean forward until I have his focus again. “I’m drowning, Samson. And you’re the one holding me underwater.” I wipe my eyes angrily.
Samson takes my hands again, but this time, it’s different. There’s an ache in his voice when he says, “I’m so sorry.” It’s all he says, but I can tell this is his goodbye.
He stands up like this discussion is over, but he’s looking at me like he wants me to stand up, too. I fold my arms tightly over my chest. “I’m not hugging you goodbye. You don’t deserve to hold me anymore.”
Samson nods a little. “I never deserved to hold you in the first place.” He turns to leave, and I instantly become terrified it’s the last time I’ll see him. Samson doesn’t say things with that look in his eye unless he means them. He’s not going to allow me to see him again. This is it. This is where we end.
I jump up when he begins to walk away. “Samson, wait!”
He turns around just in time to catch me when I throw my arms around him. I bury my face against his neck. When he folds me into his arms, I start to cry.
So many things are running through me at once. I miss him so much already, but I’m also angrier than I’ve ever been. I knew this was coming—the goodbye. But I didn’t know it would be under these circumstances. I feel powerless. I wanted our goodbye to be a choice I had a part in, but I’m not getting a choice at all.
He kisses the side of my head. “Take the scholarship, Beyah. And have fun. Please.” His voice cracks on please. He releases me and walks to a guard standing next to a door. I feel heavy without him, like I’ve lost an entire support system and can no longer hold myself up on my own.
Samson is led out of the room, and he never even looks back at me to see the destruction he left behind.
I’m sobbing by the time I make it outside to my father’s car. I slam the door, angry and heartbroken. I can’t even begin to absorb what just happened in there. I wasn’t expecting it. I was expecting the exact opposite of that. I thought we were going to work this out as a team, but instead, he left me completely fucking alone, just like every other person in my life.
“What happened?”
I shake my head. I can’t even say it out loud. “Just drive.”
My father grips his steering wheel until his knuckles are white. He starts the car and puts it in reverse. “I should have beat the shit out of him the night I pulled him off you in the shower.”
I don’t even try to explain that he wasn’t protecting me from Samson that night. Samson was helping me, but at this point, another explanation would be futile. I just go with a blanket statement. “He’s not a bad person, Dad.”
My father puts the car back in park. He faces me, his expression unyielding. “I don’t know where I went wrong as a father, but I did not raise a daughter who would defend a guy who lied to her the entire summer. You think he cares about you? He doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”
Is he serious?
Did he actually have the audacity to say he raised me?
I glare at him, my hand on the door handle. “You didn’t raise a daughter at all. If anyone is lying in this scenario, it’s you.” I open my door and get out of his car. There’s no way I want to be stuck with him all the way back to Bolivar Peninsula.
“Get back in the car, Beyah.”
“No. I’m calling Sara to come pick me up.” I sit down on the curb next to the car. My father gets out of the car while I pull out my phone. He kicks at the gravel and motions toward the car.
“Get in. I’ll take you home.”
I wipe tears from my eyes after I dial Sara’s number. “I’m not getting in your car. You can leave now.”
My father doesn’t leave. Sara agrees to come pick me up, but my father sits patiently in his car until she arrives.