TWENTY-NINE
The sunrise is the only peaceful thing in my life at this point.
I’ve been out here waiting on it since five o’clock this morning. I couldn’t sleep. How am I expected to sleep after the last week I’ve had?
Every time I close my eyes, I see Samson walking away from me without looking back. I want to remember all the times he looked at me with hope and enthusiasm and intensity. But all I see is that last moment where he left me crying and alone.
I’m afraid that’s how I’m going to remember him, and that’s not how I want our goodbye to be. I’m confident I can change his mind. I’m confident I can help him.
I have a job interview at the only donut shop on the peninsula today. I’m going to save up every penny I can to help him. I know he doesn’t want that, but it’s the least I can do for everything he brought into my life this summer.
It’s certainly going to remain a point of contention between my father and me while I stay in this house with him. He thinks I’m being ridiculous for not moving to Pennsylvania. I think he’s being ridiculous for expecting me to walk away from someone who has absolutely no one else. Not many people know loneliness like Samson and I do.
I also don’t know how my father expects me to just start over again in a new state for the second time this summer. I don’t have the energy to start over again. I feel completely drained.
I don’t have the energy to move across the country, and I especially don’t have the energy to play volleyball in order to qualify for my scholarship.
I’m not even sure I’ll have the energy to get up and make donuts every day if I get the job, but knowing every cent will go to help Samson will likely make it worth it.
My attention is pulled to my bedroom door, just as the sun begins to peek over the horizon. My father pokes his head out of my bedroom and my whole body sighs due to his presence.
It was too late to argue with him last night and it’s too early to argue with him this morning.
He looks relieved to see me sitting out here. He probably thought I ran away in the middle of the night when he saw I wasn’t in my bed just now.
I’ve wanted to run away so many times, but where would I go? I feel like I no longer belong anywhere. Samson was the first place I felt I belonged and that was ripped from me.
My father sits down next to me. I don’t ease into his comfort like I eased into Samson’s. I’m stiff and unyielding.
He watches the sunrise with me, but his presence ruins it. It’s hard to find the beauty in it when I have so much anger directed at the man sitting next to me.
“Remember the first time we went to the beach?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I’ve never been to the beach before this summer.”
“Yes, you have. You were young, though. Maybe you don’t remember it, but I took you to Santa Monica when you were about four or five.”
I finally make eye contact with him. “I’ve been to California?”
“Yeah. You don’t remember?”
“No.”
His expression is regretful for a moment, but then he removes his arm from the back of the chair and stands up. “I’ll be right back. I have pictures here somewhere. I grabbed the album from our house in Houston when I found out you were coming.”
He has pictures of my childhood? Supposedly on a beach?
I’ll believe it when I see it.
A few minutes later, my father comes back with a photo album. He takes his seat in the chair again and opens it up, sliding it over to me.
I flip through the photos and feel like I’m looking at someone else’s life. There are so many pictures of me that I don’t even remember being taken. Days I have absolutely no recollection of.
I get to a section of pictures of me running in the sand, and I can’t connect them to a memory. I probably didn’t even realize the meaning behind a road trip at that age.
“When was this?” I ask, pointing to a picture with me sitting at a table in front of a birthday cake, but there’s a small Christmas tree in the background. My birthday is months after Christmas, and I normally only visited my father in the summer. “I don’t remember having Christmas with you.”
“Technically, you didn’t. Since you only came in the summer, I’d roll all the holidays into one big celebration.”
I vaguely remember that now that he mentions it. I have faded memories of being painfully full while opening presents. But that was so long ago, and those memories didn’t carry with me through the years. Neither did the traditions, apparently.
“Why did you stop?” I ask him.
“I don’t know, honestly. You started to grow up, and every year when you would come visit, you seemed less interested in the silly things. Or maybe I just assumed you were. You were such a quiet child; it was hard to get anything out of you.”
I blame my mother for that.
I flip through the album and pause on a picture of me sitting in my father’s lap. We’re both smiling at the camera. He has his arm around me, and I’m snuggled against him.
All these years, I didn’t think he was ever affectionate with me. There were so many years of him not being affectionate with me, those are the things I remember the most.
I run my finger over the picture, saddened by whatever happened between us to change our relationship.
“When did you stop treating me like your daughter?”
My father sighs, and his sigh is full of so many things. “I was twenty-one when you were born. I never knew what I was doing with you. It was easier to fake when you were little, but as you grew up, I just…I felt guilty. That guilt started working its way into our time together. I felt like your visits with me were an inconvenience for you.”
I shake my head. “It was the only thing I ever looked forward to.”
“I wish I’d known that,” he says quietly.
I’m starting to wish I’d told him.
If there’s one thing I learned from Samson this summer, it’s that holding everything in accomplishes nothing. It just causes the truth to hurt even worse in the end.
“I had no idea what kind of mother she was, Beyah. Sara told me some things last night that you told her and I just...” His voice sounds shaky, like he’s working to hold back tears. “I did so many things wrong. I have no excuse. You have every right to be resentful because you’re right. I should have fought harder to get to know you. I should have fought harder to spend more time with you.”
My father takes the photo album from me and sets it on the chair next to him. He faces me with an expression full of unease. “I feel like what you’re doing—allowing this guy’s fate to dictate your own future—it’s my fault, because I never set an example for you. But despite that, you turned out to be the amazing person that you are, and that is not because of me. It’s because of you. You’re a fighter, so naturally you want to stay and fight for Samson. Maybe it’s because you see so much of yourself in him. But what if he’s not who you think he is, and you make the wrong decision?”
“But what if he’s exactly who I think he is?”
My father takes my right hand and holds it between both of his. He looks so sincere, staring at me with such raw honesty. “If Samson is the person you think he is, what do you think he would want for you? Do you think he would want you to give up everything you’ve worked for?” I look away from my father, toward the sunrise. I’m holding all my feelings in my throat.
“I love you, Beyah. Enough to admit that you’ve been let down by too many people in your life. Me being one of them. The only person who has ever been completely loyal to you is you. You’re doing yourself a disservice by not putting yourself first right now.”
I lean forward and hold my head in my hands. I squeeze my eyes shut. I know that’s what Samson wants—for me to put myself before him. I just don’t want him to want that for me.
My father rubs his hand over my back, and the feeling is so soothing, I lean into him, wrapping my arms around him. He hugs me back, running a gentle hand over my head.
“I know it hurts,” he whispers. “I wish I could take that pain away from you.”
It does hurt. It’s fucking brutal. It isn’t fair. I finally have something good in my life and now I’m being forced to leave it behind.
They’re right, though. Everyone is right but me. I need to put myself first. It’s what I’ve always done and it’s worked for me so far.
I think about the letter Samson wrote to me, and that last line that got caught up in my heart. Go flood the whole goddamn world, Beyah.
I inhale a gulp of the salty morning air, knowing I won’t get very many more of them before I leave for Pennsylvania. “Will you take care of Pepper Jack Cheese while I’m gone?”
My father sighs with relief. “Of course I will.” He presses a soft kiss into my hair. “I love you, Beyah.”
There’s so much truth in his words, and for the first time, I allow myself to believe him.
This is the moment I release it all. Every single thing from my childhood that’s made my heart so heavy.
I release my anger toward my father.
I even release my anger toward my mother.
The only thing I’m going to hold on to from this point forward are the good things.
I may not be ending the summer with Samson by my side, but I’m ending it with something I didn’t have when I showed up here.
A family.