60
Wyatt
I leave my suitcase and my guitar on the front steps, because I don’t want to wait any longer. It was a long trip, but then again, it’s been a long decade. Her bike’s out front with a bunch of unlabeled cans in the basket. This is so random, and it makes me smile. I know there’s a story behind it. I knock on her door, and there’s no response.
The sun’s setting, and she could be on the beach. I walk around her porch and down the back steps and through the dunes. There’s no one on the beach. I have this horrible feeling that I’ve missed her, that there was this tiny window of time where I could have had her back, but I missed it, and she’s gone to Europe or met someone else. I shake off this thought; I just talked to her yesterday.
I could have told her over the phone. I wanted to, but I also wanted to see her face, to know for sure if she was all in with me. I didn’t want to lay it all out there and then sit on an airplane second-guessing her response. I hurt her worse than I ever imagined, and I need to see her to know if she’s going to be able to trust me again. After all, she left Jack, but she didn’t leave him for me.
I walk back through the dunes and into my own yard, and I see legs dangling off the side of the treehouse. They are my favorite legs. I want to rush over and climb up that ladder, but I stop myself for a second just to look. She’s drawing, and she’s completely in her head. Her hair is a mess, like she went for a long swim this morning and just let it dry in the sun. That’s the rest of my life, right there. I am a little afraid of how happy I feel as I walk over to the rope ladder. The last time I was this happy, I lost everything.
“Hey, Sam-I-am.”
She looks up and her eyes go wide. “Wyatt.” She puts down her pad and pencil and stands up as I’m climbing the ladder. She throws her arms around me and hugs me tight. I pull her even closer and feel the front of her body touch every part of mine. My thumbs loop themselves into the waistline of her jean shorts, just like they always did. I am back in time and also not; we aren’t the same people we were. I can’t believe I’ve traveled so far in my hunt for a happy life, and my happy life is right here, in my treehouse. “Were you going to tell me you were here?” she asks.
“I’m telling you now.” I breathe in the salty smell of her hair as her head rests heavy on my shoulder. There’s something about Sam pressed against me that floods me with relief, like I was about to fade away but I’ve been restored to my full strength. I want to run my hands under her T-shirt and rest them on the small of her back. I want to kiss that spot on her neck and hear her catch her breath the way I’ve always remembered.
“What are you doing here?” She peels her head off my shoulder and looks me in the eye. She has a little bit of sand in her eyebrow and I wonder if it’s been there all day. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes, I think so,” I say.
“What does that mean?” She takes my hands and examines my fingers. She runs her hands over the back of them and then the front. This is the first time we’ve been together as two single adults, and there’s no reason to tell her to stop touching me. I could stand here all day just feeling the feather touch of her hands skimming mine, but I have to say what I came to say.
“I ran away from Los Angeles.”
“Like you quit your job?”
“I quit Carlyle, and I quit Missy.”
“This sounds like a long story.” I search her eyes for any sign that she’s disappointed that I’ve given that up. But all I see there is happiness, as if anything I tell her is going to be okay. The way Sam is looking at me reminds me of how I felt that last summer—that I was good enough in my own right because I was good enough for her. She leads me over to the futon. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
There’s a sheet and a blanket on the futon, a lit candle on the little table, and a pair of white slippers on the floor. I smile because it feels like Sam’s been waiting for me. This may have been what I imagined as a kid, living in this treehouse with Sam, her slippers on the floor. “Looks like you’ve moved in,” I say.
“I like it here,” she says, and we both sit down. She drapes her legs over mine in a way that is so familiar to both of us that I can’t help but put my arm around her. She rests her head in the crook of my neck and I’m trying to remember where I was going to start with this story.