Sam by Allegra Goodman

Author:Allegra Goodman [Goodman, Allegra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2023-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

32

Lying is like everything else. Practice every day, and you get better.

Sam tells her mom that she and Corey are friends again. She says that’s where she is on weekends, and she swears she never drives anywhere with Declan. In fact, he drives her to his place, and then she takes the bus home from Salem. That way her mom can’t catch her.

She is careful, and Declan is even more careful than she is—so careful that a lot of times he won’t even see her. He has a whole complicated life with roommates and part-time jobs and college classes and weekend bouldering trips. He is always rushing, and she’s always waiting.

Then when they’re together, she forgets how hard it was to wait. When they are alone, he can’t stop touching her. His hands caress her, and he lifts her up to look at her. You are beautiful, he whispers, almost reluctantly. You are amazing, he says, as if he wishes that it weren’t true.

As careful as he is, as distant as he becomes away from her, when they finally meet, he wants her more and more. They hide out at his place for hours; they spend entire afternoons, and Sam tells her mom that she was with Corey studying.

“Yeah, right,” Sam’s mom says, because she knows studying is the last thing Sam and Corey would do. Studying with Corey is the kind of lie Courtney can handle.

Sam’s mom is working. Her brother is off skating, trying to outscore all the other sixth graders. Her dad leaves her a voicemail. Hey, monkey, I was just thinking about you.

But she is not thinking about him. She does not wonder why he’s back or where he’s living, because she is gone now. She is somewhere else at home, and on the bus and on the street, and in biology at school. Finally, she has learned to disappear.

In math she tucks her feet under her chair and feels a warmth, a hidden glow. It’s in her pockets, and in the lining of her coat, and in her boots, and all inside her clothes, against her skin.

For days after she sees Declan, she walks collar up, hands in pockets, to keep her secret in. Then another day passes, and another, and she can’t talk to him or feel his breath, and loneliness creeps up on her. She feels the ice, and her mom’s words haunt her. He is not your friend.

“What will happen?” she whispers when they are together.

“Sh.” He is kissing her, muffling her words.

They are so quiet. They will never give themselves away. They are an island, and when they are together, nothing worries them. Only rarely does she get scared or sad. It happens at odd times—for example, watching Noah at the hockey rink, or hearing her mom come home exhausted, with the groceries. Then all the warmth and light inside her dims.

Her mom says, “Could you at least put these away?”

And Sam feels the chill of the refrigerator and the milk, and she knows how it will be.

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