Sara crawls into the bed with me and wraps her arm around me from behind.
She says nothing. She just quietly slips into her role as a big sister and stays with me until I fall asleep.
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.