Danny
Seven Years Earlier
* * *
“And both were young,
and one was beautiful.”
-Lord Byron
* * *
It’s raining on the approach to Maui, and the captain warns us to keep our seatbelts fastened and all our belongings safely stowed. It’s only my third time on an airplane, and as we lurch toward the runway, the plane stuttering up and down like an EKG monitor, I’m certain I’m going to die.
I’m going to die, and I’ll never get to tell Sam that I love her.
That I will always love her, for the rest of my life.
I’m only thirteen years old, and no one believes I’m really in love, but I’m not some dumb little kid. I’ve been helping my big sister, Caitlin, raise my younger brothers and baby niece since I was nine. I was making breakfast for my family when most kids were still getting their pancakes cut up by their mom or dad and giving Caitlin grocery money from my odd jobs around the neighborhood while my friends at school bitched about not having enough allowance to buy video games.
I know what it feels like to shoulder big responsibility, but until Sam, I never wanted any of it. I helped out and pitched in, but deep down, all I wanted was to grow up, get out, and never have lives depending on me—even a little bit—ever again.
And then I met Sam.
Sam, with her wild, curly brown hair, a living thing that follows her head around like a crazy pet. Sam, with her sharp blue eyes that make my stomach flip every time she looks at me. Sam, who rocks a skateboard like it’s her job, never cries when she shreds her skin on a fall, and didn’t make fun of me a single time when she was teaching me how to surf, even when I wiped out for the ten thousandth time.
Sam, who let me kiss her for the first time right before we left for my dad’s funeral.
It’s all I’ve been able to think about for ten days. I guess I should be torn up about my dad, but it still doesn’t seem real, and I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about the fact that I basically have no parents, not even shitty parents, and that Caitlin, with all the crazy stuff going on in her life, is the only thing standing between me and a foster home. I’d rather think about the way Sam’s lips felt so warm and soft against mine, the way she tasted like sunscreen and salt water, but more than that, too. She tasted like freedom and secrets, like a promise someone finally kept instead of running off and letting me down.
Kissing Sam was everything the movies make a kiss out to be—magic and lights dancing behind my eyes and my blood rushing so fast I thought I was going to pass out. I already loved her like a best friend, but the second I kissed her, it became so much more.
I’ve never loved anyone like I love Sam. I would do anything for her. I want to make her happy and keep her safe and I wish like hell I wasn’t still just a kid.
I don’t want to say goodbye, even though I know moving is the only way Caitlin can keep our family together. But I wish I were old enough to stay in Maui. The entire plane flight from South Carolina, I’ve been daydreaming about us fixing up the old abandoned lifeguard lookout on the beach and living there with Sam. About what it would be like to come home to a place that was just mine and hers, nobody else’s, where no one could hurt us because it would be her and me against the world.
But now the plane is going down, and I’m going to get crushed into the tarmac like a bug on a windshield, and I’ll never see Sam again.
I swallow hard, but I can’t seem to force my spit down my throat, and the next time the plane lurches, my chicken dinner pushes against the top of my stomach, fighting to get out.
“It’s okay, D.” Sherry, Caitlin’s best friend, squeezes my hand. “We’ll get down safe.”
“Yeah, I know.” I pull my hand away and cross my arms.
I like Sherry, and I’m glad she was cool enough to let me fly back to Maui with her to say goodbye to Sam, but I don’t need to be treated like a baby.
I lift my chin and try to look bored for the rest of the flight, but by the time we land—bouncing back up into the air twice and swerving on the wet landing strip before the pilot gets the plane under control—I have red crescent moons on both palms from where my nails have been digging into my skin. I follow Sherry off the plane, my legs feeling like rubber bands that have lost all their stretch, and we head down to the luggage area to get the suitcases.
The airport in Maui is almost all open to the outside, so the wind from the departing storm whips against our skin as we watch the carousel spin and wait for the bags to get spit out. I check my cell every few minutes, willing the baggage people to hurry. I’m supposed to meet Sam at the Fish Market Restaurant, where we get fried calamari on the weekends, at four o’clock, and it’s already three thirty.
After what seems like a zillion hours, our bags finally slide out of the shoot, and Sherry and I head to the curb to look for her boyfriend, Bjorn. Outside the sun is shining again, like the storm that almost killed us was just a dream, and there’s a rainbow stretched across the sky above the sugar cane fields.
“There he is!” Sherry makes a squealing sound and jumps up and down, waving like an idiot, as Bjorn’s old yellow truck pulls up.
When he gets out, Bjorn has a big, dumb grin on his face to match Sherry’s. I try to stay cool, but I can’t keep from rolling my eyes when they kiss, making all these lovey dovey sounds, and cooing about how much they missed each other.
I may be in love, but I’m never going to act like those two.
They’re too barfy for words.
We load up and Bjorn heads out of the city of Kahului, toward the village of Paia, where he and Sherry live, and where I’m meeting Sam. By the time Bjorn pulls up in front of the Fish Market, I’m getting sweaty palms. Sam and I have talked and texted a ton, but I haven’t seen her in ten days. It’s the longest we’ve been apart since we met, and a crazy part of me is afraid things are going to be different between us.
But then I see Sam’s crazy, curly hair through the window, and she turns to look out at the street, like she can sense that I just hopped down onto the sidewalk. Our eyes meet, my stomach flips like it always does, and it’s like no time has passed at all.
“Be home by eight, okay?” Sherry says. “Bjorn and I will be looking for you. I promised Caitlin I’d be super tough about curfew.”
“Yeah, cool, thanks,” I mumble, but I don’t turn to look at her when I wave goodbye. I can’t look away from Sam.
Her blue eyes are sadder than I’ve ever seen them, and her skin looks so pale she must not have been to the beach for days. All I want to do is pull her into my arms and hug her tight, but we don’t do that kind of thing in public—we both hate couples like that—so when I reach her table I keep my hands to myself.
“Hey,” I say, sliding into the seat next to her. “You okay?”
She shakes her head, then turns to me and puts her arms around my neck.
I sigh as I hug her close, relieved that hugging is okay right now.
I comfort her the best I can, petting her hair and running my hands in gentle circles between her muscled shoulders. Sam can be super girly when she wants to be, but she’s also one of the strongest girls I know. She has muscles all over—strong legs and arms and an intense six-pack—but she also has soft places.