“No! It’s just…you didn’t say a word the whole ride out here and you’re acting like you don’t even want to be here. You won’t even get out of the car!”
“I’m nervous! I don’t want to say or do something that will give you an excuse to be pissed at me again. You told me you want to take things slow so I’m trying not to push too far, too fast, but this?” He waves his hand to indicate the building, the people. “This isn’t what I want. I don’t want to be with Graham and Travis or any of those guys. I don’t want to be reminded of how you and I used to be. I don’t want to go back, Hadley. I want to move forward. And I need to know if that’s what you want, too. Because if it’s not, then there’s really no point in us doing this at all.”
His words are quiet.
And so final they shake me to my core.
For months I thought I was over him. Told myself that I was okay with him being out of my life. But now that he’s back, now that I know how he feels about me?
I can’t let him go.
He’s right. This whole afternoon was a way to remind us of how we used to be. A way for me to keep us in the friend zone. I knew exactly what would happen if we came here. It’d be Sam and Hadley. Hadley and Sam. Two best friends together again.
Just like it used to be.
But we’re not those people anymore. We aren’t friends. Haven’t been friends for almost a year.
We can’t go back.
It’s time to move forward.
It’s time for something new.
In the console, Sam’s phone buzzes. He checks it. “Graham wants to know what we want him to order for us.” When I don’t answer, he glances at me. “Mint chocolate chip?”
This is it. My leap of faith. Who knew it’d involve ice cream?
“No,” I say.
Typing his reply, Sam stops. “You always get mint chocolate chip.”
I lick my lips. “I know. I just…I think it’s time for something different.”
Something new.
“Do you want to get out of here?” I continue in a rush. “We could go somewhere else. Somewhere we haven’t been before.”
It takes him a moment to process what I’m saying, what I mean, but when he does, he grins, slow and swoon-worthy.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’d like that.”
He sets his phone in the console then backs out of the spot without looking. Someone honks and Sam brakes and lifts his hand in an apologetic wave, waits while they pass, then finishes backing up.
“Hey!” Graham’s shout reaches us as Sam rounds the far end of the building. He keeps driving, though Graham is jogging our way, waving both arms to get Sam’s attention. “Sam! Where’re you going?”
I turn in my seat, look at the picnic table to see everyone watching us, Travis on his feet, Kenzie shading her eyes with her hand. Whitney grinning.
“Changed our mind,” Sam tells Graham as he taps on the brakes at the edge of the parking lot. “I’ll catch you later.”
And then careful, law-abiding Sam Constable floors it, darting out onto the street with squealing tires. Barely slowing, he takes a sharp right onto Hillside Road. We fishtail, but Sam corrects it then speeds up once again, going so fast the houses outside my window pass in a blur.
It’s so unlike the Sam I know, being rude to anyone, blowing them off. Going fast, acting even the slightest bit reckless. And I realize with a sharp pang, that’s because I don’t know him. Not anymore. He’s changed.
The Sam I used to know no longer exists. He’s gone, replaced by this new Sam. The one who spent eleven months on the other side of the country in a different time zone. He’s had experiences I wasn’t a part of. Hung out with people I’ve never met.
He isn’t afraid to look me in the eye and tell me how he feels. What he wants.
Time for something new.
I roll down my window. The wind catches my hair, whips it around my face as we drive farther and farther away from the Tastee Freeze and his friends. Our hometown. Away from our past.
Time for something new.
Time to stop looking back.
26
Between the two of us, we’ve been to every decent diner, restaurant, takeout place and ice cream shop in town, so when Sam suggests we keep driving until we come across somewhere neither of us has been before, I’m all for it.
Time for something new.
While we drive, Sam has me get his phone and I play DJ, picking songs from his playlist. His taste has always run to the classics—rock and roll mostly—but now his phone is filled with new songs, from alternative to rap. When I mention my surprise, he says he got into a lot of different music while in LA. The music scene out there is obviously bigger and better than Nowhere Pennsylvania.
Old Sam listened to Rush and Ozzy Osborne and Nirvana.
New Sam listens to Bryson Tiller, Kendrick Lamar and Chance the Rapper.
And the changes just keep coming!
Half an hour later, we end up at Mary’s Trading Post, a burger and ice cream place overlooking the dam. It’s as busy as the Tastee Freeze was except no one in line, at the tables, or working behind the order window knows who we are, is aware of our history as friends and then not friends, or wants our attention.
Being with Sam again, at an unfamiliar place, is different, and I wonder if this is how it’s going to be between us. Him quiet and nervous and afraid to say the wrong thing. Me anxious and unsure and scared of letting him hurt me again.
Great. We’re both completely messed up. Sounds like the basis for a strong, steady, healthy relationship.
In keeping with the Try Something New theme we’ve got going, I decide to get a peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sundae instead of three scoops of mint chocolate chip. Sam follows suit and instead of his usual hot fudge sundae, he tries the mint Oreo cyclone, Mary’s Trading Post’s version of Dairy Queen’s blizzard.
Look at us, branching out in our ice cream choices. So brave! So bold!
Okay, not all that brave. Not completely bold, because Sam orders onion rings and French fries for us to share—like always.
I’m willing to give new and different a shot, but some things should never change. And that’s eating hot, greasy, salty onion rings and French fries after we’ve finished our ice cream.
It’s sort of our thing. A Sam and Hadley tradition.
And him doing it, placing the order like he always did, knowing it’s what I want, too, makes me less anxious about being around New Sam. Surer we can move forward, leaving the past behind.
Takes some of the edge off my fear that this is a huge mistake.
We sit at a picnic table near the edge of the wooden deck overlooking the murky, fishy water. There are no waves, no crashing surf, and the pebbly area to our left is the closest thing we have to a beach unless you want to drive ninety minutes to Presque Isle at Lake Erie.
But it’s still a popular spot. People are wading and splashing around in the roped-off area of water. A bunch of college-aged guys are playing volleyball near the concession stand and kids and moms are at the small playground next to the parking lot.
Old Sam always sat on the opposite side of the table. New Sam is next to me, straddling the bench and facing me, one leg bent and resting between us.