Page 22 of Sam & Justin
“Because he doesn’t live here, and I don’t think he’ll be coming back once the weekend’s over.”
The reality of it hit me like a box of rocks. The night before was a one night stand. It wasn’t something that could be repeated. The feelings I felt the night before, I wasn’t going to get to experience them again. Not with him at least. Not long term. Even if we found ourselves in bed again tonight, it would still end the same way.
That shouldn’t have made me feel as low as it did.
At nine on the dot, Vanessa and I were waiting at the registration desk. A few of her student volunteers had arrived and were milling around, wearing name tags to identify them. As if the fact that they were twenty years younger than everyone else wasn’t a dead giveaway that they were volunteers for the event. (I did have to wonder what Vanessa was bribing them with to give up the first weekend of their summer vacation to be here. Except for Amber Ortiz, who was already going around, bugging people to vote for the mascot on her handy dandy tablet.)
Alumni were already filing into the school lobby. Some of them were bright eyed and bushy tailed, but there were more than a few tired and hungover faces. I searched each and every face for Sam, but he was nowhere to be seen. Maybe it was just toocrowded, and I didn’t see him. I would have to wait to see if I could find him when the crowd thinned.
Vanessa and I planned on staggering the start time of the tours, sending small groups through with volunteers at five minute intervals. The tours would all end back in the lobby, and then people could filter their way to the small gym for the alumni basketball game at their leisure. We’d left enough time for two waves of tours, though we’d probably have time for more if there were still stragglers after the second wave.
Personally, I thought that was overkill.
Vanessa and I began to divvy up the crowd of people, assigning them to volunteers. I took the last group through, mostly because I was still looking for him. I think Vanessa could see it too, because she shot me a sympathetic look as I left her sitting alone at the registration table. I wished that I’d volunteered to stay there to greet late arrivals rather than leading a group of my former classmates through a school that I didn’t know as intimately as I once did. I’d rather sit there and hope that Sam would show up.
But I couldn’t do that.
So, I led my group of ten alumni through the hallways. I walked them through the administrative offices and laughed when one of the guys in my group mourned the loss of the old principal’s office. He’d apparently been a frequent flyer, something I hadn’t known back in high school. I’d always thought that the boys on the football team managed to escape getting pulled into seeing the principal simply on virtue of being school stars.
I showed them the new culinary arts classroom. It had once served as our home ec classroom, but the kitchenettes had all been refitted. They had full size refrigerators, ovens, stoves, sinks, everything someone might need to prepare a meal. I listened as one of the men in my group reminisced about being the only boy in his family and parenting class. I remembered that. He’d had to wear the empathy belly around the hallways.
It had been my first, and unfortunately not last, encounter with the concept of MPREG.
We were halfway through the tour, checking out the remodeled locker rooms in the big gym, when someone said they needed to use the facilities. Rather than waste time hoping they would catch up, I let my group rest. The former football player went looking for his old locker, trying to see if he could remember the combination. Never mind that the lockers had been replaced. A few other alumni rested on the new benches.
I decided to take the rest time to check my phone. Maybe Sam had texted, though I didn’t remember giving him my number. There was a small part of me that feared that he wouldn’t show up at all, that he regretted what happened between us the night before and decided to go back to King’s Bay. It wasn’t like he had really wanted to be here in the first place. He’d only come because his friend suggested it.
The fear gnawed at my stomach like a feral creature, all gnashing teeth and rabid snarls. The only way to soothe it would be hearing from him, getting assurance that the night before hadn’t been a mistake. I didn’t think it was. If anything, the only part of it I regretted was that he’d be going back to King’s Bay in the morning. Assuming, of course, that he hadn’t gone back already.
I searched my pockets for my phone. Nothing.
I remembered holding it that morning, so it wasn’t like it was lost. It couldn’t be lost. My entire life was on that phone. I had the phone numbers and email addresses of every single person involved in local politics programmed into it, along with notes about in what areas they could best help Rachel and when to best contact them. I had favorite donut orders for a few of the more finicky members of council, the ones that sometimes needed a little sweetening before they were susceptible to Rachel’s ideas. I had years of pictures. I had a several hundred day streak on my favorite puzzle app.
Maybe I’d left it in the supply room while we’d been setting up for the basketball game. That had to be the only answer. Or maybe my car? Having a few ideas of where it could be didn’t stop the anxiety, but it did give me a game plan. I would just have to hope that no one showed up for me to lead them on a second tour so I could search.
The rest of the tour took another fifteen to twenty minutes, including a trip outside to the new football field. The entire time, I could only half focus on the task at hand. The rest of my focus was split between Sam’s absence and my phone. I was pretty sure my group could tell that my heart was no longer in it, but they stayed in good spirits. They shared memories of different parts of the school, mostly stemming from the changes that were made. They kept the flow of conversation smooth, so I didn’t have to feel like I was letting them down by being a distracted tour guide.
It probably would have been better if I’d let Vanessa lead the group and stayed at registration, after all.
When the tour ended, I led my group back to the lobby. We passed one of the student volunteers leading another group of alumni through the halls, pointing out a mural that had been painted by art students the previous year. It featured the old mascot, so it would probably be replaced before next year’s reunion.
“There’s just over an hour until the alumni basketball game,” I told them as we neared the lobby. “Feel free to explore the school, mingle, or do whatever you’d like until the game. It’ll be in the small gym. There are refreshments available in the—”
I lost my train of thought the moment we stepped into the lobby, because Sam was standing there. He was leaning against the wall, looking for all the world like the teen rebel he’d been in his youth. The only thing missing was that old black leather jacket. He smiled when he saw me and held up a small black rectangle: my phone. I could feel my smile double in size. My group broke up, and I ignored whatever Vanessa was saying to me as I walked over to Sam. “You found it!”
“Left it in my bathroom,” he whispered, passing me my phone.
I caught a few people exchanging glances, and for once, I didn’t care what people might have been saying. I wasn’t ashamed of anything that had happened between Sam and me the night before. I stuck my phone in my pocket and thanked him, just as Vanessa called me back to the table.
Together, we counted off another two groups as volunteers returned, and I took a third one. Sam was in my group, and he walked next to me the entire time. I noticed that he opened hismouth to share a memory while we were in the office, but he shut it without a word. I watched the way he shifted nervously, and I remembered his confession the night before.
He cared, so much, about what other people thought of him. Even when he pretended he didn’t. He didn’t want to call attention to the person that he’d been, not while he was trying to get people to acknowledge the person that he’d become. Which meant that I needed to do something to help change everyone’s opinion of him. Luckily, I had an idea.
It meant veering off the tour just slightly, stopping by the counselor’s office while in the administrative suite. There was a display of pamphlets, which I pointed out, before directing my attention to the man that had already captured all of it. “Any thoughts on these? From a professional therapist?”
Sam took a few steps closer to the display of pamphlets and picked one up. I watched as he looked it over, flipping through and skimming the headlines. When I spared a glimpse at the rest of the group, only one person was watching him. The others were talking amongst themselves. But if this could change one mind, let them see the person he’d become, then it would be worth the few moments of shining a spotlight on him.
“Pretty good,” he said after a few moments of quiet. “Got a lot of good info but needs a few hotlines. There’s some texting ones now, really helps the kids who don’t want to be overheard talking about their shit. You should tell that Vanessa woman.”