Every Summer After(28)
Oh, good, I’m rambling now. And maybe slurring?
“Anyway, it’s fine. He wasn’t the guy for me.”
“Ah,” he says, and when I look back to him, he seems more relaxed. “Not a horror fan?”
“You remember that, huh?” Delight tingles in my toes.
“Of course,” he says with open, disarming honesty. I smile—a huge, dopey, whisky-fueled smile. “Who could forget being subjected to years of shitty scary movies?” This is classic Sam, teasing but always gentle and never unkind.
“Excuse me?! You loved my movies!” I give him a playful punch on the arm, and, Jesus, his bicep is like concrete. I shake my fist, looking at him in disbelief. He wears a small grin as if he knows exactly what I’m thinking. I take a sip of whisky to cut the tension that’s closing in.
“Anyway, no. Sebastian definitely did not like horror movies,” I say, and then I rethink this. “Actually, I don’t know. I never asked. And we never watched one together, so who knows? Maybe he loved them.” I leave out the part about how I haven’t told anyone I’ve dated about this odd passion of mine. That I don’t even watch scary movies anymore. To Sam, my love of classic horror films was probably a basic biographical Percy fact. But to me, it was far too intimate a detail to reveal to any of the men I saw. And, more to the point, after that first summer at the lake, I’ve associated those films with Sam. Watching them now would be too painful.
“You’re joking?” Sam asks, clearly confused.
I shake my head.
“Well, you’re right,” he murmurs. “He’s definitely not the guy for you.”
“What about you?” I ask. “Still reading anatomy textbooks for kicks?”
His eyes grow wider, and I think his cheeks have gone darker under the stubble. I hadn’t meant to bring up that particular memory. Of his hands and mouth on me in his bedroom.
“I didn’t . . .” I start, but he interjects.
“I think my textbook-reading days are over,” he says, giving me an out. But then he adds, “Calm down, Percy. You look like you’ve been busted watching porn.”
I let out a relieved sound that is halfway between a laugh and a sigh.
We finish our drinks in a happy silence. Sam pours more. It’s dark outside now, and I have no idea how long we’ve been here.
“We’re going to regret this tomorrow,” I say, but it’s a lie. I would endure a two-day hangover if it meant I could have another hour with Sam.
“Do you stay in touch with Delilah?” he asks, and I almost choke on my drink. I haven’t spoken to Delilah in years. We’re friends on Facebook, so I know she’s some kind of political PR ace in Ottawa, but I pushed her away not too long after I messed everything up with Sam. My two biggest friendships: gone within months. Both because of me.
I run my finger around the rim of my glass. “We stopped being close in university,” I say. The truth of this still stings, though it’s not the whole story, not even close. I look at Sam to see if he can tell.
He shifts his weight on the stool, looking uncomfortable, and takes a big drink. “I’m sorry to hear that. You two were really tight for a while there.”
“We were,” I agree. “Actually,” I add, glancing up at him, “you probably saw her more than I did since you both went to Queen’s.”
He scratches the scruff on his jaw. “It’s a big campus, but yeah, I ran into her once or twice.” His voice is coarse.
“She’d get a kick out of seeing how you’ve grown up,” my stupid whisky mouth blurts. I look down at my drink.
“Oh?” he asks, bumping my knee with his. “And how did I grow up?”
“Cocky, apparently,” I mutter, squinting at my glass, because somehow there are two of them.
He chuckles and then leans toward me and whispers in my ear, “You grew up pretty cocky, too.”
* * *
SAM SITS BACK and studies me.
“Can I tell you something?” he asks, his words running together just a little.
“Of course,” I choke out.
His eyes are slightly unfocused, but he has them set on mine. “There was this incredible used book and video store in Kingston when I was premed,” he begins. “They had a huge horror section—all the good stuff you loved. But other movies, too. Obscure ones that I thought maybe you hadn’t seen. I spent a lot of time there, just browsing around. It reminded me of you.” Sam shakes his head, remembering. “The owner was this grumpy guy with tattoos and a huge mustache. One day he got super pissed at me coming in all the time and never buying anything, so I grabbed a copy of The Evil Dead and plunked it on the counter. And then I just kept going back, but of course I had to buy something each time. I ended up with Carrie, Psycho, The Exorcist, and all those terrible Halloween movies,” he says. He pauses, searching my face. “I never put them on, though. My roommates thought I was nuts to have all these movies I didn’t watch. But I just couldn’t bring myself to. It felt wrong without you.”
This shakes me.
I’ve spent hours, days, entire years wondering if Sam could possibly long for me the way I did for him. In some ways, it seemed like wishful thinking. In the months following our breakup, I left countless messages on his dorm room phone, sent text after text, and wrote email after email, checking to see how he was, telling him how much I missed him, and asking if we could please talk. He didn’t respond to a single one. By May, someone else answered the phone—a new student had moved into his room. I considered driving up to Barry’s Bay, telling him everything, begging for forgiveness, but I thought he’d probably wiped me, my name, and all memory of us from his mind by that point.