Goodnight Beautiful(55)

He shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s just . . .” He takes a deep breath. “I can relate to what you’re saying.”

“You can?” I ask, tilting his chin toward the ceiling. “How?”

“My dad left my mother for another woman,” he says. “Moved out on my fourteenth birthday, to be exact.” I gently clean around his stitches. “Learning that your dad is unfaithful can mess with your mind, and like Sam Seaborne, I used girls to make that pain go away.” Sam grimaces. “It's shameful how good I was at manipulating girls.”

I step back. “I never understood guys like you,” I say. “No offense, but it always seemed like the bigger the jerk a boy was, the more girls who wanted to date him. How on earth did you do it?”

Sam looks me in the eye. “You want in on the secret to seducing a girl?”

“Are you serious?” I ask.

“Sit down,” Sam says, nodding at his chair.

I slowly make my way across the room.

“Taking advantage of a girl is a delicate dance,” Sam says when I’m seated. “But it comes down to one thing in particular.” He pauses.

“What?”

“Finding their weakness and exploiting it. You have to make them think you care about them. Convince them you’ve never felt this way before. But the quickest way to get her?” He leans forward and lowers his voice. “Tears.”

“Tears?”

“Yeah, a past regret. A dead dog. A dad who walks out on your fourteenth birthday. Throw some fake tears into that mix, and you’re going to have a naked girl underneath you in ten minutes flat.”

“That’s repulsive,” I say.

“I know it is. Now, I mean. I didn’t see it that way when I was younger.”

I hesitate. “Can I offer a theory?”

Sam nods.

“You used girls to feel validated,” I suggest. “A series of standins for what you ultimately wanted: your father’s love.”

He holds my gaze. “Huh,” he says. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I blamed myself for my father leaving, and sleeping with a new girl was the only thing that made me feel worthwhile. I was always on the hunt for the next.” He closes his eyes, wincing. “I hurt quite a few people.”

“In some ways, you were doing what was expected of you,” I say. “Being a boy.”

He nods. “It hasn’t always been easy, being a guy.” He laughs. “I can imagine my wife’s face, if she could hear us. Two white guys bellyaching about our lot in life. That would not go over well.”

“I hope you still don’t believe it’s your fault your father left,” I say.

“I don’t, actually. Not anymore. All thanks to Clarissa Boyne.”

“Was she a girlfriend?” I ask, settling back into Sam’s chair.

“That was the plan,” Sam says. “Ithaca College, psych major, class-A tits. I signed up for a class she was taking, Abnormal Psychology, thinking it’d be the fastest way into her pants. But then I got distracted by what the professor was saying.” He’s looking past me, pensive. “Third week of class, Dr. Robert Carlisle stood at the front of the room and read a list of symptoms. ‘An inflated sense of one’s own importance. A need for excessive attention and admiration. Complete lack of empathy.’”

“Narcissist personality disorder,” I interject.

“That’s exactly right,” Sam says. “Narcissistic personality disorder. We read a few case studies, each one a perfect description of Theodore Statler. I started to read everything I could about it, coming to the conclusion I’d been searching for since my fourteenth birthday: my dad didn’t leave because there was something wrong with me, but because there’s something wrong with him.”

“That sounds like a transformative moment.”

“Very much so,” Sam says. “It sparked a serious interest in psychology while forcing me to examine who I had become as a man. I’ve been working hard on being a good guy, but the truth of the matter is, I’ve never stopped being afraid that I’m going to turn out like him.” Something is changing in his face. My god. He’s starting to cry. “Now that I’ve found Annie, I don’t ever want to lose her.”

“You shouldn’t worry about turning out like your father,” I say, fidgeting in my chair. “You’re a good man. Smart. Generous. Brave.”

He laughs. “Brave? I’m the biggest coward there is.”

“Sam,” I say gently. “That’s ludicrous.”

“No, Albert, it’s not. You want to know how brave I am?” He holds up a finger. “One: I haven’t visited my mother in months. Two: I’ve kept things from my wife.” He looks away. “I didn’t get Cal Ripken Jr. to sign my bat.”

“What?” I say, lost.

“I was thirteen.” Sam closes his eyes, tears spilling onto his cheeks. “My mother surprised my father and me with tickets to see Ripken play at Camden Yards. Best moment of my life, opening that envelope.” He wipes his eyes with the sleeves of the MIT sweatshirt I loaned him this morning. “I’d read that at the end of the game, Ripken would stand in a certain area and sign one hundred autographs. I couldn’t sleep for weeks, thinking what it was going to feel like to meet him.”