Heart Bones(80)

I immediately sit up and drop my apple into my bag next to me.

I press my palm against my chest and exhale as someone begins to exit the building. It isn’t Samson.

I would slide off the car and stand up, but I’m scared my legs are too weak to hold me. I’m about twenty feet away from the entrance, but there’s a chance he won’t see me if he’s not expecting someone to be waiting for him.

The man who just walked out looks to be in his fifties. He scans the parking lot until he finds the car next to mine. He nods his head and his brother doesn’t even get out of his car. The man walks over and climbs into the passenger seat and they take off like this is an airport and these trips are normal.

I’m still sitting cross-legged on the hood when I finally see him.

Samson emerges from the building and shields his eyes from the sunlight while he looks down the sidewalk toward the bus.

My heart is beating so fast. Way faster than I thought it would. It’s like all the feelings I ever had as a nineteen-year-old girl are waking up all at the same time.

He looks almost the same. More man than boy now, and his hair is a little darker, but other than that, he looks exactly like he looks in my memories. He pushes his hair away from his face and begins walking toward the bus lot without glancing into the parking lot.

I don’t know if I should call his name or run up to him. He’s walking away from me, toward the bus lot. I press my palms against the hood, prepared to slide off of it, when he stops walking.

He stands still for a moment with his back to me while I hold my breath in anticipation. It’s as if he wants to look, but he’s scared he won’t find anyone.

Eventually, he begins to turn around, as if he can sense my presence. His eyes connect with mine, and he stares at me for so long. He’s just as unreadable now as he was back then, but I don’t have to know what he’s thinking to feel the emotions being released between us.

He brings his hands up to the back of his neck and spins around like he can’t look at me for another second. I see the roll of his shoulders as he slowly exhales.

He faces me again, this time with a very touching expression. “Did you go to college, Beyah?” He yells it across the parking lot, like it’s the most important question in the world. More important than any other thought that might be going through his head.

As soon as he asks me that, a lone, fat tear rolls down my cheek. I nod.

When I do, it’s like all the tension in his soul releases in that moment. I’m still sitting on the hood of my car, but even from here I can see the furrow of his brow. I want to walk over to him and smooth it out and tell him it’s finally okay.

He stares at the concrete like he doesn’t know what to do. But then he figures it out, because he begins walking toward me with urgency. He runs the last ten feet, and I gasp when he meets the car because he doesn’t stop there. He crawls onto the hood and immediately onto me until I’m forced to lean back against my windshield. Then his mouth is on mine and he’s apologizing to me with a silent fierceness I feel to my core.

I wrap my arms around his neck, and it’s as if a single second never even passed. We kiss on the hood of my car for several seconds, until Samson can’t seem to stand it anymore. He pulls away and hops off the car, then grabs my waist and pulls me to the edge, lowering my feet to the pavement. He wraps his arms around me and hugs me tighter than the first hug he ever gave me.

The next few minutes are a combination of tears (mostly mine) and kissing each other and staring at each other in disbelief. I had so many questions coming into this, but now I can’t think of a single one.

When we stop kissing long enough for him to speak, he says, “I probably should have asked if you were seeing someone before I did that.”

I smile with a strong shake of my head. “I’m very single.”

He kisses me again, slowly, and then stares at my mouth like it’s the thing he’s missed the most. “I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you.”

And it really is as simple as that.

His eyebrows draw apart with relief. He pulls me tightly against him and releases a heavy sigh into my hair. “I can’t believe you’re really here.” He picks me up and spins me around once before setting me back down on my feet. He rests our foreheads together and smiles. “What now?”

I laugh. “I have no idea. The rest of my day was contingent upon the outcome of this moment.”

“So was mine.” He grabs my hands and pulls them up to his mouth, kissing my knuckles. Then he tucks my fists against his chest and says, “I need to see Darya.”

His words remind me of a line in one of his father’s poems. I’ve read them so many times, I have them memorized, so I say it out loud. “Because when a man says I’m going home, he should be heading for the sea.”

I start to pull away from him so I can open my car door, but Samson grips my hand and pulls me right back. “My father wrote that. You have my backpack?”

It’s not until this moment I realize Samson probably assumed his backpack was gone forever. “Yeah. I took it the night they arrested you.”

“You kept my father’s poems for me?”

I nod. “Of course I did.”

There’s a pained look in his eyes, as if he’s trying to hold back tears. Then he closes the distance between us and slides his fingers into my hair, cradling my head in his hands. “Thank you for believing in me, Beyah.”