None of the Above(38)

She smiled. “Madison really thinks of you as her playmate first, and Sam’s girlfriend second. Why don’t you go upstairs? I’m going to start some dinner.”

I took the first step cautiously, as if I were scaling a cliff. Though I’d barely broken a sweat in the cool autumn air, someone had cranked the heat up in the house. At the top of the stairs, I stopped to wipe off a thin sheen of sweat from my forehead. I redid my ponytail in a mirror on the landing, thinking about how I always used to make fun of the girls on my track team who ran with makeup in their little armbands instead of iPods.

Silently, I walked to the second room on the right, and listened at Sam’s door to the strains of Eminem. As I raised my hand to knock, a track ended, and I could hear the faint sound of a keyboard clattering. I wondered if he was doing homework or IM’ing. Or posting on Facebook.

With a flash, I came to my senses. My hand dropped. What in God’s name was I doing? What could I possibly say that would change his mind? I would never be able to take back his humiliation, or restore his ruined reputation.

I deserved nothing. Not his forgiveness, and certainly not his love. And he’d already made his wishes clear: Stay away.

I took a step back. Turned around.

But just before I reached the top of the stairwell, his door opened.





CHAPTER 21


“Hey, Mom,” he yelled. “Do you know where my—”

Sam caught sight of me and stopped midsentence. His mouth gaped open slightly for a moment, then snapped shut into a thin, pursed line.

We stared at each other.

I noticed Sam’s stubble first—about a day and a half’s worth, I figured. When we were going out, for him to skip a day of shaving was unusual. He knew I liked him smooth.

Sam broke the silence. “What the hell are you doing here?” His voice was oddly subdued, and he pulled nervously at the white V-neck undershirt he wore over his sweatpants. Maybe he only kept his voice down because he didn’t want his mom to hear, but it was better than him shouting like he had in the hallway at school.

“I was running. Your mom invited me in.” I could’ve told him that I was just about to leave, but I didn’t. Because as much as I wanted to go before, now I wanted to stay. I took a step toward him.

But there was more to it than that—somehow I sensed something . . . open about the wariness of his blue-eyed gaze. A willingness, now that we were away from teammates and A-listers and teachers alike.

“You haven’t told her yet?” I asked.

He looked away, picking at the paint on the doorjamb with a fingernail. The muscles in his jaw spasmed, and he seemed to come to a decision. Stepping back, he waved me into his room. Heart pounding, I followed.

The smell of boy made me ache; funny how you can be nostalgic for the scent of deodorant mixed with sweat. Sam’s room looked exactly like I remembered, with one exception. Before, there’d been a ring of pictures circled around his desk. Now, the wall was blank. I didn’t think it was possible for my heart to sink any further, but it did.

Sam straddled his desk chair, and waved me to the armchair by his stereo without looking at me.

“What was I supposed to tell her? Not just my mom—everyone? My sister? My dad?” His voice broke, and I understood. Mr. Wilmington’s favorite nickname for Sam was “stud.”

“I don’t know. . . . That it’s a medical condition.” A wave of grief and anger overwhelmed me. “God damn it, Sam. It’s not like I am what I am out of spite.”

“I know, I know,” he moaned. He put his hands over his face. His beautiful hands. I couldn’t help it—I reached out and brushed his knuckles with my fingertips.

He flinched, and I closed my eyes at the sudden pain in my chest.

I retreated, and told him, “I had surgery. You don’t have to worry about . . . my having boy parts anymore.” I pulled down my tracksuit to show him my scars, two puckered-up pink lines running just below the level of my underwear.

I tried to explain to him about mixed signals and testosterone deafness, but the more I talked, the more his eyes glazed over. Finally he just raised his hand. Gave a long blink. And looked at me with clear eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

My turn to look away.

“Why do you think? Because I was scared.”

“You . . . you didn’t trust me.”

I shook my head. “Should I have?” I stood up and paced around, needing to move, needing to feel brave. “Show me that I should’ve trusted you. Show me that you don’t care about these scars. That all you care about is who I am, not what I am.” I stopped in front of Sam’s chair and sank to the ground in front of him. I looked up at him, our faces inches apart.

Sam bowed his head so that it rested against the back of the chair. He stayed there a long time, breathing heavily as the clock ticked. Behind him, his computer pinged two, three times with message alerts.

“Do you remember the first time we met?” I asked him.

“Wasn’t it at some track meet or something?”

“Yeah. I was all gross from my race and had this awful jog bra on that made me flat as a pancake. I thought for sure that when Vee got you to come out on a double date you’d remember me as a total train wreck and run in the opposite direction. But you came.”