Page 40 of Summer Reading

“I mean, it’s so basic, can’t you read simple instructions?” she asked me.

And there it was. The truth was out. I thought I might throw up. I swallowed, forcing the lump in my throat to ease. I rose from my seat, keeping my gaze on the ground.

“No, actually, I can’t. I have dyslexia ,” I said. “Excuse me, I have to go.”

I stumbled away from the table and bolted for the door. I couldn’t look at Ben. I didn’t want to know what he thought of me—the disgust or disappointment or, even worse, pity—I couldn’t bear it. Not from him.

“Samantha!” I heard him call after me, but I kept running.

•••

At home, I wandered around the house. Stephanie had decorated the upstairs hallway with large framed photographs of me and Tyler, growing up. Several of me were from before I’d even met her.

There was one taken when I was four. I was in a yellow bathing suit with bright pink flowers on it, a sun hat askew on my head and a pail and shovel in my hands. The lumpy start of a sandcastle was in front of me, and I was concentrating on carrying the bucket of water to the moat. It was before I started school, before I became the kid who couldn’t read, before I felt defective, less than, dumb.

I felt my throat get tight, and tears burned in the corners of my eyes. I remembered that horrible day during sophomore year in high school. We were studying plays, and each of us had been assigned a part fromBlithe Spiritby Noël Coward. On the day that we were to perform, one of the girls in my group had a minor nervous breakdown and threw up all over herself. The teacher told me I was to read her part, Elvira, instead of Ruth, the one I had spent weeks memorizing even though we were allowed to read from the scripts.

It was the only time in my life I ever thought of doing myself an injury to get out of something. If Icould have unobtrusively punched myself in the face, I would have.

Instead, I marched to the front of the class and botched most of my lines. Stammering and stuttering, I tried to string together the sight words in my head before I spoke. The laughter started quietly at first.

Kids were pressing their heads together and whispering behind their hands. I heard more than one person say, “She can’t read. Is she stupid?”

I began to panic. My heart was racing, my hands were sweating, and Mrs. Ward was staring at me in disgust. Looking back, it might have been horror, but she was a mean woman who enjoyed her power and gave out detentions like they were lollipops, so I suspect she was truly disgusted. After all, it was the end of the first semester and I was passing her class, barely, but I was passing, so I had fooled her for at least four months.

Finally, at the end of the scene, with poor Danny Rubens trying to carry the whole thing while looking at me as if I’d started speaking ancient Greek, I pronounced the wordghostwith anfsound because I panicked andghis pronounced like anfat the end of tough, so in my freaked-out brain I latched on to what I remembered, and butchered the word. After that, the kids nicknamed me Simple Sam, I was considered to be an idiot, and my high school career was dusted and done.

As if the bullying wasn’t enough, my parents had separated the year before, Dad had started dating Stephanie, and she was pregnant with Tyler. Not surprisingly, my parents weren’t speaking to each other, leaving my guidance counselor in charge of my academics. I was tested and found to be severely dyslexic but with a very high IQ. Naturally, because no one knew what to do with that information, I was placed in all remedial classes. It was not awesome.

I sank onto the top step of the stairs and let the remembered humiliation wash over me. The tears came hard and fast, and I was surprised by how much the memory still hurt. Clearly, Mrs. Bascomb outing me in front of Ben had opened up a door that I thought I had sealed shut and blockaded with razor wire and guard dogs.

It took the better part of the morning to pull myself together. So what if Ben thought I was an idiot? I’d dealt with worse. At least, now he knew the truth so I could stop trying to hide it. I’d spent my entire childhood coming up with coping mechanisms to disguise the fact that reading was problematic. It was exhausting and I refused to spend my adulthood like that.

I took out my phone and sent Tyler a text, using the voice-to-text option, telling him I’d meet him at the far end of the library parking lot for pickup. I didn’t explain why.

I glanced back at the picture of me on the beach,and suddenly I wanted to be her, free from all of the judgment that life was going to throw at her, just enjoying the day. I stood up and hurried to my room to put on my bathing suit. I knew exactly where I wanted to spend the time I had to burn until I picked up Tyler—Inkwell, my happy place.

Chapter Ten

The sand was scorching hot, so I didn’t take off my sandals. Better to have it annoy me as it sifted through my shoes than to burn the bottoms of my feet. I staked out a spot next to a small dune sporting a tuft of seagrass and unfolded my beach chair. It was quieter here along the perimeter.

Families crowded the water line, and sunbathers took up the middle of the beach. There were more umbrellas than there used to be, as people had smartened up about the sun. I had on a wide-brimmed straw hat of Stephanie’s, and I’d also slathered on the sunscreen. Even though I tanned easily and never burned, I was very aware of how the sun could damage the skin. No thank you.

I unpacked my water, as well as my phone and my earbuds, planning to listen to some music while I chillaxed and thought about my happy hour recipes, planning the logistics, while I watched the waves roll in. Nothing could touch me here, or so I told myself.

I was five songs in when a shadow fell across my legs. Great. Like the beach wasn’t big enough, some doofus decided to crowd me. I lifted the brim of my hat and peeked out from beneath it.

Standing there in his khaki slacks and dress shirt, with his library ID on a lanyard around his neck, was Ben. I blinked, wondering if I was hallucinating in the midday sun. He grinned and lowered his sunglasses, looking at me over the top of them. Nope, not hallucinating unless I was full on dreaming. I pinched myself right in the curve of my elbow. Ouch. No, not dreaming.

“You’re a little overdressed for the beach,” I said.

“I’m not here for the beach.” He dropped the tote bag he was carrying on the ground and snapped open the folding chair he had slung over his arm. He set it beside mine and sat down. He didn’t look repulsed by me. I supposed that was something.

“I had an idea,” he said.

“What idea?” I asked. Then I frowned. Was Ben one of those guys who were always trying to fix everyone’s problems? That would absolutely not work for me. I decided it was best for both of us if I shot his “idea” right out of the sky. “If this is about me and reading, let me spare you the effort. I’ve tried everything, but there is no fixing the way my brain is wired. Reading is hard and difficult, and even when the font is dyslexicfriendly and the words have better spacing, it still takes me a really long time to read and, frankly, it’s exhausting.”

“Samantha,” he said. It occurred to me then that he always said my full name, as if he savored every syllable, and not the short version of Sam that everyone else used. Truth? I liked the way he said it. It made me feel a tug somewhere deep inside, but I wasn’t ready to examine that too closely at the moment.

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