Page 22 of Wait For Me

“You came all the way up here?”

“On my bike, no less. Until I got my driver’s license.”

She’s quiet a moment, then says, “Have you seen your mom since you’ve been back?”

I shake my head. “I didn’t come back for her.”

For a moment, Cora looks painfully sad. Then she dips her head into my shoulder. “I’m sorry it wasn’t easy for you.”

I brush the hair from her cheek before leaning back on my hands. “I had you guys. Your family was everything to me.”

Cora turns then, inspecting me. “Why did you and Sam stop talking?”

For a moment, I was stunned. I thought she knew. “He never told you?”

She shakes her head. “He never talks about it. Just said you guys had a disagreement. Then you left town and he did too, right after. It had to be bad though, if neither of you came back.”

I sit up, my heart pounding. I rub at my jaw, considering what to say. My stubble’s already coming back. I wish it were longer, that I could pull that cap down and disappear.

“I broke my promises,” I say finally. It hurts my stomach to tell her the truth. But she needs to know, whether Sam wanted her to or not.

“What kind of promises?” Cora asks.

I look out at the stars, unable to meet her eyes. “One of them was we were going to start a business together.”

That’s not the answer she was expecting, I can tell.

“A business?”

“We talked about it for years, since we had that little side business building wood stuff for people.” Every summer from when we were around thirteen, Sam and I put signs up all overtown that we’d build small items for people—Sam’s dad had a workshop with a few tools.

“The mailboxes!” she exclaims.

“Not just mailboxes,” I said, mock insulted. “Birdhouses too.”

“But everyone wanted those cute little mailboxes you guys made. We still have ours.”

I nod. “Sam loved building those things. I was trying to save up for a car, but I think he didn’t really care about the money. He just liked making stuff. He came up with this plan for us to be homebuilders after that new house went up next door to you guys. Do you remember?”

“Yeah, Reilly and Sons built that place.”

Reilly and Sons were a family company who built most of the wood frame homes around Quince Valley.

“He was obsessed,” she says, laughing. “I’d forgotten.”

“But I found this old camera around that time, and I started taking pictures of the building sites we stopped by. I think Sam thought I was as fascinated by the process as he was, but I just liked taking the pictures. And… Randy worked construction. I could never stomach the thought of him thinking I was following in his shoes. I should have told Sam sooner, but you know how he gets. So fuckin’ enthusiastic about everything. Well. I don’t know if he’s like that anymore.”

Cora leans back on her elbows. “He is. We talk pretty much every week, and he’s as excited about everything he’s doing down there as he was about mailboxes.”

I smile, my heart twisting a little. Sam and I were like brothers. I’ve wished a thousand times over that we were still friends.

“What was the other thing?” Cora asks.

I smile at her, my heart twisting deeper. “There was a girl.”

She lifts her brows. “Oh?”

It takes her only a moment, before she sits up. “Wait, us?”

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