Page 4 of The Backtrack
When she stepped out of the car, a seagull dropped from the sky, zipping so close to her head that she had to duck. She tried to regain her footing, but the chunky wedges she’d changed into weren’t built for the soft sand and she fell into the car door. And as a final punch, she reached a hand up and the blowout she’d had specifically for this trip was beginning to frizz from the moisture.
Ah, yes, it was good to be home.
Sam grabbed her designer duffel out of the back seat and held it in front of her like a protective blanket. She shook out her shoulders and straightened the tie of her pilot’s uniform. Seeing Grandma Pearl, whom she loved, would be easy; it was walking back inside a place filled with so much pain that worried her.
Sam walked up to the front and rang the doorbell, but there was no immediate answer. She scratched at her fringe, which stuck to her forehead from the heat, and rang the doorbell again. But after another few minutes, still nothing. Her grandma had always been a fan of daily walks and was likely on one. So Sam bent over and picked up the peach-and-brown-striped conch shell next to the welcome mat. She shook it, and it rattled. Then she flipped the shell over and the spare brass key fell into her palm.
When she opened the door, the salty air was replaced with vanilla candles and lavender detergent—the same clean-and-sweet scent that had always been there. While much of Tybee had changed, some things hadn’t, and that truth brought Sam a new confidence. She’d been here before and left. Saying goodbye to this place would be easy, and all she had to do was rememberthatwhenever she began to feel trapped.
“Hello?” Sam waited, but there was no answer, so she continued into the house. Her fingertips trailed along the wall, painted plum and decorated with hanging signs.
In a flip-flop state of mind.
Don’t worry, beach happy.
Toes in the sand, wine in my hand.
She couldn’t help but smirk at a new one,Beach, please!
These small reminders of who her grandma was, and continued to be, stirred a longing that replaced some of the nerves she’d been holding on to. Yes, being home was an out-of-body experience, but Sam wanted to see Pearl and wished she’d walk back through the door already.
As she stood in the living room, her gaze landed on a framed photo of thirteen-year-old Sam, her mom and Pearl standing on the pier near their house, a fishing rod in Sam’s hand. Sam picked it up and eyed her adolescent face—a wide smile of braces and white filmy sunscreen on her nose. Too much black eyeliner, blue eyeshadow and an all-black wardrobe. Her knobby knees, which had earned her the nickname “giraffe,” were covered in freckles. And then there was her mom, with a blond ponytail and fair skin. Her expression was one Sam had analyzed endlessly: a kind of half smile that wouldn’t seem meaningful if her mom hadn’t left them a year later.
She put the photo back on the table, and when she pulled her hand away, a clean thumbprint disturbed the coating of dust. Sam swiped another manicured finger along the frame and came back with a thick layer of grime. A knot of guilt wandered into her stomach as she glanced at the table and saw it was also coated. Maybe she’d stayed away for too long.
She hoisted her bag higher on her shoulder and walked down the tiled floor toward a hand-drawn placard, “Sam’s Room,” which still hung outside the door in glittery bubble letters. She hesitated, but eventually turned the knob.
The room, much like the rest of the house, had not been touched since Sam left, save for some tidying. The twin-size wrought iron bed frame with a dolphin-print duvet was still there, as were the Furby and Hello Kitty dolls resting against the numerous decorative pillows. Over the bed was an Amy Winehouse poster surrounded by CD sleeves for The White Stripes, Muse, Green Day and The Killers. On her desk sat a neat stack of the Twilight hardcover books, alongside a plastic Pizza Hut cup filled with scented gel pens, Lip Smacker balms and a headband with glitter skulls across the top. The corkboard above the desk was littered with tacked-up photos of her intense emo phase...and Damon.
She hesitantly bit her lip as she approached the memory board, but almost instantly landed on a photo taken the night when everything changed. She and Damon were in front of the school bleachers, and his spiked black hair was streaked with red highlights. Sam’s overplucked eyebrows and the cartoon skull on her T-shirt were all achoice. Sam held up a peace sign and attempted her very best duck lips, while Damon’s mouth opened in a genuine laugh.
Despite the fashion that made them relics of the aughts, they both looked happy, and an overwhelming urge to see him laugh that way again flooded through Sam. She took out her cell.Home, she texted Damon. She almost instantly regretted messaging, because where would they start a conversation she’d chosen to end years ago?
Thanks to Instagram, she’d been able to keep up and interact with Damon as if he were an old acquaintance. Over the years, she’d watched as he slowly ticked off all the boxes he’d planned to after graduating high school. He had a house, a job and figured out a style that didn’t involve eyeliner and excessive hair gel. She “liked” his posts. He “liked” hers back.
When she decided to come help Pearl, she’d weighed her options: return home, hide and hope they didn’t bump into each other; or just reach out and see what happened. And because she was more than a little curious to know if he’d respond, she DMed him. To her surprise, he wanted to see her, too. So they exchanged cell numbers—hers had changed; his hadn’t. Damon had grown up, but in many ways still embodied the same indie style. What would he think of Sam?
She pocketed her phone and clenched her jaw. She wasn’t sure when Damon would text back, but was surprised by how impatient she was to hear from him.
She supposed the person she should text next was Pearl, but there was a kind of serenity in being alone in the house. Sam hadn’t been back in her room in so many years. And while she knew she should change and clean up, she couldn’t help but go to the giant map of the world taped to the wall next to her closet. Her flight school acceptance letter and Post-it notes of where she wanted to travel dotted the map. She’d visited almost every one of them, except for Morocco. She tapped the spot with her finger. “I’m coming for you next.”
And then her mother’s parting words popped into her head.Don’t end up stuck in this place.
Well, she hadn’t ended upstuck, as it turned out. Bonnie’s warning had served as a kind of challenge that Sam had met and overcome. Not only had she left Tybee, but she’d also become a better, brighter, far less goth-baby version of herself in the process. Still, just the recollection of her mom saying that—how Bonnie’s voice had shook with the words—caused panic to rise and lodge in Sam’s throat.
Because when it rained, it really poured, Sam’s phone pinged with a new text. She checked the screen. Damon’s name flashed back like a bolt of lightning.
Damon:
Coming over.
Suddenly, all thoughts of her mom vanished as quickly as her styled hair in the humidity. Those two words made Sam jittery. She was an unwieldy wave about to demolish a child’s sandcastle.
Damon was headed to the house and she’d have to see him face-to-face. Now was the time for her to change clothes. She’d been flying all day, then drove straight to her grandma’s and probably smelled like an in-flight barf bag. Yes, she’d wanted to dress to impress Grandma Pearl, but the thought of Damon seeing her also stirred up a need to look better than good. She crossed the small space of the room, bent to pick up her carry-on and came eye level with the shelves under her desk.
Her beloved CD player rested on a pair of laughably ancient headphones in the exact spot where she’d left them years ago. Seeing her old Walkman shouldn’t have stopped her at all, but Sam couldn’t deny that this wasn’tjusta CD player. Her Walkman had become a kind of escape. When she put on her headphones and hit Play on a song, the rest of her reality melted away as she slipped into the music. Her mom and grandma had an epic fight at least once a week—screaming, throwing things and, in general, being terrible to each other. Sam couldn’t focus when she could hear them both going at it, but if she turned her music up loud enough, she discovered a new way to block out the noise. And slowly, she realized that zoning out to music gave her space to think about what she wanted: to travel, be independent and never be stuck.
Did she even allow herself time to daydream like that now? Not unless she counted staring at hotel room ceilings in between nonstop flights.
