Page 46 of The Backtrack
Sam took a step toward her younger self, hoping to still her shaking hand but, as she did, the image in front of her dissolved like sand. Thewhooshshe’d felt coming in returned as she blinked back to the room.
She yanked the headphones off. Something had been very wrong with what she’d seen. How long was it going to take Alt-Sam to reach her pilot goals? Was losing focus and not being valedictorian all worth getting to be in a relationship with Damon?
Her Lisa Frank notebook was on the desk. She walked over and opened to the page where she’d been keeping a running list of songs. She added the latest tracks to see if they made any sense of the puzzle.
SAM AND DAMON’S MAGICAL PLAYLIST
Track One: “Bring Me to Life” by Evanescence. Otherworldly song about being understood by another human. Tybee High parking lot. Questionable amounts of eyeliner. Alt-Sam kisses Damon. Missing earring is found.
Track Two: “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” by The Darkness. A bop about being head over heels for someone. Alt-Sam and Damon are officially dating. Myles continues to disappoint. Marissa didn’t have an awkward phase in high school. JanSport backpacks are timeless.
Track Three: “Supermassive Black Hole” by Muse. Inarguably the best song and movie scene pairing ever. Damon and Alt-Sam make out duringTwilightand get kicked out. One too many hickies.
Track Four: “Want You Bad” by The Offspring. A banger about a bad boy wanting to corrupt a good girl. Myles gets owned by Alt-Sam. Damon skips detention. Alt-Sam skips her extracurricular. I miss Dunkaroos.
Track Five: “Dance, Dance” by Fall Out Boy. A song about a guy meeting someone he likes at a school dance, and the angst of trying to desperately impress them. Damon tries to impress Alt-Sam and they get into A GODDAMN CAR CRASH. Soffe shorts. Condoms from Pearl. Looks like I never get to go to prom.
Track Six: “Fell In Love With a Girl” by The White Stripes. Can I ever hear this song again and not think about Alt-Sam and Damon sneaking around (??) and probably having sex (??). Alt-Sam’s vision problems continue AND she’s getting a C on an essay?
Track Seven: “Read My Mind” by The Killers, which is all about uncertainty. Makes sense, since in Alt-Sam’s high school graduation, I’m not valedictorian and waiting on a surgery to get into flight school.
Sam tapped her gel pen against the paper. What did any of this mean? As she reread her notes, a little stone formed in her gut that refused to budge. She was having a hard time understanding how Alt-Sam could be so different from whom she’d been.
Or maybe her perfectionist self was being judgmental of Alt-Sam. After all, Alt-Samwasgoing to go to flight school, but by a different route. So what, she wasn’t valedictorian? She was having reckless fun, which was something Sam had never done in high school.
Sam placed her head in her hands and closed her eyes. She was tired of overthinking everything. Maybe she just really needed to stop doing this—she should be asleep instead of trying to make sense of something that was impossible to understand. She tucked the CD player into a shelf of her desk, along with the notebook, and tried to let her mind go blank.
18
Rachel sat across from Sam at the kitchen table. She’d poured them both bowls of bran cereal—the only kind Pearl had—and they chewed in silence until Rachel finally said, “You’re terrible at keeping secrets.”
Sam stopped chewing. Rachel sat back in her chair, crossed her arms and looked triumphant. “Ask me how I know,” Rachel added.
Sam swallowed the bite. “Fine, how do you know?”
“You start ruffling your hair and it turns into this kind of fuzzy chicken feather nest on your head. Your hair looks worse than I’ve ever seen it.”
Sam reached a hand up to her hair, which was, admittedly, a bit ruffled.
“So let me ask.” Rachel sat forward for this. “Is something bothering you?”
Sam resisted the urge to run her hands through her hair again. There were many things bothering her.
She’d kissed Damon.
She’d listened to more songs on the CD player.
She was a horrible person, in general.
“Well, I’m a homewrecker, for starters,” Sam said with a sigh.
Rachel went to say something, then stopped herself, apparently thinking better of it. “I think drunkenly tripping into someone does not a homewrecker make.”
“Why did I even get close to him at all?”
“Well, the beers probably didn’t help but...do you have feelings for the guy?”
Sam fingered a piece of splintered wood at the edge of the table. “I don’t know.”
