Page 79 of The Backtrack
When it came to self-awareness, she was deeply clued in to the fact that she was talking to an inanimate object. But she felt connected to Alt-Sam and Damon, and she was ready to see them again.
She sat on the couch and glanced out the floor-to-ceiling windows to see the world lit from the moon and stars. Gazing out at the infinite stretch of sky with all of its possibilities filled her with a kind of hope. She’d thought her path was clear, until she saw what could’ve been if only she’d made one different decision. Life was filled with constant small choices that charted an eventual destination. But maybe in seeing what she could’ve had, she’d get clarity on a potential way forward.
There was only one more song, so she hit Play.
The air was humid and heavy when Sam opened her eyes. Fat gray clouds overhead signaled that it had just rained. The sky threatened more, but Sam could almost smell it drifting away from where she was on the pier at the beach. The plank under Sam’s foot groaned as she took a step forward and looked around. A gull cawed, almost as if it could see her, and maybe it could, but Sam was focused.
Blink-182’s “Always” played in her headphones. The song was about persistence, and second chances, and trying to save a relationship, if only the other person would allow for that. This was the moment when Alt-Sam and Damon were going to find their way back to the good place—their second chance.
Alt-Sam’s elbows rested on the top of the pier’s railing as she peered into the water below, and Damon eyed her as if seeing her for the first time. The ocean churned as Sam walked toward them.
“What if you change your mind?” His voice had an edge. “Am I supposed to wait and see how this all turns out?”
Alt-Sam looked up at Damon through a newly trimmed bob of hair. And then she straightened to her full height so she was eye level with him. Something about this version of her had changed. She seemed more assured in that moment, maybe stronger. So much more familiar to Sam.
“I don’t expect anything from you. You owe me nothing.” Alt-Sam adjusted her glasses. A plane flew overhead, and she chanced a glance at it. “I just have to do this. If I don’t try then I’m going to regret that for the rest of my life.”
“And what about us?” Damon cracked his knuckles as he spoke. “You’re going to regret losing this.”
“Yes.” Alt-Sam’s lower lip trembled, and she bit it to stop herself. “But if I keep going the way I am, I’ll just disappear. There will be no us. Do you understand what I’m saying? I physically cannot keep pretending that I’m okay when I’m not. That’s not fair to you or me.”
“I just don’t get why we can’t figure this out together.” He reached for her hand, and she let him take it.
Alt-Sam hesitated, then said, “We’ve been tied to each other for so long that I don’t know who I am without you. But being with you has meant that I’ve slowly begun to vanish. It’s not your fault, Damon. I know this is on me. But if I have any hope of figuring out what I actually want, then I need to try to do that. I need time to understand why I feel so broken all the time.”
And then Damon began to cry. His body shook and his head fell into his hands, and Alt-Sam wrapped him up tightly in her arms, as a tear rolled down her cheek. “I love you,” she told him. “I will always love you. I’ll never stop loving you. I’m so sorry. I just can’t keep drowning like this.”
“Drowning?” Damon pulled back from her. “You think I’mdrowningyou?” He was hurt, as his expression darkened into one of disbelief.
“Of courseyou’renot drowningme. I just feel completely over my head with—”
“With what? Having all your bills paid for? Having a free place to live? With me forgiving you even after you...” And then his expression tightened as he took another step back from Alt-Sam. And Alt-Sam looked down, as if weighing her options, trying to carefully choose her words.
Sam wanted so desperately to have the right answer to fix everything. Wasn’t this supposed to end happily for them both? She wanted to make the situation better, but she didn’t totally know what Alt-Sam was feeling; much like Damon, she was a little in the dark. Sam had felt the urge to leave Tybee, her house, her life, but to feel like she was drowning? She’d never hit that kind of rock bottom. So she knew that whatever Alt-Samwasgoing through had to be bad. Bad enough to force her to leave Damon so that she could survive.
And then Sam remembered Bonnie.Drowning. Wasn’t that a word she’d used to describe how she’d felt when she was stuck in Tybee? Alt-Sam was depressed, just as her mom had been, and she was desperately trying to dig her way out of it before it was too late. Shehadto leave. There was no way she could stay.
Sam swallowed down the realization that a part of her now empathized with Bonnie, something she never imagined possible.
“I cheated because I needed to feel something. I know that’s shitty to say, but I’ve been so numb for a long time. Ever since the miscarriage happened, I was just...desperate for something to change.” Alt-Sam sniffled.
“Flight school is never going to happen for me because of the...” Alt-Sam pointed to her eyes. “But I can still travel as a flight attendant, and that’s where I’m supposed to be right now. Deciding to go has been the first decision I’ve made that feels really right. I don’t want to hurt you. I never have. And maybe that’s the problem. Because I’ve ignored this part of myself so I could be with you. So we could be together. But in doing that I’m just...lost now. I feel totally gone. So I’m doing this—I have to do this. If I don’t, then I really don’t know what will happen. It scares me to think about it.”
And suddenly, it all made sense to Sam—the thing she couldn’t quite put her finger on but sensed. While she’d seen Damon making her other self happy, there had also been tenser moments—when Alt-Sam had her miscarriage, the surgery didn’t take and she’d cheated on him. She hadn’t been in some coupled-up cocoon of bliss; she’d been missing something. She’d missed the thing that Sam had left Tybee to go and find all those years ago: herself.
Her need to explore was the thing that had and always would keep them apart. Sam wasn’t able to just stay in one place. She had to see the world. The heavy stone that had settled in Sam’s gut since she’d watched Alt-Sam begin to deteriorate slowly lifted. She saw the whole picture; no matter what she did, her place was in the sky.
“You know I’m not great at expressing myself,” Alt-Sam said as she dug her hands into her pockets. She pulled out a folded piece of paper from one of them and handed it to Damon. “I wrote it all here. I feel like this song says everything I can’t, because I’m terrible at talking about this. But this is how I feel about you, and us. I know what I’m doing is something I can’t take back. But if we’re meant to be, we’ll find a way back to each other. I want to find my way back to you.”
Alt-Sam held out the paper for Damon, but he didn’t move. He didn’t so much as look at her. And she held it for him, and waited, but there was no change. So she eventually put it in his pocket. She looked up at him and swallowed hard. “I know nothing I’ve said is right, but I love you. I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t.”
And he guffawed, and then Alt-Sam’s eyes welled with tears, and she wiped them with the back of her hand. Before saying another word, she walked away from Damon at a pace so fast it bordered on a run. Damon turned, his brow finally creased with emotion, and he watched her disappear like a bird soaring higher and higher.
Eventually, Damon took the paper out and unfolded it. Sam stood on her tiptoes and looked over his shoulder. The song was Blink-182’s “Always,” the same one she was listening to. And those words,Always, Always, drifted from her headphones.
As the last speck of Alt-Sam vanished, Sam was yanked hard and fast back to the present. She quickly readjusted to the feel of the couch cushions beneath her, but her throat was tight and her stomach in knots. What did all of this mean? If it didn’t matter what she did and she was always destined to leave Tybee, then what was the point of all this?
The CD player was still in her lap, and while it was lit up, there were no more songs to play. She’d listened to all of them. Sam tried to fast-forward and rewind, but it was stuck on this final track.
