Page 93 of The Girl with No Name

I’d smiled on that car ride from California, because this was a happy time. We were reunited, and I was in love with her—no matter what was in the past. Of that I was sure. I liked Sam’s long toned legs, her thick brown hair, her easy smile, her intelligence, and her love of animals. She was committed to me now, and that’s what mattered at the end of the day, right?

Maybe it was just that as commitments grew and the years went on, there were mathematically more people you met and more instances of jealousy you could take a microscope to. Time made relationships more complicated. I’d learned this as I grew up with Sam.

Later, while she was driving, I took Samantha’s wrist in my hand and began to draw a little heart on it with a ballpoint pen. I’d intended to draw a heart with S+R inside it, or something silly like that.

But she’d recoiled. “What are you doing?”

“Drawing a heart on your wrist.”

“You can’t do that. You know I’m starting the internship on Monday in Chicago. What will they think if I show up with a heart in pen on my wrist?”

I’d let go of my grip on her forearm. My heart had felt as though it were falling through my stomach to my feet.

As we sat in silence, I’d attempted to understand why this bothered me so much. The internship didn’t start for days. We would be spending tonight just outside the Grand Canyon before continuing on. Surely a silly heart in ballpoint pen would wash off. Plus, she could cover it easily with a bracelet if she needed to.

As the Utah desert had flashed past outside the car, I’d felt rejected on some deep level. My mind went to all the times she’d turned me down for morning-after sex. I liked having sex in the mornings. She was sometimes in a hurry, though, or had other priorities. I thought about when she’d come to visit me—we’d met in Argentina—and we hadn’t had sex at all because she had HPV and needed to contain it.

She’d said she didn’t know if she’d gotten it from me. It could have been me, I supposed, though I’d only had sex with one girl in Bolivia, and we’d used a condom. More than likely, Sam had gotten it from someone else.

It made sense to be turned down for sex on occasion, since people had different drives, I’d told myself. But being rejected for drawing a wrist heart on a road trip was not sex-related. And it seemed like it was coming from deep within Samantha. A desire to be in control, maybe? Was I with a controlling person and didn’t know it? Or maybe she just didn’t want to be marked by me.

And if that was the case, that really hurt. She knew me better than anyone. And she was saying no to me on some visceral level.

Lady Antebellum had played on her jeep’s CD player, and at that very moment, we’d passed under a bridge, and I saw a sign for Dante Avenue.

Dante had been the name of Samantha’s Finnish lover.

Lover.

She’d had other lovers. Fair enough, I’d had them too, while we were on a break. None I’d loved, though. I’d assumed it was the same for her.

That coincidental reminder from a street sign that Sam had been sleeping with someone in grad school while I was in my tiny house all alone in Bolivia—feeling as lonely as I’d felt in my entire life and writing a love song about Samantha—gave me the worst feeling in the world. I felt inadequate.

This was where my memory grew hazy. I would later realize there are some feelings you don’t understand until after you feel them for the first time. In that car, though, my heart began to pound double time. I’d come all the way from Bolivia to be with Samantha again. I’d ended my service, turning down my best Peace Corps friend John Black’s invitation to be his roommate for another year in La Paz and extend my service like he was doing, even though I’d really wanted to.

I’d later understand that what I was feeling had been a mini panic attack.

I wondered if Dante had ever drawn on Samantha. The minutes had passed like hours as I tried to swallow the feeling. I didn’t know what to say to Samantha that wouldn’t make me seem like a completely jealous, patriarchal tool. So I’d kept my mouth shut and listened to the music.

“I learned how to feel on Lady Antebellum,” Samantha had said, breaking the silence.

I’d nodded. “Yeah.”I think I’m learning how to feel right now, too.

After probably a half hour more of silence, Samantha had glanced at her wrist. “Sorry. That might have been an overreaction. You can draw on my wrist, if you want.”

“That’s okay.” I shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

I didn’t want her to let me draw on her just because she felt bad. Plus, I really didn’t feel much like drawing on her anymore.

21

REED

“I REMEMBER EVERYTHING” – ZACH BRYAN, FEATURING KACEY MUSGRAVE

Ifinish my late-night walk around the neighborhood and return to Sam’s apartment through her unlocked door. When I come inside, she’s in the same place I left her—at the kitchen island—with a second beer.

“Hey,” she says.

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