Page 57 of Same Time Next Summer

“Hey, what’s going on?” I say.

He turns and sees me and actually looks annoyed that I’m there. Wyatt has been happy to see me my entire life.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” he says.

“Why? I thought you were staying the weekend and we were going to do stuff tomorrow.”

He seems agitated and is looking over my shoulder at the dunes. “You know what it is, Sam? I hate your cake. Your cake sucks.”

I smile because this must be a joke. “My cake sucks?”

It’s no joke. “Yes, it’s boring and you don’t like it that much. But you’re going to choose it because you think it’s the right cake for this life you’ve buried yourself in. And Jack just lets you disappear, maybe because he doesn’t care or maybe because he doesn’t even know who you are. If it were me—and it was me, so I know—I’d want you to be everything you could be. I wouldn’t be putting rules and constraints around you, I’d just love you and let you move through the world the way you wanted to. You’ve just given up, Sam. You’re hiding, and it’s pathetic.”

“That’s so mean.” The words are so quiet coming out of my mouth, like it’s my last breath.

“Well it’s true. And I can’t believe no one else has called you out on it. What the hell is wrong with your family? Ican’t believe your dad thinks you’re being honest with yourself here.”

He doesn’t, I don’t say.

“You’re the cake that looks normal until people dig in and find out it’s spectacular. You’re the chocolate fucking cake, Sam, and you won’t even choose it.”

I’m looking up at his face, and I see something that looks like disgust. I reach out to take his hands in mine, and he puts them in his back pockets. “You’re angry at me because I didn’t pick the chocolate cake.”

“You’re the most important person that’s ever been in my life, and you’re not even the most important person in your own.”

“That’s not true,” I say. I reach out and rest my hand on his forearm.

He grabs that hand. “And this, Sam. You’re touching me all the time. Do you run your hands over all your other friends this way? You don’t know what you want or who you are. You’re gasping for air.”

I have nothing to say. I’m embarrassed about my rogue hands. I am hurt that he thinks my life is such a fake joke. I want to be angry, because anger would help me storm off back to the safety of my own house. My kingdom for a little righteous indignation right now. I just look straight ahead at his chest.

“I’m going to bed,” he says. “And I’m leaving tomorrow. Get your shit together, Sam.”

55

My shit together.Mine? I’m in bed when the anger finally shows up. I’m the one who’s in a healthy relationship. Wyatt’s just been occasionally sleeping with a pop star. And maybe I’m not showing my full colors and chasing my dreams, but it’s not like he’s up on a stage performing either. If he thinks I’m hiding behind Jack, what does he call feeding Missy songs and letting her wreck them? Ha! Who’s really lost their voice here?

I have a text from Jack at midnight: Miss you!!!

I stare at it in the dark. Why all the exclamation points? I hold my finger over them to read it as simply: Miss you. The quiet “miss you” is so much more romantic, like he’s got his head on the pillow, texting me because he misses me. The shouting text makes me feel like he’s in a bar and just remembered he owed me a high five.

Am I now such a tight-ass, I wonder, that I am editing my fiancé’s texts? I write back: Miss you too.

I sleep untileight, presumably because I have a sleep debt, and find my mom at the dining room table, deep into her watercolors. She doesn’t look up when she says, “What happened with Wyatt?”

I pour myself a coffee and examine the row of invitations on the counter.

“We broke up again.”

“Sam.” She puts down her paintbrush.

“He laid into me about all this stuff. It started with my wedding cake, he thinks he knows which one I like best. And then it spun out of control to his accusing me of living a total lie.”

“Oh.”

“What? Do you think I’m living a lie?”

“I think you’ve constructed a really nice life that you feel safe in.”

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