Page 19 of Begin Again
My heart tightens in anger, all of the parts of me that wanted to say leave my body in one breath. Help her out as in pay all of her bills and wake her up when she’s drunk andpassed out so she can get to work on time so she won’t get fired. Again. I’m tired of being my mother’s keeper.
“Mom, I’m eighteen. I’m not ready to settle down and start a family.” I ignore Sam’s warm grip that’s still on my shoulders. I don’t think about how good it feels to have his hands on me. I still don’t want to settle down and have a family, not with the role model I’ve had, I’d probably just screw it up. But there’s no telling that to Mom.
“So?” She asks as if what I’ve just said is completely absurd. “I married your father when I was nineteen, but I’d known him all through high school. You need to get married. You need to stay here.”
“No.” I stare her down. I think this is the first time in my life that I’ve used the word no as a complete sentence and it feels good. I am not backing down.
Mom simply stares at me with the look that has made me crumble at times, but today I won’t. Today I’m leaving for New York City.
“We need to get on the road if we want to make it to Kansas City today,” Sam says from behind me. “I’m sure we’ll call sometime, Ms. Jones.”
Mom simply huffs at Sam. If she had it her way, I’d marry him and stay here and make a dozen adorable babies. But Mom isn’t going to get what she wants from me, not ever again. She’s taken too much.
I lift my chin with my new found confidence. I’m starting over, I’m finally leaving this life behind. “Bye.” I don’t give Mom a second glance as I climb into the passenger seat of the truck.
Sam walks around and climbs into the driver's seat. He turns the key in the ignition. “Ready, sunshine?”
“I’m ready,” I tell him. And I don’t look back.
“We can get the keys to the apartment in two hours, so where should we go first?” Sam asks me, bringing my mind back to thepresent. I’m here. I’m in New York. I actually left. I wait for the ache to come—homesickness, missing the only home I’ve ever known—but it doesn’t come.
“Let’s find some food,” I tell him, as I glance out the window. We’re stuck in New York traffic and all of the skyscrapers are taller than I expected. But I’m here, I’m actually here. I grin as I pull out my phone. “I’ve got a list of places I want to try.”
“Perfect.” Sam glances over at me and I meet his eyes. They are the perfect shade of blue. Like the sky in the summer on a clear day. Or what I imagine the ocean looks like. His gaze softens when I don’t look away. When I’m with Sam, it’s like we’re in our own little bubble. I want to stay here forever, with him looking at me like maybe I wouldn’t screw up a relationship like my mom always does. Like maybe his love would be enough to fix all of my broken thoughts. A loud honk from behind us makes me jump, and I look away.
Sam starts to drive again and I pull up my list on my phone. What just happened? We are friends, and he moved here so I didn’t have to be aloneas my friend. We can’t be more than that. I try not to think about what it means, him moving across the country with me. I don’t want to give him the wrong idea, but I also don’t know how to live my life without him. I know it’s not fair of me to feel that way, but I can’t let him go. I don’t want to let him go. So at least for today, I’ll be selfish a little longer.
We end up at a fancy new restaurant—not far from where our apartment will be—called Austen’s. The hostess leads us to a candlelit table for two. Glancing around I notice how out of place our shorts and T-shirts look. I drape the cloth napkin across mylap. “This place seems way too fancy, are you sure we can afford it?” I whisper across the table. “Even the napkin feels fancy.”
“I just got my first five-figure sponsorship,” Sam tells me. “We can afford it, at least we can today.”
I can barely contain my excitement, but I do catch him watching me.
“What are you going to order?” he asks as we look over the menu. “I don’t even know what half of this stuff is.”
I laugh. I’ve been reading cookbooks since I fell in love with food when I was fourteen, but Sam doesn’t know as much about food as I do. “The steak looks good, or the prime rib. Oh, I might get the duck.” I’ve never tried duck. I have always wanted to, but Mom thought it was too much of a luxury and would have lost it if I’d ever come home with a duck to cook. “Yeah, I think I’ll get the duck.”
“I’ll get the prime rib, then,” he says and sets his menu down, grinning at me. “Just think, someday, you can be the head chef of a place like this.”
I flush, because that’s my dream. To be a head chef in a fancy place making delicious food for people. Food that people will remember for years after they eat it. “I’d love that.”
“You’ll do it,” he tells me. “You’re Annie freaking Jones. The best chef there is.”
We order our food and the exhaustion from all our traveling starts to hit me. “What should we do after this? You’re going to have to keep me awake because I’m going to pass out while walking.”
“You should have slept in the car today,” he scolds. “I knew you were tired.”
“I didn’t want to miss getting to the city.”
“I would have woken you up,” he says. “I know how much this means to you. I wouldn’t have let you miss it.”
“Thanks, Sam.” I run my hands over the soft napkin in my lap. “Where are you going on your next trip?” With a new sponsorship, that must mean he’ll be leaving again soon.
“I’m going to Japan,” he says. “I haven’t been there yet, so I’m really looking forward to it. My sponsorship is for a new Airbnb type thing that is opening over there, so no camping for me.”
A lot of the trips he goes on are hiking and camping trips. He loves backpacking and hopes to backpack through Europe someday.
“Sleeping in a bed will be nice, right?”
