Page 6 of Begin Again
“Dad is a dreamer,” Sam says, making me look back up at him. His jaw is tight. “His latest dream that brought us here is to be a cow farmer. Does the man know anything about cows or farming? Not until we moved here a couple of months ago.”
I laugh. A full belly laugh.
“You think that’s funny?”
“I think it must be nice to be able to pick up your life and do whatever you want.” The truth of the words hit me as I say them. I’m only fourteen, but I wonder what I want to do with my life. Maybe there is a future for me outside of this small town.
“It might be, if you weren’t the one who had to keep starting over,” Sam grumbles quietly so his parents don’t hear him.
I resist the urge I have to reach out and touch him. To offer him some sort of comfort. But this is the first time we’ve really had any sort of conversation, so touching would probably be weird. “I bet it’s hard, moving so much.”
“I’d love to have a place to call home, you know?” His eyes twinkle under the streetlight we’re standing under. “I can’t ever get too attached to a place or to people. It makes it hard to make friends.”
“You and Noah seem to be good friends.”
Sam shrugs. “Noah’s easy to get along with.”
“I hope that we can be friends, too.” I have to glance away after the words come out. I’m never this forward with anyoneexcept maybe Emily. But there’s something about Sam that makes me want to be around him, to be his friend. Sure, he’s cute. But that doesn’t have anything to do with it. I want to be his friend because something about him makes me want to be close to him.
“I’d like that.”
When I look up at him again, he’s smiling. So I smile back. “Friends then.”
“Friends.”
We fall into an awkward silence. “I should warn you, I don’t know how to be friends with a boy. Emily is my only friend, besides Noah, but I don’t think he counts because he’s my brother.”
“Well, then I guess now’s a good time to tell you that I don’t really have friends that are girls. Most girls tend to look at me like I’m some sort of new plaything because I’m always the new kid.”
“That’s dumb.” I roll my eyes. “There’s more to life than romance and kissing and all that stuff. Because we can be friends without all that stuff. Kissing I mean. We don’t need to kiss.”
Shut your mouth, stop talking about kissing. Why are you even thinking about kissing? Maybe because Emily was just telling me about her new crush and how kissable his lips are. Gross. I don’t need to be kissing anyone. Especially not Sam. He does have nice lips though.
Gah. Stop it.
I force myself to look at Sam. He’s watching me with a bemused expression on his face.
“I haven’t ever thought about kissing you,” I blurt. Until now. Now I wonder what it would be like to kiss him—or anyone really. “Sorry, I’m making this awkward. Can we stop talking about kissing?”
He smirks. “I think you’re the only one talking about kissing. But yes, we can stop.”
“Thank you,” I breathe in relief. “Friends still? Even though I blurt out awkward things?”
“I like it.” He gives me a shy smile. “Makes me feel less awkward for the moment when I’ll blurt out something awkward. Cause I’m sure it will happen. This is new territory for me. Making real friends.”
I smile back. “Well, we can be awkward friends together, I guess.”
“Perfect.”
And just like that, I have my first boy friend.
4
SAM
January 2011 - Sam is 16 Annie is now 15
January in Colorado is bitter cold. I never thought I’d be colder than when I lived in upstate New York, but by the way the hairs inside my nose are freezing, I think I was wrong.
