After Ever (7 page)

I need to get out. Out of this stuffy room. Out of this stuffy resort. The sent of pine was nice at first but now it is clogging up my nose. I yank open the drawer to the bureau I stuffed all my clothes in the night we arrived and take an experimental sniff. More pine. An entire forest’s worth of it.

“Great,” I tell my reflection in the mirror above the bureau. “Just great.”

A sullen faced girl glares back at me.

“What the hell are you looking at?” I ask her.

She doesn’t respond. Just glares some more. She is an excellent glarer.

I pull a ratty black sweatshirt over my head and stomp outside, using one of the back doors instead of the front so I don’t have to see Bridget. Thinking of her reminds me of the grocery store and the grocery store reminds me of Sam – something I have managed to forget until now. I have too many things to worry about without adding some freak who gets his kicks by impersonating a dead kid to the list.

The temperature has dropped a few degrees since I was last outside. The gray sky is spitting snow. Not a lot, but just enough to have me seeking shelter under the long covered walk way that winds around the entire resort and through a brief section of woods. I yank the hood up over my head and stuff my hands in the front pocket of my sweatshirt. It is meager protection against the elements, but it will have to do. I forgot to pack anything heavier.

A couple passes me, their flushed faces and damp parkas revealing they must have spent the entire morning up on the mountain. They smile when they see me and I smile back, but the smile is tight and feels unnatural on my lips. It falls away the instant they are behind me, melting faster than a snowflake on an upturned nose.

I continue to walk. My breath leads the way, turning the air in front of my face to smoke. I am halfway around the walk way and have lost all feeling in my toes when he appears. He seems to come out of the forest itself, his yellow ski jacket easy to spot against the backdrop of white and green. His glasses are a little crooked and he pauses to adjust them before the closing the distance between us. I keep my head down and try to walk around, pretending I don’t see him, but he just falls in step beside me as if he is used to being brushed by.

“Hey,” Sam says. “Funny running in to you out here. Little cold for a walk, isn’t it?”

I pinch my lips together and walk faster.

“Why aren’t you skiing or boarding?”

Shut up and go away.

Why?

Uh, because you’re a freak.

So says the girl with the holes in her face. How many piercings do you have, anyway?

I stop abruptly. “What do you want, Sam? If that’s even your real name,” I sneer. I can feel the anger building inside of me. Anger at my dad for being unable to cope. Anger at Girlfriend #3 for being smarter than I gave her credit for. Anger at Brian for needing me so much. Anger at Mom for being dead. I am a ball of anger, rolling faster and faster down a steep hill. It’s too bad for Sam that he is waiting at the bottom.

His gray eyes blink behind the snow flecked lenses of his glasses. “Of course Sam is my real name,” he says. “What else would it be?”

“You even dress like he did,” I say in disgust, recalling the photograph from the newspaper article. “That is so twisted and gross.”

A frown drives the corners of his mouth down. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“The boy who died here!” I explode. “In the skiing accident.
Sam Trent
. Are you telling me it’s just a coincidence that you have the same name and wear the same clothes? Have the same glasses?”

“Sam Trent,” he repeats softly. “I haven’t heard that name in a long time.”

“Your name is Sam!”

“Ah,” he says, holding up one finger. “But not Sam
Trent
. Sam
Trent
was my cousin. My mother and his mother were sisters. We were named after our grandfather. I dress like my cousin used to because I like the same clothes he liked. I wear glasses – which are way cooler than the ones he used to have, by the way – because bad eyesight runs in our family and contacts hurt my eyes. Any more questions, Winnifred? Or is the interrogation over?”

The kid who died in the skiing accident was his cousin? “But… But you told me your last name was Trent.”

“No I didn’t. My last name is Trexler. Sam Trexler.”

Sam Trexler? It’s possible I got the last names mixed up. More than possible, with the way my mind has been operating lately. And they both begin with the same letter. An easy enough mistake, I suppose. And it means Sam isn’t some weirdo impersonating a dead kid, which is good.

“Uh, sorry about that.” Two apologies to the same person in two days. It must be some kind of record. Embarrassed to have made such a fool of myself, I stare intently down at my sneakers and wish this was one of those instances where you could simply disappear.  

 “Forget about it,” Sam says easily. Smiling to let me know all is forgiven, he says, “Are you walking all the way around the resort?”

I nod.

“Mind if I join you?”

I shake my head.

“Are you going to talk at all?”

I start to nod, catch myself, and grin sheepishly. “Yeah. I, uh, didn’t know he was your cousin. You know, the kid who died. I mean who, uh, passed away. In that accident. Sam. Sam.
Trent
. I mean, I just… Sorry again,” I finish lamely. You would think having a dead mother would make it easier to say the right things, but it doesn’t. Words don’t console. Words don’t fix.

I’m so sorry for your loss.

Everything happens for a reason.

We’re all here for you.

You have my deepest condolences.

Words don’t mean shit.

“It’s fine.” Sam shrugs as we start to walk again. “It happened a long time ago.”

Snow beings to fall from the sky in earnest, coating our hair and shoulders in a fine dusting of white just as we step into the wooded section of the walk way. I grimace and try to shake it all off while Sam just worries about his glasses. Eventually he gives up trying to keep them dry and slips them in his coat pocket.

“Can you see?” I ask.

“Kind of. If I start to veer off the paths towards a ravine or something stop me though, okay?”

I glance at him out of the corner of my eye and suppress a smile. Sam looks very different without his glasses. I can’t decide if it is different in a good way or in a bad way. He certainly looks more main stream. Handsome even, as opposed to bookishly cute. Not that it matters. My fingers curl up inside the sleeves of my sweatshirt and I look sharply away, focusing on the trail in front of us. Who cares if Sam wears no glasses or fluorescent orange ones with sparkles? Not this girl.

“You’re awfully quiet,” he observes after a few minutes.

I don’t know what to say, so I just say the first thing that pops into my head. “How did you know my mom died?” I ask. As soon as the words are out of my mouth my lips clamp down and pinch in a scowl. I didn’t want to ask Sam that. I hadn’t meant to. I wasn’t even thinking about it. Not really. This is what happens when your family and friends abandon you; you start talking to random strangers about private things.

And why not?
A little voice asks.
There is a reason that fat woman at the basketball game used to talk to you about her divorce when she couldn’t talk to her own ex-husband without a lawyer in the room. People need to talk about their private crap. It’s human nature. Why do you think autobiographies were invented? People have stuff they need to say. Maybe
you
have stuff to say. Stuff you can’t talk about with your dad or your brother.

“Uh, Winnie?”

“What?” I say sharply.

Sam is looking in the general direction of my face. I can tell he can’t see more than a blur by the way his eyes flick around, focusing on my nose then my mouth before settling on some spot in the middle of my forehead. “I didn’t know it was your mom for certain,” he says. “I just figured someone close to you had died because… well… you know.”

“No, I don’t know. Why don’t you enlighten me?” I’m being a jerk, but what else is new? Sharing my feelings isn’t something I am accustomed to. It’s like my body throws up an automatic defense when it senses someone is getting too close. Walls of sarcasm first, barricades of anger second and a moat of distrust to finish it all off. Sam would have to be some kind of super hero to get past all that. It’s almost too bad he is just a dorky kid with glasses who dresses like his dead cousin.

“You look like you’re at somebody’s funeral all the time,” he says bluntly. “Which would be fine if that’s how you looked, but I can see your roots and they’re not black. Plus your makeup has started to run and now you look more like a drowning raccoon than some bad ass Goth chick and everyone knows bad ass Goth chicks wear waterproof eyeliner and mascara. Obviously some tragic event has recently happened and judging by the way you talked about your dad’s new girlfriend I would guess your mom is dead. Am I wrong?”

I like the way he says ‘your mom is dead’. Not ‘she has passed on’ as if she went to the next state for a temporary visit or ‘she is in a better place’ like he knows it for a fact. Who knew sweater vest Sam would burst through the wall of sarcasm with guns blazing?

“A good guess,” I say grudgingly because hey, when you’re right you’re right. No sense is getting angry about it. Zing! The barricades have been tunneled under. “What did you do when your cousin died?” I ask him.

“Started wearing sweater vests and glasses,” he says.

The laugh bubbles out of me before I can stop it. “That is so weird.”

“No weirder than filling my face full of holes and changing my hair color. Why’d you do all that, anyways? I do like your star tattoos, though,” he says as an after thought. “Very cool.”

We both stop. Sam leans against the railing on one side of the walk way and I lean against the other. We face each other, but we don’t look at each other. My gaze lifts to the tops of the pines trees while his floats somewhere around my chest. I’m pretty sure he thinks he is looking me in the eye, so I don’t punch him in the gut.

I think about his question, rolling it back and forth in my mind. If anyone else would have asked it – which they have – I would give my usual response of ‘mind your own damn business’. But sweater vest Sam deserves more than that. He deserves the truth, or at least as close to the truth as I can get without having some kind of seizure.

“I guess it’s because…” I start to say. Pause. Backtrack. “People always used to say my mom and I looked identical. My dad called us twins. He used to make us dress alike to take pictures.” I smile unconsciously at the memory. “It drove me nuts. So I guess I did all this because… because when my dad looks at me I don’t want him to see her.” I glance covertly at Sam, waiting to see what he will say, hoping it’s not something stupid.

“I would like to see a picture of your mom sometime, if that’s okay. She must have been really pretty if you look just like her,” he says simply.

It is silly and cute and a little embarrassing. It is also the exactly right thing to say. Cue barricade reinforcements before I do something really unforgivable, like cry or try to hug him. “For God’s sake put on your glasses, Sam. You’re staring right at my boobs.”

“I am?” he asks guiltily.

My eyes narrow. Maybe Sam isn’t as blind as I thought. I push away from the railing and continue walking. Sam follows me after fumbling around in his pocket to retrieve his glasses. They slip easily over the bridge of his nose like they’re meant to be there and I decide he looks much better with his glasses on. My lips quirk at the realization that I am developing a little crush on sweater vest Sam, dork extraordinaire. It’s too bad I live five hundred miles away. I could use a friend like him.

“So,” I say when we reach the end of the walkway. The front entrance of the lodge looms in front of us, temptingly warm and cheerful with all the lights lit up and smoke curling from the twin chimneys.

“So,” Sam says.

I cross my arms. Uncross them. Put my hands on my hips. Put my hands in my sweatshirt pocket. Every attempt at cool casualness feels more awkward than the last. Finally I just let my arms hang down by my sides. Stiff, but effective. “Do you… uh… want to come in or something?”

“I would really like too.”

“But…” I say the word that lingers in the air.

“But I can’t.”

Disappointment flutters in my belly. “Why not?” I ask before I can stop myself.

Sam looks down at his feet. “I just can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Is it because of me?”
Jeez, Winnie! Just. Stop. Talking.

His chin lifts. Gray eyes lock on mine with alarming intensity. “No, no, nothing like that. I would love to go inside with you. Really. I just… I just can’t.”

“Uh, okay.” I am stunned by the strength of my reaction to his refusal to come inside, and instantly I go on the defensive. “Like whatever. I have shit to do anyways.” I stomp past him towards the sliding glass doors. With a quiet
whoosh
they split apart, beckoning me inside. The scent of pine and vanilla is nauseating. I take a step forward.

“Winnie, wait a sec!” Sam calls out.

“What?” I turn around and can’t help but remember we’ve had this conversation before. Last night, or the one before that? I don’t know. The vacation is starting to blur together, each day suckier than the last. Whatever night it was Sam wouldn’t come inside then either, which is weird. Why would he hang around the resort yet refuse to come in? Maybe he’s banned. Or maybe it reminds him of his cousin. Probably the latter, I decide. Sam doesn’t exactly strike me as the getting banned from stuff type.

“It was good to see you,” he says.

“It was good to see you too,” I say, my tone softening. “I think the weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow,” I lie – I haven’t checked the weather forecast since we’ve been here – impulsively. “Maybe we could go skiing or snowboarding or you know. Something.”

Sam rubs the side of his face and for an instant, so quick if I blinked I would have missed it, he looks impossibly sad. Then he smiles, a sweet, slow, charming smile that wipes my brain completely clean. “A walk would be nice,” he says. “Meet me out here tomorrow morning at ten?”