20. Reed

20

REED

“GIN, SMOKE, LIES” – TURNPIKE TROUBADOURS

A t the airport, I text Sam.

Reed: What are you up to tonight?

Sam: I’ll be up late. I have a test to study for. Why?

Reed: Might have a surprise for you later. Will you be around about 10 or 11 your time?

Sam: Maybe! Text me later?

Reed: Okay

I have a couple of drinks on the plane. I’m not sure if they’re for courage, for fun, or because my hangover is really kicking in now after three straight days of belligerent drinking. But of course the answer to any of that would be…more drinking.

As I stare out at the afterglow of the sunset, I reflect on the weekend… LSD, meeting Henry Cooney and Violet Benson, the kiss.

That goddamn kiss .

If it weren’t for the circumstances, that would have been the hottest kiss of my life. In the rain. Pressing her up against that willow tree, our clothes soaked through…

I drift off to sleep with my head pressed against the window, and when I wake up, I wipe drool off my lip as we drop onto the tarmac.

I grab my carry-on and nab a Lyft to Piedmont, where Sam’s apartment is, outside of Oakland.

I type out a text to her:

Reed: Hey surprise! I’m thirty minutes away! Wanted to pop in for a visit. See you soon.

My thumb hovers over the send button. But with the amount of surprise I’ll be giving her anyway, it makes sense just to show up. I delete the message.

The Lyft driver drops me off, and all I’ve got is a backpack as I walk up the stairs to her apartment and ring the bell.

Strangely, a man answers, not Sam. “Hey,” he says. “It’s late, man. What are you doing?”

My heart starts to pound. “I’m here to see Samantha,” I say. “Who are you?”

“I’m Brandon.”

“Okay. Well, I’m Samantha’s boyfriend.”

“Oh, shit. Come on in.”

He opens the door wider, and I step inside.

I find Samantha on the couch, textbooks splayed across her coffee table and the TV on pause.

“Oh, hey!” she blurts out, standing up. “What are you doing here? I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

“Clearly.”

Brandon walks in behind me.

I look at him, then back at her.

“We just finished studying,” she says.

I look at the TV. They’re watching Bridgerton . “Can we talk?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

The guy grabs the textbook from the coffee table, shoves it into his backpack, and leaves.

Sam seems not sure what to do with herself. “Wow. I’m just… I wasn’t expecting to see you today. Everything okay?”

I nod slightly.

“You thirsty? You need anything?” She asks.

“I’m okay,” I say. We sit on the two stools next to her kitchen island. “But I’ll take a beer if you’ve got it.”

She goes the fridge, pops open two bottles of Pacifico, and puts one in front of me.

“Who was that?” I ask, my curiosity getting the best of me. Might as well clear that up before I bring up my own misdeeds.

“He’s a friend. We study together sometimes.”

“Is he gay?”

“No.”

“Okay.” I take a deep breath. “Look, so I went to that festival with Dunn this weekend.”

“Yeah…?”

“And I kissed someone.”

“What?”

“I was drunk—and tripping—but that’s no excuse. I don’t know what to do.” I take a swig of beer and watch her eyes dart back and forth as she processes. “I’m serious about this relationship,” I add after a moment. “I’m serious about you. I bought a ring, which is why I needed to tell you.”

“That’s why you flew out. To confess.”

I look her in the eye. “Yes.”

She nods silently, taking a big gulp of her beer.

“What are you thinking?” I ask.

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “I don’t know… This is a lot to process.”

“I know.” I can smell her perfume. My heart is a constant drum in my chest. I don’t want to think about the scene I just interrupted, or whether it’s weird that Sam is “studying” with some guy named Brandon close to midnight. With Bridgerton on the TV. I don’t want to ask what’s going on with that. I don’t want to know if this is what she’s been doing when she turns me down over FaceTime.

“Look, I’ll take a little walk, okay? Give you some time to think without me here. I know this is a heavy conversation.”

“Yeah.”

I get up and step out into the night air for a walk around. A part of me feels like I’m dying inside, but coming clean was the only thing to do. As I walk, my mind drifts to last summer when I came out to see Sam for the first time after the Peace Corps. I helped her bring some things back to Chicago for the summer.

We’d left California with a full car and a little spot for the dog in the backseat. She brought him back to her parents’ place. I’d never driven east from the west coast, and the landscape was new and novel to me—the desert formations of Utah, the mountains. Sam, on the other hand, had made this trip several times over the past couple of years.

As we drove, I’d thought about something she’d said to me. After we’d slept together, she’d turned to me and said, “ I don’t think I’ve been in such good shape since I was in high school and hooking up with my boyfriend, like, every day .”

I didn’t know why that bothered me so much. I’d figured the problem was with me, in my own head, so I’d ignored the possibility that my jealousy could be valid. The more I’d denied it, though, the more the feeling had seemed to grow.

I’d thought about how we’d parted ways in our early twenties, me going to the Peace Corps and her to grad school, with the agreement to get back together once we were done with that period of our lives.

As I’d watched the Utah desert roll by, I’d remembered how when I’d come back to the United States for Christmas after nine or so months in the Peace Corps, she’d told me she’d been with someone.

Well, I had too—on the night before I’d left Bolivia. So I’d told myself the anger I’d felt simply wasn’t fair to her. It was part of the patriarchal double standard, and I wouldn’t let myself be bothered.

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.