“You’re making it seem like I’m good at six different things, when really it’s all the same thing.”
He took the pen and put a line through her list. In the margin, he wrote: 1. School.
Sam took the pen back.
2. Ruining perfectly good lists.
He reached for the pen again. “No,” she said, “this isn’t your list anymore. It’s mine.”
“Fine with me.” He picked up his paperback and put his arm around her waist, tucking her into his side. She kept writing. He kept reading. An hour or so later, he walked her to her car. When he got back to his room, he found the notebook open on his pillow.
THINGS LINCOLN IS GOOD AT 1. School.
2. Ruining perfectly good lists.
3. Avoiding the issue.
4. Not worrying about things he REALLY should worry about.
5. Not worrying about things he really shouldn’t worry about.
6. Staying calm/Being calm/Calmness.
7. Turning the page with one hand.
8. Reading.
9. And writing.
10. Pretty much anything to do with WORDS.
11. And pretty much anything to do with NUMBERS.
12. Guessing what teachers want.
13. Guessing what I want.
14. SECOND BASE. (Ha.)
15. Laughing at my jokes.
16. Remembering jokes.
17. Remembering song lyrics.
18. Singing.
19. Unfreezing computers/Untangling necklaces.
20. Explaining confusing things/Giving good driving directions.
21. Driving in bad weather.
22. Reaching things.
23. Being helpful.
24. Being cute.
25. Making me feel cute.
26. Making me feel RAVISHING.
27. Ravishing.
28. Making me feel important.
29. And loved.
30. Listening to me when no one else can STAND to anymore.
31. Looking at me like he knows something I don’t.
32. Knowing things I don’t.
33. Being SMART.
34. Being SENSITIVE.
35. Being KIND.
36. Being GOOD.
The next morning, when she came to pick him up for school, Sam told Lincoln that she’d chosen a major for him. “American Studies,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“It’s kind of everything. Like everything that’s happened in America. And everything that is happening. And pop culture. It’s putting things together and making them make sense.”
“That sounds fascinating,” he said.
“Don’t be sarcastic,” she said.
“I’m not. That sounds fascinating. That sounds perfect.”
It was February, and Sam was wearing a puffy pink jacket and a white scarf around her neck. He tugged the scarf down to kiss her. “Perfect for me,” he said.
SAM’S FAMILY THREW her a going-away party that August, just a few days before she and Lincoln left together for California. Her parents bought fireworks and rented a karaoke machine. The party was still going strong when Lincoln fell asleep on a lawn chair around midnight. He wasn’t sure what time it was when Sam squeezed into the chair next to him. She smelled like the fifth of July, like sweat and spent bottle rockets.
“Did you say your good-byes?” he asked.
She nodded her head. “I said your good-byes, too. You kissed everybody full on the mouth. It was kind of embarrassing.”
“Show me.”
She kissed him quickly. She seemed strange, urgent and jittery. Wide-awake.
“Are you okay?” Lincoln asked.
“Umm …I think so, yeah. I don’t know. God, I don’t know what I am.”
She stood up from the lawn chair and walked across her parents’ deck, picking up dirty plastic cups, then setting them down again.
“I just feel …ready.”
“Ready for what?” Lincoln sat up and tried harder to follow what she was saying. The moon was thin, he couldn’t see her face.
“I’m ready for everything to change,” she said. She sat down on a picnic table and started fiddling with streamers. “I feel like it already has. Like, I thought I was going to be so sad saying good-bye to everybody. I thought I was going to cry and cry—and I didn’t. I didn’t feel like crying at all. I felt like singing. I felt, like, God, yes, good-bye! Not good riddance, just good-bye.
“I am so ready for new people,” she said, throwing the streamers into the air. “In two days, I’m going to be in a place where I can walk around without recognizing a single face. Every person will be brand-new. Just, like, fresh and full of potential. Nothing but potential. I won’t know any of their stories. Nobody will be on my last nerve.”
He walked over to the picnic table and sat next to her. “For thirty-six hours.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that you’re very in touch with your last nerve.”
She tilted her chin up. “Maybe that’s about to change. I’ll be brand-new, too. Maybe the new me will be patient.”