sam-macintosh

Oh my God, look!_ I stand and hold out my hand for Sam to inspect. __ow,_ he says, taking the glass and holding it up to the sun. __ed is, like, the rarest color there is. You__e totally lucky you even saw it._ I take the deep red, half-dollar-sized piece from him and smile, looking out across the ocean. I told Matt in my letter before we left that I__ find a piece just for him, but now that it__ actually here, sparkling in my hand, I know he__ want me to do something else with it. I raise it above my head and throw it as hard and as far as I can into the sea. Let someone else have a lucky day, Anna. Sam laughs. __ey, crazy, what__ you do that for? You__l probably never see something like that again in your entire life._ __ight. But I did see it. And now someone else can, too.

I follow the path we__e taken so many times this summer _ across the front, down the street, cut back through a neighbor__ yard, down the stairs to the beach, past the pier, through the campfire labyrinth, up to the deck of the Shack, and straight into Sam__ arms. Without speaking, he kisses me hard on the mouth and I kiss him back, sobbing and crumpling into his chest like a broken puppet.

So just over a year ago, there was this guy. I really liked him. I mean really _ since I was a kid._ __id Frankie know him?_ __he three of us were best friends. We basically grew up together._ __omplicated._ __ery. So anyway, last year on my birthday, he finally kissed me._ Sam stays quiet, focused on his feet taking off and landing against the sand. It feels strange to tell him about this for so many reasons, but the words are coming too fast for me to stop, even if I want to. __e started hanging out all the time _ even more than before. Every night. Only we didn__ know how to tell Frankie, because we didn__ want her to freak or feel left out or whatever._ __akes sense,_ Sam says. __e thought it would be better if he told her himself, so I promised him that I wouldn__ say anything. But before he could talk to her about it, he__ I almost choke on the word, holding my hand against Sam__ arm to stop our forward motion along the shore. __hat did he do?_ Sam asks. __e just _ he _ I__ sorry. Wait._ The words of this story have passed a thousand times from my hand to the pages of my journal, but never from my lips to the ears of another living soul. I take a few deep breaths before I__ able to meet Sam__ eyes and say it. __e died, Sam.