Heart Bones

Sara holds up her chocolate milk. “Beyah told me to stop obsessing about my weight and made me eat junk food.”

Marcos laughs and reaches down into the bag for a donut. “Beyah is right. You’re perfect.”

Samson is staring at me. He never smiles like Marcos. Marcos always seems to be smiling.

Sara pushes herself off the floor and helps me up. “Let’s go.”

SEVEN

We loaded everything into the trunk except the prepaid phone. I’ve been trying to figure out how to set it up, but it’s dark in the car and the instructions are hard to read. I don’t even know how to power on the phone.

I’m struggling with it when Samson says, “Want me to help?”

I glance over at him and he’s holding out his hand. I give him the package and he uses his own phone to light up the directions.

He’s still working on it when Marcos parks the car on the ferry. “Coming?” Sara asks, opening her door.

I point to the phone in Samson’s hands. “In a sec. He’s setting up my phone.”

Sara grins before she closes the door, like Samson setting up my phone is somehow going to lead to a summer fling. I hate that it’s a goal of hers. I really have no interest in someone who has such little interest in me.

Samson has to dial a number to finalize the setup, but it tells him there will be a two-minute hold time while the phone is activated.

Two minutes doesn’t seem that long, but it feels like I’m entering into eternity. I glance out my window, trying to ignore the quiet tension that’s filling the space between us.

It’s so incredibly uncomfortable, I find myself hoping he’ll say something after only ten seconds.

After twenty seconds, I start to feel nervous, so I blurt out the only thing I can think to say. “Why were you taking pictures of me on the ferry today?”

I glance at him and he’s leaning an elbow into the area where the car door and the window meet. He’s lightly dragging his fingers over his bottom lip, but he pulls them away when he sees me staring at him. He makes a fist and taps it against the window. “Because of how you were looking at the ocean.”

His answer wraps like a ribbon around my spine. “How was I looking at it?”

“Like it was the first time you’d ever seen it.”

I adjust myself in the seat, suddenly uncomfortable by how his words drape over me like silk.

“Have you looked at them yet?” he asks.

“Looked at what?”

“The pictures.”

I shake my head.

“Well. When you do, feel free to delete what you don’t want, but I’d really like the memory card back. There are pictures on there I’d like to have.”

I nod. “What else do you take pictures of? Besides girls on ferries?”

He smiles at that. “Nature, mostly. The ocean. Sunrises. Sunsets.”

I think about the sunset from earlier and how he might have gotten a picture of me with it. I’ll see if Sara has a computer I can borrow so I can look at everything on the memory card. I’m curious now. “The sunset was really pretty tonight.”

“Wait until you see the sunrise from your balcony.”

“Yeah, I’m not waking up that early,” I say with a laugh.

Samson looks down at my phone after the call notifies us setup is complete. “You want me to enter everyone’s numbers?” He’s opening up contacts on his phone to Sara’s name.

“Sure.”

He enters Sara’s number. Then Marcos’s. Then his own. He does a few more things to the phone, then eventually hands it over to me. “You need a tutorial?”

I shake my head. “A friend from back home had one like this. I can figure it out.”

“Where’s back home?”

It’s a simple question, but it sets my skin on fire. It’s a question you ask someone you want to get to know better.

I clear my throat. “Kentucky,” I say. “What about you?”

His eyes linger on me for a quiet moment. Then he looks away and grabs the door handle, as if opening up a conversation with me is something he immediately regrets. “I’m gonna get some fresh air,” he says, opening the door. He closes it and walks away from the car.

I should probably be offended by his strange reaction, but I’m not. I’m relieved. I want him to be just as disinterested in me as I am in him.

Or at least as disinterested as I’m trying to be in him.

I look down at my phone and add in Natalie’s number. She was one of the few friends I had back home and I’ve been wanting to talk to her since last night. I’m sure she heard through her mother that my mother passed away, and if so, she’s probably worried sick not knowing where I am. It’s been hard for us to keep in touch since she left for college because I don’t have a phone. That’s a contributing factor as to why I don’t have a lot of friends. It’s hard to keep in touch with anyone when you’re technologically out of the loop.