Samantha’s room was spacious, especially given the house it was inside of. A bookshelf covered half of the far wall, filled with colorful titles on topics of nature and fantasy. Next to the shelf hung a series of framed photos, some of which she’d taken herself: her parents with her two older siblings on a rafting trip; beams of smoky sunlight filtered through a canopy of trees; a nighttime photo of the nearby ridge, the white rocks illuminated in moonlight with the milky way hanging low in the sky. Her desk stood across from her bed, with a small number of hand-drawn sketches stacked neatly on one side, and a trophy from our school’s cross-country running team standing on the other. Four of Samantha’s favorite childhood stuffed toys had joined us on top of her bed – a bear, a mountain lion, a horse, and a wolf.
Samantha’s parents had adopted an open-door policy for these kinds of visits, all to make sure that a certain incident committed by her older sister never happened again. Bedroom doors remained open whenever two teenagers were inside. Stubborn Samantha compromised by closing her bedroom door halfway. It wasn't perfect, but it gave us extra privacy. And with a hall separating us from the living room, we didn’t have to worry about her dad’s frequent trips in and out of the garage.
Samantha was resting her head underneath my chin, and my right hand had found its way back to her hip. She was pressing her toy wolf against my chest, having playfully attacked me with it a moment before. I grabbed it, and enjoyed the feel of our fingers mingling together amidst its soft plush before pushing it into her face.
“Grrr!” I growled.
Samantha laughed. “He can keep you company on your trip to the moon,” she joked.
Unexpectedly, I felt a sharp burst of sadness. I’d be earning my degree a hundred miles away from her. We’d chosen different colleges, and in three short months, we’d have to go our separate ways. We hadn’t even started hanging out together until this year. School only let out three hours ago, and already this summer seemed too short.
Samantha started fidgeting with the wolf, and I realized I’d been quiet for too long. “Want to watch a show?” I suggested.
“Sure!” she agreed, enthusiastically. “Anything in particular?”
“Not really. Let’s look together.”
“All right.” She sat up, and stretched. “Uuugh. Give me a minute.”
She held my hand against her thigh for another moment before finally leaving the bed to retrieve her laptop. As she stood, I couldn’t help but notice her tan skin, revealed by the gap between her jeans and her scrunched, white top. The small of her back curved gently when she moved.
I was a fan of science fiction, and Samantha loved comedy. After a minor tug-of-war, we compromised with Lilo and Stitch, and for the next hour and a half we took turns laughing as the shape-shifting alien puppy rampaged through Hawaii. As the credits rolled, I heard a door close elsewhere in the house; scraps of conversation floated down the hall. Samantha closed her laptop quickly, and the two of us sat up, as if we hadn’t been cuddling on her bed for the last ninety minutes.
There were footsteps, and then Samantha's mom poked her head into the room, curly brown hair bouncing around her face. “Samantha! Hey. It’s after five. Time to get ready for dinner. Hi, Alex. Rob told me you were here.”
Samantha had her innocent look again. “Okay.”
“No rush, but soon. Your father wants to leave at six.”
Samantha groaned. Her innocence became exasperation. “He told me six-thirty.”
“You know how he is. He’s a planner. He loves to be early to everything.” A ray of afternoon sun made her brown eyes glint behind her bifocals. With a firm hand, she pushed the bedroom door as wide as it would go. “Oh, and Samantha... leave your door all the way open next time.”
“Mom, I’m eighteen!” Samantha buried her reddened face in the plush of her stuffed wolf.
“My house, my rules.” Her mom smiled at me sincerely. “I’m not mad at you. You’ve been a perfect gentleman. And you’re turning...?”
“Nineteen next week,” I answered.
“Nineteen is a good age. Take my advice: you should stay that young forever.” She looked at Samantha again. “Six!”
Once her mom was out of earshot, Samantha pulled her face out of her wolf. “Why does she have to embarrass me!”
“Moms just do.” It was all I could think to say. “She’s nice though. You have good parents.”
Samantha heaved a long, gusty breath. “Whatever”. Then she was smiling again. “Hey, do you want to join us for dinner? I’m sure my parents would be cool with it. They like you a lot.”
I felt cornered. “Oh, no thanks.” Then backtracked. “I mean, thanks very much for the offer. But my parents are expecting me back home soon, and I don’t want to crash your graduation. My mom’s making a nice meal for me, too. But let’s hang out again sometime soon?”
“Sure.” There was a hint of disappointment in her voice, but her smile remained.
We held our gaze for another moment, sitting together on the edge of her bed. Then Samantha stood and walked to her dresser. I got up too, several steps behind her. “Are you getting changed now? I can head home if you want me to.”
“Not yet.” Samantha opened her drawer, shuffling stockings, panties, and the like, before raising out a brown, wooden box. “This is for you. It’s your birthday present.”
She opened the lid. I saw a silver chain glittering inside. “I thought about giving it to you after I got back from camping, but I had a lot of fun today. Now seemed like a better time.”
“Samantha...” I started.
She offered the box to me. “Hold this.”
I did. The dark, stained wood was smooth beneath my fingers. Samantha lifted the chain out of the box and stepped behind me. I caught our reflection in the mirror next to her dresser as she looped the chain around my neck. The silver rings had a simple pattern: three small rings, then a longer one. Three small, one long. It was a repetitive pattern, but aesthetic. She bowed her head, concentrating as she fit the small clasp into its matching rung. In the reflection, her head nestled neatly into the crook between my shoulder and my neck.
With a small click, the latch was secure.
She rested her hands on my shoulders. “How do you like it?” she asked.
The silver rungs shone softly, catching the amber afternoon sunlight. “I... I love it.”
I wasn’t one for jewelry, and this was a new look. I was feeling a lot of things at once; it was actually hard to sort through them all. But it was undeniably beautiful.
“Where did you get it?” I asked. Then I reprimanded myself, immediately, for asking the dumbest out of all dumb questions.
“It’s actually, um...” she gave a small laugh, and then regained her posture. “I actually found it.”
I was startled, but not upset. “You found it?”
I turned away from the mirror to look at her directly. The window next to her bed made a frame around her, and stray rays of sun lit up strands of her hair around her shoulders. The hill’s downward slope was gentler on this side of her house, and in the distance, above the tangled trees, I could see jagged mountain peaks — clear of snow in the summer, but still shining white in the sun.
“I was exploring a few years ago, with friends,” Samantha said. “Up above the reservoir, where the ground starts to get rocky. We brought our backpacking gear, and we wanted to camp for the night where nobody would find us.
“We took a break next to a creek. Liz and Michelle sat down to rest, but I kept walking. Up the creek, against the flow. Even further up the mountain. Then I looked into the water, and I just... saw it, in between the rocks.”
She was holding the chain in her fingers. “I picked it up. It was clean, just like it is now. I brought it back to the girls, but it wasn’t theirs. We spent the next hour looking for the owner, but we couldn’t find anyone. Not even a campsite. And it’s not like there's a ranger station to leave it at. That's a pretty remote spot. So, I kept it.”
Our eyes met. “And now I’m giving it to you,” she said.
She tugged playfully on the chain, pulling my face closer to hers. My hand was resting on her hip again, and now my other hand reached for the small of her back. I nuzzled my forehead against hers, and she giggled.
Another footstep in the hall jolted us apart. The corridor was empty, but moments later we heard a voice. “Six o’clock, remember?”
“I remember!” Samantha shouted back.
“I’m keeping you too long,” I told her sheepishly.
She rolled her eyes. “Our reservation is for seven. We have time.”
Regardless, I slipped the wooden box into my pocket, and we started walking towards her front door. The chain’s silver rungs shifted lightly around my neck.
“Do you need a ride?” Samantha asked.
“It’s not a long walk. I can make it.”
The afternoon had cooled down a little, and we stood together on her front step.
“Let’s do something together when you get back from your trip,” I said. “I want to hang out with you more this summer.”
“How about camping?” Samantha proposed.
“Another camping trip?”
“Yeah. But just the two of us this time.”
I’d been camping, but never alone with a girl. And, this was Samantha.
“I’d like that a lot,” I said, after a pause.
“Me too.” We smiled at each other.
“How does mid-July sound to you?” I asked. “We can meet up a couple weeks beforehand, to plan.”
“It sounds great.”
Inside the house, somebody called Samantha’s name. She looked down at her phone: five forty-five. “Out of time,” she cursed.
We had a tight embrace. “I’ll text you when I’m back,” Samantha said, into my ear.
When we separated, we were still smiling.
“I’m looking forward to it”, I replied.
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