We opened the door to a raucous “Heeeeey!” from the throng of people, as if it was a family reunion before-party.
“Y’all here for Spring Break?” Some guy from the amidst the pool shouted.
“Yup,” Sam and I said in unison.
“Heeeeey!” The crowd shouted to us again, and Sam and I laughed and got in the pool. The water was nice, and the sun helped my body get used to it faster.

“Hey man, what’s up?” A tall toned teenager came up to us. “Name’s Clinton but, you know, everyone calls me Clint.” He spoke with a very slight drawl to his voice. We introduced ourselves and were then conjunctively introduced to Clint’s girlfriend, Emily, to her friend, Sietse (pronounced seet-see), to her friend Lucy, to her boyfriend, Chris, who promptly shouted, “Everyone! This is Sam and Tyler!”

“Heeeeey!”

They were all very nice and friendly, and welcomed Samantha and I to their little clique. We started out kind of sticking to ourselves in a corner of the pool, but Sam’s swimming instinct got the better of her and we began to make our way around the pool, talking to people who instantly started up conversations with us.

“Hey Clint, you know any good places to eat around here? All we were able to find was the Pizza hut down the street,” I asked after a brief swim to the middle of the pool.
“Yeah man! You know, I was born here in Seattle, I grew up just ten minutes away from here! I know this place like the back of my friggin’ hand man! This place has got some of the best people around! Ain’t that right?” He shouted out to the crowd, who responded with another “Heeeeey!” even though I’m pretty sure they never even heard the statement.

“So, uh, places to eat?” Samantha asked him, and he turned back around. “Huh? Oh yeah! You got a Subway down on Wilbur and Fifteenth, that’s like a ten-minute walk if you’re slow, the Hut you said, and a whole bunch of other fast-food places on Grand and Eighth. Now, that’s not very far either. Are you looking for more restaurant- type stuff or...?” He trailed off.
“No, no, thanks, you’ve been very helpful.” I let him get back to his friends.
“Oh, hey, we’ve got a bunch of fried chicken in the fridge,” Clint said before we had fully swam away. “Y’all help yourselves to that if you’re hungry!”
“Thanks man!” I said to him, and we went our separate ways.

It wasn’t long before some genius decided to break out the inflatable beach ball, and a rousing game of makeshift volleyball ensued. Without a net, it was really just a game of ‘hit the ball back and forth at each other,’ but it kept us busy and laughing all the same.
Sam particularly hit it off with the girl Sietse, chatting for a good ten minutes. She got the girl’s room number in case we wanted to hang out.

As we were stepping out of the pool, Sam wrapped a towel around herself and started to investigate around the side of the hotel, where more kids could be heard talking and laughing.
“No. Way.”
“What?” I walked over to her.
A hot tub sat not particularly far from the pool, but far enough that it was hidden behind the side wall of the hotel. A group of teenagers was sitting in it, splashing each other and laughing.
“Nice place,” I said, and the two of us dried off, heading back to our room.

We each changed again, and found out that is was already six o’clock.
“Goodness, I’m starving,” she said, and I completely agreed.
“Let’s try something,” I suggested, and picked up the phone on Sam’s bedside table. There was a small slip of paper tape to the receiver which read:

1- Concierge
2-Room Service
3- Anything else

I wondered for a moment what ‘Anything else’ meant, but I didn’t worry about it then because I had found what I was looking for. I dialed one.
“Concierge, Martha speaking.”
“Hi Martha,” I said. “We dropped our pizza off in your fridge yesterday, do you think anyone could come bring it to the room?” I looked at Sam, who looked back and mouthed, ‘Martha?’ with a concerned face. I added, “We’re awfully lazy.”
“Of course, sir. And what room are you in?”
“Uh... Samantha, what room are we in?”
“Two-one-seven,” she said while digging through her suitcase.
“Two-one-seven,” I echoed to Martha.
“Your pizza is on its way,” she said. Then, after a moment, “thirty minutes or it’s free.” I laughed and thanked her.

“Martha, huh? You two are on a first name basis already?” Sam asked me, pulling out a bottle of some polish out of her suitcase.
“Oh yeah,” I joked. “Taking her out to Olive Garden tonight.”
Samantha smiled and put her leg out straight on the bed. “Sounds romantic.” She began painting her toenails some shade of purple.

Very soon, there was a knock on the door. I answered, and a man stood with a Pizza Hut box in his hand.
“Oh, and I was hoping for Martha!” Sam complained from behind me.
“Your pizza,” he said, and handed it to me. He began to walk away, but I dug in my pocket and handed him a couple one dollar bills.
“Thank you, sir!” He seemed surprised.
When I reentered the room, Sam laughed. “You tipped him?”
“Yeah, you know. Delivery guy.”

We ate pizza in bed again, watching some Discovery Channel thing about whales. Neither of us really watched it, of course, like the previous night, but it was nice to have it on. She found a strange balance between taking a bite of pizza and doing another toenail brushstroke.
“Sorry I didn’t think to ask for it to be microwaved. I was just really hungry,” I said between bites.
“Nah, it’s fine. I’ve always had a thing for cold pizza anyways,” she said, knowing just how to make me feel like everything was perfectly fine (even if, to her, it really wasn’t).

We spent the rest of the evening talking about the pool party we had stumbled upon and how nice Sietse was and wasn’t Sietse a guy name anyway? I didn’t know anything about that, of course, so we idled by and finished the pizza.

“Alright, I’m having more of this wonderful shower,” she announced. “And don’t you go creeping on me again, perv,” she said with a smile. I put on my best offended face.
She headed into the bathroom once more. I quickly picked up the pajamas she had already laid out and cracked open the door. I threw the pajamas in after her, of course, and shut the door.
“Aww, you’re no fun!” I heard her say from inside.

“Oh my gosh, remember when we asked for our room to be cleaned?” Sam asked me after I heard the shower turn on.
“Uh yeah, why?”
“I’m pretty sure they refilled all the soaps, too!”
“Really?” This hotel was getting increasingly nicer.
“Yeah! Isn’t this place wonderful?”
I had to agree. After everything I had experienced that day, I realized that I really didn’t want to leave.

It wasn’t long before I began to hear lyrics emanating from the shower.

That’s not my name!
That’s not my... name!

I wondered if she knew I could hear her. She was a very good singer, honestly, something I had never known about her.
The song wrapped up and I clapped profusely. “Encore!” I shouted.
“Really?” She asked, not seeming the least bit embarrassed or shy.
“Yeah, go for it.”
She flowed right into a rendition of Regina Spektor’s “Us,” and I smiled.

When she left the bathroom, I followed suit, and brought my PJs in with me, like a normal human being. I got ready for the shower and turned the knob to start it.
“Be careful, I may have used up all our temporary hot water,” Samantha told me, but I still hadn’t stepped in.
“Yeah, I learned my lesson last time,” I replied and waited, testing that the water was not from the Arctic before stepping in.

About five minutes had passed (sans Ting Tings), and the steam from the hot water had fogged up the glass shower so much that I couldn’t see out of it anymore.
This fact worked in my favor at that moment, because the door to the bathroom suddenly opened. I shouted and backed up the the wall of the shower, but Samantha merely laughed and grabbed all my clothes, taking them out with her and closing the door again.
“Hey!” I objected. “What are you doing?” I rubbed a hole through the condensation, a makeshift window into the bathroom that seemed to be a world away. There was nothing besides a fairly small towel to cover myself.
I sighed loudly, hopefully enough to be heard. “Are you serious?”
I heard her burst out laughing in the other room.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

My shower came to an early end, as I was anxious to get my clothes returned. I wrapped the towel around my waist as tightly as I could and peeked my head out the door.
“Okay, this isn’t funny. Give me my pajamas,” I said, trying to muster up some actual courage in my voice.
“You’ll have to find them first,” she said, not even looking up from her book.
“Okay, that’s upside down,” I said, referencing the book she was pretending to be interested in.
“Nope,” she said.

I groaned and made my way out of the bathroom slowly. The air conditioned room contrasted harshly with the hot water I had escaped moments earlier, and goosebumps assaulted my body.
I checked the immediate room, and my pajamas were nowhere to be found, of course.
“Can I at least have my shorts?” I asked her, nearly pleading.
Silence met me, and I complained.

The first breakthrough came when I had nearly given up on the search and began to wonder how uncomfortable regular clothes would be.
The shirt was under the bed, of course, and I hesitated to pull it out at first, in risk of losing my towel. I did it, anyway, and the towel stayed on.
“Hey, would you mind turning on the fan for me?” Samantha asked after I had pulled my shirt on.
“Yeah, sure.” I messed with the wall switches until the fan finally began rotating.

It didn’t take long before my pants shot from the fan blade and hit the wall.
“Are you serious?” I said, and picked them up.
Samantha laughed for a good three minutes. “That worked... So perfectly..”
I changed and brushed my teeth for bed. It was only nine-thirty, but my body was tired from the pool. I slipped into bed and pulled the covers up to my neck.
As my body fully extended between the sheets, my foot touched Sam’s and she looked up at me. I looked back for a moment.
“Good night,” I said.
She looked back down quickly. “Good night.”

In a short period of time, my mind was in that weird half-asleep stage where it’s not really sure what’s going on. The room was dark, so I knew that Sam was probably also asleep.
I was thinking about this when I heard her shift beside me.
“Tyler?” She whispered.
Me eyes shot open. “Yeah?”
“I didn’t wake you up, did I?”
“No,” I lied.
“Okay, good.”
“What’s up?” I turned on my side to face her, and found that she had already done the same thing to me.

“I dunno. I can’t sleep.”
“Ah.”
“Excited for tomorrow?” She asked. “We might finally find her.”
“Yeah, definitely.” That idea brought back the thought of having to leave that glorious hotel.
Our feet found each other again under the sheets, but this time I kept it there. Sam did the same.

“Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t ever want to leave.”
Even in the dark, I could see her smile.
“I know,” she said. “Me neither.”

---

The next morning was probably the best surprise of my life.

Sam’s arm was wrapped around my torso, pulling her to me. I could feel her laying right behind me, and I didn’t dare move a single muscle in my body. At that point, I didn’t care what time it was. My body practically exuded happiness. My eyes closed again, and I let my mind drift.

When light hit my eyes again, I could hear the water falling off of Samantha in the shower. I checked the alarm clock- 10:15- and I pulled clothes on.
“Good thing you chose eleven for the meeting,” I said. “I think I would’ve missed it otherwise.”
“Nah, I wouldn’t have let you miss it,” she replied.
How did she know? I thought to myself.

It was 10:30 when we left the hotel that Sunday morning. We caught the bus and made it to the Grayson’s just in time to be greeted by Samantha’s favorite person, and checked in for the meeting.
“We’ll let you know when they call you in,” the secretary said.
“Sounds great,” I affirmed before Sam could say anything witty.

It was about a ten minute wait, and I was starting to get annoyed that we had hurried so much for something that we had to wait for anyway.
“The true spirit of traveling,” Samantha said when I told her.

Eventually, the secretary spoke to us.
“They’re ready to see you now,” he said. “Take the elevator to the third floor, Accounting, and it’s office number 303. If you can handle it,” I heard him mutter under his breath.
“What was that?” Sam stood up, but I stopped her.
“Have a nice day,” I said, and led her to the elevator.

“That guy irritates the crap out of me,” she said just seconds after the doors closed.
“Really? I couldn’t tell.”
“Yeah, shush,” she said, and we rode the elevator up to Accounting.

The Accounting floor was nicely put together, if only slightly less boring than the first floor. The walls were, to put it in Sam’s words, ‘beige-ier’ than we had seen, and the office numbers were embroidered in gold. The first office door out of the elevator was 321 for some reason, so we had to search down the hallways even more to figure out where it was we were supposed to be in the first place.

After s struggling minute, we found 303 and knocked.
“Please come in, unless you’d prefer to have our meeting through this door,” a woman said, and we stepped inside.

The office was cramped, but managed to feel welcoming. Pennants were stapled to the small walls in various places.
“Hope you’re not claustrophobic,” the woman said. Her desk took up almost half the room, with a few seats in front of it. “Please, take a seat.”
We did, and Mrs. Hurston introduced herself to us-we did the same, of course.

“So, I heard you’d be interested in reviewing your records?” She asked the both of us.
“Uh, yes, actually. One date in particular.” Sam spoke for us first.
“Right. Most people do. What year?”
“Um, 2002,” I said.
“Oof. That’s going to take some looking.” She got up. “We can only keep files up to ten years, but I don’t think it’s been cleaned out yet. The new interns are awful,” she added. We laughed politely.
“If you two will just wait right here, I’ll be back in a jiffy.” She left the office to us.
“Isn’t there someone she can call to do that for her?” I asked Samantha, who simply shrugged.
“I don’t know. How long do you think a ‘jiffy’ is?”
“Somewhere in between a ‘hurry’ and a ‘pip.’”
She smiled. “That’s quite a window.”

It turned out that at Grayson’s, a ‘jiffy’ meant much longer than either of those two things, because we were left waiting in the office for an incredibly boring twenty-five minutes.

When Mrs. Hurston returned, she heaved a pile of manila folders on her desk, each one stocked with multiple papers.
“This,” she said, “is 2002. Sorry about the wait, by the way. You know, interns.”
I didn’t know, really, but I carried on.
“Okay, so what month?”
“September. The twelfth, probably, or something very close to that date.” My mother was nothing if not punctual.

“Okay... September...” She rifled through the folders, speeding along. I could barely believe that she was even reading them.
“I have a September the fifth and a September the fifteenth,” she said.
“We’ll check the fifteenth,” I replied. “Fifth would have been too early.”
“What would the names have been that requested catering? For customer confidentiality, I can’t reveal the names listed if they don’t match up.”
“We’re actually looking for one of the names,” Sam said. “But they probably would’ve been Tyler and Carmela Sorrell, two r’s and two l’s, Karen Wood, and a Samantha Black?” She ended the sentence on a hopeful tone.
“No, sorry, nothing matches here,” Mrs. Hurston said.
Sam sighed. “Well, couldn’t you look it up on the computer or something?” She gestured to the desktop computer on Mrs. Hurston’s desk. e
“No, unless you planned a party more recently. We only started using the computers to file clients in 2007.” We both sighed.

By the time we left Grayson’s that day, it was already noon.
“Well,” I began, “we’ve still got two more to go to. And hey, it’s only Sunday!”
Sam seemed upset. I knew how much danger she was in of being let down by the whole trip, so I tried to cheer her up.
“What do you want to do today? We’ve got plenty of time ahead of us.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Nothing, really.”
“Oh, come on. This is Spring Break!” We were walking back to the hotel already. “Let’s do something. “No, let’s get lunch, then do something.” She liked that idea, so we decided on Subway.

There were no leftovers to save from the subs, unfortunately, but they were good so we didn’t have any regrets.
“I got it!” I exclaimed on the walk from Subway. “Let’s go to the movies!” At the moment, I couldn’t think of any particular movie that was out, but I didn’t really care.
“The movies? Do you know a movie theater around here?” She asked me, her interest piqued.

So we asked the concierge, (‘Martha?’) about any potential movie theaters and, sure enough, there was one a few blocks further into Seattle. Turned out fate didn’t completely hate us that day.

We managed to dreadfully walk our way down to the Regal Meridian, where we bought two 1:30 tickets for some movie that we knew would be bad but decided to go to anyway.
Sam and I were allowed in the theater itself at 1:15, where we were totally alone.

“Whoa,” Sam said. “There better be more people coming in to see this movie. I am going to be so annoying if we are the only two people in here.”
I had never been the only one in a movie theater, so I kind of hoped she was wrong about that one.

After fifteen minutes of waiting, it turned out that Sam was, in fact, wrong, and the two of us were ecstatic. The film began, and we were immediately cracking jokes.
“What?” Sam shouted at the screen, like it could hear her. She turned to me. “Did you hear that? That’s the worst writing I’ve ever heard.” I laughed with her, and we had an excellent time for an hour and forty-five minutes, until the movie was over too soon.

“Man, that was awful,” she said, and I agreed.
“Yeah. I think they should’ve hired you to watch the screening, give them some tips.”
She snorted. “My tip would’ve been for them to abort the movie entirely.”
“You know, I think I have to agree with you there.”

By the time we finally made it back to the hotel and then room two-one-seven, our feet were aching and we practically flopped down on the bed out of exhaustion.
“Hey, at least they made up the room for us,” Sam commented.
“Oh. So they did.” I had been so dead-set on getting my feet off the ground that I hadn’t even noticed.

We turned on the tiny t.v. at the end of the bed and decided to actually watch it this time, in lieu of reading because our eyes simply couldn’t handle it. we flicked through the very limited amount of channels until we found something entertaining.
Sam stumbled upon a show, ‘My Psychic Eye,’ about some guy who had managed to convince everyone in the audience that he had actually acquired psychic powers and anyone who wished to come up on the stage and ask him a question was free to do so.
It all looked incredibly fake- or, at the very least, scripted. However, while Sam and I were laughing at it, the host suddenly looked toward the camera.

“Now’s the time, ladies and gentlemen at home captivated by your television, to get your very own question answered on ‘My Psychic Eye.’ Just call the flashing number on your screen-” the number popped up, flashing glittery purple.
“We’ll be right back after this commercial break to answer some of your questions, America!” The host was totally full of himself, and I began to wonder if he actually thought that he might have some kind of power.

“Hey, Tyler?” Sam asked me.
“Yup?”
“Do you think they, um, accept just any old call to that show?”
I had an idea of what she was thinking. “Well, no, I don’t know. It’s probably scripted, whatever the caller says. Oh no. No, no, no...” Sure enough, she was digging through her pocket and pulled out her cell phone, punching the numbers in quickly. She looked like she was about to burst out laughing.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” I said. “You’re probably not even going to get through-”
Samantha’s face lit up, and she pointed to her cell phone excitedly.
“Well, put it on speaker!” I said, patting the bed. She did, and I could hear a nasally woman with a very apparent New York accent on the other line.
“-understand that Rick Clarke, PBS, and its affiliates are not responsible for any damages done by the caller for anything related to ‘My Psychic Eye’ and that Rick Clarke’s predictions may not be entirely, if at all, correct?” Her gum popped loudly over the phone.
“Absolutely,” Samantha said, and I was laughing already. “Just wait,” she whispered to me.
“Please hold.”

The commercial break was over, and Rick took center stage.
“Alright, looks like we’ve got our first caller! I could hear him over the phone first, of course, so there was about a one-second delay. “Wait, Caller Number One, I’m getting something from you- an ‘A...’ Amy, Angela?”
“Yes!” Sam shouted into the cell phone. “That was my great-great-grandma’s name!” I dipped an eyebrow at her, and she shook her head.
“Ah, of course,” Clarke said, pacing on the stage. “And is she... Close to you?”
“Yes!” Sam shouted again. “She passed away thirteen years ago!” Sam was so energetic about it, I had to laugh into a pillow on the bed to avoid being heard over the line.
“Right, right... And you can still feel her spirit with you today, correct?” Clarke sounded completely genuine.
“Absolutely! You know, I haven’t told anyone about this, Rick,” she said as she leaned in closer to the phone, “but I think she made me breakfast the other day.”
I lost it.
“And breakfast was an important part your life with her, correct?”
Sam gasped far too loud. “Yes! That’s what she always said, she said, ‘Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!’ She said that! But how did you know she said that?” I had no idea how Sam was keeping it together.
Rick looked so smug it was unbelievable. “I’m a psychic, of course!”
Sam moved away from the phone little bit, her finger on the ‘End’ button.
“YOU’RE REALLY PSYCHIC OH MY GO-” she yelled, cutting herself off mid-sentence and sounding hilarious on t.v. The audience looked stunned.

We laughed about that for half an hour.
“If you’re not the number one-most viewed YouTube video in a week, then there’s something wrong with society,” I told her in between fits of laughter.

For dinner that night, the two of us had an assortment of snacks that Sam had, thankfully, brought with her. Neither of us was very hungry, so we didn’t eat very much.
“I think I’m going to shower first tonight,” I announced after ‘dinner,’ proud of myself for finally thinking ahead.
“Um, actually, no,” Samantha said. I almost bolted to the bathroom to save my spot when she continued. “Well, sure, but later. I have an idea. Okay, here,” she said to my confusion, “you go in the bathroom, change into your stupid basketball shorts or whatever, meet me out back in five minutes.”
She shoved me inside after I had cautiously grabbed my shorts and closed the door.
I didn’t know what she was planning, but I knew it couldn’t be good.

I changed quickly. “Are you still out there changing?” I asked. There was no reply, so I took a deep breath and opened the door. She was nowhere to be found, but I decided to wait the full five minutes before leaving. While I was waiting, I had plenty of time to hypothesize what was possibly in store for me.
Why would she want to go swimming? I checked the window and it was dark outside, that meant coldness. That water would be really cold. While I knew Sam wouldn’t have a problem swimming in this temperature (heck, I bet she would be fine in fifty degree water), I certainly wouldn’t be.

As I left the room, I remembered something I hadn’t thought of until then.
The window!
I checked the third-floor window to see if I could make her out in the darkness, but I couldn’t. Oh, well.

I prepared myself to get thrown in an ice-cold pool and made my way downstairs.

Sam had not turned any lights on outside from what I could tell, so I was more than a little hesitant to open the sliding glass door. But it was unlocked, which meant that someone was probably out there. I slowly slid the door open and slipped out.
The cold Seattle air of nighttime attacked my nerves, and my bare torso left me feeling strangely naked in the backyard. My eyes were still essentially useless as I entered what appeared to be a black void, but after a few moments they readjusted.

There was nobody in the pool as far as my eyes could tell me, so that did not spell good things for whatever was about to come.
She’s always more dangerous when you can’t see her, I thought.
I checked my back, nobody was behind me.
I was stumped, so I played the part of the hapless murder victims in nearly every horror movie.

“Hello?” I asked the darkness, and I guess it didn’t deem me fit of a response. I looked around again for a moment, before realizing that there was a very, very dim glow emanating from the corner of the hotel.
This is either a distraction to kill me from behind, or something even more horrible than I’ve thought of.
“Psst,” a familiar voice called from the the glowing side of the hotel.
Even though I had a thousand and one reasons to not trust her, I did (like always).

When I rounded that corner, something caught me completely off guard. No, it wasn’t a serial killer or a psychopath.
It was Samantha, of course, but in the hot tub.
“Oh,” I said. Oh.
“Look who decided to show up,” she said, which would’ve been the perfect thing to say if someone else were there to make fun of me for not figuring this out earlier, but there wasn’t so the effect was lost on me.
“Yeah, well, you didn’t exactly make it obvious,” I said.
It was then that I noticed what had attracted my attention to the hot tub fiasco in the first place- three candles in jars were located on the sides of the hot tub, almost precariously but not quite crossing that line.
“Surprised you didn’t set something on fire,” I said, still taking the whole scene in.
“Wow, way to kill the mood,” she said with a laugh. “What are you waiting for? This thing isn’t very fun without the jets.”
“That’s all you had to say,” I said, and awkwardly vaulted over the side of the hot tub, hot water climbing to my neck before I found the seat.
“Finally.” She stuck an arm out and pressed a button on the control panel.

Flumes of hot water barraged my body, poking at me in a comfortable way that made me relax (but also made me want to sweat a little).
“Ooh. That is nice,” Sam said.
“Where’d you find the candles, anyway?” I asked her.
“That’s the first question you ask? Well, anyway, I saw them out here on the table earlier. You didn’t notice them?”
I had to admit that I hadn’t.
“Well, anyway, I did find them. Figured I could surprise you.”
“Yeah, you certainly did. Was there a reason for this or...?”
“Well, it’s our last night here. Figured we could enjoy it.”
Last night.
The words were sobering again, but this time I didn’t mind them as much.
“Hey, we’re still in the opening act of our vacation,” I reminded her. “We still have plenty of time ahead of us. While this place is amazing, I think the next one will be even better.”
Samantha smiled, and I knew I had successfully cheered her up. Her foot met mine under the bubbles, and I smiled back.
“Oh remind me to say good-bye to Sietse tomorrow,” Sam told me. “She seemed really nice yesterday, and we never paid her a visit.”
“Yeah, she did... She seemed kind of lonely, too.”
“I don’t think she came here with anybody. Somebody probably told her about that stupid party all those guys were throwing, and she just came along, expecting to have fun.”
I looked at her. “Call me crazy, but I think you might be over-thinking this maybe... Just a little?”
She scoffed. “Crazy. But yeah, you’re probably right.”
Her hair clung to the sides of her face, but she managed to control it enough so that it never really got in front of her. Sam’s face was illuminated by the candle next to her, and it cast flickering shadows across her side of the hot tub.

Beautiful.

The words popped into my head from some dark, unmonitored corner of my brain, and I nearly said them out loud.

“I’m sorry we didn’t find her today,” Sam said. “The girl in the picture.”
“Oh, it’s okay. I don’t think I’d know what to do if we had, anyway.”
She laughed. “I was thinking today. She could literally be any girl that we pass on the street. I mean, she could’ve been working at the Meridian today, just out of sight from us. That kind of thing frustrates me.”
“Well, we can’t just jump at those kinds of conclusions. Sure, she could’ve been, yeah, and that sucks. It really does. But what can we do?”
She was quiet.
“Right. Hey, we’ll find her. I promise.” She suddenly wore a sad smile, and her sapphire eyes showed the wisdom of someone much older than she was.

“I know,” she said. “I don’t even know why it means so much to me in the first place. I just feel like... Drawn to her or something. I don’t know. All these words, and I don’t think I can explain it.”
“Hey, I feel exactly the same way,” I replied.

The rest of the magnificent hot tub endeavor was spent playing with each other’s feet and talking about much more cheerful things, like Sam’s books or the ridiculous party-goers we had stumbled upon yesterday.

When our skin could collectively take no more, we decided to call it a night. Sam and I toweled off on the pool deck until we thought we were dry enough to walk on the hotel’s marble floors without slipping and looking like idiots.

Room two-one-seven practically shouted our names, and we hurried up to it. I was freezing from the air conditioning, and assumed that Sam was the same way. I hadn’t locked the door behind me when I left, so we burst inside.
“Oh my gosh. I am SO cold,” I said. “Remember when I called dibs on the shower?”
“Yeah, yeah!” She ran to the comfort of the bed and huddled under the sheets.

The marvelous shower took no time in warming up my body.
After an unknown amount of time, however, I decided that I’d have to get out sooner or later...
I sighed, washed up, and dried off.
In the race to the bathroom, of course, I had forgotten about my pajamas, so I was to be forced into using a towel for the time being. It wasn’t much bet hey, anything helped against the frigid air.
I prepared myself for the harsh air conditioning and opened the door.

But what met me was not wintry air. It was Samantha, standing at the door, still not having changed out of her bikini. I couldn’t imagine how cold she was, and I hoped I hadn’t held up the shower for too long.
“Sam! What-”
Before I could continue, she wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me.

My brain couldn’t handle what was going on for a moment. Steam from the shower was rushing out behind me and around us.

Eventually, however, I started to figure it out- I put my arms around her and met her lips with mine.
Her skin was soft and surprisingly warm to the touch. Her flat stomach pressed up against me, and I knew that in that moment, I was in heaven.

We, unfortunately, had to pull away from each other all too soon.
“Hey,” I breathed.
“Hey.” She seemed as bewildered as I was.
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
We were silent for a few seconds.
“Anyways, I should probably, um... Get to the shower, I guess...” We did a really awkward turnaround thing and she entered the bathroom, but not without grabbing her PJs and flashing a smile to me first.
I took a deep breath and began the then-difficult task of finding some suitable pajamas to wear.

I didn’t bother with the television while I was waiting for Samantha, I knew I wouldn’t watch it anyway. My brain felt like exploding and celebrating and jumping and a whole bunch of other verbs, and I had to lie down to control all of them.
She kissed me.
I couldn’t help but repeat this to myself.

I finally heard the shower turn off and, after a few minutes, the doorknob began to turn.
“No surprises out here this time,” I told her.
“Aww,” she pouted, and stepped out, heading to bed already.
“Man, I love that shower,” she said, and dug under the covers.
“Yeah, I know what you mean. I wish my shower at home was like that.”
It was getting late, and I knew that we would have to go to bed soon.
Samantha sighed. “Are you excited for tomorrow?” I assumed she was talking about the hotel.
“Yeah, of course. Not the bus rides though. That’s gonna suck.”
“Hey, you’re lucky. You didn’t even have to wait through the last one.”
“True,” I said. “Maybe you’ll share my luck tomorrow.”
“Yeah, let’s hope so...”
We small talked for a while before deciding that we were too tired to continue. Both of us leaned over to turn out our lights, and my eyes were lost in darkness.
I could hear Sam turn over on her side.
“Hey,” I called, and she turned back to face me.
The second I saw her face reappear, I leaned over and kissed her again. We were so close to each other under the sheets, our bodies just nearly touching. Hoping the kiss wasn’t too long or too short, I pulled away.
“Good night,” we both said. And I knew it would be, just because of that.

One of us woke the other up the next morning, although I don’t know which one. Either way, neither of us were ready to awake, and the bold light streamed in through the window, nearly blinding me. I let out some inhuman guttural sound.
“Exactly,” Sam said. She got up, gathered her clothes, and went off into the bathroom. I groaned and my head fell back against the pillow, the tiny pang of comfort enough to send my brain spiraling into dreamland again.
“Oi.” I felt something being thrown my face and my eyes shot open. “We’ve got to go soon if you don’t want to wait an extra forty-five minutes for the next bus.” I thought that Sam had just gone in the shower!
“‘Oi?’ Who says ‘oi?’” I asked her, and stepped out of bed slowly.
“Someone who’s got to leave soon,” she replied, zipping up her suitcase. “Now come on. You don’t have time for a shower.”
“Ugh, really?”
“Yeah, you can take one at the next hotel or something, I don’t care. Get changed!” She turned around.
“Yeah, yeah.” I changed right then, on the spot, and cleaned up my suitcase as best I could.
Sorry Mom, I thought after mindlessly throwing the clothes that she had so gracefully packed back in the suitcase.

We managed to leave the room in a couple minutes somehow, fairly certain that we had retrieved everything from the room.
As we left the building and bid a (fond) farewell to ‘Martha?’ and the rest of the concierge, turning in our room key, I thought of something that I wasn’t sure if we had time for.
“Sam,” I stopped her. “Sietse!”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, crap.” She handed me her suitcase. “Be right back.” She hurried off upstairs. I sighed, knowing that I probably shouldn’t have told her.

When Sam came rushing back a few moments later, we dashed out the doors to the hotel and made our way to the bus stop.
“Oh, thank God we didn’t miss it,” she said, somehow not out of breath as the bus came barreling down the street to our stop.
“Yeah, well, get ready for an hour and a half of waiting,” I remarked, and we stepped on the bus.

The situation was even more dire than I had expected. The seats were nearly all full, so after a short argument with Sam, I made her sit down and I stood up, hugging the rail next to her.
“This is not going to be fun,” I said.

Lo and behold, it wasn’t. The first route took even longer than we had expected, and then when we finally got to stretch our legs and walk to the next bus stop, we had to wait an extra half hour than we thought.
All in all, it was a day full of waiting.
Our final destination was to the far northeast relative to Seattle, and it felt even farther after the continued waiting. I hoped that the hotel would be worth it, and recalled Sam’s plan- “The next hotel should be nicer...” I wasn’t really sure how to get any nicer than what we had already experienced.

When our last bus route finally arrived at the stop outside of the hotel, I nearly collapsed out of the bus. My legs felt like they were made of jelly, and not the god kind either. My suitcase made a loud clatter as it hit the pavement, and I groaned.
“Alright,” Samantha said. “Let’s check in then find somewhere to eat because I think my stomach is starting to eat itself.”

The new hotel lobby was marvelous. It’s ceiling was amazingly high, and a glass chandelier hung draped over us like an ornate curtain.
There was a short line for the concierge, something that surprised me.
It is Spring Break, I reminded myself.
When it was our turn, Samantha ordered another one-bed room and got the key.
“You’ll be on the fourth floor,” the woman said, and shooed away playfully.
“Fourth floor. Impressive,” I said.
“Yeah, well. Remind me to check if they have a pool later.” We stepped in the elevator and began our ascent.
I laughed. “This place is so nice, we probably have our own pool in our room.”
Her eyes widened. “Hey, don’t get my hopes up.”

The fourth floor was fairly simple to figure out. It went by number, left to right, so our 419 was pretty easy to find. After a right turn, it was a few doors down the hall.

When we opened the door, there was no swimming pool- put pretty much just as awesome.
There were three separate rooms to the entire room- the living room, which you walked through when you enter, the bedroom to your right, and the bathroom to the left.
The living room managed to feel modern and vintage at the same time. A large sofa and a love seat on either side, and a large plasma t.v. in front of it all. In between the living room and the bathroom, in plain view straight ahead of the door, was a gigantic bath outfitted with jets and a million soaps.
“Holy crap,” I said. “This is more of an apartment.”
We set our stuff down in the bedroom, which was slightly smaller than the living room but still magnificent. The bed was enormous and easily a king size. There were no other appliances in the bedroom sans dresser, but the bed made up or it plenty.
“Alright, we’ll explore the bathroom later, I think. Give us something to wait for.” Samantha was already out the door. “For now, it’s two- thirty and I am starving.”

The hotel was practically in the center of a shopping center. There was an abundance of fast-food stops and even some fancy restaurants all around us, so we had no problem finding a place to eat.
We settled for a Burger King- a place which, under normal circumstances, I would’ve hesitated to eat at. However, I was practically ravenous so I didn’t care.
After a couple cheap burgers, Sam and I were full enough to return for some continued urban exploration.

“Ugh,” Sam said. “That was disgustingly good.”
The elevator dropped us off on our floor, and we made our way back to 419. I headed straight for the bathroom, excited to see what else the fantastic hotel had in store for us.
And it didn’t disappoint- since the bath was already outside of the bathroom, that freed up room for the shower. So that meant that the shower could take up as much room as it wanted, which it did. The glass-encased walk-in shower took up nearly three-quarters of the bathroom, besides the toilet and sink. I stepped inside, still in awe. The cold tile surprised my feet, and it made me look down.
The stone tile pattern was pleasing to the eye (somehow), and revealed that on all the walls of the shower, there were even more jets, each with an activation button. They scaled the walls, both horizontally and vertically. Then I looked even further up, to the faucet- and found that there were two faucets, both on opposite sides of the shower.
I began to laugh uncontrollably.
Sam walked in and found me, taking a second to fully appreciate the gravity of the situation.

“Oh my gosh,” she said, also laughing now. “Why- on Earth- would you ever need two faucets? Or all these jets?”
“I don’t know, and I also don’t care,” I said. “What matters is that they have it.”

We got unpacked soon after and put everything in the wooden dresser, like we had done with the previous hotel.
“Have you seen the bath?” She exclaimed moments after, and dashed over to it. “Oh, I’m going to have fun with this,” she said, eyeing it. “Hope you’re not squeamish,” she added with a wink.
I thought about this for a second, but decided to worry about it later.

Once we had finally settled in later, Sam and I unwound and plopped down on the sofa to numb our minds with television.
Exploring the channels proved good enough entertainment for ten minutes, and we ultimately decided on some ‘90s thriller that was halfway done.
It wasn’t long before Samantha felt the urge to stretch out on the sofa. She laid down, her head on my lap, and after a moment her breathing became very meticulous and calculated. I was fairly sure she was asleep.
What a position to leave me in, I thought.

Samantha remained like that for a while, and I think I even began to absentmindedly play with her hair again. It was peaceful, and calmed me until my eyes, as well, began to think... About... Closing...

Something triggered me to wake up, and my eyes shot open. Samantha was still on the sofa, but she had moved. She was next to me now, her head leaning on my shoulder and her feet extended on the ottoman in front of us.
Really?
I got up and gently placed her head down on the pillow at the end of the sofa, her body now in a slightly awkward position but hey, she was still asleep. I checked my phone, which read a blaring 5:30.
Ugh. How had we slept that long? Either way, there would be trouble waiting or us when we decided to finally actually go to sleep tonight.
I decided to leave and explore the marvelous hotel. On my way out, I flipped the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign so nobody would wake Sam up.

I checked my phone again, perhaps out of a force of habit when I was away from Sam, but it reminded me of something- Mom.
I promised myself to call her that evening, and began exploring the fourth floor.
After a little bit of wandering around aimlessly, I stumbled upon a sort of lobby in the middle of the floor- complete with a t.v., multiple love seats, and even a couple beanbag chairs to boot.

Of course, I collapsed into a beanbag chair like any good teenager would do. The electric light from my phone filled up my vision as I began to dial my home number. It was six o’clock, she would be home, but it was just a matter of whether she would pick up-
She answered after the first ring had gone halfway through.
There was no greeting, although I knew she was there.
“Hey, Mom. It’s me.”
I could hear the silence. Not surprising.
“So, Sam and I just checked into our second hotel. It’s really nice here, Mom. I still haven’t finished exploring the whole thing, but I’m going to tonight. Oh, you should see our room, too! The bath and showers are gigantic.”
“Have you found her?” She asked, and I knew she was smiling.
Just hearing her voice again gave my brain the echo of tearing up. “Huh? Oh. No, Mom, not yet, but we’re going to. We still have a ways to go.”
“Hmm.”
“You’re sure you don’t remember her? Who she was?”
Nothing, of course.
“Okay. Well, listen Mom, take it easy. I’ll call again soon.”
“Promise?” She almost sounded like a child, but more pleading.
“Yeah Mom. I promise.”
She ended the call, and one tear found its way down my cheek.
You knew this would be hard on her. I mean, you should be lucky she’s taking it this well.
I argued with myself for a couple minutes to no clear end when my pocket had a seizure. My hand instinctively reached for my phone, and Sam’s I.D. filled the screen.

Samantha: Where’ve you gone to now?

Tyler: You’ve got to find me.

Samantha: Ugh. Any hints?

Tyler: Nah. Wanna explore this place with me?

Samantha: You know it. I assume you’ll be back soon?

Tyler: Naturally.

I stopped by the room and Sam was already there, waiting. She tossed me the room key (because for some reason I’m more responsible with them...?) and we were on our way.
We toured the fourth floor first, which included showing Samantha the mid-floor lobby and explaining how I had just recently called my mom.
“You’ve been busy,” she joked.

There wasn’t much else to the floor, just more rooms.
“Ooh!” Sam said as we neared the elevator. “Can we see if they’ve got pool? Pleeeeeeease?”
I laughed. “Yeah, of course. That’s half the reason I did this, anyway.”
We descended to the first floor and passed the main lobby. Immediately, there was a sign-

Indoor Pool →
Backyard/ Lounge ↑

“Oh ho ho,” Sam laughed, absolutely giddy. “I’m starting to like this place.”
“Well, if you’re only starting now, allow me to show you the bath.”
“So, indoor first?” She continued, and, without giving me time to answer, made an immediate right turn.
“Well, yes, I suppose.”
The pool was fairly large, and only one family and a couple lone swimmers could be seen enjoying it. Sam and I stuck our feet in, halfheartedly splashing each other.
“This is nice,” she said. “Oh! Look over there!” She pointed to the corner of the room. Encased in glass was, to my surprise, another hot tub, steaming up the room.
“Fine, but no surprises this time. Got it?” I told her, not caring at all whether she listened.
“Yeah, whatever.” Then, after a second, “Killjoy.”
Sam was the one to call off any continued exploration for that night, claiming that ‘the bath is calling’ her. I couldn’t blame her, but I also couldn’t help but wonder how on Earth this bathing situation was going to work.

Neither of us was particularly hungry that evening (certainly not enough for a full dinner), so we opted for a few snacks that Sam generously offered to share with me.
Time passed quickly, and I decided on getting a taste of the shower.
“Have fun,” Sam told me as I headed in.
“Yeah, you too,” I said and bath water roared behind me.

The shower shelves were outfitted with multiple soaps and shampoos, like the previous hotel, so I clambered in and figured out how to turn the first faucet on.
The water was immediately warm and inviting, and I reveled in it alone for a couple minutes. Soon after, I turned the second faucet on, and the water was now a cascade around me. I turned around a couple times, wondering why every person ever did not have this equipped in their homes.
The ensuing jets were even more wonderful.
“This is epic,” I said loud enough for Samantha to hear me.
“You should see this thing!” She replied, and I heard the water turn off in the other room.

The end of the shower came to an unfortunate end too quickly, and I toweled off using one of the luxurious towels provided.
I noticed I was nearing the end of my pajama supply. “I think we may have to make a visit to a washing machine somewhere,” I said, and Samantha agreed.

When I exited the steaming bathroom, a mound of bubbles was caught out of the corner of my eye in the bathtub that Samantha was occupying.
“You could at least give a guy some warning!” I said after instinctively covering up my eyes.
“Oh, hush,” she said. “I’ve got enough bubbles to last for hours.”
“Better not take that long. It’s getting late.”
“Thanks Mom.”
I stuck my tongue out at her and hopped up into the enveloping bed.

The design on the ceiling slowly became mesmerizing to me as my earphones droned out the hum of Sam’s jets. Before I knew it, my brain was shutting itself off and my eyes closed once more.

“-and anyway, it’s like the best thing in the world. Oops, you were asleep. And I woke you up. Sorry about that.” The bed leaned Sam’s way slightly as she climbed in and burrowed under the covers.
“Nah, it’s okay. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep anyway.”
She scoffed. “Leave it to you to apologize for sleeping.”
“Yeah, well. How’d the bath turn out?”
“Amazing. Fantastic. Pick any synonym you want. You know, I guess you sleeping explains why you didn’t freak out when I got out of the bath.”
“I generally try to not ‘freak out’ when I sleep.”
“What are you listening to?” She yanked an earphone out and plugged it in her own ear before I could stop her. Imogen Heap’s Between Sheets was softly playing.
“Huh. Imagine that,” she said, and gave me the earphone. I put them away.
“What are you wearing, anyway?” I had noticed the unfamiliar t-shirt on her as she stepped into bed.
“Uh. A t-shirt? What, are you going to call the fashion police?”
“What? No, it’s just not a pajama shirt, right?”
“Oh. Yeah, I have reason to believe the suitcase ate my pajamas.”
Her previous words sunk in. “Wait, just a t-shirt?” I said, aghast.
“Yeah. It’s hot in here, anyway. I don’t know how you can manage wearing all that.”
“Well, I’m not going to go to bed half-naked! And the wrong half!”
“Hope you’re not squeamish,” she said again with a wink.
I sighed and scooted slightly away from her.

“So,” she continued, “the game plan for tomorrow.”
“Right.”
“Let’s get over to the Grayson’s and make an appointment. I mean, unless it’s somehow magically different than the other one, that’s probably what we’re going to have to do.”
“Okay, so what do you want to do for the rest of the day?”
“Oh! Okay, so this is one thing I’m actually ready to answer. So there’s this art museum kind of nearby.”
“Kind of?”
“Yeah, yeah. We’ll worry about distances never. But I’ve always wanted my dad to take me there, and, of course, he never did.”
“Not even when you were a kid?”
“Nope.”
“Wow. Well, this isn’t acceptable! We have to go then.”
“Yay!” She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “I’d hug you, too, if I wasn’t worried you’d roll off the bed in defense.”
“It’s the thought that counts. Anyway, you know where it is?”
“Yeah, of course. I’ve pretty much memorized it and the exhibits inside when I was a kid.”
“You wanted to go there that bad?”
“Yup. Don’t laugh.”
“No, I was going to ask why you didn’t tell me sooner!”
She laughed. “Well, I appreciate the gesture, but it’s much too far to go from home in one trip.”
“Yeah, maybe.”

I could soon feel my eyes growing heavy again. “I think might fall asleep on you again.”
“Jeez, am I that boring?” She said, playfully offended.
“Apparently.”
“Hey!” She punched my shoulder, and we both laughed.
“Well, good night, then, I guess,” she said. “Oh, and you’re taking me to that pool tomorrow. Don’t forget.”
“Hot tub as well?”
“Eh. We’ll see.”
“Alright then. See you tomorrow. Don’t stay up too late.”
“Night.”
I love-
But I was already asleep.

Sam and I woke up the same time the next morning, for once. She bounded out of bed as if hopped up on caffeine.
“Oh, good, you’re up.” She gathered clothes from her suitcase. “I wasn’t anticipating waiting.”
I tried to be heard through the pillow, “patience is a virtue.”
“Not if I can help it,” she retorted, and shut the bathroom door behind her.

Throughout her childhood, Sam had drawn up so many plans to visit the art museum that she had essentially memorized its location, size, and probably a bunch of other facts about it. This compounded my confusion in the fact that her father never took her.
We decided to walk there, as it wasn’t too humid and Samantha was apparently intent on creating as much excitement as possible.
“Besides, it’s not that far,” she had said, and I’m sure would’ve given me the distance to it in inches if I had asked.

It became clear within the first ten minutes that walking may not have been the best choice. Samantha’s excitement was only comparable to a small child on their way to Disneyland for the first time multiplied by about eleven.

Two and a half miles and eighty museum facts later, we had arrived. It was a fairly remarkable building- angles stretched and sides cornered in a way that fit the place impeccably.
What’d you expect from an art museum? I asked myself and we entered without a beat. I didn’t know how Sam could contain herself after the walk.

The two of us gasped as we entered. I had never seen a place so richly colored and perfectly designed- the building itself was a work of art! Classical music played along in the background of the museum, perfectly complementing the tone of the museum. I wondered, not for the last time, why I had never been here before.

Signs were strung up from the ceiling, advertising various exhibits that neither of us could choose from. Admission to the museum itself was free, so we walked in. I had a hard time keeping up with Sam as she made her way to the first collection of paintings.
Now, I don’t know the first thing about paintings. I can recognize a total of about ten, and even that’s on a good day.
But Samantha... She was a magnet to Picasso, Van Gogh, and a slew of other artists. She marveled at the brushstrokes, stared at the colors blending together, and I followed her lead willingly.

We walked around the museum, Sam explaining certain paintings or reading aloud the backstory behind their painters. I was certainly interested, but it made me happy knowing that Sam was in her ultimate happy place. Maybe that’s too cliche, but somehow her happiness became infectious.
After an hour of seeing the main floor paintings, Samantha pointed out a sign pointing to a large set of double doors in the back of the building-

Van Gogh- Starry Night
1, 3, and 4 p.m.
Admission $5

“Wanna try it?” I asked, and she delightfully agreed. It was 12:30 then, and we got in line behind two other people.

I had plenty of time to look around while waiting, and I fully realized that the museum was really sparsely occupied for spring break. There were maybe ten or fifteen people, most of them with kids.
“Guess people actually prefer vacations for their break,” Sam said when I pointed this out.
“Who says this doesn’t count as a vacation?”
“Well, it’s practically school.”
“Best school I’ve ever been to.”
“Stop it, you’ll make me blush.”
We laughed and waited for the mystery exhibit to open its doors.

As it gradually approached one o’clock, the grand double doors finally opened and we were led inside. Only one other person had joined in the line since us.

The inside of the exhibit was very confusing- it was just a dark hallway lit by a few corner lights which helped no more than christmas lights. Baffled but curious, we paid the woman inside the doors, who beckoned us to continue walking. Her badge listed her as Madge- Exhibit Director.
At the end of the hallway, after a few turns, was the biggest surprise of my life.

I was suddenly inside Starry Night. All around me were the magnificent stars, the mountains rising up to meet me to my left. After cleaning up my jaw from the floor, I realized what had been done- we were inside a planetarium converted to Van Gogh’s dream.
There were rows of seats in the middle of the floor, so Samantha and I took the ones in the front. She was still gasping at the whole thing.

“Look!” She pointed up. “Watch the stars!”
I followed her finger and, sure enough, the stars were twinkling gently against the blue backdrop. I laughed and realized that not only were the stars twinkling, but the entire thing was rotating around us, giving a full view of the painting.

I heard the double doors close and the woman walked into the painting with us. “Ladies and gentlemen, she said, her voice smooth and calming, “welcome to Starry Night.”
For some reason, Sam and I both gasped in excitement.
Our hands managed to find each other between our seats.
“Thank you so much,” Sam whispered to me.

“The geniuses here at the Seattle Museum of Art have discovered a way to embrace realism in paintings more than ever before- by putting you, almost literally, inside the painting. We utilized the science museum’s planetarium, which we acquired after some very nasty court battles.” The audience laughed. “After a few tests, Starry Night proved to be the most fruitful, and here we are.”
We began clapping for no real reason other than we were happy to be there.

The guide took us through Van Gogh’s life, from when he was a child. It was interesting, to say the least, and Sam’s face had a continued awe on it the entire way through. I could rarely take my eyes off of our surroundings. I mean, paintings are cool enough when you see a normal one, but this just blew me away.

The entire Starry Night exhibit took about half an hour to complete, but it felt like mere minutes had passed since we entered. Neither Sam nor I wanted to leave.
On our way out, Samantha stopped the guide, who was also exiting.
“We loved it,” she said. “Thank you so much.”
“Oh, the pleasure is all mine, honey,” she said, and we all left.

Sam was still very intent on seeing the remainder of the museum, so I followed her lead and she saw everything she wanted to see (somehow) in the tolerable span of an hour and a half.
“Now you can say you’ve been there,” I said as we left.
“Oh, it was amazing,” she said. “This place is heaven.”
“We do still have to go to Grayson’s today.”
She groaned. “Ugh. I don’t wanna do work anymore. Let’s just go back to the hotel and drown in the swimming pool of happiness.”
“As tempting as that sounds...” I began, and we were laughing before I could finish.

We found a cafe down the street from the art museum. It was small and fairly cramped, but the smell emanating from it was too delectable to resist.
A kind waitress took our orders- a couple humble sandwiches and sodas, and Sam and I were left waiting at a quiet table outside.
“So. This girl. What are we even going to do when we find her?” Samantha asked me.
“I dunno.” I’d thought about this a lot in the preceding days. “I certainly hope she’s worth all the trouble.”
“Nah, the trip alone made it worth it,” Sam said with a smile aimed at me.
I nodded and smiled back. “Very true,” I said. “Although it does make you wonder. She could, really, be anybody.”
“Well...”
“Okay, maybe not anybody, but you get my point. She could’ve dropped out and be working in the sewers.”
Sam laughed and sipped her drink. “I certainly hope not! I like to think that we make friends- or at least acquaintances- that have some degree of ambition.”
I showed off my best shocked face. “Are you saying that I have ambition? I’m honored, Sam, really.”
She rolled her eyes and shot a straw wrapper at me.

We left the cafe after a delicious but not particularly cheap lunch and hopped on the nearest bus to Grayson’s.
“If this is anything like the last one, we’re in for quite a time,” Samantha said over the roar of the tires striking asphalt.
“One of us is.” I flicked her an argumentative face.
She laughed and we somehow managed to never get bored.

If there has ever been a difference from one store to another, this was it.

When we finally arrived at the second Grayson’s, it didn’t take long to find it. The entrance was gigantic, two large swinging double doors with a neon sign above them ensuring we had arrived at our destination indeed.
“Well,” I said, “looks like first impressions are important here.”
And so, not surprisingly, were second impressions.
As I opened the door for Samantha (because chivalry is far from dead), party poppers popped on both sides of us, firing a mess of rainbow confetti and possibly assorted glitter into both of our faces.
“Wow,” Sam said, cleaning off her face, “does this happen for everybody?”

“Of course it does, sweetie! Welcome to Grayson’s!” An older woman was seated behind a booth in front of us. Behind her, the walls were all painted bright and decorated with streamers and various other party accessories. I’d have thought a party was just held the previous night if I didn’t know it was a party-planning company.
We approached the woman and Sam began with her questions.
“First of all,” she started, “someone should send a picture of this place to the other Grayson’s further up town. That place is Alcatraz compared to this.”
The woman laughed. “Yes, we do try to steer customers away from that one as much as possible nowadays. We’re still pushing for a remodel over there.”
“And a re-hiring,” I mumbled.
“Secondly,” Sam continued, “we were wondering if we could possibly view records of a party we possibly planned around 2002 in September?”
“Okay,” the woman said tentatively. “Well, if we have it, it’ll be on the Records floor, of course. That’s the third floor. I’ll let them know you’re on your way.”
We thanked her and headed up the elevator, familiar with at least this part of the trip.

The records floor was much smaller than the first floor, although laid out similarly and with the same vibrant color scheme. A man greeted us and brought us to his desk (it was a cubicle), where he began to ask for our information.

“Okay. Tyler and Carmela Sorrell, Samantha Black, Karen Wood? Mid-September 2002?” He repeated the information back to us.
“Yes,” Sam and I said together. The man punched a couple keys.
“No, sorry, nothing.”
We let out our breath.
Of course it would be the last one we check, I thought.

“However,” the man said, “are you sure you organized the party with us?”
“With Grayson’s, yes,” Samantha said. But our problem is we don’t know which one.”
“Oh, well that’s no problem.” He laughed. “I can look that up right now!”

“Are you serious?” I shouted, probably too loudly. “Why couldn’t the other one do that?”
“The one uptown?” He didn’t seem to be surprised by my outburst.
“Yeah!”
“Nah, they’ve always been behind in technology. I hear they look like some regular office building. In all honesty, they probably couldn’t have looked it up if they wanted to (which they probably didn’t, anyway),” he added. “Have you checked the one on 32nd?”
“No, that’s the one we haven’t checked yet.” Sam confirmed what I thought.
“Just give me one moment.” We obliged, of course.

After a minute of palpable tension, he turned from his computer.
“Well, for some reason, all of 2002 is still on paper records for the 32nd Grayson’s.” We sighed. “But,” he continued, “I did request some particular files to be brought over. Should only take a day. Now, I wrote down your names, so here’s my card-” he handed me said card- “so just go ahead and give me a call back tomorrow about the same time and I can let you know all the information.”
“Thank you so much,” I said, and shook his hand.

We exited the Grayson’s and made our way back to the hotel with smiles on our faces. The idea that after all this time, we’d finally get to find out her name!
As I thought back on the whole adventure, I realized it was almost a week since we left. Yet somehow it seemed so much longer than that, in the best way possible.

The return to the hotel was nice enough, and it felt like ages since we had actually been to the hotel.
When we finally arrived back at our room, I set the business card down on the dresser and flopped face-down on the bed.

“Alright, Mr. Lazy, when are you taking me out to the pool?”
“Unf feeb,” I replied through the mattress.
“Aww, come on! You promised.” She had mastered the art of the pretend pout.
“Can I at least nap first?” I asked, lifting my head up from the comforter.
“No, you can’t nap first! You’ll have plenty of time for napping when... Uh, whenever the time for napping is.”I heard the bathroom door shut.
“I’ll give you a hint: it’s now,” I said, but my reply fell on ignoring ears.

I grudgingly changed and followed Sam back down to the indoor pool. We had hit the sweet spot for pool time- right before dinner. There were only two other people in the surprisingly massive pool, and they were off by themselves in a corner.
I had only put my feet in (Samantha jumped in, naturally) when Sam made her way back over to me.
“Race you to the other side,” she said.
I had about a million problems with this, but raced and got horribly beat anyway.

Eventually other people began to come in, and the place was getting crowded rapidly.
I looked over to the glass-encased hot tub Sam had noticed when we had first checked in. Nobody had seemed to take note of that yet, and the idea of not being surrounded by people was growing more tantalizing every second.

“Come on,” I gestured to Sam, who had somehow managed to get her hands on a beach ball in the four seconds I had looked away.
She saw what I was looking at and nodded in agreement. The beach ball bopped among different hands behind us.

I recoiled as a blast of steam struck my face when I opened the hot tub doors.
“Oof,” I said. “It’s a little hot.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Sam flipped a switch that read VENT and within seconds the steam evaporated.

The hot tub was excellent. Since we were essentially walled in, it became half-sauna and half hot-tub without becoming too uncomfortable.
“THIS,” Samantha said, “is how you make a hot tub.”
“Agreed,” I said, and sank down to my neck.

We sat in comfortable silence until Sam said, “I can’t believe we might actually find out who she is.”
“I know! You think we’ll recognize her once we hear the name?”
She thought for a moment. “I dunno. I suppose. Maybe not. I mean, we didn’t recognize her off of the picture.”
I thought about this as well (saunas are great for that kind of thing).

“Hey, I wanted to say thanks again for taking me to the art museum today,” Samantha said out of nowhere.
“Oh. It was no problem- I didn’t know you wanted to go there so badly!”
She smiled. “Yeah. It was literally everything I hoped it would be and more.”
“And how about that Starry Night exhibit, too?” I asked. Just thinking about it made me shiver in awe.
“Oh. My gosh. That was amazing!” Her foot touched mine and I smiled.

We stayed in the hot tub until the steam got to our heads and our fingers got pruny. The room was beckoning, and we answered the call obediently.
When we got back, I called dibs on the shower and Sam said she’d get the bath, like the previous night. The shower (or should I say showers?) was just as amazing as the previous night, and the cold water was a refreshment from the hot tub.
It was over too soon, and I changed into my PJs and exited the bathroom while covering my eyes to avoid seeing Sam.
“Really?” She asked, laughing all the same.

I laid down on the bed, exhausted, and pulled out the picture of Mystery Girl. There was something about her in the picture, and me as well. I studied the picture for a few minutes before I realized it- little Tyler wasn’t looking at Mystery Girl. In fact, he seemed completely oblivious to her, and more focused on something off-camera (it was probably cake). The two were very clearly both having fun, but it was strange.

“Getting out now!” Sam announced, and I flipped over to conceal my eyes in the thread of the comforter.
“Oh my gosh,” she said, laughing, “you actually did it. I was joking, you lunatic!” I heard her get out anyway, so I stayed there until I heard her give the all-clear.
“I can’t believe you some times,” she said.
“What? You’d rather me not?”
“Oh, shush,” she said, and handed me ‘a thing of crackers to act in place of dinner.’

Sleep was quickly approaching, so I buried myself under the sheets in expectation. Samantha did the same when she saw me, after turning out the main light in the room.
I could feel my eyelids closing when Samantha asked, “what were you staring at the picture for?”
I opened them again and Sam was turned over, facing me. “Oh. I dunno, just thinking about tomorrow I guess.” Then a thought came over me. “Why, you jealous?”
There was silence, and I triumphantly thought I had finally stumped her.
“Yeah, a little.”

Any good feeling I had from the question plummeted. I could never bear to see Samantha sad.
I searched for her hand under the covers and found it, grasping it with my own.
“Well, you have no reason to be.”

I pulled her to me and kissed her as best I could, begging her without words to be happy again. She retaliated with a kiss of her own, and soon we were locked in each other’s arms until peaceful sleep overcame us both.

The next day, we woke up together and neither one of us was particularly keen on getting out of bed. We laid together for a while, in that half-asleep state where everything is magical and you can only think a little bit.
Eventually, Sam sat up. “Tyler?”
“Hmm?”
“This is the last day in the hotel. We have to leave tomorrow, by 3.”
“Oh.” This woke me up. “Well that sucks.”
“Yeah.” She got out of bed and gathered her clothes.

For some reason, this announcement made me think of my mother. I realized it had been a while since I called her, and decided to so it again that morning. She would be out at work, of course, but leaving a message couldn’t hurt.
The phone rang through, as I expected. My familiar voice asked me to leave a message.
“Hey Mom, it’s Tyler. I just wanted to call and let you know that I’ll be coming home tomorrow, probably late. Oh, and I think we’re going to find her very soon. Okay, love you. Bye.”

After Samantha and I were both dressed, I checked the clock- 12:06. I couldn’t believe we had slept in that late, but there was nothing to really get up for besides the call we had to wait another couple hours for.
“Well, what would you like to do today, given it’s our last in the hotel?” I asked her after emerging from the bathroom.
“I don’t actually know,” she said. “We have to wait until, like, two for the call, so that doesn’t leave time to do anything important... Wanna just go explore the hotel again?”
I did, of course, so we left.

The elevator took us to the unknown fifth floor, which seemed to be a maintenance floor above anything else.
The rest of the hotel was nice enough to pass the time until we returned to the room at two on empty stomachs.
I pulled out my phone and dialed the number on the business card. Sam watched me intently.
“Hello, is this Tyler or Sam?” He asked before I even spoke.
“Yes indeed, Tyler. Would you happen to have those records you requested for us yesterday?” I held my breath.
“Yes actually, I got them just a few minutes ago. Hang on one second.” Sam looked at me quizzically, and I nodded an enthusiastic ‘yes’ to her.
“Okay, mid-September, Carmela Sorrell, yes, here we are. The ones who planned it were Carmela, of course, Tyler and Sam, a Karen Wood, and a Ms. Sebastian.”
I was caught off-guard. “And there’s no first name for, uh, Ms. Sebastian?”
“Nope. A little odd, but perhaps she requested that.”
“Yeah. Well, thank you so much, you’ve been loads more helpful than anyone else we’ve found.”
“Not a problem,” he said. “Good luck!”

Sam looked at me. “Ms. Sebastian, huh?”
“Yeah. Seems a little bit anticlimactic.”
“Well, we can still find her. Most hotels have a phone book in a drawer somewhere.” She opened the top drawer in her bedside table. “Nothing here,” she said. “You?”
I was already opening mine, and luckily, there was a full-size yellow pages there.

Flipping to the ‘S’s yielded the following results-
Mr. Sebastian, L. Then a phone number and address.
Ms. Sebastian, M. No phone number, but (thank God) an address.
“There’s our girl.” Sam stared at the name. “M.”
I wrote down the address and thought about the name. M Sebastian. I tried to think of the girl in the picture in my mind’s eye, and she fit with the name perfectly- it was definitely hers. But still, I couldn’t remember what that M could possibly stand for.

“So, want to leave tomorrow then?” Samantha asked me.
“Yeah, that sounds good.” I was still distracted.
“Going to have to be early if we wanna get out of here by three.”
I groaned.

We left the hotel shortly after to get lunch (or should it be breakfast?). There was a deli a couple blocks down, so we decided sandwiches would do nicely.

“M...Michelle?” Sam asked me through a bite of turkey and cheese.
“Nope,” I said.
“Mikayla?” She asked hopefully.
I thought for a moment. “Definitely not,” I said. Samantha had been at this for over fifteen minutes now.
“Well, I’m out of ideas. I guess we’ll have to wait till tomorrow.”
“Guess so.” I shrugged and ate my food quietly, thinking about the following day.

The rest of the day passed quickly. Sam and I relaxed in our room watching, for the most part, awful television.
“You think we can petition the school district to give us another week of Spring Break?” She asked me late in the afternoon.
“That’s a good question,” I said. “I think, while we’re at it, we should go ahead and make it two more.”
“Excellent idea,” she replied. “Although I think we’re still setting our standards too low. Let’s shoot for a month.”
“How about just ending school right at the Spring Break cutoff?” I asked.
“You,” she said, prodding me, “are a genius.”

Soon it was dinner time and Samantha had run out of packed snacks.
“Uh, I think we have a problem,” she had announced after I dug out one of her books in preparation for the bus ride the next day.
“Do I need to call a doctor?” I asked without looking up.
“I think so.” She approached me holding cellophane wrappers. “We’re out of dinner snacks.
I looked up wearing a panicked frown. “Oh dear.”

Luckily, the hotel’s built-in cafe rescued us from starvation that night.
It was a small alcove in the first floor near the lounge, and it served a variety of plates that made me think of what high schools had always intended to serve to their students but always messed up somewhere along the way.
I ordered a plate of chicken fingers and fries and Sam got a salad. It was certainly no Last Supper, but it did the trick for the night.
Through the glass doors we could see the pool, and all the teenagers splashing around and having fun. We watched them for the remainder of our meal, laughing when a particularly dumb idea would catch our attention.

Samantha and I savored our meal and returned to our room with our sodas still in hand. I was tired, but didn’t want the day to pass and our vacation to, essentially, be over (I also wasn’t anticipating the bus ride home, but that’s beside the point).

Sam moaned as she flopped onto the bed. “This is the part where I’d offer to go swimming one last time but I am way too tired and full to do anything,” she said.
“Ditto,” I replied, and sat down next to her.
“Hey, let’s have a toast,” she suddenly said, and sat up.
“Normally people have a toast at the beginning of a meal, not the end,” I said, but raised my can nonetheless.
“Well, we’re not normal people,” she said with a smirk, and raised hers as well.
“To finding Ms. Sebastian,” I said.
“And to this never ending,” Sam replied. She paused. “To us never ending,” she amended. Our cans clinked.

Sleep dawned on me quickly after I had gotten my last shower. Long before Sam was in bed, my brain took a dunk in the pool of sleep.


Due to some random stretch of fate, I managed to wake up before Samantha did. She had fallen asleep facing up, with a book in her lap. Most people look generally ridiculous when they sleep, but Sam somehow managed to pull off looking perfect even when she slept.

I crept out of bed, careful to not wake Sam, and began to gather up my things and rearrange them back poorly into my suitcase. It was a depressing task, and pounded the idea in my head that this, really, was it, and that the vacation was over. Then I remembered Ms. Sebastian and my spirits perked up again, but only slightly.

Once I had changed and all my things were packed, I grabbed my book and continued to read until Samantha woke up. She did, sooner than I expected, and rubbed her eyes.
“What? Why are you up before me?” She asked, and got out of bed quickly.
“No idea,” I replied, “but there’s a first time for everything.”
“Including meeting Ms. Sebastian. Speaking of which, we should leave soon.”
I agreed and helped her clean up the room after she changed. I think it began to dawn on her then, too, that we would be leaving that day. We finished cleaning in silence and headed down to the concierge.

We agreed to come back before three and pick up our things, which the concierge allowed, of course.
“Also, do you know where this-” she pulled out the address I had scribbled down from the phone book- “would be? With bus routes, preferably?” She added hopefully.
“Well, there’s a bus route that runs down 19th. Valencia will be the first stop after Thomas.” He recited this information from memory, something I found astounding.

Sam was lucky to find the route we needed quickly after we left the hotel, and it wasn’t a long wait before it stopped for us. It appeared that luck was on our side that morning, and I smiled.

When I woke up, I didn’t quite know where I was. Then everything came back to me, and I realized that I could be potentially minutes away from meeting Ms. Sebastian.
“Are we there yet?” I asked groggily to Sam, who laughed.
“No, sleepyhead, we are not. Probably ten minutes.”
“Ugh.” Trying to go back to sleep then would’ve been pointless, I was far too excited.

The bus stopped, and a few people got off. I stood up to leave, as well, my instincts getting the better of me, and Samantha pulled me back down.
“Gosh, you’re so excited. This is Thomas. Next stop.”
I felt like she was treating me like a little kid but, then again, I was acting like one.

When Valencia finally appeared in the windshield, my heart skipped a beat and, strangely, I thought of my mother. I knew she would’ve checked the answering machine first thing when she got home. I also recalled how excited she was to always find out if we had found the girl in the photograph yet. I continued this thought and wondered- did she actually remember who the girl was?

The sliding doors opened in front of me.
Sam let out a breath. “Well. Let’s do this.”
We exited directly on the intersection of Valencia and 19th, and I frantically searched the immediate area for any houses.
“Where is she?” I asked, hoping Sam would have the answer.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “But I think it’s this way.” She headed East down the street, walking at first but eventually breaking out into a full-fledged jog, with me close on her heels.

I knew Ms. Sebastian was near. I could feel her, as dumb and cliched as it sounds.

“We have reached the one part of Washington where there is absolutely nothing,” Sam said after a couple minutes of jogging. And she was right- I couldn’t see any houses in this direction. Or, for that matter, anything. The whole place was full of dirt and construction vehicles. Valencia simply ended.

“At least we know it wasn’t in this direction,” I said, exasperated from the short run.
“Do you think we could maybe not run back?” Sam asked me through shallow breaths, and I agreed hastily. We were closing in on Ms. Sebastian, I knew it.

We reached 19th and Valencia once again and stopped.
“Okay,” Sam said. “Ready?”
“Never been more ready,” I said, although my body certainly had been.

We continued West down Valencia, excitement increasing along the way. We were close, I knew it.
But the further we continued down Valencia, the situation didn’t get better. There were only department stores and shopping centers- nothing even remotely habitable.

After ten minutes of walking, we had reached the end of Valencia, and it merged into a different commercial-area street.

“Uh,” Sam said. “Tyler? I don’t know what to do.”
I looked around desperately. Surely she was joking. Sam always knew what to do- Sam and I always figured it out.
I think Samantha could sense the despair in my head. She tugged my hand and pointed to a patch of green next to a building.
“Come on,” she said. “There’s a park over there.” We walked to it together.

The park was picturesque, and bigger than I expected it to be. There was a man playing with his dog down at the end. The grass around me somehow managed to cool me down without touching me, and I was grateful for it.
We sat down on a cold stone bench near the entrance, and I hung my head. I knew we had reached the end.

“We’re no better off than we were at the beginning,” I told Sam, who held my hand again. “And it’s over.”
“Don’t say that,” she said. “First of all,we know her name.”
“Last name.”
“Hush. Secondly, maybe we don’t need her.” She looked at me. “I know that she’s what started all of this, but think of all that we’ve done.”
I was silent. Sometimes a soliloquy from Sam was all I needed, so I let her continue.
“I mean, listen. It can’t be for nothing. At least- and don’t you make fun of me here- but at least we have each other now.”

And we did.



We must’ve been quite a sight, too, because right then, a woman approached us.
“Excuse me, are you two alright?” She put a hand on Sam’s shoulder, and I looked up at her.

The woman’s voice and hair gave the impression that she shouldn’t be much older than us, but for some reason her kind blue eyes were much older. They should’ve been out of place, but they were fit her perfectly. Her just-past-shoulder-length blonde hair bounced as she knelt down to our level on the bench.

“Yes we are, thank you,” I said, embarrassed.
“Would you two like a ride somewhere? Are you lost?” I had no idea why a stranger would be so nice, but at that point I was willing to go with whatever Sam was planning.
“Actually,” Sam said, “do you think you’d know where this is?” She presented the folded piece of paper with the address on it, and the woman inspected it.

For some reason, she smiled.

“I don’t think I’ve introduced myself,” she said. “My name is Meghan. Meghan Sebastian.”

Nobody spoke for a while.

“Don’t worry, I know it’s you, Tyler. I assume this is Samantha as well?” Meghan asked us, and I nodded.
Meghan laughed. “Well? Why were you two looking for me?”
Sam stared at Meghan and then at me. “Oh,” she said. “No reason.”

I couldn’t believe it. We had found her.

Meghan laughed again. “If you say so. Come on, I’ll take you back to my apartment. It’s not far.”
We followed her lead through the rest of the park, still unable to speak.

Meghan drove a modest Saturn and Sam and I fumbled in.
“Is there something wrong?” Meghan asked us as she started up the car.
“No, no. Of course not!” I said.
“We’re just really, really surprised,” Samantha finished.

Meghan accepted that answer, but still seemed a little bit suspicious. I couldn’t blame her.
It wasn’t long before I was telling the story of the picture.
“I remember that!” Meghan exclaimed when I had brought up the balloons and Grayson’s. “I don’t mean to brag or anything, but if I recall, I was the one with the balloon idea.” Sam laughed.
After that, I was telling the entire vacation story- from leaving school early to the bench in the park, moments before Ms. Sebastian found us. I carefully omitted some of the personal details about Sam and I, of course.

Meghan took a moment to soak up all of the information. It was a lot to take in, even when I thought about it, but somehow Meghan managed to process it all.
“Wow,” she said. Then, after a moment, “you guys are ridiculous.”
We smiled. “Yeah,” I started.
“We know.” Sam finished.

After talking about how outdated phone books can be, Meghan suddenly had a serious look on her face. It suited her somehow.
“So. Are you two...” She pointed at the two of us.
“Oh. Uh. Well, I don’t think- I mean,” I stammered, and then looked at Sam in the passenger seat, who looked back at me. I stopped. “Yeah,” I said. “We are.”

We arrived at Meghan’s apartment complex soon after that, and she led us up the hard tile stairs to her door.
The interior of her apartment looked like it had never been touched, apart from the furniture and scattered decorations. Everything, even the kitchen, was spotless- you’d think the girl was a maid for a living.

“Can I get you two something to drink?” She offered, and Sam and I both had water. I was parched from the ridiculous journey to nowhere.
The three of us sat down in a sofa and an adjacent chair.

“How have you been, Tyler?” Meghan asked after the three of us had sat down. “How are your parents?”
I gave the usual spiel about how boring high school is, and then thought about how best to answer the next question.

“My dad left a long time ago.”
“Oh... I’m sorry,” Meghan said, but I shrugged it off.
“ My mom, really, hasn’t been the same. She started out okay, but eventually I think it wore her down. The last year or so she’s been generally completely mute. She has some good days, though.” The words hung in the air like must.

Sam commented on the impeccable cleanliness (her words) of the apartment, but I had become far more interested in something else entirely.

“How come neither of us remember you?” I asked Meghan, and everything went quiet.
“Right.” She was solemn again, and her ancient eyes took hold. “I figured you were going to ask that sometime. Well, I’ll start at the beginning I guess.
“My parents divorced when I was very little, probably while I was in preschool. I had to live with one of them so, naturally, I chose my mother.” She paused after seeing the sorrowful looks on Sam and I’s faces.

“Oh, don’t give me any stupid pity. That’s not what this is about. I think it was first grade when I met you, Tyler. Like any little kid, I was allowed to have crushes. Obviously I had one on you. I remember following you around like a lost puppy dog.” She wore a nostalgic smile. “Yeah. I practically invited myself to that birthday party. You two were nigh inseparable those days, and I was the one that followed behind. Especially in the years after that- I kept to myself through middle school and was branded the weird kid. I didn’t mind.”

She stopped again to let us think over the beginning.

“I never stopped loving you, Tyler.” Everything in me stopped for a second. “You’ll say I was young, probably too young to know or feel anything, but for some reason I just couldn’t let you go. I suppose it’s like knowing your true love is right there, just out of arm’s reach. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

My mind cringed at ‘true love.’ I couldn’t believe what I had done to this girl.

“Of course, there comes a time when I couldn’t stand being ignored any longer. And when that happened, I faced myself with a choice- either depression or putting it all away. I was much too young to suffer depression, so I left. I went to live with my dad over here after my eighth grade year. I guess I reminded him of mom or something, because he didn’t like me very much. I moved out at sixteen, got this apartment out of pity (because you have to legally be eighteen), and here I am. Graduating in a couple months.”

I looked over at Sam, who clearly had a few tears running down her cheeks.
“Why are you crying?” Meghan asked her, actually confused.
Samantha said nothing, and instead stood up and hugged the life out of Meghan.
“I’m so sorry,” Sam said.
“We both are.” I stood up.
Meghan looked on the brink of tears herself. “It’s okay,” she said. “But thank you.”

Meghan was kind enough to drive us all the way back home after stopping at the hotel for us to pick up our stuff. It felt wonderful, even nostalgic for memories I didn’t know I had before that day. Just being around Meghan helped me remember the party, and plenty of other moments as well. The three of us shared them as we made our way back to normality.

Samantha was dropped off first. She took her bags and said a farewell to Meghan.
After that, though, her face lit up as if she had an idea. “Guys!” She said. “I just realized. We have to take a picture, right?” I sighed. Only Sam.
Nonetheless, the three of us lined up next to Meghan’s car and Samantha held out her phone facing us.
“Say cheese!”
A flash, and then it was over. Sam began the climb up the driveway to her house.
I moved up to the passenger seat and told Samantha I’d talk to her soon.
We waited outside to make sure she got inside okay.

Then we headed off to my house, which wasn’t far away. I knew my time with Mystery Girl was growing shorter by the second, and I tried to treasure it as best I could.

Unfortunately, we did arrive at my house eventually. I thanked Meghan as she got out to help me with my bags, which weren’t too heavy anyway.
“Hey,” I said. “I wanted to apologize. For everything.”
She put on another wise, sad smile. “I know.”
“And I hate goodbyes, so...”
“Don’t worry,” she replied. “You get used to them.”

This hit my heart like a hammer.
“We’ll see each other again,” I said, and began to heft my bag up the curb.
“I know,” she said again. “Tyler?” She called to me as I was halfway up the path to my front door.
I turned around. “Yes?”
“I love you,” she said. “Don’t forget me, okay?”
“Never.”

I don’t know if my mother caught a glimpse of Meghan as she pulled away, or if it was just because I had been gone so long, but she embraced me the second I opened the door. I realized she must have been waiting for me, and I hugged her tighter.

I looked around my house and began to realize how much I missed it. I was home, and that was amazing.



On the coming Monday, my English teacher announced our first assignment of the quarter- writing a paper about what we did over Spring Break. The class groaned and the teacher waved them off, but I did neither of those. I took out a pen, some paper, and began to write.


---


A couple days ago, things were normal in the house.
The cat slept and halfheartedly swiped at birds outside the window, the neighbors were just a little bit too loud for me to relax comfortably, and Samantha was having a dilemma.

“Hun,” she called as she entered the room, “have you seen my badge?”
I didn’t have to search very long in my head. “Nope.”
She sighed and sat down next to me in the spare office chair.

“How much longer are they going to let you work, anyway?” I asked, swiveling to face her.
“Until she is good and ready!” Sam said, gesturing to her belly.
“Oh, it’s a ‘she,’ is it?” I asked her.
“Come on, of course it is. You think I don’t know these things?”
“Just saying.”

We could’ve continued the gender debate, but right then there was a knock on the door.
“I’ll get it,” I said, and prepared a speech for whatever traveling salesman had stumbled on our doorstep.
But when I opened the door, something far better than a salesman greeted me- it was Meghan Sebastian, in the flesh.

“Couldn’t let you be a liar, could I?” She said before I could greet her. I thought back to our last meeting- “We’ll see each other again.”
“I certainly hope not!” I said. “Please, come in.” She politely did.
“Sam!” I called, leading Meghan into the living room. “We’ve got a visitor.”
I turned back to find Meghan inspecting a framed picture we had in a stand- the cell phone picture Sam had taken of the three of us.

Meghan couldn’t stay long, she said, but was just in the neighborhood and thought she’d say hi. This seemed a little strange to me, but it was wonderful seeing her again.
“That reminds me,” Samantha said after small talk, “Tyler and I were talking the other day- how would you feel about being the baby’s godmother?”
Meghan’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?” She said incredulously.
“Of course,” I said.
“Well... Yes! Absolutely!” She said, happier than I’d ever seen her.

Even though she didn’t stay long, being around Meghan seemed to put the house itself in a good mood.

She also made me think back to some of the happiest days of my life, my first Spring Break with Sam.
And then to our toast.

“To finding Ms. Sebastian,” I had said. And we did.

“And to us never ending,” Samantha had said.


And you know what? We never did.