“There’s actually a pretty big online presence that call themselves the Anti-Hatters. They burn the books on YouTube and everything. Very dramatic. They say the idea of immortality is a sin against God. I don’t think they quite understand the idea of fiction.”
“A sin against God, huh?” Sam said, closing the book and carefully setting it back in the pile with the others. That sad smile still lingered on his face, but I could tell hewas trying to shake it.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“For your loss. Our collective loss. I know you knew my aunt too. She meant a lot to a lot of people.”
“Ah,” he said, nodding slowly. “She was a huge inspiration to me. She was a really amazing teacher.” I waited for him to say more about her, but he didn’t. Instead he checked his watch and said, “We should get back; our pizza is probably done.”
It was indeed—we split the bill and started walking back to the little green where I’d left my car. There were plenty of benches there, and we sat on one behind a toy store. The sun was hot, but the breeze coming off the water was enough to keep us cool.
We were quiet as we dug into the pizza for a minute, and then Sam said, “You know, you kind of ditched me at the party.”
“Oh,” I replied, because I couldn’t think of anything better to say.
“Dancing one minute, Cinderella the next. If I didn’t see you guys leaving a little while later, I probably would have thought you’d turned into a pumpkin.”
“Ha! No. I’m sorry. That was pretty lame. I’m just not the best at parties. Big groups. And then you factor in—”
“The fact that some stranger kept asking you to dance?”
“No, that was fine,” I said, smiling. “It was a lot ofthings. My aunt, you know... It hasn’t been easy.”
“I know,” he said. “I mean, I guessed. I’m sorry I called you Cinderella.”
“Please don’t ever apologize for calling someone Cinderella.”
“I know how much it...” He took a breath. That sad smile again. “How hard it is. To lose someone you love.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago. But I still remember, of course. You don’t ever really forget.”
I’d had so many people trying to comfort me lately, but it occurred to me that I didn’t really know how to comfort someone else. I wondered who Sam had lost, but I didn’t think I should ask—if he wanted to tell me, he would. Instead I found myself wanting to share the letters with him, or at least a piece of them, maybe because he’d known Aunt Helen and mourned her too. And because all of that made me feel like I could trust him.
So I said, “There’s more. The night of the party—she left me all these letters. Little things I’m supposed to do now that she’s gone. And it’s been nice, but at the same time... I worry that I’m not doing exactly what she wanted me to do. That I’m not doing a good enough job.”
“What kinds of things?”
“Well, the next one is... I’m supposed to lose track of time.”
Sam thought about it for a minute. It felt a little silly tosay out loud, but he looked like he was taking it completely seriously. He folded up the empty pizza box and said, “Do you have any ideas?”
“Not really. I think I know what she means, though. I have a tendency to get kind of... caught up with everything. Kind of hyperaware of time and place and all that.”
“So maybe she’s trying to push you out of your comfort zone a little?”
“Yeah. I think it’s something like that.”
“All right. I know what we’ll do,” he said, and that is how I ended up, ten minutes later, on the handlebars of Sam’s bike. He gave me his helmet (then rapped his knuckles on it to prove its durability) and wouldn’t tell me where we were going. Halfway there I had to get down because, although nice in theory, riding on handlebars over the age of seven is not comfortable at all. I walked around the back of the bike and stood on the spokes, hesitating for a second before I put my hands on his shoulders.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Okay!”
We were off again. He pedaled us past the train station and around a bend and down a road I’d never been on before. I saw a small sign that said Mason’s Island and remembered this is where he lived.
