Heart Bones - Colleen Hoover Page 0,90
way I want to be stuck with him all the way back to Bolivar Peninsula.
“Get back in the car, Beyah.”
“No. I’m calling Sara to come pick me up.” I sit down on the curb next to the car. My father gets out of the car while I pull out my phone. He kicks at the gravel and motions toward the car.
“Get in. I’ll take you home.”
I wipe tears from my eyes after I dial Sara’s number. “I’m not getting in your car. You can leave now.”
My father doesn’t leave. Sara agrees to come pick me up, but my father sits patiently in his car until she arrives.
TWENTY-EIGHT
It’s been an agonizing week with no news from Samson. Nothing at all. I’ve tried to visit him twice, but he refuses to see me now.
I have absolutely no way of communicating with him. All I have to cling to are the memories of the time we spent together, and I’m worried those will start to fade if I don’t at least get to hear his voice.
Am I really just expected to move on? Forget about him? Go to college like he didn’t force me to become a completely different, better version of myself this summer?
I stopped talking about Samson to anyone in this house. I don’t even want his name brought up because it just leads to arguments. I’ve barely left my room all week. I occupy my days with mindless TV shows and visits to Marjorie’s house. She’s the only one I’ll speak to about him. She’s the only one on my side.
I’ve been alternating between the two shirts that were in Samson’s backpack all week, but they no longer smell like him. They smell like me now, which is why I’m snuggled up to his backpack, watching a marathon of a British baking show.
I don’t know what to do with his things. I doubt he cares to keep toiletries, and there wasn’t anything of value in his backpack other than the poems his father wrote to him. But I don’t want to give them to Marjorie to get to him because I feel like they’re my last connection to him.
They might one day be the only excuse I have to get him to speak to me.
I’m going to have to move on at some point. I know this, but as long as I’m still here and he’s still in jail, I can’t focus on anything else.
I readjust the backpack in my arms to use it as a partial pillow, but something hard pokes at my temple. I open it up to see if I missed an item, but I see nothing. I move my hand around inside the backpack and find a zipper I didn’t catch before.
I immediately sit up and unzip it. I pull out a small, hard-bound notebook. It’s only about four inches in length. I flip it open and it’s full of names and addresses, and what look like grocery lists.
I flip through several pages, unable to make sense of any of it. But then I get to a page with Marjorie’s name and address on it.
Marjorie Naples
Date of stay: 02-04-15 to 02-08-15.
Ate $15 worth of food.
Repaired roof. Replaced two pieces of siding on north side of house damaged by wind.
There are several more names and addresses that follow Marjorie’s, but I need to know the significance of the dates. I pick up my phone and call her.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Beyah. Quick question. Are the dates February fourth to February eighth this year of any significance to you?”
Marjorie chews on that thought for a moment. “I’m almost positive those are the days I was in the hospital after my heart attack. Why?”
“Just something I found in Samson’s backpack. I’ll bring it over later so you can give it to Kevin.”
I tell her goodbye and end the call, then I start skimming through all the other things he’s written down. The most common address is the one next door for David Silver. There are several dates listed. Most of them between March and last week. Beneath David’s name is a list of repairs.
Tightened several loose slats on bedroom balcony railing. Replaced a broken fuse in the breaker box. Sealed leak in pipe in outdoor shower.
The lists go on. There are odd jobs he’s done for people, and how much he got paid for each job, which explains how he sometimes had money for things like dinner and tattoos. There are also lists of people he’s done work for that he