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pizza-is-my-buziness · 1 year

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Grass-Sun-Concert or Radio (your choice!) for Sam and Deena

Why yes, I do have spring break in a week, why do you ask?

Okay this story got ridiculously self-indulgent and the first half became accidental Sam character study and the rest is pretty much all fluff so...

Sam has calling her mother down to a science. She’s long made a habit of memorizing the woman’s schedule, of knowing it better than her own. First, it had been in a display of a daughter’s jealous love, wanting to know where her mother would be always and how she could be there, too, as quiet as a shadow and just as constant. Then, the older she got, it became a way to understand how to tip-toe around the woman without making it obvious. How to squeeze in a little bit more time at the library or lounging around on her bed with a novel instead of her homework. How to sneak Deena into her house and when to guide her out the window.

Now, even hundreds of miles away and inarguably free from beneath the woman’s claws, Sam still collects and catalogs and plans. She knows when her mother has hair appointments, when she meets her Sunnyvale friends at the country club, when they pretend to do book club but really just sit around and drink wine and gossip. That way, she can ensure that phone calls with the woman only last ten minutes or less; long enough to say she’s checked in, but not long enough for her mother to run out of stories about herself and start asking about Sam in ways that are barbed and fraught.

The dorm floor is quiet around her on Sunday morning at ten fifteen, no one around to demand to use the phone -always a relief when that happens, to be honest, what a great excuse to shorten a call even more- or eavesdrop on probably the most boring conversation of all time. Unless people are specifically intrigued by all the different ways Sam can think to say “uh huh” and “oh really?” But on a Saturday morning the week before spring break, there’s no one around because everyone is either hung over or off to breakfast and Sam’s mother has brunch at the country club in -Sam checks her watch- six minutes.

It's all fine, really, going according to plan with her mother detailing some story or other about Sonya and Beth and people Sam suspects her mother thinks she knows even though Sam knows her mother couldn’t name a single one of her friends, even the ones who literally died to save her daughter’s life, when suddenly her mother says, “Are you coming home for spring break?” and the question seems to needle the breath out of Sam’s lungs.

Sam really loves college. She loves the buildings that are so old they smell that way, all old wood and stone and decades’ worth of people who were here before her, the pages and ink and remnants of a hundred lectures and term papers. She loves that Deena is only a few buildings away at any given time, that she can so often take Deena’s hand or pull her close, that some nights she can even fall asleep wedged beside her in a too-small bed, one arm around Deena’s waist to hold them closer together, and wake up with Deena’s curls against her cheeks and her nose pressed to the nape of Deena’s neck. And she loves, almost most of all if not for Deena, that her mother is not there.

But occasionally college does have a flaw or two. Annoying roommates, terrifyingly high tuition that depends on her keeping a scholarship or three. And the breaks that sometimes dump her back in Sunnyvale in a space that often leaves Sam forgetting how to breathe and leaves her listening to the sound of footsteps in a hallway. Summer is the worst, those endless stretches of time where Sam is home just long enough to start wondering if all the rest of it was just some sort of dream, the indulgences of someone who knew they were never going to get away after all. Spring break of her freshmen year had seen tense, clipped breakfast conversations and slipping away with Deena whenever she could in a way that hadn’t felt like she was hiding something necessarily but that she had to keep it tucked away and hope maybe her mother wouldn’t notice.

And now…here she is again a year later and Sam swallows, clenching her teeth. “Uh. No. I have to work.”

The words tumble out of her mouth almost before Sam is aware of them and as soon as she says them, relief slides its way through her like a long overdue exhale. Even better is the realization that this isn’t necessarily a lie, that the sign -handwritten and desperate- tacked up on the bulletin board in the employee lounge at the library had implored any student staff members hanging around campus over the break to take on extra hours.

Sam had barely noticed it the other day when she’d clocked in, her mind elsewhere, clearly thinking of spring break as some far away, mythical thing seeing as even her mother’s question had been enough to catch her off guard. Now it feels like destiny, the perfect way to give both her and her mother exactly what they want without seeming like it’s a deliberate choice. No, of course I wanted to come home…but you know how work can be.

“I see,” her mother says and, if Sam isn’t mistaken, there’s a tinge of relief in her voice. “Well, I suppose there’s always summer.”

A bridge Sam will cross when she gets there.

Sam glances at her watch at right as her mother says, “Well, I have to go meet some of the other ladies at the club” and their goodbyes overlap in the first frenetic surge of energy since the call started. Sam exhales as she puts the phone back in the cradle, buoyant suddenly and all more eager to leave the dorms and cross campus to the dining hall.

As usual, Deena is already there, holding off anyone who might think about encroaching on Sam’s favorite table by the window with a prickly look and her booted feet kicked up in the opposite chair. Sam comes up behind her, letting her chin briefly rest against the curve of Deena’s shoulder as her lips brush a ghost of a kiss against Deena’s cheek. “Hi.”

Deena smells familiar in a way Sam thinks nothing else ever could, not exactly like Shadyside or Sunnyvale or any home she might try to eke out of a place like that, but like she is the home itself, there wherever Sam is. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Deena sits up, nudging the chair out from beneath the table so Sam can sit down, leaning forward with her brow pinched together. “So…go okay?”

In the same way that Sam knows her mother’s schedule by heart, Deena knows it too, if only to keep track of those weekly calls to check in on her girlfriend. Sam nods, waving a dismissive hand. “Oh, yeah. She was too busy telling me about how Bethany is about to marry her fifth husband to even ask how I was doing.”

Deena lifts her eyebrows, smirking. “Her fifth husband. Okay, Bethany. Impressive.”

Sam smiles, reaching for Deena’s hand and threading their fingers together. “But I…I was kinda thinking…”

Deena’s smirk fades just enough to shift into an expression of tenuous curiosity instead. “Yeah?”

“About maybe…thinking we should stay here for spring break?” Sam’s voice takes on a hopeful lilt at the end of the sentence, her eyes watching Deena’s face to see how she might react to this idea.

Sure, there’s no love lost between either of them for the place they’d come from, especially now that Josh, too, has gone off to school and Ziggy and Martin wouldn’t exactly fault them for not coming home to visit every few months. But still, Sam can’t help but wonder if maybe they should’ve talked it over first before she’d told her mom she wasn’t planning on seeing her for the foreseeable future if she could help it.

Deena exhales, slumping back in her chair and tipping her head back. “Thank God. I was hoping you were going to say that.”

“Wait, really?” Sam’s brows knit together. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I don’t know! I thought you were, I dunno, dead-set on going back home or something.” Deena shrugs, her thumb brushing absently against the inside of Sam’s palm.

Sam rolls her eyes at the idea that she might look forward to going home and even more at the idea that neither of them would’ve said anything about it and just gritted their teeth through the whole week like they didn’t mind hiding out in Deena’s old bedroom just so they could avoid everything else.

“But,” Deena adds, eyebrows lifting once more. “My roommate is going off with her boyfriend for the week. So I might need someone to keep me company. You know…I could get lonely.”

“Of course,” Sam says, unable to keep the grin from turning up the corners of her lips. “We wouldn’t want that.”

~ ~ ~

Aside from Deena’s dorm room, the library is Sam’s favorite spot on campus. Working there several days a week over the past year and a half hasn’t done much to change that, despite the bevy of frantic undergrads that shout book titles at her during finals week or leave said books scattered everywhere hours later for her to carefully shelve once more. The library during spring break, when most of the student body has fled for greener, less academic pastures for the time being, is proving to be even more comforting than the library usually is, with very few students hanging around and even fewer who are choosing to spend that time inside instead of enjoying the spring sunshine. Sure, there are a few grad students and particularly studious patrons, and Deena, who had sworn she was going to use the time to get ahead on her reading and assignments, though every time Sam has stopped to linger at her table, Deena has been doodling or staring out the window while listening to something on her Walkman.

For a past few days, Deena has spent the majority of Sam’s shift in the library exactly like this, or trailing behind Sam as she shelves books, their conversation ebbing and flowing with the same sort of effortlessness that always makes every moment with Deena feel easy and comforting and familiar. And now, Sam has one eye on the clock and the other on sorting through the pile of books at the desk, her mind wandering toward the end of her shift and the hours beyond. The radio on the counter behind her is murmuring quietly, another sign that the usual rules don’t apply this week, and she hums along with some song from the 70s by one of those bands that was always hooking up and breaking up and it’s hard not to feel perfectly content at the moment, wrapped in the days she’s been able to spend with Deena, the nights of uninterrupted time together in her dorm or watching TV in the common room.

She’s so immersed in the song on the radio and the books in front of her that Sam doesn’t realize there’s someone standing at the desk until the bell lets out a cheerful dig and her head jerks up quickly, an apology already on the tip of her tongue, only to see Deena standing on the other side. Deena grins, cavalier and as bright as the sunshine outside, and leans forward, propping her elbows on the counter. “Not that I’m trying to tell you how to do your job or anything, but I think your shift ended five minutes ago.”

Sam glances at the clock and then back at Deena’s face, rounded and softened by her smile, and can’t resist the impulse to lean forward, to kiss her softly, the library quiet around them. Deena closes her eyes, their foreheads brushing together in a last lingering touch, before they move apart once more.

“Okay,” Sam says, head still fizzy from the press of Deena’s lips against hers. “Let me get my stuff.”

She wouldn’t mind ending every shift like this, rather than having to chatter with the other employees or tell a particular impatient student that someone else would be happy to help them but she’s not actually working anymore. No, this is definitely better.

This, Sam thinks, is better than most things.

Deena is waiting outside, face tipped up toward the spring sunshine, the light illuminating the dusting of freckles across her cheeks and tangling in her curls. She looks luminous, radiant and brilliant, but, then again, Sam always thinks that. It seems ridiculously indulgent and astonishing to be able to be the one to walk over to Deena, to take her hand, to be the one to get that smile.

It’s only early afternoon and the campus is quiet, the usually crowded green currently host to only two other students, both laying in the grass and neither seeming to be interested in the books and papers they’ve brought with them. The dining hall is closed for the week, but they get sandwiches from the coffee shop in the student center and take them back outside, settling, too, in the grass.

Sam leaves her sandwich for the moment, opting instead to stretch out with her head pillowed in Deena’s lap and the sun against her cheeks, burning red behind her eyes when she closes them. She could fall asleep easily, she knows, lulled by the warmth of the day and the solid presence of Deena’s body and Deena’s fingers brush gently against her cheeks, the bridge of her nose, the bow of her lips, and only leave her feeling heavier, all the more at ease. Sam reaches for Deena’s hand without opening her eyes, knitting their fingers together and letting their hands rest against her stomach. “I’m glad we didn’t go back home.”

Sam isn’t even sure she’s said the words out loud, isn’t sure that Deena has heard them even if she did, but then Deena sighs and says, “Yeah” and gives her hand a squeeze.

#sameena #have some fluff #have some college Sam and Deena #have it all #Sam Fraser #Deena Johnson #long post #I just love the soft I guess?#sam/deena

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