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It was finally graduation day.
Sam’s whole family was there to cheer for him as he walked across the stage to accept his high school diploma. Aunts and uncles and all his sisters, even the two who had to come back from college early, and his grandpa, who had a seat on the end of a row with his cane sticking out into the path. And they all went out to a restaurant after, Sam still in his gown, and he was toasted for his success, and everyone joked about how they wouldn’t look if he had some of Uncle John’s drink, and then shouted at him or cheered again when he did. It was one of the best days of his life.
Sam’s family had always been everything he could have wanted. They loved each other and took care of each other, even though they’d spread out over the years. Family holidays and celebrations were always full and loud and happy, always predictably warm and full of embraces and gifts and love.
Sam’s dream, since he turned thirteen, was to strike out on his own. He loved his family, but the call of the wide blue sky, the unknown, was impossible to fight. Especially when he knew that he could always come back and be welcomed with open arms. He would leave the day after he graduated high school, he’d decided years ago, and he’d planned and planned and waited and now it was almost, almost, time.
Now, graduation day was over. It was past midnight, and on the roof of Sam’s family house, he clutched a mug of coffee to his chest and flicked ash from his cigarette with his other hand and beamed up at the clear sky, empty of expectations and full of possibility.
At his side, Bucky’s face was blank.
“I think California, first, but that’s just a goal,” Sam said, for what had to be the hundredth time over the years. “If something happens on the way, it happens. And—”
“Anything could happen,” Bucky muttered along with Sam.
Sam laughed, taking another drag of his cig. “Yeah. I’m sorry, you’ve heard all this before.”
“Heard it?” Bucky scoffed. “I could put it to music by now. Go on, tell me about Chicago and Yellowstone and the Rio Grande, one more time.”
Sam flicked his cigarette in Bucky’s direction. Bucky batted uselessly at the ashes, glowering from under his long, emo haircut.
“Well, what about you?” Sam asked, turning onto his side. He put his coffee on the sill in front of the attic’s dormer window. The white paint was by now ringed over and over from their mugs, stained enough that no rains could wash away the marks of their presence.
Bucky put his mug next to Sam’s and tossed his head characteristically, moving his spiky bangs out of his black-rimmed eyes for an instant before they fell back in place.
“What about me?” he grunted. “I’ll work.”
Sam smiled affectionately. “You’re such a curmudgeon,” he teased. “I don’t get it. You’re not nearly old enough to be such an old man.”
“I’ve gotta balance you out somehow,” Bucky said wryly.
He turned his head toward Sam, and just like a thousand times before, they both paused, realizing how close they’d gotten. The hot air of the night hung between them for a few moments.
Sam smiled, enjoying it. Then he broke the stare, letting the tension go, even as he scooched over on the roof tile to be closer to his best friend.
“Becca wants to go to college,” Bucky said in a quiet voice. His face was only a few inches from Sam’s ear, now, and he was gentle with it. “She won’t hear a word against it. Ma doesn’t think we’ll be able to afford it. But she’s so smart.”
“Yeah,” Sam agrees.
“If she keeps her grades up, gets a good scholarship, she could have a real shot.” Bucky sighs, big and quiet, like he does. “So I gotta work. I’m not letting her get trapped here.”
Sam takes his hand. It’s not something they ever do during the daylight hours, and not where people could see. But at night, up here, with coffee on their breath and smoke in the air… life’s just better.
It’s everything life could be.
Sam leaves early the next morning. His mom and dad and one of his sisters see him off, the only ones who wanted to get up so early. Sam knows that the rest of them will get up later and share a big breakfast around the dining room table, teasing and grumbling and gossiping just like they always do, whether he’s there or not. They’ll miss him, and they’ll welcome him back, but they’ll go on without him.
He hits the highway just when the sun comes fully up over the horizon, and he’s never felt so free.
Traveling was everything Sam could have dreamed of and more. He went to concerts, art shows, rallies. He saw the sun rise over the Rockies and the fires light the skies in California. He took things he didn’t know the names of with a beautiful woman, and for a while his passenger seat was filled by a raggedy dog he’d rescued from a river. He fed it and loved it until it was tamed again and then he found it a home with someone who’d love it like it deserved.
He took a few fun part time jobs, but mostly he lived off the thousand dollars he’d saved through high school. He slept in his car, and in National Parks, and on the couches of friends he made along the way, and also in grimy motels and a few times in nicer places, just to say he’d done it.
And, for a while, he stayed in a small house on the outskirts of Austin with a guy he’d met who loved running and football and dancing and drinking. Riley lived his life out loud, and Sam thought they were kindred spirits. But Riley wanted to live his whole life in that city, with the friends he’d always known, and while he’d have let Sam stay with him, he’d never be drawn out, forward, toward something, not the way Sam wanted from his own life. So Sam left on good terms, and while he missed Riley and the little house they’d shared, he never felt a pull to go back.
Not like he felt pulled back home.
Sam sent postcards home, and called on payphones when he had a few extra quarters, and every so often he’d end up in a city where there was a house full of Wilson cousins, and that was enough for him, really. He had his touchstones, and he had more exploring to do. Portland and Detroit and Phoenix, Kansas City and Black Rock City, and a hundred other places in between with smaller names or no name, Sam loved them all. But ever since he’d left Austin, he’d been aware that there were other things he wanted, too, not just the road and the next stop and the possibilities.
It was 2am on the West Coast, and Sam had just stumbled out of a party with two new friends at his side, and they were laughing and clearly planning on getting busy in their bedroom when they got back to the condo, and Sam was fine to crash on their couch with his earplugs, but he looked up at the moon and the stars, smelled someone’s cigarette, and knew, right then, that his next adventure had a name and an address. Anything could still happen before he got there, but that was where he was going to end up.
Sam had been gone for six years by the time he pulled back into his home town. His money was gone, and the tape of his sister’s old cassettes had snapped from being played so much, but his soul was bigger now, fed and nurtured, and he didn’t regret a minute.
He’d called ahead, and his mom was waiting on the porch, though the sun was coming down. She hugged him for long enough that he felt like he fit right in her arms, like he’d never left. And then they went inside and his dad did the same thing, and then his youngest sister, who hadn’t left home yet, and he got to meet the dog they’d adopted after hearing his story.
After a big welcome-home dinner, he went to settle back into his old room. He took a shower and unpacked, waiting through the sounds of his family settling in for the night. When it was late enough, he went down to the kitchen and brewed up some coffee, grabbed the pack of cigarettes out of his bag, and climbed through his window onto the roof.
It was early, barely eleven, but Sam was good at keeping himself entertained. He nursed his coffee and smoked a cig or two, getting back into it slowly. He hadn’t really smoked while he was on the road. Well, he hadn’t smoked cigarettes. His lungs weren’t really happy about it, so he mostly took a drag every few minutes and let them burn themselves out, enjoying the smell and the memories it brought back.
When midnight had come and gone with no sign of Bucky, Sam went back inside. He knew Bucky would have known he was coming back today. The town wasn’t too small, but their social circles were close enough that there would have been no way for Bucky to avoid hearing the news.
Sam left the house as quietly as possible and walked through the empty streets toward Bucky’s neighborhood. When he reached the old brick building he peered up at the dark window that had been Bucky’s since his family had moved to town in the third grade. Sam must have thrown a hundred little stones at that window, and his aim was still true.
Movement in the dark room. Sam waved. A few minutes later, the glass front door to the building opened, and someone came out.
Most everything had been the same, since Sam came back to town. The buildings were the same, his parents were the same, and even his sister, for all that she’d grown up, had seemed like the same person. Sam was brought up short by the sight of Bucky, recognizably still Sam’s longest and best friend in the world, but also so very, very different.
Gone were the lip piercings, the chunky bracelets. His hair wasn’t dyed black anymore, but he’d grown it out even longer, and it was tied back in a bun that made his face look almost angelic. He was wearing blue jeans and an old t-shirt that was the one thing Sam recognized. And there was no more dark eyeliner on his face. It made him look young, even though he looked so much older than Sam remembered.
“I’ve got work in the morning,” Bucky grumbled, and that right there, that hadn’t changed a bit.
Sam stepped forward, drawn to Bucky the same way he’d always been drawn to the road. It shouldn’t have worked—Bucky was walking and didn’t expect Sam to step right into him—but somehow, Sam managed to slot against Bucky’s body without crashing them together and laid a soft kiss on those plush lips.
The kiss lingered for a wonderful moment. Bucky was the one who broke it, moving back a few inches, staring down at Sam’s lips as though the slick sound of them pulling apart was the real shock.
“You… you can’t just…” he said weakly. “Sam, you’ve been gone for years.”
“And you were the only thing I missed,” Sam said honestly. He ran a hand up Bucky’s side and watched those tired eyelids slide shut, drank in the face he’d seen in daydreams, unacknowledged.
He reached in his pocket and pulled out the pack of cigarettes. “I thought we could talk, like we used to?”
Bucky stared at the pack, then at Sam, a smile growing on his face, he shook his head and laughed at the audacity, but his hands rested on Sam’s hips and held them close.
He rested his forehead on Sam’s and looked him in the eyes, and didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. Sam could read that look in his eyes perfectly, always had.
He tilted his head and was met for another kiss, and knew he’d landed in the place he’d been heading toward from the start.