I don’t know what to think of that. Is that a sign of regret? Or is he just overwhelmed because he got punched twice and refused to fight back? The way he’s reacting right now fills me with so many questions. Questions I know he won’t likely answer. He’s a vault and I really wish I had a key.

Or some explosives.

I want an excuse to go over there so I can get a closer look at him and see what it is exactly that’s bothering him so much. I need to know if it’s because he almost kissed me.

Would he try it again if I gave him the chance?

I want to give him the chance. I want that kiss almost as much as I don’t.

I do have his memory card. I could take it back to him. I haven’t looked at the pictures yet, though. I really want to see them before I give it back to him.

Sara has a computer in her bedroom, so I fish the memory card out of my backpack and go to Sara’s computer.

I wait several minutes for all of the images to load. There are a lot of them. The first ones to load are all pictures of nature. All things he said he takes pictures of. Countless sunrises and sunsets. Pictures of the beach. But they aren’t necessarily pretty pictures. They’re soothingly sad. Most of them are taken with the focus zoomed in on something random, like a piece of trash floating in the water, or seaweed piled up on the sand.

It’s interesting. It’s like he puts the focus on the saddest part of whatever is in view of his lens, but the picture as a whole is still beautiful.

The pictures he took of me begin to load. There are more than I thought there would be, and he apparently started snapping pictures of me before I even moved to the front of the ferry.

Most of the pictures are of me on the side of the ferry, watching the sunset alone.

He put the focus on me in every picture. Nothing else. And based on all the other pictures he took, I suppose that means he thought I was the saddest thing in his frame.

There’s one picture in particular that strikes me. It’s zoomed in and the focus is on a small rip in the back of my sundress that I didn’t even know was there. Even with his focus on something as sad as my dress, the picture is still striking. My face is out of focus, and if this were a picture of anyone else but me, I’d say it was a beautiful piece of art.

Instead, I’m embarrassed he paid such close attention to me before I even noticed he was there.

I scroll through every picture of me and notice there isn’t a single picture of me eating the bread. I wonder why he didn’t photograph that.

That says a lot about him. I regret reacting how I did when he tried to offer me money on the ferry that day. Samson may actually be a decent human and the pictures on this memory card back that up.

I remove it from the computer and even though I’m still in pain and kind of want to crawl in bed and go to sleep, I head downstairs, outside and across the yard. Samson always uses his back door, so I head in that direction. I walk up the steps and knock.

I wait for a while, but I don’t hear his footsteps and I can’t see the kitchen from this point of view. I hear something behind me, though. When I turn around, P.J. is sitting at the top of the stairs watching me. I smile a little. I like that he’s still around.

Samson eventually opens the door. He’s changed clothes in the time I was watching him from my window to the point of me knocking on his door. He’s wearing one of Marcos’s HisPanic T-shirts, which seem to be the only shirts he wears, if he’s wearing a shirt at all. I like that he’s supportive of Marcos’s vision. Their friendship is kind of adorable.

Samson is barefoot, and I don’t know why I’m staring at his feet. I look back at his face.

“I was just bringing your memory card back.” I hand it to him.

“Thanks.”

“I didn’t delete anything.”

Samson’s mouth curls up on the left side. “I didn’t think you would.”

He steps aside and motions for me to come in. I squeeze between him and the doorframe and enter his dark house. He flips on a light, and I try to hide my gasp, but it’s even bigger on the inside than it looks from the outside.

Everything is white and colorless. The walls, the cabinets, the trim. The floor is a dark wood—almost black. I spin around in a circle, admiring it for what it is, but also recognizing how unlike a home it feels. There isn’t any soul at all.

“It’s kind of...sterile.” As soon as I say it, I wish I hadn’t. He didn’t ask for my opinion on his house, but it’s hard not to notice how unlived-in it feels.

Samson shrugs like my opinion of his house doesn’t bother him. “It’s a rent house. They’re all like this. Very generic.”

“It’s so clean.”

“People sometimes rent at the last minute. It’s easier for me if I keep the houses rent-ready.” Samson walks to his refrigerator and opens it, waving a hand inside. The refrigerator is mostly empty, aside from a few condiments in the door. “Nothing in the fridge. Nothing in the pantry.” He closes the refrigerator door.

“Where do you keep your food?”

He motions toward a closet near the stairs that lead to the top floor. “We keep the stuff we don’t want renters to have access to in that closet. There’s a small fridge in it.” He points to a backpack next to the door. “Everything else I own I keep in that backpack. The less I have, the easier it is for me to move between our properties.”

I’ve seen him with the backpack a couple of times but thought nothing of it. It’s kind of ironic that we both carry our lives around in a backpack, despite the vast difference of wealth between us.

I glance up near the door, at a picture on the wall. It’s the only thing in the house that has any character. I walk over to it. It’s a photo of a young boy, about three years old, walking on the beach. A woman is behind him, wearing a flowy white dress. She’s smiling at whoever is taking the photo. “Is this your mother?” It reminds me of those perfect sample photos they place in frames before they’re purchased.

Samson nods.

“So that’s you? As a toddler?”

He nods again.

His hair is so blond in the picture, it’s almost white. It’s darkened since he was a child, but I’d still consider his hair blond. I don’t know if it’s this blond in the winter, though. It seems to be the kind of hair that changes color with the seasons.

I wonder what Samson’s father looks like, but there aren’t any photos of him. This is the only photo in this section of the house.

I have so many more questions as I stare at the picture. His mother seems happy. He seems happy. I wonder what happened to him to make him so private and withdrawn? Did his mother die? I doubt he’d elaborate on anything if I were to ask him.

Samson flips on more lights and leans against his kitchen counter. I don’t know how he can appear so casual when all of my muscles are tight with tension. “Your leg feel better?” he asks.

I can tell he doesn’t want to talk about the picture or his mother or anything else that would be another layer deep. I walk into the kitchen and stand across from him, leaning against the large center island. It’s the kitchen island Cadence was sitting on a few nights ago when I watched him kiss her.

I push that thought out of my head. “It feels a little better. I doubt I’ll get in the water again, though.”