Heart Bones

Beyah and Samson find themselves in the guest bathroom, Samson nursing a bleeding nose and Beyah a jellyfish burn. Down the hall, Brian frets that Samson will sue him for breaking his nose. Samson assures Beyah that his nose is not broken and he will not sue. Brian quizzes Beyah about whether she is on birth control.

Samson leaves, and Beyah goes upstairs. She takes Samson’s memory card and plugs it into Sara’s computer. She views the photos, seeing that Samson took many of her.

She takes the memory card to his house; he invites her in. She finds the inside immaculate, with almost no personal items visible. Samson has all of his essentials in a backpack. Beyah thinks, “It’s kind of ironic that we both carry our lives around in a backpack, despite the vast difference of wealth between us” (140). Beyah wonders about Samson’s past and tries to ask him about it. Instead, Samson asks her about herself. She confides that she has a full volleyball scholarship to Penn State. She tells him that no one ever cheered for her and that she was extremely lonely even as part of a team. Then she confesses that her mother died the day before she came to Texas, which was why she was crying on her balcony.