Chapter Twenty-Five Sawyer
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sawyer
The hallway floor creaks under the weight of my bare feet as I creep toward the kitchen. I can hear her crying again—Mom. Aunt Taylor’s voice is quiet, trying to soothe her.
“You’ll wake the kids up,” my mom’s sister says, pouring white wine into my mother’s empty glass. “You’ve got to be strong for them. For Sawyer. It’s the only way you’ll all get through this, Michelle.”
Even from here, I can see how red Mom’s face is as she wipes it with a tissue. How long has she been crying for this time?
I frown, wanting to make my appearance known, but my feet stick to the floor like they’re weighed down.
“I should have seen the signs,” Mom tells her sister, voice raw as she grabs the glass and plays with the stem. “There were so many.”
“You couldn’t have known it would be this,” Aunt Taylor counters, putting her hand on my mother’s free one.
The doctors said the same thing. Kids get sick all the time. Nobody would have assumed it was cancer. No number of bruises or amount of fatigue could have led to someone thinking I had more than a stubborn cold and love for adventure. I told her that. Dad did too.
Mom stares at her drink. She loves wine, but she’s barely touched it. Maybe she’s sick too. “I have a horrible feeling in my stomach.”
My ears start ringing.
Mom turns her head, looking directly at me.
Wait. I don’t remember this part.
She says, “I have a horrible feeling.”
Is she talking to me?
I try speaking, but it feels like there’s something on my mouth preventing me from saying a word. Tape. Glue. A restraint.
I try saying her name, but nothing comes out.
She starts crying again, a suffocating feeling crushing my chest as I watch her. “I have a horrible feeling,” she repeats, her piercing focus cutting holes into me.
I attempt to walk into the room and tell her I’ll be okay, but I can’t move. I’m frozen, forced to watch her break down. I try to move my arms, my mouth, anything.
Mom straightens while looking straight at me—through me, knocking into the wineglass.
It falls, shattering on the ground into pieces.
I jerk up, nearly toppling off the couch that I must have fallen asleep on.
A piece of paper is stuck to my face with drool pooling from the nap I accidentally took. Peeling the paper off, I use the back of my hand to wipe my face off and take a deep breath, only to see a smear of red.
“Not again,” I whisper, rushing to the sink in time for droplets to fall into the basin.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Grabbing paper towels, I tilt my head back and try stopping it before it gets out of hand, my mind still on the dream that my heart aches from.
I have a horrible feeling.
“It was a dream,” I tell myself, eyes flicking to the broken water glass on the floor. I must have knocked it down trying to get to the dream version of my mother.
But it wasn’t just a dream.
It was fragments of memories taunting me. How many times did I sneak downstairs and hear Mom crying? Or Aunt Taylor trying to reassure her that it would be okay? Too many to count.
I never said a word.
Never told her I would be fine.
I simply listened, tearing up in the hallway, knowing I was the one responsible for how she felt. Before then, I’d never seen my mother cry once. She was always strong. Always the glue that held us all together.
Without Dad, she had no choice but to be. He was supportive from a thousand miles away, but that could only go so far with two kids in New York. Especially when one of them was sick.
Closing my eyes, I swipe at the dampness pooling under the lids.
After giving myself some time to calm down and clean up once the nosebleed stops, I glance at the last thing I worked on before drifting off.
The short story I started in my notebook is smudged, the ink probably smeared on my face. I run my hand over the first line and think about what Professor Grey told me about using personal experience to guide me.
I open my laptop and start a new document, titling it “Mama’s Eyes.”
I have a horrible feeling.
My stomach clenches at those haunting words, lingering for hours as my fingers dance along the keyboard. I write from the heart, feeling everything on the screen.
I have a horrible feeling.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I whisper aloud, staring at the end of the story before closing my laptop.
I look back down at the broken glass.
Swallowing the emotion cramming into my throat, I sweep up the mess and dump it into the trash can.
When I crawl into bed, I hug my knees to my chest and pray that another dream doesn’t come when I close my eyes.
* * *
Dixie frowns the second she sees me. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asks for the fifth time since we got to the dining hall. My appetite is limited, and even though the food smells delicious, nausea nips at my stomach too much to eat anything.
I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night for the past three days, feeling anxious and sick. I brushed it off the first time, started getting uneasy the second, and woke irritated at two in the morning the third time. Some dreams I remembered vividly; other nights I only remembered bolting upright in bed with my heart racing and ears ringing, sweat making my pajamas stick to my body.
“Tired is all,” I promise her, sipping my water. I couldn’t even stomach my coffee this morning because the first sip tasted metallic, causing my stomach to grumble in protest. “What were you saying?”
She plays with her fruit bowl. “There’s a party happening this weekend that I got invited to by a guy in my history class. He plays baseball. I guess that’s not relevant.” Is she nervous? “Er, anyway, he told me I should come. It’s at his place. He lives with a few guys on the team.”
I blink, realizing I’ve missed something vital. Feeling like a bad friend again for being out of touch, I ask, “What about Dawson?”
It’s hard to miss the frown that curls her lips as she shrugs. “He’s…” She stops herself, sighing and dropping her fork. Looking up at me, there’s sadness in her eyes. “I told him I wouldn’t say anything to anybody, but it’s been bothering me.”
Concern has me almost forgetting to feel sick. “What?”
She licks her lips. “He started acting stranger than usual. It started with the backpack at the parade and then got worse. Then he started asking me out more, but it seemed like I was way more into him than he was me, so I didn’t understand why. I guess I kept agreeing because he seemed like he needed somebody, and I knew I could be good for him. Plus, I figured he’d stay out of trouble if we hung out a lot.”
Her shoulders slump. Groaning, she pushes the food away from her. “The last time we went out, he took me to a nice restaurant I’d never been to before. We were talking about school, and he shut down when I asked about classes. So I changed the subject to basketball because I hadn’t seen him at the last home game, and his mood got worse. He kept getting up to use the bathroom and got upset when I asked if he wanted to leave. Then, right before our entrees came out, two guys who looked way too old to be in college came up to our table and started talking to him. Dawson looked freaked out when they asked why he was avoiding them.”
Oh no. “Did he say who they were?”
Dixie shakes her head. “One of them was covered in tattoos and kept touching his pocket. The other one was staring at me with a creepy grin on his face. When they left, Dawson told me we had to go. He didn’t wait for the food to get wrapped or the check. I told him we needed to pay, but he was in a rush, so he all but dragged me out to the car. The whole ride back to campus was silent and awkward, and when he dropped me off, he said it was better if we didn’t see each other anymore. He wouldn’t even look me in the eyes when he told me. He seemed so sketched out by what happened.”
Her bottom lip quivers, and I feel awful. I haven’t asked about them because I wanted to distance myself from whatever was blossoming between them. After what happened at the party and what I told Dawson at his basketball game, it felt like the best thing I could do. Maybe I was wrong.
“I’m so sorry, Dixie. Are you all right?”
She shrugs limply. “I feel pathetic. I basically got broken up with by somebody I wasn’t even really dating. And I…I liked him. Or the idea of him, anyway. I thought I could fix him. Or, at the very least, help him. I know Banks told me that people could only change if they wanted to, but it seemed like he was trying.”
As much as I hate that she went through that, I know it’s easier this way. “You’re better off without him and his issues. In fact, I don’t think he and Banks are talking right now either. Whoever those guys are, they’re probably people you don’t want to be around.”
It’s true, but I can tell she still hurts. Nothing I can say right now will make that go away. Only time can.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.” I’m a terrible friend. “You should have called me when it happened. We could have gone somewhere. Gotten drunk and then posted bad things about him anonymously online.”
She shrugs defeatedly, my sense of humor doing little to lighten the mood. “You were busy with your family, and it wasn’t like we were exactly talking.”
That’s no excuse. Friends should be there for each other no matter the circumstances. I told her that.
Dixie rubs her arm. “Banks was there for me after it happened.”
What?
“He found me wandering around town crying,” she enlightens when she sees my face. Her cheeks turn red. “Not one of my finer moments, but I didn’t want to be cooped up in my dorm room listening to everybody else have fun. He took me out for ice cream at his favorite spot. The one on the edge of town.”
Banks was there, and I wasn’t.
I’m grateful.
“That’s nice of him,” I offer, rubbing my arm. I didn’t even know Banks liked ice cream, but I was glad he could help her when she obviously needed it.
“Don’t be like me,” she says. Brows pinching, I shake my head in confusion. She doesn’t make me ask. “Don’t hold back when you like someone because you’re afraid. And don’t hold on if you’re too scared to let go.”
Truth is, I’m terrified. But not for the reasons she probably assumes. Starting something isn’t nearly as scary as when it ends, knowing you’ve hurt people along the way.
“It’s not like that anyway,” I tell her softly.
“Something happened,” she accuses, eyes narrowing into suspicious slits.
The blush heats my cheeks before I can stop it, giving me away. When I woke up the morning after we slept together, I felt…good. Sore, but good. He made us breakfast, kissed me, and then pointed out the bruises on my arms from where he’d held me on the couch.
“I bruise easily,” I admit, breaking off a piece of the Pop-Tart he gave me.
Since then, things have been…fine. Not complicated or awkward, but stagnant thanks to me and the funny feeling in my chest that tells me to be careful. It’s not my gut waving the checkered flag but my heart.
Because I like him. As a friend. As a neighbor. As a cute girl likes a cute boy. Our first time wasn’t exactly how I imagined it would be because I could tell he was in his head, but he still took care of me when it mattered. I know better than most that we all have demons, so I would never judge him for it.
It doesn’t change how I feel. How he makes me feel. I like how he kisses me, how he touches me, how he pays special attention to the noises I make when he brings me to release with his fingers, and that one time with his mouth. I especially like what he does to me when our clothes are off and he takes control of the situation.
But Banks is the type of boy girls fall for.
And I can’t afford that.
So I do my best to avoid it instead—that funny, tingly feeling.
When he tries coming over, I insist on going to his place so he doesn’t see the mess of things that are hidden in my apartment. When he wants me to stay over, I worry my wig won’t stay on and he’ll see my real hair in all its horror in the middle of the night when restlessness from bad dreams becomes too much.
He pushes, I pull, and I can’t even tell him why—can’t explain that it isn’t him.
Dixie is still waiting for an answer when I come back to reality. “Let’s say I crossed a few other things off my list,” I tell her sheepishly, nibbling on the inside of my cheek.
She smacks her palms on the table. “Oh my God, you slept with him!”
The group of girls sitting at a nearby table starts giggling.
I hide my face, sure that one of them is in the journalism class that I’m brutally failing. “Yes, but keep it down. It’s not that big of a deal.”
“You like him. It’s a big deal.”
“Tell me about the baseball player,” I insist, hoping the topic change will get me out of the current conversation. “What’s his name?”
Thankfully, Dixie gives me a break, her excitement switching to Miles, the pitcher for LSU’s team. It’s a welcome distraction from anything going on in my life, including the taunting dream I haven’t been able to shake.
I have a horrible feeling.
By the end of lunch, I have plans Saturday night to meet Dixie’s newest crush at a party that will hopefully be the turning point I need to shift my mood.
I’m excited about it until later that night, when Banks knocks on my door and sees me with another cloth pressed against my nose, stained with red.
He doesn’t say a word.
Doesn’t seem upset that our previous plans that involved far less clothing have changed.
He simply cleans me up like he did the first time, except his touches are softer, lasting longer, like the familiarity he has with me is stronger than before.
And my heart reacts.
It races. And pleads. And drums a sound I’m sure only he can hear.
And I hate it.
I hate that my body comes alive when he’s near, how the hair on my arms stands up and my legs squeeze as if they remember how he feels between them.
I hate that he’s nice to me. That he takes care of me when he doesn’t need to. I hate that he’s so close, always tempting me, always there without question.
And when I wake up the next day to a dehumidifier waiting outside my door, next to the boy with an armful of cooking ingredients, I hate him even more.
Even when he says, “It’s old. I found it in my closet.”
And especially when I go over to his unlocked apartment when he asks me to grab the pot he forgot and see the receipt for one dehumidifier crumpled on the counter.
“Dammit, Banks,” I whisper, staring angrily at it with a fresh glaze of tears in my eyes. I swipe at my lashes and take a deep breath, staring at the ceiling. “Don’t you dare make me love you.”
I hide the receipt, dry my eyes, and pretend I never saw a thing when I return.
But my feelings remain the same.