Sawyer
After lunch, being at home is starting to chafe. I need air. I need movement. I need something to take my mind off Zelda, this woman I’ve met once and cannot get out of my head.
“I’m going out,” I tell Linda.
“Enjoy the weather.” She keeps her voice casual and settles back into her armchair with her book, but I see her shoulders rising toward her ears.
Outside, the early evening smells fresh and hopeful in a way the city never does. The suburbs are shit. But they have the city beat on this.
I resist the urge to look back at my aunt’s window. If I did, I bet I’d see her face peeking out from behind the front curtains, watching to see which way I go.
My dad’s house is well within walking distance.
It’s only a few blocks away. If it weren’t for the hedges in the back of Aunt Linda’s yard, you could cut across her backyard and be in the middle of his. She repaired the gap in the fence that I used to slip through a few years back.
I turn right and start walking toward my dad’s house.
I’m guessing, based on Jem’s appearance this morning, that he’s been discharged from the hospital.
With every step that I take, my pace slows, and my heart beats harder, hands balling into fists.
I haven’t been to his house since the day I turned eighteen and walked out.
That was five years ago.
I’m haunted by him still, but you’re not going to find me talking about it.
His voice echoes in my mind, even out here on the sidewalk.
Drunk. Screaming. Senseless. The ghosts of old punches land on my arms, my jaw, my back.
My pulse beat at my throat the day I left, and he wasn’t awake. He wouldn’t be awake for hours.
It took weeks for my heart to stop racing.
Now it races like I just stepped out the front door. My stomach turns. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Fuck this.
When things are really dire, he says at Aunt Linda’s house. He’s not there now. That means he’s not dying, and it means I don’t have to do this.
I can’t do this.
I come level with his house and keep walking. As soon as I’m at the corner, my jaw loosens and the pulse that’s been threatening to burst my veins calms.
I take a right.
I keep walking.
For ten steps, and then I come to a dead halt.
There’s a woman standing at the corner, looking off into the distance.
When she turns her head in my direction, her mouth goes into a little O of surprise and her eyes go wide. I can see the expression from half a block away, and the change in her face is what spurs me on, makes me start walking again, straight toward her.
My heart pounds again, thuds.
I know who it is.
I know her by the curves of her body underneath those sleek black yoga pants and a fitted top. I know her by the blonde hair that’s gathered up into a bun, still wet, like she was very recently naked in the shower.
I want to pull her hair.
I want to do worse.
“Sawyer?” The tone in her voice is disbelieving, hopeful, but it’s obvious she knows who I am, obvious she’s looking for some confirmation that the man barreling down on her is, in fact, me.
It’s Zelda.