Chapter 8
EIGHT
LUKAS
“Right, the beginning.” I shifted in my seat at the table. Scrubbing a hand through my hair, I let out a breath, emptying my lungs. “Sorry, this is weirder than I thought it would be.”
Another grumble from Lara came from the floor. Dramatic old girl.
Sawyer closed his laptop. “Maybe if we were a bit less structured. I happen to have a good memory, and I can confirm any details later. What do you say we take a walk and see if that helps?”
“That sounds great, actually.” I got to my feet and watched Sawyer slip his things back into his bag. “You can leave that here if you want. Everyone is gone now.”
He seemed hesitant, but he left the bag on the table.
Without speaking, we made our way to the front door. Lara followed close behind me, as unhurried as ever. Grabbing the leash off the hook by the door, I snapped it on her collar.
We made it outside and partway down the street before Sawyer broke the ice. “How long have you had her?”
It was obvious that instead of merely tolerating Lara, he genuinely liked her, and the feeling was mutual. She’d glued herself to his side again, enjoying the way he’d reach down every so often to scrub his fingers through her hair.
“I got her about five years ago. Believe it or not, a younger Lara was just as chill about life. She’s never been overly energetic. She had bursts of it here and there when she was younger, but not so much the past couple years. She’s slowed down a lot.”
“She makes me want a dog, but I’m not delusional enough to believe that they’d all be like her, so maybe I’m good for now.”
“I’d always wanted a dog. I didn’t have the typical sitcom home life with a mom and dad, and a dog waiting for me after school.”
“To be fair, neither did I. Lots of money, no dog. No freedom. Just crushing expectations.” Sawyer winced. “Sorry, I told myself I wasn’t going to do the whole poor little rich kid thing.”
“No, it’s fine. It, ah, makes it easier, I think, for me to tell you things.
Like, sure, there’s things you’ll never relate to, like stealing ramen from the dollar store so I could have something to eat or coming home to find out the power had been cut off again, but it helps, I think, to hear that maybe you’re just as messed up as I am.
I knocked my shoulder against his and grinned. Sawyer smiled back at me, looking sheepish still, like he was ashamed about his upbringing.
“Here.” I told him, holding the end of the leash out to him. “You can walk her. Not that it takes much work.”
Lara ambled along a little bit in front of us, but mostly she stuck close to Sawyer. When he took the leash, he looked like I’d just given him the keys to the city. Lara dropped back to walk beside him and he combed his fingers through her fur again.
“How often did you come home and find there was no power?”
Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I furrowed my brow.
“I was in the first grade the first time. When I was younger, Mom tried hard, you know, but she didn’t have it easy.
She got saddled with a kid she didn’t want by a guy who bounced the minute I came around.
She didn’t graduate high school, so her options were limited.
” I wondered sometimes if she had the same difficulty that I did when it came to reading.
I hadn’t found out about my dyslexia until high school and by then I’d gotten too far behind to catch up to my peers.
The only reason I didn’t drop out was that school gave me some place to be that wasn’t home.
“That must have been scary for a little kid. Though it’s hard to imagine you as a kid.”
“The first time it happened, Mom turned it into a game. Said we were camping. She built a fort in the living room and scrounged up a flashlight somewhere. But that was back when she still tried. I bet you never had your power cut off.” The comment was a risk, but I wanted to hear more about Sawyer.
The differences between us made me curious.
It was clear that neither one of us grew up with a great family.
He seemed self-conscious of the fact that he came from a home that was able to provide for him in ways that mine couldn’t. But money only went so far.
He offered me a tight smile. “No. We always had power. How else would I be able to see the constant disappointment on my parents' faces?”
“I take it they were the harder, better faster stronger type who planned what preschool you were going to attend while the doctors were mixing you in the test tube?”
The sound that erupted out of Sawyer startled me, and I learned the corners of his eyes crinkled when he laughed. “That’s exactly the truth. I don’t think I’ve seen my parents kiss in my entire life. They might have hugged once, but I’m not even sure of that.”
“I used to get so mad that my mom didn’t expect anything of me, but maybe I had it easier than you.”
“Nah, both sucked. It’s hard to not be able to live up to people’s expectations, but it’s also hard to not have any expectations to begin with. It’s natural for kids to want to please their parents.”
“The older I got, the more Mom gave up. At some point, when we lost power, she stopped building forts for me. When we ran low on food, she’d tell me to suck it up, that she was hungry too.
Eventually, I stopped telling her I was hungry.
I started stealing from the dollar store.
Just little things like ramen, when we had power and I could cook them.
Sometimes I stole that godawful ravioli in a can. ”
“Is it that bad?” Sawyer asked. “I’ve never had it, and I’d always kind of wondered.”
“If you like meat that resembles dog food wrapped in squishy pasta, covered in tomato sauce, it’s fantastic. If you like actual food, it’s the most tragic thing you’d ever put in your mouth.”
“I don’t know. Squishy pasta and dog food? You have me sold.”
We’d made it all the way down to the end of the street where there was a park. It was early evening during the week, so most kids were at home for dinner I assumed, leaving the park empty for now. I stepped off the street onto the grass, and Sawyer followed.
When we reached the swings, I took the leash from Sawyer and dropped it on the ground. Lara lowered herself down and rolled around on the grass. Sawyer watched as I took a seat on the swings. Then I motioned to the one next to mine.
“Don’t worry. I don’t plan on leaping off and snapping a hip. I nearly did the first time I came here. I tried to relive my childhood, but I wasn’t counting on how old my knees would feel upon impact.”
He took the swing next to mine. “Before you got into the adult industry, what did you want to do? Like when you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?”
I leaned back and turned my face upward as I swung back and forth under the clouds. It was one of those days when the sky looked extra blue. Crisp and clean and dotted with the odd puffy cloud.
“When I was little, I wanted to be what other kids wanted to be. Firemen. Pilots. You know, the cool professions. The heroes.” I stopped there and waited for the knot in my chest to loosen.
Sawyer was eternally patient with me. Less pushy than I’d have expected from someone who was depending on me to spill my guts so he could get his job done.
“What about you? What did you want to be?”
I caught the hint of a smile as we swung past each other.
“Well, my older brother is a doctor. He fell in line a lot better than I did. I wasted my youth writing rubbish fantasy novels, and then I practically disgraced the family by publishing one. Albeit under a pen name. But they wanted me to be a doctor, a lawyer, something important. Someone powerful. Someone I’m not. ”
“You little rebel.” I lowered my legs and dug them into the pea gravel and brought myself to a stop.
“When I realized I wasn’t ever going to be anything, I wanted to be loved.
And when I realized that wasn’t going to happen, I wanted to be invisible.
And when that didn’t happen, I was suddenly eighteen at a club I’d snuck into and there was a guy there.
Older. Charming. Knew all the right things to say to a kid like me.
I left with his business card burning a hole in my pocket.
” I gripped the chains so tight my knuckles turned white.
“That’s how they got me. A bit of attention.
A few well-placed compliments. He painted a pretty picture for me and left me with a card.
He made me come to him. And then they never let me forget it. ”
I chanced it and looked over at Sawyer. His jaw was clenched, but his eyes were soft, watery almost. “You were just a kid.”
“I didn’t feel like I was. Not by then. By then, I’d been on my own for three years. I’d gone to school until they kicked me out, and then I did shit jobs and slept on couches in my friends’ basements until I wore out every welcome there was.”
“I’m sorry.”
Sawyer sounded like he meant it, and not in a way that felt like disgust or pity. There was no way in hell he’d been through anything like the shit I’d been through, but it was as if he looked at my past and saw the ways I had been failed, instead of my own mistakes.
But we’d only just scratched the surface. Who knew how long that would remain true. Standing up, I walked to Lara, who still laid on the grass, sprawled out in the sunshine.
“We should head back. At the rate Lara goes, we might make it before dark.”
Sawyer came up beside me and tucked his hands in his pockets. “It’s okay if not. Lara will protect us.”
I couldn’t stop the laugh that burst out of me. Lara would be of no help in a bad situation. She wasn’t that kind of dog.
“That’s unlikely, but she appreciates the support. Even if it’s a little delusional.”
“My delusions are all I have sometimes.” Sawyer bumped his shoulder against mine. “Thanks for taking me to the swings. I can’t remember the last time I went on those.”
“I come here to think sometimes.”
“Recapture your lost childhood?” Sawyer’s voice was soft.
“Something like that,” I said.
Exactly like that.