12. Garret
GARRET
I pulled onto the road and opened the throttle and let the speed fill up the space in my head that Sara had cracked open.
The fields blurred past on both sides and the wind cut through my jacket and none of it helped.
Her face was right there every time I blinked.
My God, was she just as beautiful as ever—aged a little, but the maturity in her was sexy as hell, and the pull was too strong.
I was distracted, tugged in fifty different directions at once and not paying attention as a deer came out of the tree line so fast I barely had time to react.
It bolted across the road twenty yards ahead of me and I grabbed both brakes and felt the rear tire lock up and slide before I let off and swerved hard to the right.
The bike wobbled and I caught it with my knee against the tank and skidded to a stop sideways on the shoulder with my pulse racing. The deer already darted into the field on the other side, but
I sat there breathing hard knowing what would've happened had I hit it.
That was the second time I'd nearly wrecked because my head was full of Sara Ducette instead of the road in front of me. The first time cost me three months in a hospital and a hip that would never be right again. If this deer had been ten yards closer, it would've cost me a lot more than that.
I squeezed my eyes shut and killed the engine, relaxing back on the bike for a few minutes.
When she asked me about the accident I lost it.
She had no idea I'd gone to see her father unless Peter told her, and her knowing how bad I was hurt and having never visited me was worse pain than the four surgeries I endured, or the chronic ache I had every time it rained now.
What was I thinking going out to that shed to see if she needed comfort? I knew it would dredge up memories, and I knew I never got over the emotional pain of her ghosting me. But there I went marching out there like a fool walking to his own execution. What an idiot.
And she saw it too. It wasn't bad enough that I carried my own shame. Sara tried to get me to open up because unlike the other people in this town who didn't know me, Sara knew my every thought. She always had been able to read me like a book.
My hands curled into fists and I pounded the gas tank once or twice to burn off some of my anger.
Reuniting with Sara shouldn't have been that hard.
We were both adults and she wasn't here to bring up old ghosts.
She was here because her father was really sick and I didn't want to make that worse.
I wanted to offer her my sympathy, which was why I walked out to see where she was.
Then I ruined it by not being able to keep my emotions under wraps.
It wasn’t fair of me to blame her, and I hadn't gotten a chance to offer the comfort I had hoped. If either one of us was going to make it through this visit of hers to Grove Hill, one of us had to be the bigger person.
After several long minutes of frustrated stewing, I decided to turn back to town.
By the time I pulled onto the street where Ma's Griddle sat, the sun was going down and the diner was dark.
The sign was off, the windows were black, and the parking lot out front was empty.
It was too early for them to be closed, so I almost kept riding.
But when I swung around the back of the building, Sara's dirt bike was still parked next to the dumpster, and I could see her sitting on the back step with her elbows on her knees and her head down. She looked sad, and it hit me hard. I wasn't a sentimental sort of man, but I hated seeing her hurt.
She looked up as I rolled up and parked next to her and killed the engine. Her eyes were red and her face was drawn and she didn't look surprised to see me, which meant she was either too tired to react or she'd been expecting me to come back. I didn't know which one was worse.
"Power's out," she said before I could ask. "Mom missed the electric bill and they shut it off. I can't get it turned back on until tomorrow morning when the office opens."
I swung off the bike and walked over. "Mind if I sit?" I didn't figure Peter and Anne were having financial issues, but it made sense that paying a bill would slip her mind if she was worried about his health.
Sara moved over on the step and I lowered myself down next to her.
It was every bit as awkward as our strange interaction forty minutes ago though I forced myself not to take off this time.
The concrete was cold and the space was narrow enough that our shoulders were almost touching.
I kept my hands on my knees and stared out at the dumpster.
"I'm, uh… I'm sorry for running off like that."
Her shoulder bobbed, but her head dropped. "I get it. We aren't on good terms now."
My gut felt tight, like I was bracing for someone to punch me. I didn't know what to say, but sitting in silence felt painful.
"You, uh… You look sad." God, was I ever bad at this. Most of my conversations revolved around bikes or local runs. I kept to myself and didn't talk to many people at all, and when she and I had conversations in the past, it had always been about the next time we'd hook up.
"Yeah, bud, I am." I hadn't heard her call me bud in four years. Four lonely years of not a single trace of intimacy or connection with anyone, and my heart drank it up like water in a desert.
"Wanna talk about it?" I bumped her shoulder with mine and the distance between us shrank, as did the years between us too.
We were just two broken kids staring out into the dying sunlight carrying a heavy burden we didn't know what to do with.
Mine was my heartbreak over her. Hers was a lot of grief.
She was quiet for a second and I gathered it wasn't good.
"The doctors say he's not improving. The stroke did a lot of damage and they don't know how much function he'll get back even if he does wake up.
Mom's barely eating. She won't leave his room.
I had to practically force her to let me come open the diner today, and now I can't even keep the lights on. "
"That's not your fault," I tell her. I refrained from putting an arm around her, but it was what I wanted to do.
"It feels that way."
"It's a missed bill, Sara. It happens. You'll pay it in the morning and everything'll be back up and running by the time the breakfast crowd shows up."
She nodded but didn't say anything, and I could tell the electric bill wasn't really what was weighing on her. It was everything else underneath it, the whole pile of things that'd been stacking up since her dad collapsed and probably long before that.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" I asked. "I'm not much use in a kitchen, but I can fix things and I can lift heavy stuff and I owe your family more than I'll ever be able to pay back."
"That's nice of you, Garret. But we'll manage."
"I know you will. I'm not saying you can't. I'm saying you don't have to do it alone."
She looked at me, and I could tell she wanted to say more but held back. "Danny and Andy are home. They're helping with the house and the shop and keeping an eye on things while I handle the diner. We've got it covered."
"Good. That's good." I paused. "So, does that mean you'll be around for a while?"
"For a while. Until things stabilize and Mom can get back on her feet."
"How long is a while?"
"I don't know. Weeks, maybe. However long it takes."
I rubbed my palms along my jeans and felt the familiar pull of wanting to say something that I'd been holding back for four years.
She was sitting right next to me and there was no crowd and no club brothers and no reason to keep my mouth shut anymore except the fear of what would happen if I opened it.
"You know, I didn't wreck because of the gravel.
I mean, the gravel is what laid the bike, but that's not why it happened.
" I stared straight ahead because I couldn't look at her while I said this.
"It happened 'cause I went out to your dad's shop the day of the finals, when you didn't show up.
He told me you'd skipped town and he wouldn't tell me where. I was so pissed, Sara. I was hurt and…"
Sara said nothing and it only made this harder. I had no idea what she was thinking now or what she'd been thinking back then when I was laid up and suffering and she hadn't come. She wanted more. I pushed her away, and if she really loved me, why hadn't she come?
But none of those things that I had wrestled with for months mattered right now. She was here now, and this was my only shot at fixing what I broke, if there was any way to fix it at all.
"I was angry because I knew I'd messed up.
I knew it the night you ended things, and I knew it every day after that.
I was too proud and stupid to do anything about it.
When I found out you were gone, I realized I'd waited too long, and I couldn't handle it.
So I rode like an idiot and it almost killed me. "
"Garret—"
"I'm not done." I turned and looked at her.
Her eyes were wet with tears but they weren't falling yet.
"I spent three months in that hospital bed with nothing to do but think about what I should've said to you that I didn't. And then I spent four years after that trying to convince myself I was over it, and I'm not. I never was."
She bit the inside of her cheek and looked away from me toward the parking lot. "I was really hurt, Crank." I knew she used that name for me when she was angry, and I didn't blame her for being upset. "You told me?—"
"I know what I told you. And I was wrong."
"You can't just say that to me after four years." Now there were tears on her cheeks as she faced me again.
"I know that too. But you have to forgive me. I've run out of body parts I'm willing to break over this."