Chapter 16
WEDNESDAY, JULY 21
For days, all Sawyer could think about was that kiss.
That kiss.
That. Kiss.
It was as if the memory of it lived in the cells of her body, volatile and touchy, like a bomb ready to go off. If Sawyer allowed herself to recall the kiss—to play it back in her head, remembering the hungry look in Nick’s eyes just before he stepped toward her and the feeling of his mouth on hers—it set off full-body chills and left her cheeks flushed. Which, of course, was pretty undignified. She hadn’t felt this confusing state of giddiness simultaneously mixed with mortification since she was a teenager.
She tried in earnest not to recall it.
That seemed safer.
There was still the grind of going to work, riding the subway, sitting at her desk in her cubicle. Most of the time, she could almost convince herself it hadn’t happened. But then something would inevitably make her think of Nick, and the memory of the kiss would come rushing back at her, daring her to face the truth that—yes, it had really happened.
And, of course, the only other person who knew it had really happened was Nick.
She’d checked her email that Saturday that followed. And Sunday.
…And Monday.
…And Tuesday.
But he didn’t write.
On Wednesday, Sawyer came home to her usual hot, stuffy apartment feeling confused and vulnerable, afraid to get her hopes up. She let the computer log on while she opened the windows and switched on a fan.
“WELCOME! You’ve got mail!”
Sawyer froze. It felt like her heart was suddenly in her throat. She rushed over to the computer and clicked on her inbox, to see…an email.
But from Autumn, not Nick.
She clicked on it.
From: [email protected]
Sorry I haven’t checked email in a while! I told my friend Emiko I was dying to check out Tokyo and she and I took the Shinkansen train over the weekend! It was amazing. I took a thousand pics—I’ll mail some to you as soon as I get the roll developed. We also met up with her brother, Hiro. He’s studying to be a doctor in Tokyo and is suuuuuper cute.
Speaking of super cute men (although you haven’t confirmed that)—I don’t understand. You hated this Nick guy. Then you said he was “pretty OK.” THEN you emailed to say never mind, he sucks?
Methinks there’s more to this story…
Spill or else,
Autumn
Sawyer clicked on reply, but only sat there for a moment, staring at the screen. More than anything, she wanted to talk to her friend, not just send back an email.
She glanced at the time. 5:34 p.m. in New York meant…sometime in the morning in Japan? Before she’d left, Autumn had written down her phone number in Japan, along with dialing instructions, just “in case of emergencies.” Sawyer already knew: the long-distance charges were exorbitant, but…
Before she knew it, she’d logged off the internet, and was dialing 011 and the country code for Japan, then listening to the jittering electronic sound of the foreign ringtone.
“Moshi moshi?” came a very groggy voice over the line.
“Autumn!”
“Sawyer?”
“Crap—you were sleeping, weren’t you? What time is it?”
Autumn didn’t answer right away. “Six…uh, something?” came the response eventually.
“I’m sorry! Never mind, never mind!”
“No, no—I need to get up soon anyway. It’s good to hear your voice. What’s on your mind?”
Sawyer bit her lip, feeling stupid.
“I don’t know,” she said finally. “I guess I can’t figure this Nick guy out.”
Autumn let out a laugh that crackled with morning congestion, then coughed. “I KNEW there was more to that story!” she gloated. “Tell me everything!”
Sawyer recounted the details of her time hanging out with Nick…but stopped short of telling Autumn about the kiss.
“Huh,” Autumn said, after listening.
“?‘Huh’—what?”
“I don’t know. I guess I thought you were going to tell me the story of some pompous jackass who was annoying you, and I was going to tease you, then give you some excellent pointers on how to annoy him back. But this Nick guy…it sounds like the two of you really connect. And if you like hanging out with him, then there’s got to be something redeeming about him.”
Sawyer was dying to tell Autumn about the night of Nick’s concert, and the kiss…What had it meant? But Sawyer couldn’t get the words to come out of her mouth.
“Either way,” Autumn said now. “I’m glad you’re making new friends. I worry sometimes.”
Sawyer frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Just that, after you and Charles got together…I don’t know. Your social circle got a little…closed off. You were always staying in—the two of you.”
“We were saving money.”
“Sure. I’m not criticizing. I just think a wider social network can be really supportive—and you deserve it!”
Later, after they hung up, Autumn’s words gnawed at her. The stuff about her social circle growing smaller after she’d started dating Charles shocked her; she’d had no idea Autumn felt that way.
While she’d called Autumn to talk about Nick, it occurred to her now that she had a lot to figure out with Charles. Perhaps there had been things to figure out all along, things she hadn’t noticed. Sawyer had always put faith in the steady forward momentum her relationship had—it had always been one foot in front of the other. Each step had made sense at the time.
It never occurred to her that from where Autumn stood on the outside looking in, the view might look different from her own.
Sawyer was still thinking about her conversation with Autumn when Charles came home later that evening.
She glanced at the time—9:21 p.m. They’d fallen back into their old schedule. Early mornings at the gym, long evenings at the office, work on weekends. He told her stories about some of the other teams working until 2 a.m.—making an indirect case for his situation, she thought, as if to imply, We’re lucky! We could have it worse!
Sawyer wanted to be supportive—still. But she was definitely starting to wonder how it had gotten so normal to spend so much time apart…the summer before they were slated to get married.
Now, as he loosened his tie and slipped it over his head, he flopped down on the couch next to her with a deeply apologetic smile. She wondered—for a fleeting moment—if he could read her thoughts.
“Don’t hate me…” he began to say.
Sawyer frowned, unsure where this was going.
“But…”
“But what?” she prompted. Her body tensed for a curveball in the form of a confession.
“But I have to go to Chicago, after all,” he finally finished.
Sawyer blinked, surprised. She’d thought it was going to be something bigger. But still, Chicago…with his coworkers…
“It’s just for two weeks coming up in August—to wrap up the case.”
“And Kendra is going?”
“Of course,” Charles answered, that peculiar note of forced casualness returning to his voice. “The whole team is.”
Sawyer looked at him a long moment.
“Charles—what are we doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…we’re supposed to be getting married…in October…” she said, lamely.
She wanted to get it all out in the open. She wanted to confront Charles about Kendra, and ask him to tell her the truth.
But something held her back.
It wasn’t just the fact that Nick had kissed her. In that moment, it fully dawned on Sawyer: she had kissed him back.
Suddenly, she felt very small, and very lost—like she had no business interrogating Charles about Kendra when she’d been thinking of Nick all day.
“I don’t understand. What’s wrong with October?” Charles nudged, either pretending confusion, or genuinely confused. But Sawyer only stood there, tongue-tied, lost in thought.
The phone rang, making them both jump.
Charles answered, and Sawyer knew right away from his tone of voice, it was his mother.
“She wants to talk to us both on speaker,” he said, pointing to the phone. He pushed the button to activate the speakerphone on the phone’s base and set the receiver down in the cradle.
“Charles? Sawyer? Am I on?” came Kathy’s voice through the tinny speaker.
“Hi, Kathy,” Sawyer greeted her.
“Hello, my dear! Are you two sitting down? I have some news for you!”
Sawyer was on the couch, but Charles was standing.
“We’re sitting,” he lied. “What is it?”
“Well,” Kathy began, her voice jittery with excitement. “You’re never going to believe this, but I heard back from the Times about the wedding announcement I sent in, and they might be interested in doing a feature!”
Sawyer froze, suddenly dizzy, overwhelmed.
“They decide that kind of thing this early?” she asked. She was aware of the timid sound of her voice.
“Oh, honey,” Kathy chided. “I sent yours in early, and made sure they had every single detail of note and every single contact number they might need! I would have killed myself if they’d passed on considering us for a feature due to too little lead time! By the way, tell your parents they might be getting a phone call; the Times really does check these things, you know.”
“The New York Times might call my parents?” Sawyer repeated, unsure if she could believe what she was hearing.
“Oh, absolutely,” Kathy insisted. “Oh! But one detail—they said the engagement photo I sent in was good, but not ‘great.’ Something about it being not as ‘natural’ as they would like it to be. If we’re really serious about a feature, they would prefer an outdoor photo, maybe the two of you in Central Park…”
Sawyer stared, wide-eyed and in a total daze, at the plastic grill of the speakerphone as Kathy rambled on with instructions on how to take a “natural” engagement photograph that TheNew York Times simply couldn’t resist blowing up to a full half-page size in their wedding section.