11. Knox
Knox
When I leave the hotel, I drive around town for an hour then head to my parents’ house.
I have no idea why, since it’s the last fucking place I’d normally want to be.
But now my apartment is no longer my own and the thought of walking in there and looking Ella in the eye is too much. I can’t fucking do it.
It’s quiet when I walk in, no sound coming from the kitchen. No movement coming from my father’s office. Maybe they’re asleep, even though it’s only nine. More than likely, they’re both too inebriated to notice someone else in the house anyway.
I kick off my shoes by the door and head into the kitchen, grabbing a beer from the fridge. The cool glass soothes the ache in my palms from clenching my fist against the wheel. But one sip and I barely taste it going down. It wets my lips but I still feel dry and empty.
Upstairs, I head into the guest room and am hit with an entire space covered with wedding decor.
Fake florals, fabric draped on the bed, centerpieces, vases.
So much shit, it’s hard to believe my mother got it all up here on her own.
Then there’s all her clothes. She must have decided she needed extra closet space and that the guest room is just the thing.
Realization hits me. There’s only one available bed left—Owen’s.
Fucking hell.
I stand in the doorway for a long time, staring at it. Owen’s room, his bed with the same navy comforter he’s had since high school. His lacrosse stuff still in the corner. A hoodie on the back of the desk chair, random clutter on his dresser.
I can’t believe my mother left it like this still. She’s using the wedding as a distraction, I guess. Keeping herself too busy to think about the time capsule in her own home.
If I didn’t already feel sick, I do now.
I almost turn around and go sleep on the couch, but I’m drawn in and before I know it, I’m sitting on the edge of his bed.
Beer in hand, I pick at the label before setting it on the nightstand next to a framed photo I’ve seen a hundred times but never really looked at before.
It’s Owen and me. He’s maybe fifteen, the two of us at some Fourth of July thing, him with his arm thrown around my neck, grinning like an idiot.
I’m laughing. I don’t remember what was funny or who took it.
That photo must have been important for Owen for him to frame it and keep it in his room for years.
And I’ve never given it a second thought. I don’t even think I had any photos of Owen in my apartment…not until after.
There’s a photo of Sawyer, though. It’s been there since I moved in.
Me and Sawyer at the lake when we were teenagers…
both smiling, with suntans and freckles like there wasn’t a care in the world.
It’s in some cheesy wooden frame I grabbed at CVS when I was picking up a birthday card one day, but I love it.
I lean back against the headboard and stare at the ceiling and think about Sawyer in that parking lot. How she looked when she walked away. Her voice as she said don’t contact me again.
There wasn’t anger. I can work with anger. Her smashing my Jeep, screaming at me, fuck, even getting physical with me—that means she still thinks there’s something worth fighting for.
But no, she meant it.
That’s what I can’t stop thinking about. In all the years I’ve spent pushing Sawyer, she’s never looked at me like that. Like she was done. Like she’d finally figured out that I’m not worth a single ounce of her energy.
She should be done with me. I know that. I’ve known it every time I showed up at her hotel, every text I sent, every excuse I made for continuing to see her when I knew the shit I’m against with Moretti.
I know exactly what I am and I do it anyway because the alternative—actually letting her go, watching her move through life without me in it—is something I can’t make myself do.
Is that what love is? Or is it some twisted fucking obsession where I can’t help but pull her into the wreckage alongside me?
Whatever it is, it’s older and worse and more stubborn than I know what to do with. It’s only ever been her. Through everything…the scandal, Owen, the accident, all of it. The one fixed point has been Sawyer. I don’t know who I am in a version of my life where she doesn’t exist.
And now I’m lying in Owen’s bed, thinking about the last time I was in this room with her.
The day of the services. When she followed me in, I knew what would happen.
There wasn’t any part of me that wanted to stop it.
And I know it was the grief and the pain but maybe it was also the most honest we’ve been in our entire lives.
She wanted to feel something other than hurt. We both did. I understood what she needed and I gave her what I could, and it wasn’t enough. It’s never enough with me. I take what I want and convince myself that I give my all, and the worst part is, I’m not sure that’s even a lie.
I want to have more to give. I’d cut myself open and spill myself dry for her. But it feels like I already have. There’s nothing left.
I reach for my phone out of habit and pull up the tracking app.
Her dot is where it should be, at her apartment, not moving.
God, I want to text her. Say something…anything.
But I know that would be a mistake tonight.
Instead, I stare at her dot on the map for another five minutes, text Ella that I’m at my parents’ so she doesn’t make my life hell, and put my phone on the nightstand face down.
I wake up and don’t know if it’s earlier or later than normal. Gray light streams through the crack in the curtains, and for a second, I forget where I am. Until I see the lacrosse sticks in the corner and smell the faint hint of Owen’s cologne still lingering on the pillows.
I can’t believe I came here last night. And even more so, I can’t believe I slept in Owen’s bed.
I’m sure my mother will be thrilled if she finds out. And by thrilled, I mean pissed that I disrupted his space. Little does she know it’s already been disrupted by Sawyer and me.
I pick up my phone and pull up the app. Her dot is gone. That’s fucking weird. I refresh, rub my eyes, and click her name.
No location found.
It’s a glitch, some kind of server issue, totally fixable. I swipe out and pull up our text thread. I’ll just type something easy, a way to get the conversation started.
Me: Hey
A minute goes by. Two. My pulse picks up and I repeat one word in my head. Please.
After five minutes of nothing, I get up and pace the floor in front of the bed.
I knew it was a long shot, but something’s not sitting right.
With a deep breath, I text again.
Me: I fucked up. Just please tell me you’re ok.
A few more minutes tick by and both messages are still on delivered.
Fuck it.
I click her name and put it on speaker. It rings once before an automated message starts speaking.
The number you have dialed is no longer in service.
I lower the phone and sit on the edge of the bed, realization hitting me that this isn’t a glitch. It’s not an accident. She’s really done with me. Last night, I pushed her too far and now—
No.
My fingers are tingling before I even notice I'm hyperventilating. Oh, fuck. I can’t breathe. I can’t get air to my chest. It’s stuck and I’m stuck and I know it’s my fucking fault.
I did this. The moment I opened my mouth about Ella and me. I’m such a fucking asshole. I wanted a reaction and I got one and I kept poking the bear anyway because that’s what I do. I push and push until something breaks and then I have the audacity to be surprised by the damage.
I drop the phone on the mattress and press both hands against my knees, staring at the rug. It’s the same patterned one that’s been in here since we were teenagers. White and blue woven cotton in this diamond-like pattern.
I focus on that…the shapes, the worn patch near the desk where he used to roll his chair back and forth.
It’s not working.
My chest is a closed fist. I try to pull air in and it gets stuck somewhere around my collarbone. Useless goddamn breaths that are more and more shallow the harder I try.
My hands are going numb, fingertips rigid, and it’s spreading up through my palms. Soon, it’ll be in my arms, my legs.
Is this what dying feels like?
I slide off the edge of the bed onto the floor. With my back against the mattress and knees bent, I press my palms against the rug and focus on the texture of it. It’s rough and worn thin in places. There’s pulls where the thread’s loose.
I snag a few pieces and roll them between my thumb and index finger.
Breathe in.
It comes in ragged and too fast and I force myself to hold it…to count. My vision is tunneling at the edges but I count anyway.
One. Two. Three. Four.
Breathe out slowly.
The tingling moves up my arms. My jaw is so tight it aches.
In.
I need more to focus on.
The cologne…faint but there. Owen’s room. Owen’s rug under my hands. His blanket behind my back. His hoodie on the chair that I can see from here if I just keep my eyes open and keep counting and keep my mind from focusing on what’s inside my head.
Out.
In.
Out.
It takes a while. Long enough that the gray light through the curtains shifts and the room gets incrementally brighter. Never thought I’d spent what feels like hours on my dead brother’s floor, waiting for my body to stop coming apart.
When it passes, it leaves me wrung out and exhausted. I stay where I am for a while, head tipped back against the mattress, eyes on the ceiling. There’s this paint chip that Owen always said looks like a dick. I don’t see it.
I reach for my phone and pull up the app one more time, already knowing, but hoping I’m wrong.
Still blank.
I put it face down on the rug and close my eyes.
I must have fallen asleep because I wake an hour later from my phone buzzing. A tiny shot of hope spreads through me. Sawyer.
But it’s Ella.
Rubbing my eyes, I stand and stretch, letting it ring a few times before answering.