West Five
Sarah
He is life. . . for us. . .
Heading down the road in Indestructible Tonka, with Finn running the stick shift through the gears, it was quiet as we finished our cookies and I searched my cell for Kristen’s number.
I’d been in a vehicle with Finn many times over the years.
He drove me to school when I was younger and picked me up if I needed a ride.
However, this time, it felt different. We had recently been to literal hell together.
And now, we were teaming up to prevent a horrible mistake.
“Sarah, you okay?” is how Kristen answered her cell phone.
I had her on speaker. “I’d be better if I could talk with you. Have time today? Like… now?”
“Ummm… Yes, of course. Umm… meet me at the park by your house in twenty?”
“Perfect.”
I slid my cell in my purse. “Thank you for helping me,” I told Finn.
“Thank you for coming to me with this.” He eyed me, honesty present. “Means a lot.”
I couldn’t help but smile. I’d brought Finn some joy, something it seemed only Johnny could do.
“So,” Finn said, “tell me about the nibble.”
I gasped in shame. “No!”
“Come ooooon. All our teeth ached. It must be a tale to tell.”
Not sure what the hell had our mouths aching at the same time, but it didn’t stop my mouth from opening now. In fact, as if I’d been holding on to a ticking bomb, it went off. Not an ounce of control. “I was mortified! I even threw Ethan to his back and crawled on top of him like an animal!”
“Tell. Me. More.” Finn changed gears on the Jeep as we picked up speed. “What did you do while on top of him?”
I thought about Ethan’s lips. How strong yet soft they were. “I kissed him.”
“Kissing a foster brother.” His brows danced. “I guess we both like a challenge.”
I knew he was speaking of Johnny, but I felt a long-shuttered door opening. “Your ex-roommate… did you love him?”
Finn gawked at me. “How do you know anything happened between us?”
“Finn, puzzle pieces are starting to fit together.”
He eyed me. “Damn, you’re even smarter than I already thought you were.” Then he stared out the windshield. I don’t think he saw the road we were driving on. I think he had gone back in time. “I thought I loved him… Now, I realize he was even more fucked up than me.”
I laid a hand on his arm. “You are not fucked up.” I kept slowly shaking my head as if daring him to argue with me.
He smirked. “Okay, I hear you.” He winked. “For real.”
Unexpectedly, I grabbed my chest and burst into tears. “I want him by our sides again.”
Finn grabbed my left hand. “Oh, girl, like rain needing its cloud.”
Those words were perfect for how I felt. Like nature searching for its counterpart. “Without a cloud, how is there even rain?”
He kissed my hand. “Ethan is lucky to have you.”
I jolted. It felt so good to hear, but it wasn’t true. “Caleb has me.”
Finn chuckled. “Caleb needed you, and you knew it.”
“What?” I couldn’t stop my face from wincing. It felt like disrespecting my dead boyfriend. I tried to pull my hand away but couldn’t.
Finn now pressed it against my own chest. “In here is so deep and precious.” He smiled, but the gesture was full of pain. “You give beyond your means.”
I kept blinking because my brain was confused, but something in my body was screaming, He’s right! Listen up, dumbass!
Finn gazed at me in between glances at the road. “Instead of being a normal teenager, you helped raise Blue.”
I started to shake as tears overflowed.
Finn didn’t stop. “Instead of having a healthy, normal high school boyfriend, you nurtured a boy who had been broken by his cruel past.”
Until that day, I had never sobbed with such truth. Every cry had been strangled before this day. Every cry had been ripped from my shattered heart. That’s why this cry was so different. It poured out of me like a river that had been begging for years to be freed.
Finn didn’t need an explanation for the tears flowing from me. He only squeezed my hand and said, “Girl, you and I are, indefinitely, anchored to our storms.”
Sobbing, and utterly relieved to be seen, I smiled. “You’re my new best friend.”
Finn fake-gasped. “This gay finally has a girlfriend?”
Now, I laughed through sobs. “And she’s never letting go.”
Our hands stayed joined on top of the center console, only moving when Finn had to change gears. We both kept sighing as if we needed that cry and union. Smiles were plastered to our faces. Even when Finn finally said, “Ethan is bad-boy hot.”
I leaned to the center and tucked my feet toward the door. “Right? He hides those scars that make me want to—” I shied away from what I really wanted to say.
Finn teased, “Waaant toooo…” Then waited.
I giggled, then rushed, “Lick ’em.”
He roared with laughter! “My bestie is a bad girl!”
I hid my face in his shoulder. “Am I twisted?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely! And I love it!”
I didn’t come out of hiding but squealed like a young girl finding her wings—and not the dying kind that had kept me suppressed to the ground. I was taking deep breaths. Guilt-free ones… until I remembered how wrong that was.
I stilled.
“No, Miss Beyond-Her-Means-Sarah. There is no guilt in laughter or desire.”
Weight took over again. My body felt so heavy. “I love Caleb. How can I—”
“And he loves you.” Finn gently pushed his much larger shoulder into me. “Where he is now, he sees things so clearly. He’s grateful for how you took care of him. I bet he wants you to do the same for yourself now.”
I gawked at Finn. “When did you get so wise?”
He side-eyed me. “Promise not to think I’m nuts?”
I couldn’t stop myself from being a smartass. “Just because you like nuts doesn’t mean you are nuts.”
That sent us both into a laughing fit.
Catching our breath, I promised not to judge. Finn told me, “I think it was Johnny. I swear he awakened a part of me that was screaming to be heard.”
I was already nodding. “Preach.” I leaned against Finn’s shoulder again and stared out the windshield. “From the first moment I saw him, I knew there was something special about him.”
Finn sighed. “Didn’t have to carry his weight, did you?”
My eyes drifted shut. Finn’s lecture rang even more true now. Quietly, I admitted, “He carried mine.”
“Even during his nightmares?”
I released another deep, cleansing breath. “Even during his terror, he fought to protect me from his own past.”
“That is some deep shit.”
After a moment of basking in serenity, I asked, “What was his kiss like?”
Finn groaned, “Like… finding home.”
I hid my face again.
Finn chuckled. “Tell meeeeee.”
I stared up at him, biting my bottom lip.
He shrieked, “Ethan’s kiss was the same?”
I sat up, all giddy. “I mean, I was ‘possessed’ during it.” I rolled my eyes. “So, hopefully it still counts, but—” I delivered a look, hoping he would get it.
Finn nodded immediately. “Oh yeah. A hundred percent.” Then he softened. “Sarah, I owe you an apology.”
That shocked me. “For what?”
“Pure jealousy.”
What?
He read my expression and continued, “Yup. The way Ethan has watched your every move, for years, made me so envious I kind of… hated you.” He winced.
I grabbed my chest and sat back in my seat. “I’m not sure if I should be upset or honored.” Then it dawned on me. “Wait… For years?”
Finn smiled at me. I couldn’t be sure; however, I sensed in his smile that he was proud I had just caught on to this amazing reveal, and he was the one who got to show it to me. “Like you are the star of his water.”
I sucked in air for what felt like five minutes. That meant Ethan felt for me what Johnny felt for his mermaid.
Finn lifted a brow. “Can ya blame me for being jealous?”
“But… But… I was with Caleb.”
Finn brushed it off casually but said, “Oh yeah, that about killed him.”
I covered my mouth. “Oh my God.”
Holding the steering wheel with one hand, he lifted his shoulder. “Then Johnny came, and you two became tight.”
“Oh. My. God.”
“I don’t think the Ol’ Holy got anything on this one.”
That humor helped me breathe. “Finn, behave.”
“I guess now the question is, how do you feel about Ethan? Besides wanting to lick him.” He tongue-swiped the air.
I smacked his arm. “I thought, all this time, it was only attraction I never acted on because of Caleb.”
“And maybe it is still only that.” He mumbled to himself, “Not even a chance.” Before I could respond, he declared, “We’re here!” He released my hand and parked the Jeep.
Kristen was already sitting at a picnic table, going through manila folders under a shaded tree. Her head lifted, and she spotted us. Concern flitted across her brow before she slowly rose to her feet. When we got closer, she softly asked, “How are you both doing?”
We both shrugged as we sat across from her. I wondered if Finn was as nervous as I was.
Gathering the oxygen I needed into my lungs and exhaling, I said, “Thanks for meeting us.”
There wasn’t any condemnation in her tone but definitely concern. “I assume this is about Johnny’s adoption.”
“Yes,” Finn answered, and at the same time, I said, “Sort of.”
One of her dark brows rose. “Sort of.” She wasn’t looking at Finn but staring directly into my eyes. “I’m all ears.”
And hopefully moving lips. “Umm… We need to find Johnny.” I couldn’t tell her about the water or why I couldn’t shake the feeling of urgency. “I need—I want to talk to him, but I can’t. His number is already disconnected.”
“I see.” She didn’t seem surprised about Johnny’s phone. “Sadly, I can’t give information of that nature to you. It’s private.”
“Bullshit,” Finn responded, surprising me, placing his palms on the table. “That’s an excuse, Kristen.”
She responded, “I know you’re hurting right now. Johnny leaving was a shock. It’ll take time to adjust—”
“Adjust?” I blurted, interrupting her. “I don’t have time to adjust!”
With a quizzical stare, she asked, “Is something going on?”
“No,” Finn interjected, but he couldn’t have sounded more guilty.
I quickly interjected myself. “What he means is—” I swiped a foot to the left to kick him, “that we miss Johnny so much, and we just want to hear his voice.”
She asked Finn, “Your shin okay?”