Chapter 7
Sawyer
She’s here. Finally.
“Well, for the record, you not being in my life doesn’t make me happy,” Anastasia says. There’s still hesitation in her tone, still a wall between us, but it’s thinner now. And that’s progress.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I tell her truthfully. Short of death, there is not a single thing in this world that could tear me away from this woman. Never again. Even if I end up having to stand aside and watch her fall in love—I’ll break my own heart before I break hers again.
“Good.” She smiles, and a bit more of that wall is torn down. “Well, Sawyer, did Marlene ever find you?”
I snort, recalling the interaction I had with the woman on my run this morning. “Unfortunately, yes. However, Zane and Tessa came to the rescue.”
“Oh? Do tell how my brother became your Knight in Shining Armor.”
“More like sweaty running clothes,” I reply. “They were out for a run, too, and came across Marlene and me as she was telling me that she found my ‘perfect match’.” I use air quotes, and Anastasia’s smile widens.
“Who is this perfect match?”
You, I want to say. But given the thin ice our friendship is on, I keep it to myself. “The granddaughter of a friend of hers.”
“Granddaughter? Isn’t she my mom’s age?”
I nod. “Apparently, her friend is a bit older, and her granddaughter just turned nineteen.”
“Nineteen?” Anastasia looks about as horrified as I felt in the moment, though the humor is quickly replacing her shock. “Are you serious?”
“Oh, how I wish I weren’t. Turns out, Marlene thought I was quite a bit younger than I am. Which, I guess, is kind of a compliment.”
“You do have such a baby face,” Anastasia jokes. “Though the beard ages you.”
I laugh softly, feeling a bit of the weight I’ve been carrying the last few months melt away. How could I have ever thought distance was what I needed? Having her here feels an awful lot like returning home.
“Yeah, well, Zane and Tessa quickly rescued me by asking how my girlfriend was doing. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’ll fool Marlene long.”
“Well, at least they bought you some time.”
“Yeah.” I take another bite of soup, letting it soothe a whole lot more than my empty stomach. “Thanks for coming tonight. And bringing this.”
“Of course. My mom stopped by today since I wasn’t at church yesterday.”
“You didn’t go to church?”
Thanks to Zane, who showed me that following Jesus doesn’t necessarily mean life is smooth sailing, I do have faith.
I pray and read the Bible when I remember to, though not nearly enough as I should.
It’s hard to get myself into church, though.
Mainly because some of the foster families I wound up in as a kid were Sunday parishioners but horrible people during the week.
I have cigarette burns on my back to prove that.
But Anastasia is an every-Sunday-and-during-the-week kind of woman.
She volunteers constantly, and as far as I know, aside from being sick, she has never missed a week.
Her love for Sunday mornings is why I’ve been secretly meeting with Pastor Reeves over the past couple of months, trying to work my way up to a pew seat on Sunday mornings.
“I wasn’t really feeling up for it. I took yesterday and today off from work, too.”
“Were you sick?”
“No,” she replies. “I just needed a break. A chance to get my thoughts right.”
Jack. I almost forgot that, less than seventy-two hours ago, she’d been in a serious relationship, proposed to, then dumped. That’s a lot for anyone to process. “Are you okay?”
She shrugs. “There are times when it hits me that he left. Our relationship wasn’t bad. He is a kind man, and he treated me well. Which, I guess, is why the guilt is so much worse than the heartbreak.”
“Guilt?”
“I knew that I didn’t feel what I thought I should. But I still let the relationship continue.”
“Why?”
“Hope, I guess? I wanted to love him in that way, but—” She trails off, but I don’t speak because I’m genuinely afraid of what might come out if I do. “There was just always something missing.” She smiles awkwardly, takes a drink of coffee, and stares down at the cup.
“Well, for what it’s worth, I still think he’s an idiot for walking away.”
Anastasia meets my gaze and shakes her head. “You’re just saying that. He deserved better than what I gave him.”
“I’m glad you didn’t say yes.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. Her gaze locks on mine, and the air around us charges. “You know, because you didn’t love him that way. It would have been harder to break apart if you had agreed to marry him, then figured it out.”
She looks down then back up at me. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“That night I came here and you told me that I couldn’t stand there and pretend that I never saw the way you looked at me. You said that I chose Jack and I needed to let you move on.”
And here I’d hoped she’d forgotten.
“What did you mean?” she presses.
The truth rattles around in my brain, trying desperately to escape and be out in the open, but the fear of losing her is far too great. At least until I know she won’t run. “I care about you, Anastasia. I always have. But you’ve always been off-limits to me. The one risk I couldn’t take.”
“Why?”
Oh, this is going to sting. But I almost lost her by not being honest, and I aim not to make the same mistake twice. “I didn’t have a lot growing up. My mom dropped me at a fire station when I was five, and I never saw her again.”
Anastasia’s eyes widen. “That’s horrible, Sawyer.”
I shrug. “It’s a truth I learned to live with a long time ago. But I won’t pretend it didn’t leave a scar.” I take another drink of coffee, then continue laying myself open for her to see. If I show her the darkest parts of me and she chooses not to run, then maybe I have a chance.
Either way, I’ll know.
“Anyway, as you know, I bounced from foster home to foster home. There were a couple that weren’t so bad, but they were just a temporary stop.
By the time I was ten, I realized that I didn’t want to give anyone the chance to use my feelings against me, so I put on a mask and didn’t take it off.
I got into a lot of fights, most of them not my fault, and landed in places so bad I’m genuinely not sure how I survived.
I stole—a lot. Spent a few nights in juvenile detention centers until everything I ever had was taken from me.
” I swallow hard. “When I was fifteen, a girl came to live in the foster home I was in. She was sweet, smart, funny…the only light I had in that place. I fell fast.” The memory assaults me, and the guilt I still carry threatens to consume me.
“One of the other boys in the home took notice and used her to taunt me because they figured out pretty quick it was the only way to get to me.”
“What happened?”
“He started treating her horribly. When he grabbed her inappropriately, I saw red and attacked him.” Standing, I lift my shirt to reveal a small scar on my stomach, just to the right of my belly button.
It’s not nearly as big as the others I carry, and it certainly wasn’t my first, but it’s always felt like the heaviest. “He stabbed me.”
“Sawyer.” Anastasia covers her mouth with both hands.
“I was fine. It wasn’t a big enough knife to do any real damage, but I was booted out of that home and sent to military school as a ward of the state.”
“For defending someone?”
“She told everyone that it was all in good fun and I lost my temper.”
“Are you serious?” Anastasia asks, horrified.
“I’m sure she was just afraid for herself. The foster system isn’t exactly built to reward honesty.”
“Sawyer, you defended her, and she threw you under the bus. That is inexcusable.”
I shrug and take my seat again. “I learned quickly that, the harder you love something, the more damage it can do. I loved my mom despite her flaws, and she abandoned me. I thought I loved Kora, and she did the same.” Here goes.
“Look, I’ve been taking hits my entire life.
” Just admit it. “I care about you, Anastasia. Deeply. And because of that, the damage you could do to me would absolutely level me. You’re the one risk I can’t take because, if it goes wrong, then I’m pretty confident it’s also the one hit I won’t walk away from. ”
She’s so still, she might as well be frozen in place, and those hazel eyes lock on mine. How I wish I could know what she was thinking—or maybe not. She’s kind enough that she’d soften the blow.
“But what if things don’t go wrong?” she asks softly. “What if they work out?”
Hope. It spreads through me like wildfire, but until I know for sure, I douse it with a bucket of doubts.
“Anastasia, I didn’t come from a loving family like yours. The longest relationship I ever had was with the Navy, and even that ended pretty terribly.” I laugh, but it’s humorless. “Chances are good I’ll screw it up. And I just—I can’t risk that with you.”
“So you’d rather just stay friends?” Her voice catches at the end, and her gaze darts to the side before returning to me.
No. I’d rather pull you into my lap right now and kiss you until neither one of us can breathe.
“I would rather know that what we have is more than just a ‘what if’ before we change it. You just got out of a relationship, and the last thing I want is for us to rush into something just because there’s a spark.”
“A spark?” she asks.
“Well, yeah. I mean, there is on my end, at least.”
Anastasia smiles, her hazel eyes brightening. “I’d agree with that.” She leans back and studies me. “Where do we go from here?”
“Friends? With the hope of maybe more someday?” I ask. “I want to give you time, but not another six years.”
She laughs softly. “That’s a deal, Sawyer. So long as you start coming into the coffee shop again. I’ve kinda missed you annoying me on a daily basis.”
I flash her a grin, feeling more like myself than I have in a long time. “Deal.”
“And thanks for saving my life, by the way. It’s six months overdue, but if you hadn’t followed me outside that night, I probably wouldn’t be here.”