Chapter 19 #2
I can’t help but love being out here on the water. It’s a wide-open canvas of blue, glittering beneath the bright sunlight. And while the circumstances certainly aren’t great, the company is absolutely perfect.
“Tell me something about you that I don’t know,” Anastasia says.
“I think you know most of it now.”
“Well, take a minute, and think on it. There has to be something I don’t know.”
I consider her question while running through my life. There’s plenty she doesn’t know, little things here and there that I’ve done. But I don’t think she actually cares about the time I tripped in the seventh grade because Tracy Walkins was grinning at me and I didn’t see the curb.
“I only started running because I wanted to be able to outrun the bullies.”
Anastasia’s gaze widens. “You were bullied?”
I laugh. “I wasn’t always this exemplary paragon of a man.”
She rolls her eyes. “You just seem like you were that popular kid. You know, the one everyone wanted to be friends with.”
“Hardly. I was the foster kid nobody wanted, and even when I got sent to military school, every one of my peers refused to let me forget that fact.”
“That’s horrible.”
I shrug. “Once I was tired of getting beat up, I decided to make a change. I started running everywhere. To morning formations, the barracks, the dining hall—wherever I went, I ran. I got up early and went to the gym. I poured everything I had into making myself bigger.”
“Did it work?”
“Nah. By the time I was big enough, I’d already graduated and joined the Navy.”
“Did you go in straight out of school?”
I nod. “Didn’t see the point in wasting time. There was no chance I was getting out of California without them.”
“Did you always want to be a soldier?”
I take a deep breath and shake my head. “When I was a kid, I wanted to be Superman.”
Anastasia laughs. “I mean, you didn’t hit too far off that mark. You’ve helped a lot of people, Sawyer. You’re still helping them.”
“After we were blacklisted and Brenda took over, it was the first time I really pictured what my life might look like without the Navy.”
“My brother told me that he was the one who took the heat. That it was him who was on the hook with Brenda, not you guys.”
“We’re a team.”
“He told me you guys chose to stay with him so he wouldn’t have to deal with it alone.”
“I guess technically that’s true, but there was never really an option for us. No chance we’d have left him on his own.”
She smiles over at me. “Thank you for being there.”
“No need to thank me. Plus, by staying with him, I got to meet you. And that’s worth every bullet or blade I took in the six years we worked for Brenda.”
Her smile fades just a bit. Is she thinking of all those times we came home wounded from a mission? One or more of us bruised and battered? “I always looked forward to you guys coming home, but every time you were gone, I feared you’d never come home.”
“Me specifically? Or just Zane?” I joke.
“You do have the biggest mouth.”
“It’s all part of the charm, baby,” I reply with a wink. “How about you?”
“I can’t say I ever dealt with bullies. But that was probably because everyone was too afraid of Zane and Weston.”
“Fair enough. What else? Tell me something I don’t know about you.”
She falls quiet, her expression focused in the distance. Is she thinking about times with Violet? Or something else?
“My first kiss was Rich Travers outside the community center when we were sixteen.”
“Rich Travers? Who is this guy? Where is he now? I think he needs to be dealt with.”
Anastasia laughs. “Last I heard, he’s happily married with four kids and is a CPA out of Charleston.”
“Still. Sounds like he needs a firm talking to. What did Zane have to say when he found out Rich was putting the moves on his little sister?”
“Not much since I never told him. Since he graduated early, I didn’t have to worry too much about him knowing what was going on in my life.”
“And why did you break poor Rich’s heart?”
“What makes you think it was me?”
“Because no man in their right mind would kiss you, then let you walk away.”
Her cheeks flush with color. “I thought we were supposed to keep things friendly.”
“I’m doing my best here, Knox,” I tell her. “But alas, I am only a man.”
She shakes her head but smiles. “You’ve always had this incredible ability to make me forget all my problems.”
“Yeah?”
She nods. “Even when you didn’t realize it.”
“What do you mean?”
Anastasia brushes some hair out of her face. “A few years ago, I found a lump in my breast.”
My stomach plummets.
Like, hits the deck, goes through it, and sinks into the deepest darkest abyss.
“I didn’t tell anyone. Not even my mom. I still haven’t.
She’d already lost Dad, and Zane was in and out of missions, so the last thing I wanted to do was stress her out.
” She crosses her arms. “Anyway, I went and had the biopsy done, and when I got back, you were sitting on my back steps with a pizza and a copy of The Princess Bride.”
It’s a night I remember well. We’d eaten our fill of pizza and watched the movie that I’d picked up as my attempt to wash away the mission we’d just wrapped up. Things had gone sideways, nearly costing Garrison his life.
“You probably don’t remember, but—”
“Actually, I do.”
She looks over at me. “Really?”
I nod. But elaborating on that can wait. “What happened with the biopsy?” Given the time that has passed, I assume she’s fine. I need to hear it, though, so this knot in my chest will loosen.
“It ended up being okay. Benign. But the entire drive home, I’d been stressing about it, and I just had this feeling I wouldn’t be sleeping well.
Then there you were, sitting on my porch.
We ate, watched the movie, and I was able to sleep.
All because you helped me get my mind off of something you didn’t realize was happening. ”
How many nights over the years has that happened? How many times did we each seek comfort from the other, without even realizing it?
“I’m sorry you did that alone. I would have gone with you.”
“I know you would have.” She smiles. “But I didn’t want to put that weight on anyone.”
Unable to help myself, I reach my hand out to her. She takes it, so I squeeze gently. “You have to know there’s no weight I won’t carry for you, Anastasia.”
“I know that, Sawyer.”
“I’m glad you’re okay.”
She smiles. “Me, too.”