2. Sawyer
Sawyer
Three days.
That’s how long I’ve been standing behind the front desk, pretending I have my shit together.
Smiling at guests, answering phones, transferring calls to rooms, greeting coworkers like everything’s fine.
Three days of eating half a granola bar over the sink and letting it sustain me for an entire day.
Three days of lying in bed at two in the morning, staring at the dust on my ceiling fan like it will suddenly come alive and start talking to me.
Three days of watching Knox’s name light up my phone and ignoring it.
He called me five times the first night. Three times the second day, spread out enough so it would seem like he wasn’t spiraling. I knew it was bullshit.
Then he texted. Again and again.
Talk to me.
Please, Sawyer.
It’s not what you think.
Please.
I left him on read each time.
Then there was nothing for twelve hours, which had me pacing my apartment, stomach in knots.
Until he showed up.
I heard a noise in the hallway outside, so I peeked through the peephole and there he was, standing there. My heart pounded, mind whirling with everything I wanted to say. The words I wanted to use to hurt him as badly as he hurt me.
How could you?
I fucking hate you.
You’re a monster. A scummy piece of shit.
Owen was one thousand times better than you in every way.
It felt good to soak in my vitriol. It would have felt better to spit it, though.
He didn’t knock at first, but leaned against the wall for support, head in his hands.
It looked almost like his legs could barely carry him.
When he finally did knock, it was quiet.
Two taps, then nothing. So much more restraint than I’d ever seen from him.
The Knox I knew wouldn’t be afraid to make a scene.
Those two pathetic taps told me he was trying to keep me calm. To not scare me off.
Or maybe he was the one afraid?
I shuffled to my bathroom floor, sitting with my back against the tub, and waited him out.
Holding in the tears that threatened to come.
I let the scene from the other night replay in my mind again and again.
Knox on one knee, Ella holding him, beaming.
It circled like a distorted movie reel until all I felt was cold rage.
After twenty minutes the elevator doors dinged outside and then there was nothing but silence.
He’s gone.
I sat there until my tailbone ached and the panic that set in when I realized he left subsided slightly. Climbing back into bed, I saw the row of text messages he must have sent while he waited outside. Not going to give in. Fuck him.
I deleted each one.
Sleep didn’t find me that night. Not more than a few restless minutes.
Now I’m back at work days later, standing behind the front desk performing the role of a sane, put together person.
The lobby smells like eucalyptus and carpet cleaner and sunscreen.
A couple is checking in for a romantic weekend…
maybe an anniversary. They didn’t say, but I can tell by the way they’re touching each other and how genuinely pleased they seem to be together.
It’s effortless. An unconscious kind of love.
The kind Owen and I had.
A pang shoots through my chest and I close my eyes for a split second before regaining composure.
Breathing out, I hand them their key cards and tell them the spa closes at nine. When they finally walk away, my chest loosens.
My phone is in my blazer pocket, beckoning me to check my message app again.
I shouldn’t want to. As a person roleplaying sanity, I know this.
But Knox stopped texting yesterday, and I don’t know which is worse, the noise or the silence.
At least the noise gave me something to resist. The silence gives me nothing.
I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone.
Do I believe that? No. But if I keep repeating it, maybe I will.
My shift ends at six. There’s traffic from a minor accident. Probably someone merging without looking. Driving through town during summertime is the worst.
Passing the emergency vehicles with their lights strobing against the pavement sends images clawing their way to the front of my mind, and my pulse kicks up before I can stop it.
Get me the hell home.
I keep my windows down even though it looks like it’s going to rain. The alternative is being sealed inside a car with my own thoughts and no fresh air, and I have too many thoughts and not enough air as it is. Besides, rain would feel good on my skin. Right now, I need that.
My apartment is exactly how I left it this morning. Which sounds like a given but sometimes it still catches me off guard…the stillness of a space that only I ever occupy.
No Owen dropping his shoes in the middle of the entryway or leaving the TV remote in the crack of the couch. No Knox, taking up more room than any person should require just by standing there.
Just me and the sounds of my upstairs neighbor plodding around with their TV blaring.
I should get a cat. If Owen were here, he’d push for a dog, and I’d agree even though I secretly wanted a cat the whole time.
Is it progress that I’m only now admitting that to myself?
I change out of my uniform and pull on my ratty Lake Mercer T-shirt that I really should get rid of and sit on the edge of my bed.
I don’t open my phone or reach for the remote. I just sit there, letting the quiet press in all around me. One minute. I’ll wallow for one minute because if I don’t give it some time, the feeling just follows me around for the rest of the night anyway.
One minute. Then I get up.
I make tea I don’t even want and sit at the kitchen table with my laptop.
A few nights ago in an insomnia stupor, I promised myself I’d look into paralegal programs, and I need to follow through on at least one thing I’ve told myself lately.
The hotel isn’t enough anymore. It was never really enough, just something to do while I waited for my life to start. And I’ve been waiting a long time.
There’s nothing or no one left to wait on but myself.
Ashford Community College has a program that might work. I bookmarked it the other morning after I finally gave up on sleep at 4 AM.
I took some classes there after I moved back home, but not enough to amount to anything.
I don’t know if I need a degree at this point…
I just need a direction. Law has always pulled at something inside me, even more so after watching the system work efficiently and mercilessly to dismantle what little my family had left.
There’s also the matter of being broke enough to potentially qualify for aid now. Maybe a scholarship if I’m lucky.
Knox’s words creep into my head uninvited, the way they always do.
Call one of those lawyers, Thorne. I brushed it off then, or maybe I didn’t have the mental capacity to take it on.
But the idea of a trial, of sitting across from strangers and walking through the worst minutes of my life over and over on the record, sounded unbearable then and it still does now.
But the money could be life-changing. Even if I don’t want it, I need it. If I’m going to start fresh—get out of the hotel, get some distance from Knox and the rest of Ashford—I need to stand on my own feet first. That takes money I don’t currently have.
I open a new tab and pull up my email. I don’t know how they all got my information but there are over ten law offices in my inbox from this week alone.
I spend the next hour clicking through websites and reading reviews until I land on a smaller firm owned by two women.
From what I can see, they have an amazing track record, and lack that obnoxious billboard energy that makes me cringe.
I draft a short response before I can talk myself out of it and hit send.
Clicking back into my inbox, my eye catches on an email that I must have missed earlier. It’s from Knox. He’s really trying every avenue besides breaking my door down to get me to hear him out.
I pull in a breath and click on it.
Sawyer,
I know you won’t answer the phone. I know you’re not going to open the door. So here I am, sending a fucking email like we’re strangers, because apparently that’s where we are now.
I need you to know it’s not what you think. I know that sounds like bullshit, but I’m asking you to give me ten minutes to explain. I can’t talk about it here…it has to be in person.
I’m not asking you to forgive me. I’m not asking you to pretend you’re okay.
Just don’t disappear on me. Please.
I’ll wait as long as it takes. But we’re not done, Thorne. You know we’re not done.
—K
I read it two more times, using the mouse to highlight each word.
It’s not what you think.
A weird snort laugh comes out of me. Of all the things he could have led with.
Of all the words Knox Aldrich could have strung together, he went with the most cliche, threadbare excuse in existence.
Acting like I don’t know what I saw. Like I didn’t watch him slide a ring onto another woman’s finger with my own two eyes from twenty feet away after he was with me not an hour earlier.
My index finger slams against the mouse, hitting reply before I’ve made a conscious decision to do it.
Knox,
My fingers fly over the keyboard, like there’s a pressure building under my skin that will somehow be released with each word typed.
You want ten minutes? Fine. Here’s what I’d say in ten minutes.
It’s not what I think? Be so fucking serious right now.
I went down there for takeout…a fucking sandwich after leaving your room confused and exhausted. And I ended up at that bar…watched you propose to another woman an hour after your cock was inside me.
I watched the whole thing. Every goddamn second. And all I could think was this makes sense. So much more than you and me ever would. And I saw how happy they were…all of them, Richard and Victoria. Especially Ella. And I can’t tell if I pity them or you more, knowing what I know.
So whatever you think I think—I promise you, the reality is worse.
Owen would be so ashamed of you.
That’s all I’ve got.
Don’t contact me again.
I stare at it for a long time, until my breathing slows and my pulse returns to semi-normal.
Then I select all and delete it.
Every word, gone.
I release a breath. It’s not because I didn’t mean what I wrote. I meant every single syllable. But sending it means he knows he got to me, and the one thing I refuse to give Knox right now is the satisfaction of knowing how deep he hurt me. How far the damage goes.
I close the window and sit back in my chair, staring at the ceiling until the popcorn pattern blurs together and an idea dances at the corner of my mind.
I click compose and drag the cursor to the empty To field.
I type slowly this time. This is a decision I won’t be able to take back.
Ella Moretti.
I stare at each letter of her name like they’ll suddenly sprout up into the person herself.
Then I picture Knox’s face as he slid the ring onto her finger and I start to type.