6. Sawyer
Sawyer
Why am I torturing myself by looking at pictures of Owen?
This isn’t how I wanted to spend my night, but even though it’s been over a week since I saw that ring around Ella’s neck, I can’t stop trying to find changes in his expressions, in the way he looked at me, in anything.
These photos and my memories are all I’ve got but now I know they’re warped and damaged.
Nothing was real. Maybe nothing ever is and that’s my lesson in this life.
I should have known with Knox. I opened myself up for hurt like I had a sign on my back. Doormat here—please use her and walk away.
But Owen? How could he have done this to me?
I skip to a photo from Wonder World…from that day. It’s Ella and Owen, his arm around her, smiles on their faces. I zoom in, thinking that maybe I’m missing something in plain sight, because how could I have been so stupid?
“Dammit.” Tossing Owen’s phone aside, I flop back on my bed.
I hate that the one person I want to call is the one that hurt me the most. Knox is the only one that understands how I feel. And how the hell can he be with her knowing she cheated on him with Owen?
Does he really hate himself that much?
I’m restless, this energy inside me needing somewhere to land. I can’t look at my ceiling for hours again, waiting for sleep to come. I can’t stare at photos of Owen and Knox wallowing, in self-pity. I can’t stand in front of my refrigerator searching for something to fill the holes.
Before I make a conscious decision, I’ve changed out of my work clothes and into my black and white midi skirt with a slit up the thigh and a black tee. I take a second to knot the shirt at my waist, so a sliver of skin is showing. It’s working. Barely, but it’s something.
Some silver jewelry, platform sandals, messy bun, and a two minute makeup touch-up later and I’m ready to get out of this apartment. I don’t care where I go, but I know I need to get out of Ashford.
I grab my purse and I’m out the door before I can change my mind.
Ten minutes later, I park at the train station.
I buy a one-way to Grand Central at the machine because it’s the first option at the kiosk and I’m not second-guessing myself tonight.
I don’t have a plan past getting on the train and that’s fine with me.
Even an hour of motion, surrounded by strangers, watching Ashford shrink behind me, feels like more action than I’ve had in days.
The platform is quiet for a weekday, but then again it’s summer and Ashford is always a ghost town.
A couple holding onto luggage waits a few feet away.
A woman in scrubs scrolls her phone. Normal-looking people doing normal things.
Nothing out of the ordinary. I wonder if that’s their first impression of me too.
That I’m normal. Nothing is further from the truth.
I find a bench and check the board. Six minutes until arrival.
Good…not enough time to talk myself out of this.
I don’t let myself think about the ring around Ella’s neck or Knox’s thumb tracing my cheekbone or Owen’s expression in that photo from Wonder World. I’m not doing that tonight. Tonight, I’m just a girl in a good outfit getting on a train.
The platform shudders when it pulls in.
I get on, find a window seat in a half empty car, and drop my bag in my lap. As soon as the doors hiss shut, I release a breath.
I’ve got a blissful forty five minutes to sit here and do nothing at all. Not think or cry or wonder.
I dig through my purse for my AirPods, pushing past my wallet, crumpled receipts I keep meaning to throw away, lipgloss—
The seat next to me shifts. Weird, this car is practically empty.
“Thorne.”
My hands go still inside my purse. No fucking way.
I turn slowly. Knox is sitting there, one arm resting along the back of my seat, sleeves rolled to the elbow, looking at me with those stormy eyes.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Running away without me?”
I scoff and turn toward the window as the train lurches forward.
“No bags, one-way ticket…dressed like that.”
“Dressed like what?” I whisper-shout, turning back to look him in the eyes, because how dare he?
I hate the way he slowly peruses me, drinking me in. I know that look. I’ve seen it right before he screwed me over.
“You knew I’d come.”
“You’re absolutely delusional.”
He inches closer so our thighs are touching. “Maybe I am, but that doesn’t change anything.”
I close my eyes and take a second to center myself. This was supposed to be a no Aldrich, no Ashford, no assholes night. But no…I can’t have that because apparently Knox is a psycho stalker now.
“What do you want?”
His tongue darts out to wet his lips and his eyes travel south again, but only for a second before they’re back burning into mine. “I want—”
“Tickets!”
The conductor chooses that exact moment to clomp his way down the aisle, his hole puncher abnormally loud in the quiet space.
Knox pulls out his wallet, but waits for me to hand over my ticket first. “I’ll take whatever she has,” he says.
“You don’t have a ticket?” the conductor asks, sounding so over his life.
“I was running late. I—”
He sighs. “There’s a surcharge.”
“No problem. I’m sorry to be a pain.”
They go back and forth for a few minutes while I sit there, lost inside my head. I need to get rid of Knox but now we’re stuck together for the entirety of this train ride. Damn myself for taking an express. No stops until we reach the city.
I take in the hint of cologne he’s wearing. Of course he smells good. And I love the way he rolled his sleeves up like that, showing off his tanned forearms. He has some scruff too…it looks good on him.
I don’t realize I’m staring until Knox opens his mouth. “Like what you see, Thorne?”
“Not anymore,” I lie.
He just smirks like the bastard he is. That’s fine, let him smirk all he wants. I can’t stop him from sitting next to me, but I don’t have to talk to him.
I turn toward the window, watching the dark Hudson River come into view. Taking in the lines of trees. The outline of the opposite bank. Lights from a house somewhere across the water. If I stare long enough, maybe he’ll take the hint.
He bounces his knee. Slightly annoying, but I can ignore it.
His phone vibrates. He sighs and types something. My stupid curiosity is getting the best of me.
No. I can do this.
Stay strong.
He drums the seatback with his fingers, trying his hardest to irritate me. There’s only one other thing—
Fuck.
He’s humming. Humming that song.
I can’t help it. He’s gotten to me and he knows it. I whip around, narrowing my eyes. “You’re really humming ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ right now? When you know what that song does to me!”
I watch as the corners of his lips tip up. “What? Do you not like it?”
I hate him. I really fucking do.
“You’re a child.”
I dig through my bag and grab my AirPods, but before I can open the case, he grabs them.
“Sawyer.”
Just my name from his lips. That’s all, and he knows he has me. Damn him.
“What?”
“Will you hear me out?” He pulls his free hand through his hair. “Please.”
I try to tell myself I don’t want to hear anything from him. But I know it’s a lie. Maybe I need to hear him out. Or maybe I just can’t help myself. Either way.
I sigh, and nod. “Fine. But nothing you say changes anything.”
He’s quiet for a second, like now that he has me, he doesn’t know where to start. Good. I want him to work for it.
“Ella and I—” He stops, swallows hard then starts again. “What you saw that night. The proposal. It wasn’t something I chose.”
He’s avoiding eye contact, flipping the AirPod case over in his hand, but that doesn’t stop me from trying to read him. “What does that mean?”
“It means exactly what I said.”
“If you brought me into this conversation to talk in circles I will take those back and put them in my ears and you won’t hear another word from me for the rest of this ride.”
His eyes search my face and he sets the AirPod case on his knee. “It’s arranged. The engagement is arranged.” He says it quietly, almost like he’s afraid to let the words out. “Our families…it’s a business arrangement. I didn’t—” He clenches his jaw. “I didn’t have a choice.”
I stare at him. There’s no way. This can’t be—
“Ella doesn’t know,” he adds. “She thinks it’s real.”
The train rocks and I look down at my purse in my lap, trying to process this. “Who else knows?”
“My parents. Her father.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
I sit with that for a moment, not knowing what to think. The Hudson is gone now, replaced by the backs of buildings, lit windows, other people’s lives rolling past in the dark.
“Why?”
He looks tortured. “I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“I just can’t, Sawyer. Trust me.”
I close my eyes and a puff of air escapes my nose. Trust him? Like it’s easy. Like he didn’t break my heart for years.
“Why are you even telling me any of this?”
His jaw works while he lets my question sink in. “Because you deserve to know that much.”
“But not the rest?”
He holds my gaze. “Not yet.”
“So you’re going to marry her then? For whatever the hell reason you can’t or won’t tell me?”
He stays quiet so I go on. I might as well get it all out now.
“And what about us? You think I’m just going to be the other woman while she gets it all?”
“No—”
“Because I won’t. I respect her too much even though I shouldn’t. And speaking of Ella. You never told me. Did you know? About her and Owen?”
He’s quiet for a beat too long.
“Knox?”
“I suspected.” He’s looking at the floor. “I didn’t know for sure. ”
“The texts?”
“And the ring. After you told me about it, I looked and you were right.” He stops to breathe. To think. I can tell he’s angry or upset or both. “I didn’t want it to be true.”
I laugh but there’s nothing funny about it. “Yeah. Me either.”
“But not for the reasons you think.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
He leans forward, elbows on his knees, fidgeting with the AirPod case.
“I don’t care about Ella like that. What I care about is that Owen had everything.
You. The life he wanted. My parents looking at him like he hung the goddamn moon.
” He stops to breathe while I wait for his next words. “And it still wasn’t enough for him.”
I hate that I want to comfort him. That everything he’s saying makes sense and I’ve felt the same things before…not with the cheating, but just with everything.
“He never had to choose.” He’s quiet, but there’s long held animosity underneath.
“Not once. Not ever. He just took what he wanted and left the rest for someone else to deal with.” He finally looks at me, but I can’t hold his gaze.
Not when it looks like there’s no light left behind his eyes. “He left everything on my shoulders.”
The train rocks, knocking my purse off my lap. I don’t reach for it or say anything. What could I say? He’s right and we both know it and saying it out loud doesn’t make it hurt any less.
“I’m not telling you this so you’ll feel sorry for me,” he says. “I just need you to know that what he did to you, he did to both of us.”
The city is coming into view now. Lights multiplying outside the window, the skyline rising up out of the dark.
My chest aches like he tried to punch through my skin and yank on my heart. I hate Owen right now. I hate Knox. Richard. Ella. All of Ashford. I hate this impossible situation. But mostly, I’m just fucking sad.
“I know.”
Two words. The only thing that makes sense to say.
He hands me back my AirPods. I hold onto them until we reach the city.