Chapter 38
brIE
We weave through the crowd at the Persian New Year festival to find someplace to eat the food we just bought. Every inch of free space is occupied—benches, grass, the large steps surrounding the clocktower. It’s the first time Sawyer and I have spent time together outside school since the blizzard.
At school we’ve been the paragon of professionalism, everything more or less the same, if friendlier.
But here, our hands brush as we walk, his hand hovers over my back as we navigate past people, we lean into each other to be heard.
I know I should feel nervous about people seeing us like this, but my happiness over spending time with him eclipses everything else.
“This is the best festival,” he says. “A great one to start the year with. Excellent food, rich culture, beautiful flowers.” Sawyer bends over to smell one of the billions of hyacinths that adorn the booths.
The whole square is painted with them, every shade of pink and purple, yellow and white. “What’s your favorite festival?”
“I really loved the fall festival in Indy,” I say. “The pumpkins and turning leaves, the smell of spices, the chill in the air.”
He smiles. “I mean, what’s your favorite festival here?”
“In Blue Ridge?” I’m not sure why it takes me by surprise.
He nods and I look around, like maybe the answer will be written on the clock tower.
This is the first time I’ve willingly come to a Blue Ridge festival, and only because Sawyer asked so sweetly.
He was almost shy about it. I typically avoided public gatherings like the plague, hating the weight of people’s stares like a bright spotlight shining wherever I went, only ever going if Mara begged.
And even then, only when we were at the age when roaming a festival without an adult wouldn’t have raised questions.
I lick my lips. “I don’t know.”
His head tilts. “Like, you can’t decide?”
Exhaling, I say, “I mean, I don’t know. I didn’t go to a lot, but Mara liked the Christmas market.”
His gaze is heavy, and I force mine to the booths we pass, giving the police station a wide berth out of habit.
Each table has the same collection of items at one corner: hyacinths, vinegar, garlic, apple, coins, what looks like wheatgrass.
It’s what I saw every year on Dev’s side table as spring approached, but the scale is magnified.
Also, Mrs. Shah used to put Goldfish crackers on the table, which I always thought were for snacking, but every booth here has a fishbowl with one or two real goldfish swimming around.
“What do the goldfish mean?”
Sawyer whistles, and I look over to see he’s taken a seat at the bottom of the empty steps leading up to the station.
Because of course he has. He didn’t spend his youth being called here by the police at odd hours.
He never knew the humiliation of officers averting their eyes when he arrived to retrieve his still-drunk dad with money that was supposed to go to bills.
With a jolt I realize it extends beyond the police station, this difference between Sawyer and me.
It applies to the whole town. Sawyer’s childhood memories include him stomping around town, good times to balance the bad at home.
Whereas the bad at my home followed wherever I went.
I ventured out only when I had to. School, work, bailing out Dad.
I have happy memories too, belly laughs with Dev, telling Mara I had enough saved for her to attend the eighth grade class trip, Gia spending her entire Saturday getting me ready for prom.
But these all happened in private, behind closed doors.
What’s it like to have Sawyer’s confidence? To know you belong wherever you go, to not have this town mired by the past?
After a moment’s hesitation, I walk over and sit down next to him in front of the police station.
A SWAT team does not descend upon me.
He hands me a plate piled high with herbed rice, buttery fish, golden chicken kabobs, and two types of stew. “The goldfish are a symbol of life, movement, and the passage of time. Pretty much everything here signifies rebirth and renewal.”
I nod, remembering Mrs. Shah telling me something similar. “Why do you know so much about Persian New Year?”
“Ethan,” he answers simply. “His parents used to have a big Nowruz gathering on the first day of spring every year, whether it was a weekend or not, and insisted everyone wear brand new clothes.”
“Is that why I was recently compelled to buy new underwear?” I half-whisper.
He chokes on some rice. “Jesus.”
His eyes darken. They rove over me, as if he might be able to see my underwear through my clothes.
It feels like warm honey dripping through my body.
He braces a hand against the step behind us and leans over.
His face is inches from mine, and I can’t help darting my eyes around, looking for onlookers.
His hoarse voice pulls my gaze back to him. “I want to kiss you.”
I expect alarm bells, but they don’t come.
“Okay,” I whisper.
Slowly, like I’m an easily-startled deer, he raises his hand to cup my neck. His eyes drop to my mouth before rising to meet mine again. He gives me plenty of time to stop him. When I don’t, he kisses me.
An illicit sort of giddiness jolts through me.
Sawyer is kissing me. In public. He did it.
He kissed me. If anyone’s reputation is at stake from this, it’s his, and he doesn’t care because he’s kissing me, and I don’t care because he’s kissing me.
The sensation travels through my body, landing in a puddle of molten liquid right between my thighs.
His lips are soft, his hand commanding, his tongue teasing.
We break apart, smiling. A woman on the sidewalk staggers, catching my attention.
Even through the hazy high of our kiss, she looks vaguely familiar.
The parent of one of my old classmates maybe.
She openly stares, literally clutching the pearls around her neck. Definitely from the north side of town.
It sobers me right up, nearly causing me heart palpitations. I’m suddenly fourteen again, wanting to crawl under a car and hide from the glaring spotlight.
“Mrs. Beaufort,” Sawyer says by way of greeting because he does belong here.
And in that instant I know who she is. She’s the wife of Garrett Beaufort, a now-prominent judge who, decades ago, dealt with misdemeanors.
The kinds of cases my lowlife dad was always going to court for.
They were good friends of the mayor, Sawyer’s dad.
I only know her because of the community outreach program my dad forced Mara and me to attend to garner sympathy.
Judge Beaufort was always there, along with his Stepford wife and greasy son.
Her eyes flicker between us, and the familiar urge to crumple into myself rises.
Sawyer sets our plates down before pulling me up to stand with him, and tucking me close. He towers over her, making her look small despite being a pit bull in disguise.
“Mrs. Beaufort,” he says again, this time in the same tone he uses on the youngest children at school. “Have you met my beautiful girlfriend, Brie Casey?”
Ears tip in our direction. My breath catches at the word girlfriend, and a torrent of emotions washes over me.
Yes! I want to scream, I am his girlfriend.
At the same time, panic rises. With that word comes a longevity, an intention to one day make things permanent.
It’s too soon for that. Too unrealistic.
Pushing all of it aside, I focus on Mrs. Beaufort. She’s watching us with a sharp expression that, oddly, has me leaning into Sawyer. For the first time, I’m not alone in an interaction like this. She tracks my movement and her lips pucker like she’s just sucked on a lemon.
“Hi.” I wave, trying for some semblance of normalcy.
She straightens up, lifting her chin. “I am familiar with her . . . family.”
She speaks as if I’m not even here, and I wish I could dissolve into the sidewalk, disappear from the shame that comes with that word, family.
I know she really means that other f-word, father.
I used to expect treatment like this, hide from it.
But I can’t hide now, so I lean into Sawyer more, making myself smaller, hating myself for it. This isn’t how I want to be.
“Oh, but not Brie personally?” Sawyer says, innocently unfazed, though his arm squeezes me tightly in place, not letting me shrink away. “She’s one of the best teachers the elementary school’s ever had.”
She practically gawks. It’s the same kind of expression that had me counting the days until I could leave Blue Ridge my senior year, the kind I trained myself to never outwardly react to.
“I wasn’t aware she was a teacher to the youth.” She’s basically a caricature of herself, but it doesn’t make her words sting any less.
“Substitute,” I say. It’s almost an apology, and I have no idea why I’m giving her the ammo, but I’m unable to keep my mouth shut.
Another shoulder squeeze.
“We’re hoping to make it permanent.” Sawyer smiles earnestly.
Don’t freak out. Mrs. Beaufort is the perfect reminder why permanent is impossible for me where Blue Ridge is concerned. I have no happy memories from town because there are none to be had for me. As much as Sawyer belongs here, I do not.
Her scrutinizing eyes widen, then narrow. “I see. Well,” she turns to speak specifically to Sawyer, “give your father my best.”
Then, she makes to continue in the direction she was heading.
“Mrs. Beaufort.” Sawyer’s voice is authoritative.
I want to shout let her go!
She pauses mid-step and very deliberately whirls to face us again, her shapely eyebrows shooting up.
His voice is casual, but it carries an icy undercurrent. “My girlfriend said hi. I’m sure you didn’t mean to ignore her. Not with your impeccable manners.”
I hold my breath. Not with your impeccable manners? Now, something like exhilaration blooms in my chest. I wind my arm around Sawyer’s back, securing myself to his sturdy confidence, no longer shrinking but feeding off it and standing slightly taller.
I lift my hand and say, “Hi, Mrs. Beaufort.”
She looks uncertainly between me and Sawyer, who wears an expectant expression, then, looking down her nose not at me but toward me, she says, “Hello.”
She turns to leave.
I look up at Sawyer and burst into laughter, muffled by the back of my hand.
“That was amazing,” I whisper at the same time he says, “That was awful.”
It makes me laugh harder because he has no idea. I’ve dealt with so much worse than a pearl-clutching platinum blond with drawn-on eyebrows and lipstick on her teeth.
He gives me a bemused smile. “Are you broken?”
We sit down on the steps again, and I catch my breath. “I didn’t know ‘bless your heart’ had a bougie sister.” He cocks his head. I lower my voice to an imitation of him, saying, “‘Not with your impeccable manners’!”
He grins. “She used to be a rotating member of the school committee, otherwise I would’ve used it on her a lot sooner.”
“I hope to bring it into the modern lexicon.” I say around a hearty bite of stew. “Like when your date eats with his mouth open and talks about crypto the entire time.”
“Sounds like a real example,” he says.
“Oh, it is.”
“How about when someone brings a tuna salad sandwich to a staff meeting?” he asks dryly. “Because that, too, is a real example.”
“Or, and I’m just spitballing here, when your younger-by-only-four-years sister says you’re too old for TikTok.”
Sawyer mock-gasps. “With her impeccable manners Mara said that to you?”