Every Breath (15 page)

Instead of answering, he holds out his hand, waiting for me to drop the goods. When I place the bag in his hand, he smiles and brings the opening of the sack to his face, inhaling so deeply I’m almost afraid he’ll suck a truffle up his nose.

He pops a whole one into his mouth and closes his eyes to savor the soft morsel. He reaches into the bag again, but this time he holds it out to me. “Want one? You brought plenty this time.”

“I’d love one.” I take it from his outstretched hand and nibble on the edge, but he just stares in my direction and waits. It takes me a moment to realize what he’s waiting for, and when I cram the entire thing in my mouth, he nods and dives into the bag for another. It’s eerie how he knows exactly what I’m doing.

“Sit down, Makenna. It doesn’t seem fair for me to have you bring chocolate and not let you stay a minute. Tell me, have you heard from Sawyer?”

I pull the little chair from the corner of the room and over to the side of his bed. “I did a couple of days ago. He’s doing okay, but he’s ready to come home. He thinks they’ll be pulling them out any day now, and he hopes to be home in time for Christmas.”

“You like him, don’t you?”

Seriously, what is it in my voice or on my face that tells people that? “We’ve become really close friends.”

He shakes his head. “Not what I mean, but you already know that. It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me. He’s been through a lot, but he’s a good kid. Did he tell you how he knows me?”

“No, he didn’t.” I’m shocked at how much he’s talking right now. It’s like he’s not the same person I came to see last week. I kind of understand it though. Chocolate puts me in a better mood, too. “He told me that he didn’t have any family, and you were like a grandfather to him.”

“I’m surprised he told you about his family. It’s a shame what happened.”

“Well . . . he didn’t tell me anything other than what I just told you.”

He harrumphs. “Figures. He doesn’t want anybody feeling sorry for him. I think that’s why he took up with me.”

“Will you tell me what happened? I won’t say anything to him about it.”

“I don’t care if you do or not. He knows not to expect anything from me.” He pauses a moment to sit up in the bed a little more. “He and his folks moved in next door to me when he was barely crawling. I didn’t mind them too much. They weren’t too loud, and they left me alone. What more could I ask for? Anyway, somehow, when the little fella was about four, he started playing in the backyard by himself some. Back in those days, you could let your kids do that, you know.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“I would sit on the back porch and smoke my pipe every afternoon, and around the same time, little Sawyer would come outside to play, staring at me and watching every move I made. It wasn’t too long before he started talking to me and asking endless questions. I’ve never really been one to like kids, but he was smart beyond his age. We became fast friends. His parents didn’t really do much with him, so he started coming over more and more. By the time he was thirteen, he mowed my lawn a couple times a week, and he helped me work on things that needed fixing around the house. You see, that was about the time I started having trouble seeing clearly.”

Watching him reminisce about his relationship with Sawyer is something special. His hardened face is softer, his eyes somehow brighter. I know that, despite what he tries to portray, he loves Sawyer like a son.

“He asked to stay overnight at my house a lot, and I didn’t mind him being around. My own kids were grown and had nothing to do with me, and my wife had passed many years before. When I asked him why he didn’t like being at home, he told me about his parents’ drug problem. Meth is nasty stuff. I knew it had to be bad for him to prefer staying with me. So I let him, whenever he wanted. Sometimes, he’d show up in the middle of the night.”

“It got a lot worse for him, though. On his fifteenth birthday, he showed up at my house. I hadn’t heard from him in a few days, and I knew why when I saw him. My vision had gotten pretty bad by that point, but I could see enough to know the boy was black and blue, and I could tell he hadn’t been eating well. He didn’t want to tell me what happened, and to be honest, I didn’t want to know. He came in and cooked us a good meal, and he went to bed right after he ate. He slept fourteen straight hours. After he cooked lunch for me the next day, he promised to come back in a couple of hours to mow the yard. I didn’t see him for another week.”

I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. “What happened?”

“He came knocking on the door around midnight, and I’d never seen him look so bad. He was still wearing the same clothes he had on when he left the week before. He was filthy, his eyes were yellowed from dehydration, his face was sunken in, and his eyes were nothing but dark shadows. He was so weak, I had to help him in the door. First, he asked me for some water, and he gulped down three glasses before he threw it all up. Then, he asked me to call the police and tell them to send an ambulance to his house.”

Oh my God. Imagining Sawyer like that is killing me.

“He wouldn’t talk for a long time. He just stared at the wall. And when the police got there, he started to tell them what happened, and he lost consciousness. It was a good thing he asked me to send for an ambulance because it was him who left in it.”

“What happened to him during that week, William?” I ask, desperate to know.

His face falls, and he scrubs his face with both hands before resuming. “Poor boy. The afternoon he left my house, he went home, and his parents were trashed. There was a bunch of other people over there for a party. Everyone was high, so he hid in his room . . . until his mom started screaming. He ran out and found his dad lying in the floor, not breathing. He tried what he knew of CPR, but it wasn’t enough to do any good. The man overdosed so much that his heart completely stopped. His mom was so out of her mind that she was convinced he’d wake up, but she blamed Sawyer, so she locked him in a bathroom for six days. No food. He had water the first two days, but they didn’t pay the bill, so it was shut off.”

I can’t stop the tears spilling onto my cheeks. “How did he get out?”

“His mom screamed at him for days that he was a failure for not saving his dad, that he’d never amount to anything so he might as well die in there. He sat there for days smelling the decomposing body right outside the door and practically decomposing himself. But for some unknown reason, she opened the door that night and told him to clean up the mess in the kitchen and make her something to eat. He managed to get enough strength to get outside and come to my house. He was in the hospital for a week. From that moment on, he lived with me. I had to fight for him, but in the end, I got custody of him.”

“What about his mom? Where is she now?” I can’t believe that we’re talking about the same Sawyer. I’m amazed that he’s the same person who went through all of this. How he’s even remotely sane is beyond me.

“Oh she died about a month later. Same way.”

I press a fist into my rolling stomach. I feel nauseated, and I’m absolutely devastated that my friend went through this. “I don’t know what to say.”

William shrugs his shoulders. His hand reaches over to mine where I’m gripping the railing on his bed with my other hand, missing it once before covering it gently. “I don’t either. I never knew what to say to him to help him, but he seemed to adjust okay after all that. I was totally blind not long after that, so he spent all of his time caring for me or working two jobs, a restaurant and a gas station. Once he was old enough, he did his time in the Army, then immediately enlisted in the National Guard. This is his third tour in Iraq.”

It’s no wonder he’s so lonely and depressed. That’s all he’s ever known. “You know, William, if it hadn’t been for you, he probably would’ve ended up right where his parents are. You saved him.”

A glimmer of moisture pools in the corner of his eyes. He’s nothing like the man that I first came here to see. Patting my hand, he shakes his head. “No, he saved me. I just returned the favor.”

“So, what did you do today,” Drew asks as soon as we sit down to dinner. “I tried to call a couple of times here at the house and didn’t get an answer. I thought you may have gone back to sleep, so I didn’t call your cell. But when I came home this afternoon to pick up some equipment that I forgot, I saw you weren’t here. You didn’t go to your house, did you?”

I can tell that he’s trying to be nonchalant about it, but unfortunately, it’s not working. He’s tense, suspicion radiates from him, and I know I’m going to have to tell him about William one of these days, but this is clearly not the time. The bigger issue here is that I’m pretty sure he didn’t forget any equipment. “You don’t have to check up on me, you know. I am a grown woman, and I’m fully capable of taking care of myself. Just so you know, I did go home for a bit to look for Darcy, but she still wasn’t around. I’m really starting to worry about her.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, relaxing a little. “I shouldn’t let my concern for you make you feel like I don’t think you can handle yourself. Don’t worry too much. I’m sure Darcy will show up. I would offer to help you look for her, but I’m pretty sure that would have the opposite desired effect.”

I huff out a little laugh. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

He reaches across the table and covers my hand with his. “Makenna, I don’t want this to come across like I’m trying to control you in any way, but you don’t need to go over there without me. If you need more of your stuff, we’ll go over there and pick it up together. I worry about you being there by yourself. Just make yourself at home here, and if there’s anything you need to make that happen, let me know, okay?”

“Okay, I will. But I have to find Darcy soon. She’s spoiled rotten, so she’s not accustomed to being outside in the cold or fending for herself. I’m perfectly fine going over there alone, but I promise I’ll only be over there during the daytime. Believe me, it freaks me out just as much as it does you.”

“Okay, just be careful.”

After dinner, we cuddle up on the couch and watch a movie. Since I’m staring at the screen, Drew can’t tell I’m not paying attention, so I take the opportunity to process my thoughts about my visit with William today. We ended up talking for about three hours, mostly about Sawyer, and I saw him transform right before my eyes today. He’s not the person he lets people think he is; he’s actually a deeply caring man, and it’s obvious to me that Sawyer means a great deal to him.

Visiting with him so long today, I was able to get a better look at the man that pushed everyone away from him. A man who wouldn’t allow himself to be loved or cared for. His frail body was stretched out on the bed, every bone protruding sharply under the thin blanket. His skin was nearly translucent and had a pale ashen hue. He appeared to be nothing but a skeleton, covered by a few layers of skin. Feeble and weak, he fell asleep while we talked, but it was with a smile on his face. That smile made every moment I’ve spent with him worth it, and I can easily see the man that Sawyer came to love like a grandfather.

Sawyer.

The haunting tale of his childhood plagues me, and I struggle to find a resemblance between the Sawyer I know and the child I imagined in William’s story. Since the first time I spoke with him, his demons have reared their ugly heads and made themselves known, but I thought it was merely the fact that he was so far from home and in the middle of a disgusting war. But now that I’m aware of his past, his ability to still smile is incomprehensible to me. When he told me that he knew what loss does to a person, he was speaking the purest of truths.

Ever since I stepped out of William’s room, I’ve felt this deep churning ball of something indescribable, right in my gut. An urge I can’t give a name to. An indiscriminate feeling that I can’t pin down long enough to figure out what it is.

If I could just talk to Sawyer for a few minutes, I think I would feel better about everything. If only I could replace that starved, broken boy in my head with the Sawyer I know now—those kind eyes and that adorably crooked grin. With my laptop damaged beyond repair, I guess that’s out of the question for now. Lucky for me, I go back to work tomorrow, so I hope to have a few minutes to talk to him. The computer in my classroom doesn’t have a webcam, but at least I can check my email and chat messages. We haven’t gone this long without communicating in some way over the last few weeks, so I have a feeling I have a dozen waiting emails from him.

“You okay?”

Drew’s voice startles me. I almost forgot he was right beside me. “Yeah, why?”

“You’ve just seemed distracted tonight.” He wraps his arm around the top of my shoulders and crushes me against him. “Are you thinking about your house?”

Well, I wasn’t until now. Thank you very much. “A little. There’s just been a lot happening the last few days, so my mind is overheating a bit.”

“Don’t worry about the house. We’ll get everything fixed, I promise. And I’m very sorry about my mom’s behavior last night. I know that’s contributed to your stress, too. This isn’t the first time she’s reacted like this, so I don’t know what to do about her. Maybe one day she’ll stop being selfish enough to realize that I’m happy. That should be enough for her.”

I shrug . . . well, as much as I can with the heavy arm draped over me. “You don’t have to apologize for that; that’s something out of your control.”

“That’s debatable. I shouldn’t have ever let her meet you. I should’ve known she’d pull that crap again.”

Maybe this is a good time to ask. “Speaking of that, before you came outside last night, your mom mentioned someone named Amy. Who is she?”

“Why did you tell me she didn’t say anything else?”

I get the feeling he’s trying to evade the question, but I’m too stubborn for that. I just raise my eyebrows at him and firmly set my jaw. He’s smart enough to figure out that I’m not budging until my question is answered.

He lets out a long sigh. So long, in fact, that I’m wondering how there’s any air left in there. He fists one hand in his hair and clenches his eyes shut before looking back at me. “Makenna, this isn’t something I really like to talk about. That’s why I haven’t said anything about her yet. But I can’t ask you to trust me with your demons if I can’t show you that I trust you enough to tell you about mine, so . . .”

He gets up and takes a few long steps over to the bookshelf, opening the cabinet underneath to pull out a thick photo album. “These are all of my football pictures,” he says as he joins me on the couch again. “From high school, to college, to the pros.”

He places the heavy book in my lap and flips the front cover open to reveal a young Drew—tall, lanky, and the most adorable baby face. Even his attempt to look intimidating wasn’t successful because he looked so darn cute. “I was a freshman in high school here.”

He wordlessly flips the pages, pausing for only a moment at each one to allow me to see the various portraits, game snapshots, and action stills. As each page turns, I watch him transform from this thin, gangly teenager into a hulking beast of a man. In each picture, he seems to get taller, wider . . . fearsome. By the time he gets to the pro photos, he’s nothing like the first picture at all. He’s a menacing warrior in a bright blue jersey.

“I got drafted by the Colts right out of college,” he explains, turning the page once more to reveal a photo of him and a young woman. She’s gorgeous—long dark hair, olive skin, perfect body. “This is Amy. She was my girlfriend all through college, and when I got drafted, she went with me. We had already talked about getting married, but I wanted to wait a couple of years and get my career started first.”

“So what happened? Why didn’t you?”

“I was a machine. Hit after hit. Sack after sack. The other teams would have to put three or four guys on me to stop me, and sometimes, I could still break free and make the tackle. They called me ‘The Sledgehammer’ or just ‘Sledge’ for short because when I hit ‘em, they’d usually have to be helped off the field.”

He takes my hand and guides it to the crown of his head. He keeps his hair a little shaggy, so I hadn’t ever noticed the rigid scar there. “But this . . .” He pauses to press my hand onto his head more firmly. “This was a game changer. One hit that I can’t even remember now. One minute, I was having the time of my life. We were up by 14 against the Cowboys, and I was giving ‘em hell. The next minute, or so I thought, I woke up in the hospital. It was three weeks later.”

I gasp. I knew he had a brain injury, but I didn’t realize it was that bad. What is it today with these stories? “A concussion?”

“Yeah, my second one. I had one back in college, but it was mild. I missed a couple games, and I was good to go. But this one, apparently my head took such a hit that it caused a massive brain bleed. I lost consciousness immediately, and I went into a coma. My brain swelled and caused so much pressure that I had drain tubes put in and four different surgeries before they got everything back to normal. They even lost me a few times in the operating room.”

I rub the tip of my finger gently along the scar. “That’s terrible, Drew. You seem fine now, but did you have any side effects from it?”

“Well, when I woke up, I had one hell of a headache, of course, and I couldn’t think clearly. My memory sucked, and I kept repeating myself all the time. I would get frustrated with myself so easily that I had these explosive mood swings. It was pretty rough for a couple of months, but I got through it all. And Amy was right there by my side through it all. But when the doctor cleared me, he strongly advised me not to play anymore. He said that even a mild hit could do irreparable damage and possibly kill me. Well, of course, with that kind of death sentence handed out, the NFL was done with me. And right after that, so was Amy.”

Well, that explains a lot of what his mom and dad talked about, but it doesn’t explain why his dad said that he couldn’t fault her for leaving. If she was merely a gold digger, wouldn’t he have a problem with that? And the money. What was his mom talking about? I know those guys make an insane amount of money, but I have a feeling there’s more to that than I know. Before I can figure out a diplomatic way to bring it up, though, he pulls me up from the couch into an embrace that only a python could rival.

“I’m glad I have you in my life now, Makenna.” His face is buried into my neck, causing his voice to be muffled by my hair. “I haven’t been in a relationship since I’ve been back, and I’ve spent that time trying to get my head on straight. That’s why I don’t mind so much that we’re taking things as slow as we are. I need that as much as you do, really. And being able to kiss you last night . . . in that moment, I knew that these last few months have all been worth it.”

He pulls back ever so slightly, just enough to see my face, before he crushes his mouth to mine. The surprise and shock of the sudden kiss cause an immediate bloom of panic that I have to fight, and I feel my fingers digging into his arms. His desperation and need for reassurance is all that keeps me grounded, and I force myself to move my mouth and fall into the rhythm of his kiss, reminding myself when to part my lips or move my tongue. It’s almost like talking myself through the most complex of dance steps, and all I can really register is confusion and frustration.

I never had to think when I kissed Shane. Hell, I
couldn’t
think no matter how hard I tried because he turned my brain into mush. I’m beginning to realize that I may not ever have that again, and I know I can’t keep waiting for that to happen. In my dream last night, Shane told me that there was someone waiting for me, that I just had to open my heart. Maybe, just maybe, that’s true.

After a moment, I find that I don’t have to think about the kiss anymore. It’s like riding a bicycle or even walking. Your body just knows what to do. And as long as it doesn’t become anything more right now, I think I can handle this. It’s actually kind of nice.

Take that, Callie. See? Another step. Done.

His kiss becomes lighter, only a whisper of lips across mine, and after one last light touch, he stops and opens his eyes. His slightly erratic breath slows and his hold on me loosens. “We’d better get to bed,” his soft voice croaks. “We both have work tomorrow.”

I can only nod as I pull away from him to go toward the stairs, but just before I reach that first step, he catches me. Spinning me around and backing me into the wall, he brings his mouth down on mine once again, passionately but gently. But it’s over no sooner than it starts. “Thank you, Makenna . . . for listening to me. And for kissing me back.”