Me After You (17 page)

“I know. I’m sorry.” The shame floods inside of me. She was never supposed to see this side of me. I thought I had it under control for her. It was the pledge I made to myself when we started dating—if I get to have Sawyer in my life, I’d leave fighting behind. My one clean year is now soiled. “Jack, I’m so sorry.”

Sawyer takes my right hand, bringing my knuckles to her mouth and kisses around the broken skin. “Is your hand okay?”

“I just tore that kid apart and you’re worried about my hand?”

“If I had the strength, I would have taught Dustin a lesson for you.” That thought both worries me and amuses me. “Though I don’t necessarily think violence is the answer, I see why what he said broke you.”

Her understanding deepens my shame. I know she’s just trying to make me feel better, and I don’t understand why. She deserves so much better than me. “I promise never again. That was my last fight. Never again will I let that side take hold of me.”

“Okay. I’ll help you. We’ll do this together.”

Sawyer’s long waves cascade over her shoulders, and it takes everything in me to stay on my side of the field. I ache to feel her hands on my face again, to have her look at me the way she used to. My fingers long to run through her hair, to brush it back from her face and take off her sunglasses so I can see all of her. My mouth turns up at the thought.

Her jaw clenches before she severs our connection and walks over to Alix and Brooks. With a sigh, I turn back to my team for our post-game talk. They hold their Gatorade, ready and waiting for some words of advice from their coach. I look over my shoulder at Sawyer once more. She bumps Brooks’ fist with hers and ruffles his hair. Brooks tries dodging her hand and they laugh.

This is how it has to be—living our lives apart.

***

“Hey, sweetie,” Lily greets when I answer my phone. “I’ve got a plumbing issue. Do you think you could come take a look at it?”

“Sure thing. Just let me finish up at work and I’ll head over there.” It’s a little after six. We just closed up.

“Wonderful. Thank you! So, like seven?”

“Yeah. I should probably shower first, too, so like seven-ish.”

“I’ll have some dinner ready for you.”

“Sounds good.”

“I love you,” she says sweetly.

It gets caught in my throat on its way up, but I force it out. “Love you, too.”

When I get to Lily’s the door it’s locked, so I knock. She opens the door with disappointment written all over her features. “Why did you knock? You have a key now, remember?”

I didn’t forget. I didn’t feel comfortable using it. “Right.” I nod. “Guess I’m just not used to that yet.”

“Well, let me close and lock the door so you can use it.”

“Lil, that’s silly.” I step in past her with my tools in hand, placing a kiss on her cheek. She doesn’t conceal her disappointment well. “What’s the problem?”

She recovers and says, “I’m having issues with my kitchen sink. I think it’s the garbage disposal. The water is taking forever to drain.”

She follows me into the kitchen, and I take a look around. I turn on the faucet and run the garbage disposal. I hear the disposal running, but she’s right. It’s not draining properly.

While I do my thing, she busies herself in the kitchen, finishing up dinner. It takes about twenty minutes, but I get everything working as it should. “Good as new.”

“Thanks, hun.” Her arms wrap around my neck, and she kisses me. I kiss her back and search for more. I want to get lost in her touch. There have been countless times where she’s attempted to make me forget—forget my past, forget my dad, forget Sawyer—but it has yet to happen. I wish it could. I wish
she
could.

After we break apart she gets our dinner together, piling food for me on my plate. We sit down and eat at the round table in the octagonal nook of her kitchen. We’ve done this numerous times before. It should feel like an everyday happening, but I’ve never been able to feel at home in her house. It’s Lily’s house, not mine, no matter how hard I try to imagine us together in it.

“So, I’m going to be doing a little makeover in my house.” She lifts her fork like a wand and waves it around the space. “What color do you think I should do the kitchen?”

I look at the deep red walls around us and feel them closing in on me. “Something lighter, maybe?”

Her eyebrows scrunch together and then she starts to nod. “Yeah… I like that idea. Maybe a pale gray or cream?”

I shrug and take a bit of mashed potatoes. “They both sound good to me.”

“If it was your house, what would you want it to be?”

She’s insinuating more, but I’m not sure what yet. “Umm… I like gray. Gray’s a good color. Goes with everything.”

With a twinkle in her eyes, she smiles. “Maybe a light bluish gray? That could be pretty.”

“Sure.” It’s not my house, so I don’t really care.

“I want to make this a house you could call home someday.”

Lily and I never talk about
someday
. I should have assumed with the key this was coming, but I never thought that far. I’m still trying to get my head wrapped around the key I never plan on using.

“I think you have good judgment, Lil. Whatever you like will be perfect.” Making decisions based upon what I think could lead to disaster. I hardly know what tomorrow will bring. I’m barely entertaining the thought that she could be my future. Things can always change.

“But I want your input,” she says, trying to encourage me.

“I gave it to you. I like gray, but for now, this is your house. You might hate gray. Do what you think will look best. I know it’ll look good no matter what.”

That seems to appease her a little, but I can’t erase the disappointment that refuses to leave her eyes. She smiles delicately, and we finish our dinner chatting about mindless subjects that don’t affect our future.

M
Y
PHONE
BEGINS
to ring, but Alix is with me, so I look at the screen to see who it might be. Blaine’s name flashes across the screen with a picture of him sticking out his tongue at me. I silence it and set it back down.

“Who is it?”

“My brother,” I try to sound casual.

“You still avoiding him?”

“Who says I’m avoiding him?

“The ignore button you just hit.”

“He knows how I’m doing. I’m letting him off the hook. I’m doing him a favor, really. This way he can call and look like the caring brother without having to deal with the baggage. My mom tells him what’s up.”

“Your mom doesn’t know what’s up. I don’t think you know what’s up.”

“Don’t I?”

“No.”

“Don’t I?” I ask again, deflecting the topic.

“I’m not playing this game with you.”
 

“I’m not playing this game with you.”

“Well, obviously not, since I don’t know what game you’re talking about,” I say, flipping the channels on Blaine’s TV.

“The game of avoidance, Soy,” he replies as he walks from the couch to his kitchen. “Someone moved here. She looks like my sister. She talks like my sister. But she doesn’t act like my sister.”

I gasp with exaggeration and turn around to lean over the back of the couch. “I’m truly offended.”

He chuckles. “Shut up. No you’re not, and you know why? Because you know it’s true. You’re merely buying more time to explain to me what in the world happened to you.”

Dean happened. “You know what happened,” I say evenly. At least you know part of it.

“Well, you’ve been living in my house for a few weeks now. And don’t get me wrong, I love having you, but I want my little sister back. Can you please go find her?”

“Fine. But only because you asked so politely. I’m just waiting to hear back from some places where I dropped off job applications, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

Blaine braces his hands on his countertop, gazing at me across the open space. “I don’t want you out of my hair, Soy. I just want you back to normal.”

“Normal is such a relative term. I think it’s open to interpretation.”

“Fine. Interpret this.” Blaine breaks out into a flailing modern interpretive dance across his kitchen and I burst out laughing.

“Maybe that should have been your true career path. Law doesn’t really suit you, spaz.”

“The modern dance world isn’t ready for all of this.” He continues dancing none too gracefully, and I fall back against the couch in a fit of laughter, momentarily forgetting about the past.

“Janna is having a Halloween party tonight. Go with me.”

“Hey,” I say, shooting guns at her with my fingers, “that sounds exactly like the last thing I want to do.”

“Oh c’mon, Sawyer,” she whines. “We’ll get to dress up and have so much fun!”

If she thinks dressing up is the selling point, she’s sorely mistaken. “Felix, I haven’t worn a costume since we were fifteen and dressed up like the Spice Girls. And even then I thought we were getting too old.”

“That costume rocked and you know it!”

I laugh, shaking my head. Those costumes were pretty legit, but that was back then. This is now. I’m twenty-five years old. That inner-child in me died a long time ago.

“Everyone is going to be dressing up so if we don’t we’ll look like the idiots.”

 
“You didn’t give me any notice that she was having the party, and I didn’t say I would go.”

“First of all, I didn’t tell you so you wouldn’t get a chance to mull it over and back out or last minute find something that was
obviously
so much more important that there was no way you could miss it. And secondly, I’m not giving you a choice now.”

“Why do I feel like that’s been happening a lot lately?”

“Because you’ve given me no choice but to force you into fun things since Grayson—” she cuts herself off and stares blankly at me with a gaping mouth. It’s not as if she’s the most sensitive person around, but for some reason, putting Grayson and died in the same sentence is too much for her. Have I mentioned how much I hate that word? Died. But I can’t say he passed away. That makes it sounds like it was natural. But he didn’t just pass away peacefully in his sleep. His life was brutally taken from him. He did die.

“Fine,” I give in to keep her from saying it and/or keep her from apologizing for almost saying it. “Ugh. I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this. What am I supposed to dress up as?”

Her eyebrows raise suggestively, and I fear for my life.

***

Alix and I walk up the steps to Janna’s house, and I’m positive someone vomited Halloween all over it. Orange and black lights decorate all the trees and bushes. Carved pumpkins line the walkway. Ghost and witch cutouts dot the lawn and peek out from behind fake rickety fences. A tall coffin leans against the corner of the entrance with Dracula inside, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. It’s all very cliché and
so
Janna.

“You’re not allowed to leave my side tonight. Not like Sole Fest. And I swear if I catch a glimpse of Dean, I’m out of here. No buts about it.”

“Okay, fun sucker.” She rolls her eyes.

“Say that ten times fast. I doubt you’ll come up with the words you intended on saying.”

The front door swings open, and we’re met with high-pitched squealing. Janna stands there in a skanky bunny outfit with her hands wildly waving in the air.

“You guys!” She surges forward and grabs Alix and me in an overwhelmingly snug hug. “I’m so glad you two came! It feels like high school all over again! Gang’s all here!” she squeals again.

My ears are bleeding.

“Hey, Janna,” we say in unison.

Janna grabs my shoulders. “Sawyer, you’re simple and gorgeous as always. Cat. So classic.”
 

Alix wanted us to relive the Spice Girl days, but I managed to convince her that a black cat was much more age-appropriate. Or rather, I told her it was cat or nothing. I wore black leggings and a black tee with black ears. She dotted my nose with a black marker and painted whiskers on my cheeks. Then she proceeded to tell me I had to wear black high heels and keep my hair down so she could curl the ends.
It completes the ensemble.
Whatever that means. I’m a freaking cat.

“And Alix, Rosie the Riveter. So you! I swear you girls haven’t changed a bit!”

I’m about to tell Alix I’m out when Janna finally invites us in. “There’s drinks and snacks in the kitchen and games going on in every room. I think there’s poker and ping-pong, and I know a bunch of the guys started a game of pool in the basement. Dance party is in the living room. So, fan out and have fun! If you need anything, let me know!”

Janna is right. It does feel like we’re in high school all over again, and I’m not a fan.

“There’s a reason Janna throws parties and we don’t,” I mumble.

“I forgot how over the top she can be,” Alix whispers back. “But we don’t have to hang out with her all night. Let’s go get a drink.”

I nod.

I hadn’t realized the town still consisted of all these people. We weave through bodies mingling and dancing. There has to be at least a hundred people in this house. Some I recognize from high school, but some must be from the town over.

Once we grab our drinks, we head for the living room. A couple of people acknowledge me with a wave or head nod, but unlike Janna, the majority of the people I went to school with are doing what they can to avoid me. They can’t figure out what to say to the girl with the dead husband. ‘Hey,’
wouldn’t be so bad. They don’t even have to ask me how I’m doing. I wouldn’t tell them the honest truth anyway—not that they actually want it.

Alix and I dance with a group of girls we used to play volleyball with. They acknowledge me with warm smiles and pretend like I don’t actually have a dead husband. I’m okay with that for tonight. It’s Halloween. I should get to be whoever the heck I want to be for one night. I decide tonight I’m going to toss my problems to the side. They don’t exist. I’m not Sawyer. Tonight I’m… a cat. Okay, for name’s sake let’s say I’m Catwoman. I’m fierce and sexy and could care less about the peons around me.