The Fundamental Theory of Us (5 page)

After a minute, she straightened and gathered the expensive leather, and carried it to her closet, which was mostly empty. Everything she wore could be folded. What was the point of buying nice things when she didn’t want to be noticed? No one paid attention to the girl in oversized thrift-store clothes. No one except Andrew. And now he’d seen her like this. Sawyer caught her reflection in the closet door mirror. Through her white cotton bra, she saw the four long pink marks on her chest.

Sawyer turned away from the mirror. She hung the dress and jacket up, removed her heels and placed them on the closet floor. In her dresser, she pulled out a baggy sweater and a pair of jeans. She removed the makeup Rachel had painstakingly applied and she ran a brush through her hair, remembering that Andrew’s place didn’t have too much light. Besides, they’d be in school mode. Unlike most people she knew, studying to Sawyer was serious business, not an excuse to … do what other people seemed to do.

She left her apartment and knocked on Andrew’s door, keeping her gaze glued to the floor. She didn’t want to see the disappointment in his eyes when he saw her this time—now that he knew what she
could
look like when she made an effort. Because no amount of hell was worth taking that risk.

Chapter Eight

With Sawyer’s help, Andrew ratcheted up his knowledge of Fundamentals of Probability. Every evening for the past week, she came over and they studied. During one of their study sessions, Miranda showed up, but seeing Sawyer there again must have made an impression on her. She hadn’t bothered him since.

That happened four days ago.

Today was Saturday again, early morning, and he and Rosie were out on the trail they carved out in the woods. He brought a few items along in the hopes of kicking up his training once more. His arms felt like they were getting softer. The trouble with building so much muscle and not keeping up with previous regimes meant a risk of muscle turning to fat. It wouldn’t happen overnight, however, complacency wasn’t in his vocabulary—until the leg.

Andrew hammered the final nail into a tree branch where he planned on hanging the last speed bag, and then his makeshift course was complete. No weapons. He didn’t need to fire anything to get the same effect. Climbing, punching targets, crawling, and jumping were enough for now. Especially since he could barely jump the distances he used to. He made jumps a high priority, and thankfully there were a couple creeks and felled trees he could practice with.

Rosie stood behind him, ready for anything. She spotted a squirrel and followed it with her eyes. Her training meant she stuck by him, until he let her go. Andrew gave the command and Rosie hesitated a moment before shooting off into the trees. She might be his support dog, but Rosie was still a dog, and needed the chase-and-catch game like any other. Besides, he didn’t own her—they were equals. Friends.

Andrew went to the beginning of the course and readjusted his prosthesis, checked his laces, and mentally prepared for the task ahead. He set a timer on his phone, strapped to his bicep, and held his thumb over the button as he got into position.

Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Go.

No hesitation. He shoved through the foliage, running his hardest to the first obstacle: a felled tree with a little dip of leaf-strewn ground underneath. His muscles protested. He hadn’t pushed himself this hard in months. Giving up wasn’t an option. He pushed on, dropping to his stomach to crawl under the tree, squeezing and pulling, until his feet cleared. Then he was up again, running to the first tree with a rope ladder. He climbed up, pulling his body higher. At the first branch, he hoisted up onto it and stood for a second, knees bent. Then he jumped down into the pile of leaves, the shock of hitting the ground jolting through his missing leg.

Ignore it. Not real.

He pushed on, hitting the first speed bag. The second. His lungs burned, a welcome sensation. Muscles worked, rusty at first, then remembered the way they used to push and strain, until a welcome heat filled his body. Another obstacle—this one a felled tree. He jumped over, fumbling a little, barely clearing the other side and landing the jump. Andrew swore but kept going. The last speed bag. His knuckles slipped and hit the tree.

“Fuck.”

He kept on pushing himself to the last obstacle, another tree and rope ladder, the climb made slippery from blood running down his knuckles. He took breaths he didn’t have to take. Forced his body over the final hurtle. One last jump, one last jarring shock to the bones, and he raced for the finish line. Rosie was there to greet him with an enthusiastic bark, her tail wagging. Bits of debris clung to her golden coat, her tongue hung out one side of her mouth. Her eyes were clear. He could swear she was smiling.

Andrew dropped his hands on his knees and sucked in breath after breath, his throat on fire. He hadn’t pushed himself that hard in a while. The burn felt good. Reminded him that he was alive. A momentary pang knifed his chest. He pushed it back.
Not your fault
. Repeating his therapist’s assigned mantra helped—a little. The memory was always there.

“Holy shit, dude.”

Andrew lifted his head. Sweat dripped in his eyes. He blinked it away and saw a guy and a girl in high tech running gear watching him.

“That was amazing,” the girl said, her eyes wide. She was blonde and pale, like Sawyer, but didn’t have the same effect on him. “We saw you from the start, and I thought ‘what’s he doing?’ Then you just … tore it up.”

“Yeah,” the guy put in. “How’d you do that?”

Andrew found his pack—he’d left it here, knowing he’d need some water when he finished and didn’t want to traipse all the way back to the start—and dug out a bottle of water. After downing half, he poured the rest in a small bowl for Rosie. She lapped it up greedily.

“Marines.” Andrew swiped a hand across his brow and it came back wet.

“Jesus, you’re bleeding.” The guy pulled a tissue from his pocket and handed it over.

“Thanks.” Andrew nodded, wiped his brow and sure enough, it came back red.

“I think it’s just your hand,” the blonde said.

“Yeah, I hit the bag too hard.”

The woman laughed and smiled at the guy. They shared a private conversation with their eyes, the kind of deep connection he thought he’d had with Miranda. When he woke up in Germany, with one leg missing below the knee and an email from her saying “I can’t do this,” he knew what they shared wasn’t love—not real, honest to goodness, can’t-be-without-her love. She broke his heart, but at the same time, she set him free. He drained the bad blood and moved on. Thoughts of Miranda didn’t make his chest ache any longer. She just … annoyed him.

“Um, so I’m Taylor,” the blonde said. “And this is Logan.”

Andrew smiled, introduced himself. Waited. There was more, he sensed.

She twirled her blonde ponytail around a finger. “Have you ever heard of Tough Mudder?”

“Yeah.” He had done the marathon twice. That was before.

“Well, we signed up for a smaller version of it. Kind of like a practice run, you know? We’re training, but outside of trying on the courses that are already built in crowded places, we can’t really find anything we can use to practice. Plus, we’re really new to this.”

“Okay,” Andrew said.

“Then we saw you and I thought ‘he’s awesome! Maybe he can teach us something.’ Don’t feel obligated or anything,” she added in a rush.

Logan put his arm around Taylor’s shoulders. Not possessive or marking his territory. Comfortable, like being too far apart didn’t feel right. “Yeah, it’s just like, if you have the time or whatever.”

“And we’d pay you,” Taylor said. “Like any trainer.”

Normally he’d politely decline, but Jennifer had told him to make friends. They didn’t have to be the deep connections he’d had with the guys he worked with—guys he’d lost. He understood what she meant. Walking in a shadow wasn’t conducive to recovery. Andrew held the tissue to his knuckles and looked back over his course. He’d have to make a few minor adjustments, add a few more obstacles and a couple miles. Simple enough.

“Sure.” He smiled at the couple’s enthusiasm. “I’m busy during the week. My weekends are mostly open.”

Taylor jumped up and down, letting out an excited squeak. “Awesome!”

They exchanged numbers and made plans to meet up later at a restaurant in town to hammer out the details and a schedule. Rosie finished lapping up her water and sauntered over, waiting by Andrew’s side for permission to approach the couple. The little rat didn’t wait when it came to Sawyer, though.

Taylor knelt and held out a hand. “Aw, who’s this?”

“Rosie,” Andrew said. Rosie’s ears perked at her name. He nodded and she bounded over to the blonde.

Logan watched her with interest. “She’s well trained.”

Andrew agreed. “Rosie’s my service dog.”

Taylor glanced up. Her hands didn’t still their long swipes on Rosie’s back. “Service dog? Do you train them?”

Andrew lifted his pant leg, revealing his prosthesis. “IED.”

“Shit.” Logan winced. “Sorry, man. But you’d never know, seriously.”

“Thanks.” Pride welled in Andrew’s gut.

A few more minutes of small talk, then the couple took off down the trail. Andrew had a couple hours to kill before meeting them later for dinner to discuss training. The course had him wiped and Rosie seemed content, so he packed up the speed bags and ladders, and headed for his truck. His thoughts swerved to Sawyer on the drive, all the way to his building. Her car was in the lot. Warmth bubbled in his chest at the thought of seeing her. Maybe she’d join him for dinner tonight. Only one way to find out.

He didn’t have to knock on her door. Sawyer had just come back from a grocery run and rested the bags on the floor while she searched her messenger bag—for her keys, probably. When she heard Rosie, Sawyer paused, looked up, and smiled. An instant reaction. Andrew smiled in response, loving the way her face went red.

“Hey,” he said. He wanted to say so much more.

“Hi.”

He glanced at her groceries. “Big night planned?”

Sawyer laughed, letting Rosie use her hand as a head scratcher. “Yeah, me and the walls.”

“Want to come out with me?”

“Um, what?”

“I’m meeting some friends.” He didn’t go into details. “If you’re hanging around here, you might as well come with me.”

He caught a flicker of something in her eyes that vanished as quick as it came. She gave nothing away. “Thanks, but—”

“What? You just said you’re not doing anything.”

“True.” Her sneaker touched the edge of a plastic bag. She looked down, like the sound shocked her.

Andrew bent and collected her bags. “I don’t want to be a third wheel. If you come with me, you’ll even out the numbers.”

Sawyer found her keys and opened her door, her posture stiff. Andrew followed her inside and set the bags on her kitchen floor. In silence, they unpacked her stuff—he noticed the “reduced price” labels on everything, the inordinate number of ramen packages. She seemed to be weighing the pros and cons of going with him.

In one cupboard he found a couple bottles of a cheap brand of vodka. Of the five he saw, three were empty and the other two, pretty close to it. He shut the door and kept searching for the spot where she kept her canned food, ignoring the voice in the back of his mind. Not his business what she did when no one else was around.

When they finished, he rested his hands on the counter, standing beside her. “So what do you say? Will you come with me?”

“I don’t know,” she said, the outline of a smile forming on her lips.

“Don’t make me beg.”

She glanced at his hands and her smile fell away. “Oh my God, Andrew. What did you do?”

“Looks worse than it is. You should see the other guy.” He told her about the tree.

“It looks terrible.” Sawyer grabbed his wrist, avoiding his knuckles, and pulled him to her bathroom.

Her apartment had the same layout as his, though that was where the similarities ended. Every nook and cranny had something in it. Stacks of books, rickety furniture, even a couple stuffed animals. Where his place was stark, hers showed signs of life everywhere. Eclectic. Lived-in. No signs of her, no way to read her personality from the stuff she had, but the place looked occupied. Like she walked into a second hand store and bought up the entire place, trying to fill her living space with anything and everything, like she wanted a bunch of stuff around her, but no memories attached to the pieces.

In the bathroom, Sawyer pushed him down on the side of her tub. Above him, a plain white cotton bra hung drying on the shower curtain rod. Sawyer fished around the cabinet under the sink and came up with a first aid kit. She rinsed his hands with some antibacterial shit that stung like hell and reminded him of his time in the hospital. Next, she dabbed his knuckles with a fresh strip of gauze, muttering to herself beneath her breath.

Andrew watched her while she was preoccupied, her brows pinched in concentration. Since the night he saw her in that leather outfit—Jesus H., he couldn’t forget the way the black material clung to her body—she stopped trying so hard to hide herself. The light above the mirror hit her sunshine hair, giving her skin a slight glow. Or maybe that was the growing chill in the air.

She bit her lip and swallowed, bringing his attention to her throat. From this angle, he could see her collarbone, normally hidden under the numerous layers she wore like protective gear. He would have looked away, but she turned, reaching for something on the counter, and his gaze fell to a scar. Normally he wouldn’t stare at other people’s scars—his was familiar. He had one just like it. White-hot rage bubbled up a slow, steady geyser in his chest. The perfectly straight line, silver now that it had healed, came from a knife, pressed against the skin.

Anger slid through his veins, hovering between controllable and overwhelming. Sawyer caught him watching her and she ducked her head, cutting off his view. With her attention focused on his knuckles, she couldn’t have realized what he’d seen. Didn’t read the swarming hive of questions buzzing in his eyes. Violence existed—everyone knew that simple fact. It existed in cities and towns, all over the world. It took on different forms and threatened people from all walks of life.

“Andrew.” Her voice startled him. “You’re staring at me.”

He muttered an apology and dropped his gaze to the floor.

“It’s just … kind of weird. The staring.”