Me After You Read online

  Before I can turn on the TV to avoid this conversation, he says, “Sometimes avoidance can be the worst kind of self-destruction.” I tilt my head to look over at him. His eyes are saturated with worry. “I know you’re coping with a lot. You’re coping with more than anyone should have to, but when you don’t handle problems head on, they fester and escalate.”

  “It’s not that easy, Dad,” I mumble.

  “It can be. It’ll be hard initially, but once you give yourself the opportunity to heal, once you let yourself be open to the idea of moving forward, life will fall into place, as it should. But in order to do that, you need to deal with the problems at hand. You can’t keep your feelings inside, sweet girl. They won’t go away by avoiding them.”

  I think he’s talking about more than Grayson, and I want to know how he knows, but I don’t ask. I don’t want to know what he knows. It’s not that I don’t agree with him, but it’s so much easier said than done.

  “I’m trying, you know?”

  “Are you?” he asks. It’s such a loaded question that I don’t answer. His eyes shift and land on my hands resting on my stomach. I realize he’s looking at my wedding ring. The sadness in his eyes mirrors mine. “Just think about it, sweet girl. I miss our Sawyer.”

  I do, too.

  ***

  The bakery door chimes. “Sawyer? You here?” Dean hollers.

  “Back here,” I call, reaching for a new bottle of oil on the top shelf. Why Polly insists on putting the oil on the top shelf is beyond me.

  The stool wobbles beneath me, and I know it’s going to give way, but I don’t have time to latch on before I fall. This is going to be bad, I think before steady arms catch me.

  Dean grunts, placing me upright. “Looks as if I got here just in time.”

  I turn in his arms to say thank you, but I didn’t realize how close we would be. Our lips are a breath away, but we don’t move. I can tell he’s as surprised as I am. The air thickens the longer we remain still, but neither of us is able to step apart.

  “Polly should probably make the placement of ingredients more accessible,” he says softly.

  “I was thinking the same thing.” My tone matches his.

  His eyes drift to my lips, and my breath hitches. I watch him lick his lips before his eyes slowly travel back to meet my eyes. He’s really trying to kill me, isn’t he? I hate that I want him to kiss me again. I know that will make things so much more complicated. My fingers tremble with the need to curl into fists of restraint, but when they clench, they tighten around Dean’s biceps, revealing my desire. His eyes widen.

  The front door chimes, and I jump. He reluctantly lets go, and I race to the front of the bakery. I’m startled when I see who’s up front. “Lily.”

  “Hi, Sawyer.”

  Dean follows me out of the back, and I know how bad this must look. I look back at him briefly before turning my attention to her. Nothing happened. I need to look less guilty. “What… what can I do for you?”

  “Dean,” she says, caught off guard. She clearly didn’t know he was coming to see me. Oh, this could be bad.

  “Hey, Lily.” He sounds so calm. How can he be so freaking calm?

  “I was coming in for some cupcakes. My mom needs a dozen for Juliette’s twelfth birthday.”

  “Right. The fourteenth. It’s your sister’s birthday today,” he says.

  There’s an awkward pause, and I don’t know how to fix it. We weren’t doing anything wrong, but there’s an unspoken conversation going on between them. “Umm… what flavors can I get you?” I ask, grabbing a box from the shelf behind the counter.

  Lily’s eyes speak volumes, but all she says is, “Juliette wants the black and whites.”

  “Coming right up.”

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?” Dean asks. I think he’s talking to me until I see he’s looking at Lily.

  “Sure.”

  They walk outside, and I’m worried I’m about to witness a private fight. Though I’m not really that worried at all. I try to peek over the glass countertops inconspicuously, but it’s a difficult to remain hidden behind glass. I decide I don’t care and stare, ready to avert my eyes if they look inside. They are facing one another on the other side of the window. She’s nodding while he does all of the talking. For some reason, I thought it would be the other way around with Dean looking officially scolded, but Lily just looks sad and a little hurt. Even now, watching them fight, I feel a twinge of jealousy. She gets to fight with him.

  He steps forward, reaching out to hug her, but she lifts her hands to ward him off. She’s definitely not happy. He says one word that I can’t decipher, and her hands withdraw back to her sides. Dean leans in and kisses her cheek. He hovers for a moment, and I can’t look any longer.

  As soon as I’ve put the last cupcake in the box, they’re walking back through the door. I try to act as if I haven’t been spying on them, grabbing the closest rag to wipe down the countertops.

  Lily walks up to the counter and pulls out her wallet. “How much for a dozen?”

  “It’s thirty dollars.”

  She hands me cash and smiles weakly. “Thanks. Have a good one.” She says, “Bye, Dean,” and walks out of the bakery. To my surprise, she leaves without him.

  “Is she okay?” I ask. I care a little bit.

  “She’s fine, but I should probably head back to work,” he says swiftly. “I can only trust Aiden there by himself for so long.”

  I offer a soft laugh, but I know the trouble in paradise threw a wrench in our friendship. Or whatever it is we have going right now. “Did you need something?”

  “What?”

  “Well, you stopped by, but then Lily came so I didn’t know if you needed anything.”

  “Oh, right.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Just wanted to say hey.”

  “Oh.” I know I sound dejected, and I hate that I let my tone slip. Nothing is going on between us, and nothing will ever go on between us. I have to accept that completely now. Seeing him with Lily confirmed that. He loves her. “Well, hey.”

  He nods and gestures to the door. “I’m gonna go.” He salutes me. “I’ll see ya later.”

  “Okay. Bye.” I lift my hand to wave and watch him leave.

  I’m not stupid. Alix nailed everything right on the head. I’m still in love with him. But he has Lily and obviously doesn’t have any intention of breaking things off with her. I can’t forget that he doesn’t feel the same way about me anymore. But sometimes it really doesn’t feel that way. So, we kissed. It was rash and thoughtless. It obviously didn’t mean anything to him or he wouldn’t have pretended it didn’t happen.

  I have to know one thing—one thing and I will let this go. For good this time.

  DEAN

  LEANING MY HANDS on my desk, I hover over it, staring at nothing and breathing through my frustration. Lily has the worst timing ever. Of course she had to walk into the bakery while I was there. If I were thinking straight, I would have stayed in the back. As soon as Sawyer said her name, I knew I was a dead man. She didn’t deserve to see Sawyer and I together so soon. I had to apologize to her. Not that anything happened. Well, something almost happened. Sawyer and I were this close.

  And the look on Sawyer’s face said it all. I compromised her morals, made her think we were doing something wrong behind Lily’s back. That was exactly why I had gone in there in the first place. I wanted to finally tell her about Lily. It couldn’t have been timed any worse. After work. I’ll go tell her after work. She deserves to know, no matter the consequences.

  ***

  Sawyer walks into my office after we close. I wasn’t expecting her, especially after I left the bakery earlier. We hadn’t made plans, I don’t think. Although, this is my opportunity to set things straight. I step out from behind my desk into the main office.

  “Hey.”

  “Hi.” She looks nervous.

  “What’s up?”

  “I just have to know something.”r />
  The tone in her voice automatically makes me uneasy. “Anything.”

  “Why did you pick Lily?” I can hear in her voice how much she hates to admit that this hurt her. “Of all people, why her?”

  “Sawyer,” I sigh and look to the ground. My mind tries to formulate the best way to answer this.

  “Did you choose her because you knew she was the one person that would get to me? Or were my feelings not a factor at all?”

  I blink. There was no good way to answer that. “It had nothing to do with you.” I shake my head and step closer to her. “I forgot how much that bothered you in high school until the day you saw us at the park.”

  “Oh, c’mon.” She exhales, waving her hands in the air. “We used to fight about that all the time.”

  “Okay, so we fought about it nearly seven years ago. I was lonely. She came along and made me feel wanted so I let her. She helped me with my dad’s death and reminded me I wasn’t worthless. Along the way, my feelings grew for her. What’s so wrong with that?”

  “Obviously nothing. You disregarded everything else we built up in those two years. Why stop there?”

  Something snaps inside of me. “Look, Sawyer. I know I hurt you. I know I left, and it was hard, but I think you’ve punished me long enough. I thought we were getting past this.”

  “You don’t know anything,” she snaps back. “You think because you left me that I became a pile of depression and misery. I’ve been playing nice, Dean, because I was tired, but I can’t do it anymore. Lily deserves better. You deserve better. I deserve better.”

  “Then tell me,” I urge. “Tell me what I’m missing so I can fix it. I know you’re hiding something, I just can’t figure out what. I’m so done with these games. Just tell me how to fix it for once rather than throwing it in my face!”

  Her teeth clench. “No. I’m not doing this with you. I don’t know why I tried, why I thought this could possibly be a good idea. Mend it and move on. That’s all I wanted. Alix warned me, and I didn’t listen. Let’s end this, once and for all, Dean. We’ve been beating around the bush for long enough. I want to be done.”

  “No,” I say with firmness. “Jack, c’mon.”

  She takes a determined step toward me. “Just because my name is typically a guy’s name doesn’t mean you can call me whatever guy name you feel like,” she says vehemently. “Jack is not an acceptable replacement for Sawyer. So stop. Just stop already!”

  She doesn’t know. I can’t believe I never told her. How could I possibly have kept that from her? “I never told you, did I?”

  The irritation on her face is wearing on me. I want to see her smile again. It’s been so long since I’ve seen that smile. A smile from Sawyer is like a gift. If she flashes it your way, you treasure it—hold onto it for as long as you can because she doesn’t hand them out to anyone.

  “Told me what?” she fires.

  “Why I call you Jack.” She waits for me to continue, and her expression perks up with interest, but she tries to remain neutral. “Do you remember our first date?”

  She scoffs, but it holds a hint of a smile. Though it isn’t the one I’m waiting for, I latch onto it. “Like I could forget.”

  I let the corner of my mouth rise. Aiden and Josh were so sure I’d end up the punchline of the biggest joke of the year. “Aiden, Josh, and I were talking about you one day. We saw you walking down the hallway with Lily and Alix as if you owned the school. Aiden said something to the effect of, ‘It’s a shame none of us will ever know what it’s like to be with a girl like that.’

  “So I took them up on a bet. I bet them I could get you to go out with me. They thought I was insane for trying, but I didn’t care, and after that first date I knew something they didn’t. With you, I’d hit the jackpot.”

  She blinks and doesn’t respond.

  “I figured calling you jackpot was a little over the top.”

  Tears well up in her eyes, and I don’t know what I said wrong.

  SAWYER

  I HATE THE fact that he still has the power to make me cry. I don’t want him to have any power over me anymore. I don’t want to cry in front of him. He’s taken enough of my tears. I want to unhear the story because I want to keep my distance. Hating him is so much easier. I have to hold onto the anger. Without the anger, I’ll crumble, and I can’t crumble in front of him. He can’t keep seeing my weaknesses.

  “You can’t say stuff like that to me.” It’s not fair. It’s so unfair because it makes me hate him less. So much less.

  “You had to hear it. I need you to know your name isn’t replaceable. Neither are you.”

  I scoff to hide how much the comment stings. “Does Lily ring a bell? Or do I have to remind you that you left me? You decided I wasn’t good enough, and you up and left.” Rehashing this, reliving the day over and over—I can’t do it anymore. I turn and start to walk away, but he won’t let me. He grabs my hand, holding it as if it were a lifeline and the touch of his skin against mine shoots a current up my nerves.

  “I lied.” He swallows. I don’t turn back, but I stop. “That night when I told you I was leaving… I lied.”

  I should keep walking. This is dangerous ground to cross, talking about that night. I’m too close to him, too close to giving into the kryptonite he is. “You didn’t leave?” I give in to the need to see his eyes and peer over at him.

  “No.” He chuckles lightly, but I don’t find it very funny. “No, I lied about not wanting you.”

  “Why would you do that?” I breathe.

  “I was never good enough, but you loved me anyway. You made me feel like I was worth something and it scared me. You were right. I was scared. You fell for me, and I was going to bring you down. I was going to tear apart every good thing about you, and I couldn’t let my poison be the end of you.”

  “You left because you didn’t think you were good enough for me?” His silence gives me my answer. “You stomped on my heart and left me bleeding on the ground because you were insecure?” I clench my teeth, taking in breaths, trying to calm the anger rising. “You should have let me make that decision. I don’t know why everyone thinks they know what I want or need better than I do! You made decisions that affected me. You should have let me decide what I wanted—how I wanted to live my life. You took that away from me that night. You took my life away that night, Dean!”

  “I know, Jack,” he exhales, reaching for me.

  “No!” I step away. “You can’t call me that! You lost that right the day you said goodbye.”

  “I came back. I know I was late, but I came back.”

  “Why did you come back?”

  “Isn’t that obvious?”

  “No!” My head shakes adamantly. “It’s not. Nothing you do is ever obvious. Nothing you do ever makes sense to me.”

  “You! You, Sawyer,” he says firmly and then lowers his voice. “I came back for you,” he whispers.

  My shoulders sag as the weight of his answer sets in. “And you thought, what? That I’d still be around? Just waiting for you, pining for you? How long did it take before you returned, Dean?”

  His face falls. “Does it matter now?”

  No. Yes. Yes, it does. “If you’re going to throw coming back in my face to redeem yourself, you better believe that the timing matters. The timing is everything. I want to know exactly when you came back.”

  He sighs, barely able to meet my eyes. He hates the words as he says them. “You had just gotten engaged.”

  If he had come back after a few days or weeks, I would have been begging for him to take me back and pleading with him to never leave me again. If he had come back after a few months, I might have reconsidered taking him back. If he had come back, groveling on his hands and knees, after a year, I may have listened. But nearly three years? Without so much as a phone call or text?

  I can’t speak. I shake my head, grasping for words that will suffice. But nothing does.

  When he’s answered with silence, he
continues. “Sawyer, I regret it. I regretted it every single day. Every damned day.”

  My shoulders weigh down. “I loved you so much, Dean. But you broke me. All those years you waited to make your gallant return… it took all those years for me move on, to recover. I couldn’t stand this town where every corner and crevice held a memory of you. I waited for months and months, thinking maybe it was another one of our fights. For an entire year I didn’t live. I listened for rocks at my window and motorcycle engines. But you never came,” I choke. “You never came.”

  His head shakes from side to side. “I knew coming back was anything but gallant. I was coming back with my tail between my legs. I didn’t dare to believe you’d still be around, but a man could hope.”

  It’s too much to keep looking at him, to see his green eyes plead with me. They have the power to wear me down, but it’s too late. “It’s time to bury that hope. Lily loves you. She’ll take care of you better than I can.” I walk to the door. “We need to let this go once and for all.”

  “I’m not with Lily anymore.”

  All of the air leaves my lungs, and I slowly turn back to him. “What? Since when?”

  “I haven’t been with Lily for almost a month.”

  My chest feels light with… relief? “You what? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I didn’t want to scare you away.” He slowly approaches me. “Sawyer, Lily and I worked because you weren’t here. She filled a space, but the void was never filled. I’ve never stopped loving you, and I didn’t want you to pull further away from me just when I was getting you back. I don’t know how to not love you.” He pauses to take a breath. “I knew I’d scare you away if you thought I was trying to win you back.”

  “And were you?” I pause, “Trying to win me back?”

  He exhales. “How could I not?”

  I rest my hand on the door handle to leave. “I have nothing left to offer anymore, Dean. I’m not the same person you fell in love with in high school. I gave the last piece of myself to Grayson, and it died with him. So, let’s stop trying to fix this. It can’t be fixed. We’re too broken. It’s time to move on.”