Me After You Page 26

  “Dean?” I shift beside him to look at his face. “What’s wrong?” His green eyes shine with unshed tears. He blinks them away with embarrassment.

  “I just need to lay here with you for a little bit, that’s it. I’ll be gone before your parents wake up,” he murmurs.

  He closes his eyes and buries his face in my neck again, reaching around my waist and forming me tightly to the curve of his body.

  “Dean, you’re scaring me,” I whisper, trying to shift in his arms to face him.

  “Please, let me lay here, Jack.” He breathes, squeezing me closer as though he’s trying to meld us together, keeping me in place. “I just want to be near you.”

  I don’t want to question him further. The desperation in his voice is enough for me to give him what he wants. I relax and press my lips to his temple.

  “I’m here, Dean. Whatever you need. I’m here.” I shift to wrap my arms around him, cradling his head to me, brushing my fingers through his hair. “I’ll always be here,” I murmur, and we fall asleep.

  True to his word, he was gone before I woke up the following morning. And later that day he walked out of my life completely. I hadn’t thought about that night in years, but for some reason Dean’s words send a memory flooding to the forefront.

  “What happened that night, Dean? The night before you disappeared. You left Willowhaven because of something that happened then, didn’t you?”

  DEAN

  SAWYER’S VOICE BREAKS through my thoughts. I hoped she had forgotten about that night. It was a moment of weakness. I wanted one last piece of solace before our worlds were torn apart. That moment of weakness nearly changed my mind. If only I let it change my mind, none of this would have happened. I would have been there for the loss of our unborn child. She never would have met Grayson. She never would have had to deal with all the misery that resulted from the day that I left. But I know it’s pointless to play the what-if game now, so I finally aim for the truth.

  I sigh, rubbing my fist across my forehead. “My dad happened that night.” Her eyes show understanding, but she doesn’t know. We’d skimmed over the topic of my dad and his drinking habits when we were together. I didn’t want to taint her world with mine, so I kept my dad to myself the best I could. It’s exactly the reason I never wanted to bring her into this house. Every wall was tainted.

  “He told me I didn’t deserve you, which wasn’t news to me,” I chuckle, but it’s completely without humor. “I knew it was true. But he flew off the handle that night.” I close my eyes tightly. I can see him, raising his fist in the air, shouting in my face.

  “You’ll only drag her down! You’ll never be able to be what she needs!” A glass beer bottle flies by my head and shatters against the wall, splashing beer on my clothes as the shards fall at my feet. I’ve learned not to flinch. I stand my ground, preparing for the punch that’s sure to follow.

  “I’ll spend every day trying!” I shout back to keep from recoiling. I’m done cowering. It’s my time to fight back. “She loves me. She believes in me and what we have.”

  “You think?” he scoffs, his head tipping back as he bellows. “You’re a fool! You’re just a toy now. You’ll never amount to anything worthy of her! You’re a useless waste of space in this world. And if you think anything different, you’re more stupid than you look!”

  “Sawyer believes in me,” I insist, but my confidence is fading fast. My eyes remain focused on him.

  “No one believes in you!” He rushes me and grabs the collar of my t-shirt, spitting in my face, pinning me against the wall. “You hear me? No one!” He shakes me like a ragdoll. I choke back my cry.

  “She does,” I utter, but my belief in her is slowly depleting. I avert my gaze so I don’t have to look him in the eyes any longer. I don’t want him to see me cry.

  “Okay, you little piece of crap.” He tightens his hold on my collar. “Let’s say she does decide to stick around and marry your sorry mug. It’ll never last. She’ll eventually leave you. Women like her don’t stay around for Preston men. It’s in your blood. And the day she realizes you’re not good enough you’ll end up just like me.” I look up, and he lifts his index finger that’s not gripping the neckline of my t-shirt and thumps my chest to the point of pain. Every thump stings. “If you listen to any advice from your old man, hear this: you’re better off alone. And she’s much better off without you.”

  “That’s not true,” I say softly. “We’re better together.” I have to believe that that’s true. It’s the only thing I believe in this life.

  “If you stay with her, I’ll make sure she doesn’t live to have your children. No one deserves a lifetime committed to you.”

  His threat shoots needles through my veins. “What did you just say?”

  “She’s better off dead than living a life with you,” he growls. “You will destroy her just like you destroyed your mother. I would be saving her from a lifetime of misery. She. Would. Thank. Me.” He punctuates each word, the alcohol saturating his breath as it wafts across my face.

  The darkness I’ve suppressed for the last year envelops me. Our living room becomes one big distortion, and my fists take over. I’ve never fought back before, but that ends tonight. No one threatens Sawyer. No one. All I see is red. It blurs my thoughts and controls my actions. When it ends, the only thing I see is blood and my father lying on the wooden floor. He groans and rolls to his side, too drunk to pick himself up off the floor.

  I peer down at my bloody, shaking hands—hands that don’t resemble mine. This isn’t me anymore. I don’t fly off the handle. My temper is supposed to be controlled. How could I lose it like that?

  “You,” he grunts. “You will never know happiness.”

  Shaking my head, I walk away from him. “You’ve made sure of that,” I say as I slam the front door behind me.

  “DEAN!” he shouts, and I find it ironic that this is the time he chooses to call me by name. I don’t remember the last time he ever called me by my real name.

  I never look back.

  I swallow the ugly feeling I get when I think of him and take a cleansing breath. “I got out of the house as fast as I could. I had to see you.” I take another moment because reliving that day means reliving a nightmare. Except it wasn’t a nightmare. It was real. Things like that used to happen nearly every day of my life, but that night he went too far. “The closer I got to you the more solidified my decision became. I had to feel you against me one last time before it was all over.”

  She peers over at me with tears brimming in her eyes. I’ve seen her cry hundreds of times, but these tears aren’t for her. They are for me, and I hate that no matter what I do I can still make her cry.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispers.

  I shake my head. “I was eighteen and naïve, and I believed him. I couldn’t let him hurt you and staying with you only gave him more fuel. I had to protect you. Every part of my life was toxic. If I stayed with you, or even let you come with me, my poison would disintegrate any goodness you had. You deserved someone so much better than me. You deserved someone like Grayson.” Sawyer presses her lips together to fight back more tears. “But that wasn’t completely it. What if you did stay with me, or we ran away together? What if I became like my dad someday? His temper is in my genes. The thought of hurting you that way makes me sick. I could never do that to you. I never wanted to hurt you. Ever.”

  She presses her fingers against her lips the way she always does when she’s trying to keep her emotions at bay. “Dean,” she exhales and reaches for me, but holds back, keeping her hand on her thigh. “I never knew it was that bad. If I had known… if you would have trusted me with that… we could have avoided the last six years. I would have taken you away from him. I never would have let you leave me.”

  I nod. “But I was so afraid I’d turn into him. I was so ashamed. That kind of anger runs in my veins. My temper isn’t the most controlled, and I couldn’t end up like my father. If I ever
did to you what he did to me, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. So I had to cut the ties. I’ll never forgive myself. I’ll never forgive myself for the time we lost. I know now I’m not my father. I would never, ever lay a hand on you.”

  “You’ve never been like your father, Dean. I always knew that.” Her hand lifts and presses against my chest, over my heart. “I could have told you that.”

  I look up to fight back tears. What is happening to me? “You know, it took me all that time away to realize he was talking about himself every time he told me how worthless I was. I know now that my father had a choice. He let the grief of my mom leaving consume him, rather than letting me be his reason for living, rather than finding help and a healthy outlet to grieve.”

  “You’re not worthless, Dean.” Sawyer’s deep brown eyes gaze up at me with sincerity. “You’ve never been worthless.”

  SAWYER

  IT NEVER OCCURRED to me that Dean could be just as broken. I’ve been so wrapped up in the wreckage that is my life, I never took the time to really look at him and see what he’s gone through. I never wanted to believe that anything could be wrong with Dean, because he’s always been so perfect in my eyes. Even now, as he sits with his emotions bare, I see how beautifully broken he is. He’s still perfect—so perfectly imperfect.

  When Dean looks at me the way he’s looking at me now I have hope that the pieces of my shattered heart have a chance to be picked up off the floor. For the first time in all of these years lost, I feel I might be able to piece them back together. To make something whole. Together. It’s possible Dean and I could do this together.

  “I was so stupid, Jack.” When he calls me Jack this time, I don’t feel bitterness or pain. I feel comfort and serenity. “Please forgive me. Don’t make me go another day without you. Let’s stop this. I’m so tired of not having you in my life.” He shifts, taking hold of my arms, curling his calloused fingers around my biceps. “Just seeing you here at my house.” He swallows. “I want to see you here with me. You fill this place of painful memories with light. I need more light in my life, Jack.”

  I blink and finally feel relief. “You should know… I never stopped loving you. I loved Grayson, and for a time I belonged to him, but my heart always belonged to you.” I shrug. “Always.”

  Dean bridges the gap between us and takes my face in his hands. He releases a breath when he looks at my mouth, and then his lips are against mine. There’s no way to explain how I feel the kiss all the way down to my toes. Though I feel his urgency, he remains tender. His tongue explores my mouth, and I’m brought back to every good memory, where we learned how to fit together seamlessly with every kiss and every caress.

  One of his arms tightens around my waist, drawing me closer to his mouth, devouring me in a way he never has before. My name is a whisper on his lips—not Jack, but Sawyer. It’s more intimate. He makes me feel like I could survive on purely this—him, breathing life into me.

  Life is worth breathing for again. Every bitter thought that has tried to swallow me whole vanishes. Through his touch, I can be mended. His hands move to grip my hips and his kisses slow.

  “Even after all this time,” he whispers heavily against my mouth. “You taste the same.”

  “I hope that’s a good thing,” I reply.

  He pauses and smiles against my lips. “You know… I kept thinking the longer I was away the easier it would get, but I missed you more and more every day. I missed this.” He inhales and kisses me deeply, filling the parts of me that have been empty for so long. I know this is only the beginning, but it’s a start. “It hurt so much some days I thought it might kill me. If I wanted any chance at survival, I knew I had to come back and make you forgive me,” he breathes.

  I press my forehead to his. “And then you came back, and I had moved.”

  I feel his head shake from side to side. “You didn’t just move, you moved on.” He leans back. “I lost you. You were engaged, and Alix made sure I knew how happy you were and to leave you alone.”

  “So, you heard I was happy and engaged and you gave up? Why so easily? That doesn’t sound like you.”

  “No.” He shakes his head again, trailing his fingertips up and down my arms, leaving goose bumps in their wake. “I saw how happy you were, so I let you go.”

  The air escapes my lungs. “What?”

  “I went to Seattle.” He shrugs as if this isn’t the most important detail of all. “I was able to get that much out of Alix. I didn’t know how to find you. I searched in phonebooks and online through social networking. I was in Seattle for weeks and weeks. It wasn’t like I hadn’t learned how to survive without a permanent residence over the years.

  “Then one day, I saw you. The heavens finally opened up for me. You were in a tiny coffee shop soaked to the bone and laughing. Your hair was dripping down your back and the brightest smile lit up your face. I was still drawn to you. That smile… oh, that smile.” His fingers stroke my parted lips. “And then I saw him, the one who was making you so happy, and I knew it was selfish of me to try and steal you back. I stood there for a solid twenty minutes fighting with myself. You know which side won. So, I left.”

  “Soaked to the bone,” I repeat.

  “Yeah,” he says with a chuckle. “Sopping wet. I couldn’t understand how you could look so comfortable when I knew how miserable you must have felt.”

  I can’t breathe. With closed eyes I utter, “I couldn’t have been engaged…”

  “What?” he says it as if he didn’t hear me, but he’s merely processing.

  I open my eyes and look at Dean who looks more confused than ever. “If I was soaking wet, that was my first date with Grayson. We weren’t engaged.”

  Dean’s head is shaking, trying to understand what I just figured out. He pulls away from me and leans back against the bench, running his hand down his face, grazing the scruff on his jaw. “Are you saying—?”

  “How long did you wait to come back?” I ask to clarify, just to be sure. Alix couldn’t possibly have gotten the details that wrong. “Give it to me in years.”

  He scratches the back of his neck. “About a year and a half.”

  “Not long after I left for Seattle,” I mumble and stand. I need a minute of not looking at him. I’m going to kill Alix. My stomach ties into tighter and tighter knots until I feel bile rise in my throat. After all of this time, thinking he deserted me for years… She could have taken away all of the not knowing, all of the pain… Why would she do that to me? My back finds the railing to lean against for support.

  “Alix lied to me?” The realization finally sets in for Dean. “She said you had been gone for almost as long as I had.” I swallow and shake my head to answer him, taking in deep breaths as I put myself inside Alix’s head.

  “I’d only been gone for six months.”

  As angry as it makes me, my mind tries to formulate why she would have done what she did. I realize she was trying to save me, so I looked like I had moved on rather than wallowed pitifully in my depressing life for the last year.

  “That little—”

  “Dean,” I stop him from saying something I would make him regret. “She was trying to protect me. It was a thoughtless decision on her part, but her intentions were honorable enough. And there’s nothing we can do now. If I’ve learned anything from this entire mess, it’s that holding a grudge and mulling around the what-ifs will only cause more heartache. What matters is that you came back, and so did I. I don’t want to waste any more time. I’m done wasting my life.”

  He looks at me hesitantly. “Are you saying…?”

  I put one foot in front of the other and slowly sit down beside him, our legs flush with one another. My fingers run through his hair, brushing it back from his eyes. “I surrender.”

  He wraps one arm around my waist, splaying his fingers on my stomach. His other hand reaches up to cradle my face with the gentlest stare forming in his emerald eyes. A crooked smile creeps across his face. “You
do? You promise?”

  I nod. “I can’t promise I’ll be the same. My heart has been shattered too many times to be put back together and be unchanged. I will give you all I have, but there’s not a lot left to give.”

  “Then I’ll make up the difference. I don’t need a lot.” He reaches for my left hand tangled in his hair and brings my wrist to his lips and kisses my sparrow. “Let me fill the cracks. Let me make you whole. Isn’t it clear by now that I’m not whole without you?”

  A tear rushes down my cheek, and he kisses it away.

  “What do you say we go find some dandelions?” he asks. “I know this really great park. It has a pond and some really cool willow trees.” The smile tugging my lips spreads across my face, and I lean in to kiss him. “We could lay down a blanket and watch the clouds go by. I hear its pretty relaxing,” he says between kisses.

  “I think this plan gets better the more I hear about it.”

  “There might be some Reese’s Pieces involved, but only if you’ll share with me.”

  “I’m not very good at sharing.”

  His arms wrap tighter around me as he says against my mouth, “Me either.”

  EPILOGUE

  SPRING ALWAYS BRINGS a fresh start. When the leaves on the trees sprout light green and the first flower blooms I feel renewed. Willowhaven is the most beautiful in the spring. If it could stay this way year round I would live contentedly forever, but I suppose it’s harder to appreciate the good when there’s no bad to compare it to.

  A new season makes me revaluate life. I can see now that Dean couldn’t fix me. Neither could Grayson. I had to say goodbye to my anger. I had to let go of my bitterness. I had to dig myself out of the deep, black abyss that was my life on my own. You have to want it badly enough. There’s no easy solution to healing a broken heart. It took will power and an inner strength I didn’t think I possessed, but I made it out on top. Somehow after it all, I’m still standing.