Me After You Page 3

  Dean raises the crowbar, and my heart stops. He can’t! My hand is on my car door handle, ready to leap from the car to stop whatever is about to go down. But then he swings the crowbar up and rests it against his shoulder as he walks over to Aiden and the elderly man. He reaches out his hand to shake and the man pats him on the back with a smile on his face as if they’re old friends.

  Aiden stands, resting his elbow on the elderly man’s shoulder as they talk with Dean. He gestures toward the shed, and Dean nods, taking in whatever instructions he’s given. I’m thoroughly confused until it dawns on me. This is probably Aiden’s house. I remember hearing someone say he lives with his grandparents now.

  There’s no fight. The guy in the alley was probably trying to help Dean out with cheap tools or something.

  I misjudged Dean. Horribly.

  Dean spends the rest of the afternoon using the crowbar to tear down the metal paneling on the roof of the shed. I watch as Aiden helps him out where he can, but Dean is clearly the brains behind the project. Every day after that I follow him here. Now that I know where he’s going, I can be less conspicuous. I don’t stay most days—just simply drive by to watch his progress. He comes back day after day until he’s completely restored the shed. After two weeks, the once rundown shed looks brand-new.

  I learned something that first day I followed Dean Preston. He’s not what people think. There’s so much more than meets the eye. And I want to know more.

  If only I hadn’t wanted to learn more that day. If only I’d kept my distance and not given into the lure of Dean Preston who no one else understood. There would be no painful memories to haunt me at every turn. I could live peacefully in this town.

  I believed him when he told me he would never come back. Years ago, I pleaded with God to bring him back to me. I tried bargaining in my mind. I would do better. I would be better. I would give up anything, anyone else… just not him. But nothing worked. He didn’t want me anymore. He made up his mind. So why did he come back? I don’t need this. I can’t heal in the same town that holds Dean Preston. He’s going to capsize my barely floating ship.

  I don’t want you. Those were his last words before he walked out of my life completely.

  You don’t realize what damage those four words can have until you hear them aimed at you from the person you love most in the world.

  My heart screamed out his name for hours after he left, begging and pleading for it to be some sick twisted nightmare. It eventually turned into a silent plea. My heart must have known before I did that he was really gone. My brain tried to suppress it. I didn’t want to believe that it could possibly be true. When you think something will always be, it’s not easy to let it go and watch as it slips away.

  ***

  “Sawyer?” I don’t think I fell asleep, but my brain feels muddled when I hear my mom say my name. My face is stuck to the tan carpet. I shift to sit up and feel the divots left in my cheek. She tries opening the door, but my body is blocking it. “Honey, what’s blocking the door?”

  I don’t answer, just move out of the way, but don’t get up. I lean my back against the wall and wait for her to enter.

  She searches the room for me when she walks in and then sees me on the floor up against the wall. I feel questions I don’t want asked hovering on the tip of her tongue. So many questions that would open the ultimate can of gigantic worms to ever crawl the face of the Earth. And yet, I do want them asked. I want answers. I want her to know how much she hurt me.

  We’ve been here once before. Six years ago she watched me curl into a ball of emptiness and rejection. Before, she told me I had a week to wallow, and then I needed to get over that stupid boy. But today she knows better. She knows exactly what I discovered and is too afraid to ask because what she did is unforgiveable. She knows how wrong she was to lie to me.

  Finally, I hear her swallow and ask, “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I don’t look at her. I stare forward out my window. “Did you know Dean was back?” I question. His name sounds unfamiliar coming from my mouth. It’s been so long since I’ve said it out loud.

  “Yes,” she answers meekly, and without my response she knows to leave me alone. She knows she deceived me with the deepest form of betrayal.

  The door closes quietly behind her, but I don’t move. I don’t make a sound. The tears weigh on my chest, but they don’t escape. They push harder and harder until my heart feels like it could stop beating at any second from the pressure. I remain on the floor for the rest of the day, praying my heart will give out and put me out of my misery once and for all.

  But the reprieve never comes.

  DEAN

  LILY IS SITTING on my porch when I pull into my driveway. I grab my tools from the floor and get out of my truck. Wearing jean shorts and an off-the-shoulder t-shirt, she smiles her slow, sweet smile and stands up as I approach. Her thumbs tuck in her belt loops as she sways from side to side.

  “I thought you forgot about me.”

  “No. Sorry. Just got caught up in town.”

  She shrugs and offers another smile. “I was thinking that maybe tonight we could grab a pizza and stay in, watch a movie.”

  I lean in to kiss the corner of her mouth. “Sounds good.” She takes my hand and I motion for her to follow me to my garage so I can put away my new tools.

  I shake my head, but I can’t wipe Sawyer from my mind. For the last six years, I’ve dreamed of Sawyer showing up. I dreamed that she would somehow find me during my hiatus from Willowhaven, though she wouldn’t have known where to start to look. Hiding my tracks was my number one priority. I dreamed of what I would say, what I would do. Every possible scenario I could imagine ran through my mind. Yelling. Smiling. Anger. Hugging. Sarcasm. Shyness. Awkwardness. But the way it went down definitely wasn’t one that played out in my mind.

  My garage door squeals as it scrolls up.

  “How was work?” Lily perches herself on my tool bench with her hands gripping the edge of the tabletop.

  “Work.”

  “Did you have a lot of customers?”

  “Yup.”

  “Sounds busy,” she remarks.

  “It was.”

  I wonder who else has actually seen Sawyer. Have Aiden or Josh seen her yet? If one of them had they would have mentioned it. Josh wouldn’t be able to help rubbing my mistake in my face. Aiden would look at me with hope and confidence. He’d tell me to pick my life up off the floor, win back my jackpot.

  “Congratulations, man. You got to keep your luscious locks.” Josh pats me on the back.

  I chuckle, running my hand through my hair. “I wouldn’t take a bet I knew I couldn’t win.” I’m talking through my teeth, but I keep that insecurity from them.

  “I can’t believe you actually got her to go out with you, dude,” Aiden says.

  “Oh, ye of little faith. I can’t believe you guys really doubted me.” Truth was, I didn’t feel that confident. But I wanted to ask her out so badly; the bet merely gave me the perfect opportunity. She was worth the risk. They never would have let me live it down if I asked her out on my own. And if she had said no, all I had to lose was my hair.

  And my manhood.

  “Did she blab about volleyball and her hair the entire time?”

  “I bet you couldn’t get her to shut up. Did you at least get a good lay out of it?”

  I nearly punch Josh, but I shake my head instead and give him a look. They won’t understand. Sawyer is more than that. Sawyer is different. Little do they know with this one, I found gold. I definitely struck the jackpot.

  I hear my name in the distance. “Dean,” Lily repeats loudly.

  “Huh?” I blink, peering over at her.

  “Where were you?” Lily pauses for my answer, but I don’t reply. I stupidly keep blinking because I have no response. “Is everything okay?” She rests her hand on my elbow as I walk past her to put the wrench in my toolbox.

  I almost shrug off her hand. I don’t
know why. Was I being that obvious? I probably look as if I’ve seen a ghost. Sawyer nearly looked like one. Though she did look older, that wasn’t why she looked so different. There was no warmth in her eyes, no pink in her cheeks, and no smile on her unforgettable face. Everything that made Sawyer, Sawyer, was gone.

  I debate on mentioning it at all, but Lily’s going to find out sooner or later. This town can’t handle keeping big news like Sawyer coming back to themselves, especially considering what she’s going through. The small town girl who left and made something of her life, marrying a doctor, and living the big city life in Seattle, only to have her husband brutally murdered. I’ve heard bits and pieces over the last couple weeks. I don’t know what to believe. I heard everything from a gang attacked him to a drug deal gone wrong.

  The news might as well come from me. “I saw Sawyer,” I say gently.

  Lily’s face falls, and her hand clenches the material over her heart. “Sawyer’s really back in Willowhaven? She actually came back? You saw her?”

  “Yeah, for like a minute, and then she took off.”

  “You didn’t talk to her?”

  “No, she literally ran when she saw me.” Bolted faster than I’d ever seen her run back in high school, and she was an athlete.

  Lily bites her lip. “Are you going to go see her?”

  I step out of Lily’s grasp to put the rest of my things away. This is the last thing I feel like talking about with Lily. We don’t need this kind of strain on our relationship. “Lil, she shot off like a firecracker on speed. I don’t think Sawyer wants to talk to me.” Based on the look I saw in Sawyer’s eyes, she might have run all the way back to Seattle.

  “But you want to talk to her.” There’s no question in her voice, and she’s right. I don’t have it in me to deny it. Lily and I keep no secrets. She went to high school with Sawyer and me. She knows what we had, what I threw away, and yet Lily loves me anyway.

  “I haven’t talked to her in six years, Lil.” I at least make my voice sound apologetic. “But she just lost her husband. She needs space.” I don’t want to give Sawyer space, but I will.

  Lily nods like she understands, but she doesn’t. Now she’ll question everything. I can see it in her eyes, the fear of losing me already setting in. She’s going to second-guess what we have, which is pointless. I love Lily. And if today is any indication, Sawyer will never look at me again. Not that I expect anything more.

  “Do you still want pizza? We don’t have to—” Her hesitant voice makes me cringe.

  “Of course I do.” I wrap my arms around her waist, bringing her tightly against me, and kiss her on the forehead. She moves forward on the bench and wraps her legs around me, cradling my waist. It feels so normal and yet unnatural. Does that make sense? “Portabellas or Jeff’s?” I ask.

  She chooses Jeff’s because she knows how much I like it—cheesy greasy Chicago-style as opposed to the thin crust Italian crap.

  “I don’t mind Portabellas,” I offer, still holding her waist, hovering my lips over hers.

  “But you would rather have Jeff’s.” She smiles sadly, and I feel like we are talking about more than pizza. So, I kiss her and try to make her forget. But more than that, I try to make myself forget and get lost in Lily. Concentrating on her mouth and her hands tangling in my hair, I focus on the woman I’m with, on the woman who has stood by me through some of the hardest times in my life.

  SAWYER

  THERE’S A KNOCK at the front door and neither of my parents are home so I choose to ignore it. I stay wrapped up in the blankets on my bed as I stare up at the swirls in the plaster on my ceiling.

  The knocking continues, but they will eventually have to stop. I’m not about to give in because they think repetitive pounding will get my attention.

  In some parts of the plaster, I can make out parts of Grayson’s face. I can see Grayson’s thoughtful eyes behind his glasses, the curve of his full lips, his ruffled, curly, unkempt hair. He’s watching over me. I’m going crazy, aren’t I? The features are sporadically placed on the ceiling, but if I stretch my imagination far enough… but the longer I look, the more it looks like white crap smeared on the ceiling.

  The knocking won’t stop, so I’m forced to throw back my covers and get up to answer it, or I might kill the person on the other side. When I do, there stands my best friend since birth, Alix Fink.

  The red in her chestnut hair shimmers in the midday light. Her bob is something I wish I could pull off as well as she does. She owns that blunt cut.

  “You know, when I heard you were back in town I thought they were crazy. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine you’d set foot in Willowhaven again. And I’ve had some pretty wild dreams.”

  “Looks like I’m the crazy one.” I shrug and offer a small smile.

  She smiles back and grabs me in a hug. I hug her just as tightly because I finally grasp how much I have missed her.

  “It’s really good to see you,” I say into her neck. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  “Girl, why didn’t you call me? I had to hear from my mom who heard it from Valerie. You’ve been here for almost three weeks without telling me. It’s not as if I saw you much over the last five years. I would have been here for you.” She pulls away still smiling. It’s a sympathetic smile, and it says it all without saying anything.

  “You could have come to see me, you know. For more than the wedding… and the funeral.”

  She eyes me with raised eyebrows. “Goes both ways, you know. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming back when I saw you then?”

  “I hadn’t really thought that far yet. It took a couple months for my mom to convince me to come back after Grayson was gone. She was unrelenting.”

  Alix walks inside, and I close the door. “If I’d known getting rid of your husband was the way to finally get you back here, I’d have done it myself a long time ago.”

  I stare at her because I don’t know if I should laugh or cry or smack her across the face.

  “Okay. Too soon for jokes?”

  I nod and humorlessly chuckle. “Maybe.”

  “Well, you look like crap.” She eyes me up and down with her fierce green eyes. “I’m serious. When was the last time you showered?”

  I look down at my crinkled pajamas and try to remember when the last time actually was. It wasn’t yesterday. I don’t think it was the day before. It must have been the day before that… when I saw Dean. She’s shaking her head when I look back up at her.

  “This isn’t you. Go shower. You’ll feel better, and I’ll be here when you’re done.”

  I nod because she’s right, and I can’t deny it. She’s not going to treat me like I’m fragile, even if I feel I might completely shatter at any moment. She knows what I need without asking. And if she has to jump on the train and ride to hell to bring me back, I know she’ll do it.

  When I walk back downstairs after my shower, with damp hair dripping down my back, Alix is searching through the cupboards in the kitchen.

  “See, now don’t you feel better?” She gets up from squatting down.

  I want to laugh at the irony of that question. I feel clean, but I don’t feel better. To appease her I nod anyway.

  She starts rummaging through the drawers and compartments inside the fridge. “You got anything to eat around here? You look like my anorexic cousin, Georgia. And that’s not a compliment to your waist size.”

  “I saw Dean.” I hate that it’s the first topic of conversation, but she had to know he was here, and I want to know why I’m the last to know.

  Alix turns back to me coolly, closing the fridge behind her. “Yeah?”

  “How long, Alix?”

  “How long what?” I don’t know why she bothers with the innocent act.

  “Cut the crap. How long has he been back?”

  She sighs and leans against the refrigerator. I see in her eyes how much she wants to avoid this answer, but I won’t let her. I level my stare to let her know I�
��ll use force if I have to. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  “A few years,” she answers unapologetically.

  I nearly choke. “A few years? What’s a few years?”

  She shrugs. “Three years, give or take.”

  “Alix! Are you freaking kidding? Three years! Three freaking years! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “What would have been the point?” she counters. Her voice doesn’t match my level of vehemence, but she’s confident in the decision she made to keep it from me. “You were moving on in Seattle. You were finally finding happiness away from here. Dean didn’t deserve you. Bringing up Dean would have stirred up old issues that didn’t need to be rehashed. He’s your past, and that’s where he should stay.”

  “I had every right to know.” I step forward to enforce my point. “I never would have come back if I had known.” Or maybe I would have come back sooner.

  “Exactly! Don’t you see? You can’t let that douchebag dictate your life forever, Sawyer. He left you. He left you with the weight of the world. He crushed your world. And this is your home.” Her voice softens. “This will always be your home.”

  “It doesn’t feel like home anymore, Felix,” I say her nickname quietly.

  A smirk crosses her lips. “I know,” she says, and that’s all it takes for me to start crying again. She pulls me into her, but I don’t know if it’s for my benefit or for hers, because she’s crying with me.

  “I hate it. It never stops.” I sniffle.

  “It will.”

  “It doesn’t feel like it.”

  “I know.” Her hand rubs up and down my back. “I miss hearing you call me Felix.”

  Calling her Felix brings me back to happier, simpler times. When mean girls were the worst of my worries.

  “Sawyer?” Lily questions with a prissy attitude, her hand on her hip. “Isn’t that a boy’s name?”

  “Does she look like a boy to you?” Alix steps forward, arms crossed, daring this new girl to mess with her.