Me After You Read online

  “No!” I cry. “No, no, no…”

  “Baby, that’s enough! Baby!” She holds me hostage until I stop thrashing, and we collapse onto the ground. “Sawyer,” she whispers into my ear with a quiver. I quiet down, but the tears convulse my body as I crumple against her chest. “Oh, sweetheart,” she soothes, but nothing soothes me anymore.

  I lose track of how long she’s been cradling me in the hallway when she murmurs, “We need to get you patched up.” I shake my head mechanically to protest, but she lifts me to my feet. My eyes are dry, but I’m covered in tears. She ushers me to the bathroom with her hand behind my back, carefully guiding me forward. Sitting me down on the closed toilet lid, she gestures for me to stay put and digs through the medicine cabinet. My tears fall from my cheeks onto the skin of my hands, and I look down to wipe them away. But it’s not tears. It’s blood.

  I wipe my hands across my wet cheeks and come away with a mixture of red and tears on my palms. My mom turns and sees me with smeared cheeks and winces. She helps me to the sink to wash my face and hands. With a white washcloth she dabs my face dry and sits me down again.

  “Do you feel better?” she asks, her hand resting on my shoulder.

  I answer with the shake of my head.

  “Well, that’s too bad. It would have made the mess I’m about to clean up worth it.”

  I snort a humorless laugh before she dabs a rubbing alcohol coated cotton swab under my eye. I flinch and hiss from the sting.

  “Sorry.”

  “No, I am,” I mumble and wince again when she dabs my other cheek. “I don’t know what got into me.”

  Her lips press together like they do when she’s trying to get a handle on her emotions. “I do. You lost your husband, and you’re trying to learn how to deal with it.” She pauses. “I should have taken down that collage of you two. You weren’t ready for those kinds of memories. I knew it could have gone either way.”

  I shake my head and look up at her kneeling in front of me, taking care of me like she used to when I was little. “I just snapped. Some days are better than others. I guess today was a bad day. I miss him so much, Mama.”

  Her face tenses, and I see tears well up in her eyes. “I know, baby.”

  “Sometimes I think I’m okay, and then the next second I snap back into reality. Everything comes back to drown me. I’m so tired of feeling this way.” My chest feels heavy. My mind is on emotion overload, and I honestly don’t know how much more I can take.

  I can tell she doesn’t know what to say. So, she continues treating the little cuts on my face. “You know you can always talk to me. I’ll listen.”

  I nod. I know I can, but talking about it makes it worse. So much worse. When I talk about it I cry, and I hate crying. I want to forget. I want it to all go away.

  “You know, your brother’s been asking about you. Blaine would really like to talk to you.”

  “I don’t know what he wants me to say.” I’ve been avoiding calling him. He’s the one person who can read me better than anyone else, and I can’t handle a lecture right now. While I was living in Seattle after the funeral he stood by to be there for me, but he kept his mouth shut. He didn’t know what to make of me. It’s been over four months now, though; he must be losing his mind. We’ve never gone so long without talking.

  “He just wants to hear your voice and let you know he’s here for you. He’s worried about you.”

  “He could call me himself.”

  “He doesn’t think you’ll pick up.” He’s right. When Mom was hounding me about why I had to pick Dean of all the boys in school to like, Blaine stepped in and said ‘Because she can see a future with him.’ He had taken the words right out of my mouth without me knowing that was exactly what I wanted to say. Blaine knows me too well. “He tried calling in the beginning, but your phone was off.”

  For good reason. “Well, he could try again. And you can tell him I’m fine.”

  “Fine?” She quirks an eyebrow. “If you call this fine I would hate to see what horrible looks like.”

  I chuckle, but it falls flat.

  Fine is what I have to be. I’m fine. I can handle this. I can do this. I’ve got this. This is my new mantra. Without making that declaration to myself, I’d coil back into my room and never come out.

  So, I’m fine. I can handle this. I can do this. I’ve got this.

  I look down at the cuts in my hands, to the wedding ring I haven’t taken off yet, and I know I’m lying to myself.

  I curl into Grayson’s side on a city park bench. During his study breaks, I meet him here to let him wind down a little bit and we people watch. The characters we discover make for hours of entertainment. He wraps his arm around my side, brushing his fingertips from my waist up to my ribs and rests his head on top of mine.

  “Thank you for saving me,” he says. “I really needed this break today.”

  “I’m happy to be of service. You’re always the bright spot in my day, so it’s not completely selfless.”

  Grayson chuckles and tightens his arm more securely around me, lifting my left hand to rests it in his. I feel a cold item gently slip around the finger next to my pinky.

  I look curiously to my hand and raise it to reveal an unmistakable ring on my ring finger. My wedding ring finger. It takes me a minute to comprehend exactly what the thick diamond crusted band on my finger is. The clustering diamonds sparkle like stars on a clear night as the sunrays sweep over each facet.

  “I know it’s fast, but I feel if I don’t make you mine now I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

  I must look like a deer caught in headlights. My brow ruffles. What did he say? “You’re serious?” I laugh nervously.

  His hazel eyes smile at me. “I don’t want to live one more day without calling you my wife, Sawyer.” He moves down from beside me and kneels down on one knee. “As soon as I saw your face I knew I needed you. It was just that. I needed you. And I haven’t looked back since. I love you, Sawyer Hartwell, and I know I’ll never stop.” Grayson takes the hand he placed the ring on and kisses my knuckle. “Be my wife?”

  If someone asked me before today if I would have said yes, I would have told them no, but looking in his eyes I don’t second-guess myself. “Yes.”

  It’s not until he has me cradled in his arms that a face flickers behind my closed eyelids. A face that isn’t Grayson’s. I know I should give up on Dean. He isn’t coming back. I know that, but I’ve been keeping him saved in a compartment in my brain just in case. Today, though, I know I need to lock that compartment and throw away the key, so I say a silent goodbye and plead for thoughts and memories of him to finally leave me alone.

  “Let’s get married today,” Grayson says.

  I wake, rolling to my side and feel for Grayson on the other side of the bed. My hand reaches for his bare chest, but he’s not there. My eyes open, taking in my old bedroom and I remember. Remembering is the worst part. There’s a brief moment between sleeping and waking where Grayson lives. In those few perfect moments, he’s not gone. He’s alive, and he’s sleeping peacefully next to me.

  I roll back to my side of the bed and let the tears fall down my face, into my hair, wetting my pillowcase. My hand stays splayed on the empty sheet beside me, stroking the material as I imagine him there.

  ***

  Over the last couple of weeks Polly has taught me a few tricks of the trade, and I’ve rediscovered how much I love baking. I did a lot of it in Seattle when Grayson had long days at school, which was often. Every week I’d try something new. The recipes weren’t always a success, but there was something calming about baking. When I baked, I escaped. Willowhaven was the last thing on my mind. There were no regrets or feelings of loss. The unhappiness that gradually seeped into my veins was a distant memory. I zoned in on the flour and measurements and mixing bowls and lost myself.

  I hear the door chime from the back of the bakery so I head up front. My stomach drops when I see him standing near the dis
play of cupcakes. God has no mercy on me. Dean stands in a form-fitted black t-shirt with his hands tucked in the front pockets of his low riding jeans. His intensely green eyes smile. He doesn’t look surprised to see me behind the counter, so I don’t bother being polite. He obviously has an agenda, but I don’t think I’m ready to hear it. I don’t know how he has the audacity to come in here after everything—after hooking up with my ex-best friend.

  I must have flour on my nose because before I get a chance to say anything he smirks and taps his index finger against the tip of his nose.

  I rub the back of my hand across my nose and hopefully wipe it clean. “What do you want, Dean?”

  “Well, hello to you.” He nods. “It’s good to see you, too. I’m doing just fine. How about you?”

  This sounds more like the Dean I remember. I hated his hesitation before, as if I was a caged animal who needed to be handled with care. I’m a little unstable, there’s no denying that, but I can’t possibly break any more than I already have. Rock bottom and I are already pretty familiar with one another.

  “We’re past pleasantries, Dean. I’m not going to stand here and chat with you like the last six years never happened.”

  “I understand that you’re upset with me, but if you would just hear me out.”

  “Hear you out? Oh, this should be good. You wanna tell me why it was so hard to pick up a phone for six years? Or maybe why you’re back, and yet I didn’t have a clue?”

  “Things aren’t always black and white, Sawyer. Sometime decisions have to be made that we don’t want to make. It doesn’t change the fact that they happen, and I’m sorry.”

  I shake my head and look up at the ceiling. He’s sorry? That’s rich. “You know… Willowhaven might not be that big, but there are definitely ways for us to run in different circles. Let’s keep it that way.” Please can we keep it that way?

  “You can’t really mean that, Sawyer.” He eyes me, trying to call my bluff with a rise of his eyebrows.

  “Honestly, yeah. I’d much rather never hear your voice ever again, so you can just turn around and walk out like this never happened. You can pretend I don’t exist. I can pretend you don’t exist. It’s nothing new to us.” As I say the words, they burn with the lie. I can’t pretend he doesn’t exist. I’ve never been able to do that. My mind has never let me do that.

  But I want my words to sting. I hope he walks away. It’ll make things easier, plus, he’s good at it. If only he would repeat that performance. Then I could go back to my life of thinking about him in the distant past tense as opposed to the constant present, because whether he lied to me about loving me, or lied about not loving me, it doesn’t matter… Either way, he’s a liar, and I don’t want anything to do with a liar.

  DEAN

  I WASN’T EXPECTING that to hurt as much as it did. Although she may sound snarky, she also sounds completely honest. I didn’t come here to fight with her. I was going to be polite and get on with my day, but her initial greeting struck something inside of me. I know she’s hurting, and I probably deserve everything I have coming to me, but that doesn’t mean I won’t strike back in the process when it’s necessary. She can hate me, but she doesn’t need to be rude about it.

  “Okay. I deserved that.” And more. “I just had to… I just wanted to… I need you to…” I grunt, aggravated that I can’t get the words right.

  “Just spit it out already, Dean. I’ve got to get back to work.”

  “I need you to know I truly am sorry.”

  Her eyebrows raise and she laughs. It’s completely without humor, but at least it’s more of an emotion than I’ve gotten from her thus far. “A little late for that, aren’t we?”

  I sigh. “I’m trying here, Jack. You’re not making this very easy.”

  “Oh my gosh, I hate it when you call me that. Please don’t,” she begs, her eyes on the ceiling as she swallows. She does that when she’s annoyed. As if she’s so irritated she can’t stand to look at you for one more second.

  “You used to love it when I called you that,” I say quietly. The words stick in my throat. I didn’t mean to say it out loud.

  “No, I hated it, but I loved you, so I never asked you to stop.” Her eyes meet mine again, slicing right through me.

  So this is her way of telling me she doesn’t love me anymore. Of course she doesn’t love me anymore. I don’t expect her to. I don’t know what I expect. I just…

  A patch of black catches my eye on Sawyer’s wrist as she runs her fingers through her hair and sighs.

  “Did you get a tattoo?”

  She looks down at her wrist and shifts uncomfortably. I don’t understand why. It’s not as if I would judge her. It catches me by surprise because it’s so out of character for the Sawyer I knew.

  “Yeah,” she answers and lifts her eyes to me resolutely, almost defiantly asking with her eyes, What are you gonna do about it?

  “What is it?”

  She narrows her eyes defensively. “Why do you care?”

  “It’s just a question, Sawyer. I never thought of you as the tattoo type.”

  “I never thought of you as the deserting type, but you proved that theory wrong. People change.”

  I have to give it to her. I left that one wide open. My fingers coil into a fist and rub back and forth across my forehead. I will not lose my temper. She doesn’t deserve it.

  “It’s a dandelion,” Sawyer finally murmurs. I look up and watch her peering down, brushing her thumb lightly over the small tattoo. There’s a distant, sad look in her eyes, and I wonder what she’s thinking about. I don’t know a lot about symbolism or why she got the tattoo, but I know what dandelions mean to us.

  “Look, Dean. It’s water under the bridge. We don’t have to make it more than it was, okay? We had a high school fling. It ended. We moved on. That’s all there is to it.” Her voice holds indifference, and it cuts me deep. She’s brushing aside the only relationship that ever meant anything to me. I’m getting brushed under the rug like some dirty little secret.

  I hold my ground. “No! Not okay! Be livid with me. Yell at me. Cry. Smack me if you have to. But don’t pretend like what we had wasn’t real,” I snap. I hate raising my voice. I especially hate raising it to Sawyer, but I can’t bear the thought of it not being real. It was real to me, even if she doesn’t believe that.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she scoffs. “Like you did?”

  I nod and swallow the lump in my throat. “Okay. I deserved that, too. But you know what I mean.” I know I threw it away. The guilt and regret of it eats at me every day. If only she knew I did it for her.

  “I don’t want to fight.” She sighs with a shake of her head. I’ve never heard anyone sound more defeated. “I don’t want to do this. I don’t have the energy to deal with this.” She throws her hands back and forth between us as if to emphasize her revulsion with the thought of us. My stomach tightens against the punch. “I’m dealing with too much right now, Dean. Okay?”

  There are tears brimming in her eyes, and I know how much she hates to cry, so I lift my hands in surrender. “Okay.” She’s so delicate; she could crack with the softest tap. I don’t want to be the one to shatter what she’s working so hard to reconstruct. All I wanted was to hear her voice. I wanted her to acknowledge me again. Just once. “Okay. I’ll go.”

  “Thank you.” She sounds so relieved my ego gets knocked down a few more levels.

  I leave without getting the double chocolate cupcake I went in there for, and that bums me out. I was really craving one of those.

  Aiden wasn’t kidding when he said I needed to start working for her forgiveness now. I know I don’t deserve it right off the bat, and I may not deserve it at all, but I want it now more than ever.

  SAWYER

  THAT NIGHT, AFTER being on my feet all day, I decide a bubble bath is exactly what I need. It doesn’t help that Dean got me all riled up earlier either. I hate that the sight of him brings me back to bowling alley
s and Sole Festivals and lying under the willow in Timberpond Park. I hate that I think of Reese’s Pieces and motorcycles and dandelions. When my mind goes back to those places it reminds me how it felt. It remembers that he can make me feel vulnerable and adored and tongue-tied and strong all at the same time. Why does he still have that effect on me?

  Dean has only raised his voice to me like that one other time. I’d seen him lose it on other people, but never on me. He hated showing that side of himself in front of me. As soon as he found himself losing his temper, he would walk away or breathe through it. I’ll never forget the look in his eyes that night.

  The music is booming through the valley of the lake. The bass echoes off the mountains surrounding us. Our entire class—which consists of about three hundred students—is partying at Coral Lake for a summer kick off, the kick off to the last summer before our senior year. A bonfire blazes orange and red on the beach under the night sky.

  Dean, Aiden, and Josh are huddled together a few feet away from the bonfire and dancing crowd when I walk up to them.

  “The princess herself has arrived,” Josh remarks. “Stop the presses!” His tone sends an unpleasant shudder down my spine. It holds more mocking than teasing, but I smile anyway. Showing him how uncomfortable he makes me would only be providing more ammo.

  “Hey, guys.”

  Dean puts his arm around my waist, tugging me close to his side, and plants a kiss on my temple. “Hey, Jack,” he whispers into my hair. “You look beautiful.”

  I smile up at him and let my lips linger on his jaw. “Thanks.”

  “Well, that’s about as much of the happy couple I can take,” Josh says and pulls something skinny and white from his shirt pocket. It’s probably something he can smoke. But at least it means we most likely won’t see him for the rest of the night.

  “I’ll catch you losers on the flipside.” Josh walks away, with Aiden in tow, throwing a dirty hand gesture in our direction. Dean tries to laugh it off, but I can tell he’s just as uncomfortable as I am.