Me After You (28 page)

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.”

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.

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.”

The door shuts behind me as I walk out.

“I bought you some Reese’s Pieces.” Grayson tosses the bag into my lap, but I don’t touch it. “I always see you eyeing them at the grocery, and you’ve been extra quiet recently so I thought you could use a little pick me up.”

It was such a considerate gesture, but the thought of eating Reese’s Pieces still churns my stomach. They’re tainted by the past. Grayson notices the look of unease on my face that I’m not quick enough to conceal.

“Do you not like Reese’s Pieces?”

I swallow the emotion because I can’t lie to him. “No, they’re my favorite. Thank you.” I move them to the side table next to the couch, trying to avoid eye contact.

He exhales, and I know what’s coming. “I know there’s something you aren’t telling me, S. Something you don’t think I can handle. Or maybe you can’t handle telling me, but I don’t keep secrets from you, and I feel like your life is made of secrets.”

I bury my face in the novel I’m reading, trying to get lost in the another world. Grayson knows he’s missing something, but I don’t have it in me to tell him. “Gray, I don’t know what you want from me. I’m always honest with you. You know everything you need to know.”

“Obviously not. Why don’t you trust me?”
 

“I do trust you!” I insist, sitting up straighter and meet his eyes.

“It doesn’t feel like it. I’m your husband, Sawyer. Nearly three years ago, I vowed for better or for worse, I promised to stay by your side. I give you all of me. I always have, and I always will. Are you really not going to do the same in return?”

He’s right. He’s totally right. I didn’t want it to hurt him. I didn’t want him to feel any less important or special in my eyes. I’ve covered up the past because I couldn’t handle it, not because I didn’t trust him with it.

I take a deep breath, prepping my heart, and scoot over on the couch. Tapping the empty cushion beside me, I start from the very beginning. When I’m finished, Grayson embraces me as I cry and doesn’t hold my past against me.

He numbs the pain, but he doesn’t make it go away. And I don’t expect him to or blame him for being incapable of making it disappear. I know only one person can do that.

M
Y
FIST
MEETS
the wall as soon as the door closes, and I drop to the ground behind the counter with my head in my hands. I lean back against the wall below the hole in the plaster I made and cry like a damn girl.

I lost her all over again, but this time it’s worse. I laid my feelings on the line this time. I gave myself to her and, in the end, she still rejected me, like I knew she would eventually.

I knew better. I was smarter at eighteen. I should have stayed away. I should never have come back and tried to redeem myself, as if that was possible.

I wasn’t going to say goodbye. I was going to leave after sneaking out of her window earlier that morning, but she deserves more than that. Even if it kills me to see her one last time. I need one last look at her face—for the long road ahead of me.

I call her cellphone and ask her to come outside. I have to make this brief—short and to the point—but she can’t know the truth. I’ll have to lie to her. She’ll hate me, but she needs to hate me. It’ll make it easier to leave if she hates me. If she hates me, she won’t miss me.