Pledge. Company. I cocked my head to the side. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Hmm? Shoot.” He reached down and flicked the power button on the stereo, fiddled with the radio dial; we could get the USF station, sometimes, and Sawyer had told me once that they did a good blues show late at night.
“Did you clean for me?”
“What? No.” He straightened up a little too quickly, ran a hand through his hair a little too fast. “No. Why?”
“You did. You cleaned for me.”
“Reena …” He looked embarrassed. “I don’t want you to think I was, like, planning on bringing you back here.”
I perched on the edge of the bed, smirked at him. “You weren’t?”
“Well…” He shook his head. “I don’t know, Reena. I’m not going to pretend I didn’t think about it. And this place is a dump.”
“It’s not a dump,” I lied.
“It’s a dump. And if you were going to come here, I wanted it to at least be a dump where there’s not shit everywhere.”
“Who are you?” I asked, laughing. I felt drunk, almost. I was glad to be sitting down.
“You know who I am,” he said, and I was about to reply, but Sawyer LeGrande was gently, so gently, pushing me backward into his bed, and that was the end of that. “Reena,” he muttered. “You need to tell me if you want to stop, okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, and smiled. “I really don’t.”
He kissed me for a long time, on top of the sheets and then underneath them. My shirt hit the bedroom floor with a sigh. There was a small but unmistakable scar on his chest, from the surgery he’d had when he was little; he was salty like the ocean and I was fascinated by the way he was put together, the dips between his fingers and the muscles in his back. I reached for the button on his Levi’s, and Sawyer took a deep, shaky breath. “We’re gonna go slow, okay?” he told me. “We’re gonna go so slow.”
*
I wanted to stay awake when it was over. I wanted to look carefully, to remember every single detail so I could write it all down later and not lose it, not ever, but I felt sleepy and sluggish, like I was trying to swim through syrup. “Can you stay here?” he mumbled, and I don’t remember replying, but when I woke up the dawn was dripping gray outside, and I was all alone.
I reached down to the chilly hardwood to retrieve my T-shirt, tried to think and not to panic. I hadn’t heard him leave. His roommates would be back by now, wouldn’t they? What the hell was I going to do, just wander downstairs and say hi? I felt freaked out and weirdly disoriented, totally and completely out of my league.
I got dressed as quickly as possible, crossed the room to nudge my feet into my flip-flops where they’d landed in the corner near the window. I braced my hand on the sill to keep my balance, was looking down when something shiny caught my eye: Tucked in a pair of Sawyer’s hipster sneakers was a crumpled plastic baggie, the cellophane catching the light. Inside that was half a dozen little white pills.
Holy shit.
They could be aspirin, I told myself as I bent down to fish them out, knowing even as the explanation occurred to me that I was being totally ridiculous. There was no way this wasn’t bad news. They were probably painkillers, I thought with a grim kind of realization, but clearly Sawyer wasn’t about to pop ’em for an end-of-the-day headache.
I was wondering if there was a way for me to slip out of the house without anyone noticing when I heard somebody in the hallway; I shoved the baggie back where I’d found it, wedged my flip-flops successfully onto my feet. Sawyer nudged the door open, a fat pomegranate in each hand. “Hey, lady,” he said easily, grinning at me like his was a world where good things happened often, and like—just possibly—I was one. “How’d you sleep?”
“Um.” I exhaled, grateful he hadn’t caught me snooping. In spite of everything, I felt myself smile at the sight of him, sleep-rumpled and happy. He’d pulled a pair of jeans on, last night’s shirt. “Hey,” I said. “Good.”
He handed me one of the pomegranates, sat down cross-legged on the bed. “You okay?”
“Uh-huh.” I nodded. “I just woke up, and…” I stopped. It sounded silly now, the idea that I thought he’d disappeared on me.
“What’d you think, I left?” He kissed the side of my forehead. “Man, you think I am such a weasel.” He cracked open his pomegranate, swearing softly as the juice dripped onto his sheets. He dug at the seeds for a minute and then held up a hunk of the rind. He looked curious. “What happens if I eat the hard part?” he wanted to know.
I looked at him, still smiling, the warm flush of his full attention; even the pills seemed less sinister all of a sudden, that sharp slice of panic already fading away. Maybe I was wrong, I thought. Maybe I really didn’t know what I’d seen. “A pomegranate grows in your stomach,” I told him.
“Really?”
“If you’re lucky.”
Sawyer grinned and sank down on the mattress beside me. “Oh, I’m real lucky,” he said.
*
It was close to lunchtime when Sawyer drove me home. I crept in through the back door, hoping to sneak straight upstairs, but my father was in the kitchen drinking coffee. “How was Shelby’s?” he asked me quietly, one thumb ringing around the edge of his mug.
“Good,” I said.
“Good,” he repeated. Then, as I made for the staircase: “Reena.”
Uh-oh. I turned around, eyes widening. I felt like he could see right through my skin. “Yup?”
“Sit down.”
“I was just going to—”
“Serena.” His voice rose suddenly, and I thought of Moses on Mount Sinai, the voice of God and the burning bush. “I don’t know if you were or were not with Shelby last night, but I do know that this needs to stop right now.”
I blinked, tried ignorance. My cheeks were very warm. “What does?”
His eyes narrowed. “Please don’t insult me.”
“I’m not,” I said. I was holding on to the edge of the countertop, clutching at it with my fingertips. “I don’t mean to.”
“Please don’t think I’m so ignorant that I don’t know what’s going on with you and Sawyer, all right?” He looked so uncomfortable that I almost felt sorry for him. “I might not know what, exactly—and I get the feeling, quite frankly, that I don’t want to know exactly what—but I am telling you now that you need to put a stop to it before you do something you’ll regret.”
I glanced instinctively out the window, but of course there was nothing to see there: I’d had Sawyer drop me halfway down the block.
My father saw me looking, rubbed a hand across the side of his face. “Reena,” he said, more softly this time. “I love you. But you are on very thin ice here. And I don’t think you understand what you’re dealing with.”
I squinted at him. “Meaning …”
“Meaning, Sawyer has a lot of problems.”
Bald denial was my first instinct. “Oh, Daddy, he does not.”
“There are things you don’t know about him, Serena. There are things you don’t know about the world. And maybe that’s my fault, maybe I’ve kept you from—”
“Can you stop?” I asked sharply. It was the closest to the edge I ever got with him, but I just—I did not want to be having this conversation. I didn’t need anyone else telling me all the things I didn’t know. “It’s not like that. He’s not just some random—” I broke off, tried to think how to explain it to him. “You know Sawyer.”
My father looked at me like he’d never seen me before in his life, like he honestly had no idea what to do with me at all. “Yes, Reena,” he said finally. “I do.”
We stared at each other, like a standoff. For a moment I wished for my mom—someone to take my side in all of this. Eventually I shrugged and raised my chin. “Can I go?”
I was expecting an argument, but my father just sort of sagged. “Go ahead,” he told me finally, and as I pushed through the door into the living room I was almost sure I heard him s
igh.
25
After
I bite at Sawyer’s bottom lip in his parents’ kitchen; I run my hands up over the fuzz where his hair used to be. “There you are,” he says after a minute, two palms on either side of my face like he wants to make sure I’m not planning to go anywhere. He’s smiling hard and bright against my mouth.
“Hi.” Kissing him feels familiar but also new, a song they haven’t played on the radio in a really long time. “Risotto needs a stir.”
“Who cares?” He’s got his teeth at the place where my neck meets my shoulder and is lifting me up off the counter the tiniest bit. “God, Reena,” he murmurs, nosing close to my ear. “I missed you so freaking much.”
“Shh,” I hush him, concentrating. He tastes like salt and summer, the same. “No, you didn’t.”
Right away Sawyer gets that look on his face like I’ve slapped him, and he sets me down on the counter with a thud that sings up through my spine.
“Ow! What the hell, Sawyer?” I reach behind me to rub my tailbone. “That hurt.”
“Sorry.” His face softens for a moment. “But I don’t know how much I appreciate you constantly acting like you don’t believe a single word that comes out of my mouth.”
I bark out a brittle little laugh, incredulous. “I don’t believe a single word that comes out of your mouth.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a liar!”
“Well, then why are you here?” he explodes.
I glare at him, embarrassed. This was a mistake. I knew it was a mistake coming in, and I did it anyway. Slow learner, I think, hating myself and Sawyer equally. Stupid girl.
“Look, Reena,” Sawyer says quietly. He gets a little closer again, careful, warm breath at the spot behind my ear. “Sooner or later, I think we’re going to do this.”
I jerk away like he’s radioactive. “The hell we are.”
“We are,” he says, like it’s that simple. I want to jump down off the counter, but he’s standing in my way. “And don’t talk like you don’t want to, either, because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be showing up at my house at eleven o’clock at night so I could make you a second dinner you don’t even want to eat.” He looks so sure of himself I could kill him. “But I’m not going to let it happen until you forgive me.”
“Well, then, I guess we won’t be doing it for a hundred thousand years.”
Sawyer snorts. “I guess not.”
“Oh, suddenly you’re into delayed gratification?” I’m striking out in every direction, indiscriminate. I want to hurt him as fast and as badly as I can. On the stove the rice is boiling over, an angry hiss.
“You’re pissed,” he says, eyes narrowing. I can tell that blow landed, but it doesn’t feel as satisfying as it should. “So I’m going to let that one slide.”
“How charitable of you.”
Sawyer shrugs. “If I just wanted sex, I could get sex. Trust me, I’ve done it. But I want you.”
I seriously almost slap him. “God, you are such an ass.””
It’s a sickness.”
“Yeah, we should throw you a fund-raiser.”
He grins. “You’re getting feisty in your old age.”
“Well.” I want to mark up this perfect kitchen, pull the pans off the rack and draw on the walls like the baby with a Sharpie. “Getting knocked up and walked out on will do that to a person.”
“I didn’t know you were pregnant!”
“I don’t care!”
Sawyer sighs noisily. “So what are you going to do, storm out on me again? Because—”
“Yes, actually,” I fire back. This time I do hop down onto the tile, shove him roughly out of my way. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.” I grab my shoulder bag off the table, brush past him. The smell of burning rice sticks to my T-shirt clear across town.
*
I get home and head upstairs to check on the baby, anger and exhaustion and that infinite embarrassment still rattling around like loose coins inside my head. The house is cool and silent, the hallway dark save for the glow of Hannah’s nightlight spilling dimly out the half-open door; I get in there and find her wide-awake and waiting, calm as the surface of a cool, placid lake. “Hi, Mama,” she says cheerfully, grinning like possibly she stayed up just to talk to me and is pleased with herself for being so clever. Her eyes are fathoms and fathoms deep.
“Hi, baby.” I drop my purse on the floor and cross the carpet, suddenly a hundred percent sure I’m about to cry. I’m just stupidly relieved to see her, is all, this twenty-pound miracle I thought for sure would make me a prisoner, hands and feet bound zip-tie secure. It does feel like that some days, to be honest, but right now I’m bone-grindingly glad.
I swallow the tears, smile back. “Hi, Hannah,” I say again, lifting her out of the crib and cuddling her against me, rubbing her warm downy head against my cheek. She’s getting heavy lately, more toddler than baby. It makes me feel weirdly nostalgic and bittersweet. “Whatcha still doing up, huh?”
Hannah doesn’t answer—she’s got words but not so much conversation yet—and instead she just snuggles into my body, surprisingly strong arms coming up around my neck. “Mama,” she murmurs again.
“I am your mama,” I tell her, sinking down into the rocking chair and smoothing patterns with my palm across her tiny baby back. “I’m the only one you’ve got, poor thing.”
26
Before
God help me, he didn’t call.
Like … ever.
The first couple of days after I slept over weren’t so bad. He was probably just busy, I reasoned, as I made a big show of not looking at my cell phone—of trying not to be that girl. I had homework to finish. I had articles to write. On Monday I worked a party at the restaurant, tucking the extra tips into my pocket at the end of the evening, telling myself it was seed money for whatever awesome adventures were waiting for me after graduation.
It was fine, I promised myself in the ladies’ room mirror. I was fine.
Two days turned into three, though, and then five—and soon a week had passed. I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I skulked around near the Flea, where his band practiced. I called my own cell on the landline, on the off chance I’d somehow randomly stopped getting service in my house.
“Well,” I muttered out loud, when it rang just right as rain—thinking of my father, thinking of Allie, thinking of all the things I actually didn’t know. Well.
I didn’t cry. I planned instead. I dug out all my travel books and bought an armful of new ones, retracing my old routes and making notes: Macedonia and Mykonos, Joshua Tree and Big Sky. I priced tours of the Pyramids on Kayak and Expedia. I took virtual tours of hotels in Prague.
That worked okay, on occasion.
Other nights, not so much.
Tired of watching me pace the upstairs hallway like a zoo animal, Soledad sent me out on whatever errands she could think of: milk, Tylenol, bank deposits. I turned up the AC and drove. That didn’t always help, either, though: One night right around Valentine’s Day, I finally cracked and headed south down 95 toward Sawyer’s, my father’s plastic-covered dry cleaning hanging in the backseat. The windows were dark, driveway empty. I cruised by again to make sure.
*
“So, okay,” Shelby said, when I confessed over French fries in the cafeteria the following afternoon, head in my hands over my sad little cup of yogurt. She’d broken up with her soccer-star girlfriend over Christmas, had spent more or less the entire break sacked out on my bed watching all six seasons of Lost on DVD and muttering monosyllabic answers every time I asked if she was okay. It occurred to me that relationships basically sucked no matter where you fell on the Kinsey scale. “That was a low moment.”
I cleaned out my closet. I interviewed the couple playing Sandy and Danny in the winter musical for the paper. I dropped by Ms. Bowen’s office—again—to make sure Northwestern had gotten all my application materials.
“We’re all set
, Reena,” she promised, smooth forehead creasing a little as she looked across the desk in my direction. She was wearing her dark hair pulled up into a topknot. Her short nails were painted a deep purplish red. “Nothing to do now but relax and wait.”
“I know,” I said, and even as I tried to tamp it down I could feel the edge creeping into my voice. Relax and wait was the story of my life lately; it was hard to take it from her on top of everyone else. “I just—” I shifted my backpack to my other shoulder, fidgeting. All of a sudden I felt weirdly close to tears. “It’s really important that I get in, is all.”
“Reena.” Now she really did look concerned, all her guidance counselor instincts coming online at once. “Are you okay?”
God, for a second I almost told her everything: Sawyer and Allie and how lonely I felt lately, how badly I needed to get out of this place. The way she was looking at me, her face open and intelligent—something about her made me think she’d listen. Something about her made me think she’d be able to help. Still, spilling my guts to my guidance counselor of all people? That was pathetic. That was absurd.
“Yeah,” I told her, smiling as hard and as brightly as I could manage. I probably looked deranged. “I’m great.”
I got A’s on all my midterms. I went into Lauderdale to go shopping with Shelby. I started working my way through Sylvia Plath’s Collected Poems, but that made Soledad really nervous, so I switched to Jane Austen so she could sleep without worrying I was going to put my head in the oven or something.