Travesty

by Carrie Thomas

  “One time? Pfft . . . if you had me one time, you’d be hooked,” Abe joked.

  I raised my eyebrow, wondering if this was part of his challenge. We never really stated what the challenge was, and honestly, I think it was an ongoing challenge of whatever would ruffle my feathers, so I went along with it because it was fun. But he was not going to beat me at it. I’d make him sorry for bringing Sam in on it.

  I rolled my eyes. “Whatever floats your boat. If you ask me, it’s gross.” I shrugged, playing along.

  “Duh, you’re his sister. And you,” she said pointing to Abe, “I’m the queen of one times, I could do it.”

  “That sounds like a challenge, Abe,” I goaded him.

  He stood there in his low-slung jeans, with his hands in his pockets. The thermal shirt he had on under his T-shirt was pushed up his forearms, making him look hotter than ever. The look on his face was full of amusement and curiosity. “Well played,” he said, and turned and walked out the front door.

  My heart smiled so big at his admission. I loved how he would give me credit and not always try to out-do me. I decided in that moment I was going to sneak into his room later; it was worth the risk because I had to kiss him. I didn’t want the day to end without it.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Sam asked.

  “Just a little sibling rivalry. Let’s go get something to eat.”

  I think Sam scared the crap out of Abe because he did his own thing for the rest of the night. In fact, I didn’t even see him until we were about to go to bed. Sam and I had rented a movie and watched the whole thing, before he’d returned. He had been gone a long time.

  “Goodnight,” he said from my bedroom doorway.

  “Night, slugger,” Sam said, smiling.

  “Slugger?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yeah, I’m one hundred percent, abso-freaking-lutley positive you’d hit it out of the park. I’m talking about a grand slam.”

  I broke out into a fit of laughter. Sam was trying to embarrass him now, and I honestly thought it was working. His smile faltered and his cheeks shaded crimson. I enjoyed the hilarious moment. I couldn’t help locking eyes with him so he could see me laughing on the inside too.

  “When you’ve got time, I’ll give you a name, and you can ask her yourself.” He winked.

  And we’re tied . . .

  I waited until Sam was snoring before I got up to go see Abe. I knew it was needy and girly, but I’d felt restless not sleeping with him. I missed him next to me. I wanted his arms around me and his warm breath on my neck. I made sure to shut my door, that way I would hear it open if Sam got up. I slid under his blankets and snuggled against his back. He was so warm, and smelled delicious.

  “I miss you,” I whispered in his ear.

  “I miss you too. This sucks.” He turned to face me.

  “I can’t believe we are so whipped, we can’t go one single night without sleeping together.” I chuckled.

  “I love you. You mean more to me than anything ever has. I can’t even explain it to you. I wish things were different, and that we could really be together all the time,” he whispered.

  “I love you too. It’s so weird, how I should feel completely lost. I keep thinking about all the things I don’t know, and how I should be more freaked out, but I don’t because of you. You saved me, Abe.”

  He hugged me close and held me tight. We didn’t say anything else for a long time. I never realized how just having his body close to mine could give me such peace. I stayed in his arms, until I felt like drifting off to sleep.

  “I’ll miss you,” I said kissing him.

  “Me too. We’ve still got,” he looked at his clock, “three hours left to make it through.”

  “We got this, slugger.” I winked as I got up from the air mattress. “Sleep well.”

  “Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.” He sighed.

  I smiled all the way back to my room. The giddiness I felt was overwhelming. I knew I wasn’t going to sleep well either, but I had no choice but to try. I climbed back into bed, wearing a perma-smile on my face.

  I’d doze off for a few minutes, but then I’d wake up, look around the dark room, and close my eyes again, to another failed attempt. I tossed and turned, huffed and puffed, feeling like I was going to crawl out of my own skin. This went on for almost two hours, until I must have fallen into a deep slumber.

  I woke up screaming from a vivid dream. Soreness gripped my throat and sweat broke out all over my body. I needed Abe. I had to tell him what I’d just dreamt about. I jumped out of bed, noticing the sun working its way through my window. I knew he was down at the barn. He always started early.

  “What’s going on?” Sam sat up, her hair spiked up on top of her head.

  “I’ll be back, I have to find Abe,” I said running out of my bedroom.

  I ran out the front door, my feelings somewhere between terrified and relieved. I didn’t even put shoes on. I ran as fast as I could to the front barn. It was farther than I’d thought. My feet were hurting, but I didn’t care. I rounded the corner in a pure panic. I wasn’t even sure what he was going to do to help me, but I knew I’d feel better once I was in his arms. Sure enough, Abe was there, messing with some mechanical stuff.

  “Abe! Abe!”

  He turned around startled. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  “I remember everything. It came to me in my dreams. I had nightmares about that night,” I sobbed.

  Tears were falling down my cheeks so fast, I couldn’t keep up with wiping them. I couldn’t believe after all this time, I remembered everything. Once I’d woken up and realized my dream was my actual memories, I felt overwhelmed and scared. My thoughts were sporadic and trampling over each other, causing me to feel out of control.

  “Sophia . . .” He couldn’t even finish before I crashed into his chest and kissed him, pouring everything I had into it.

  All the nights he stayed up with me, racking my brain, trying to come up with something or anything. Every time he called the police stations, checking to see if there was anyone out looking for me. It all made me feel so special. He had rescued me and taken care of me all this time, without even knowing anything about me. I loved him so much for it.

  I hadn’t even realized I’d climbed up his body until we heard someone clear their throat.

  “You two wanna tell me what the hell is going on here?” Cal stood behind us with his arms crossed.

  “Umm, it’s not what it looks like,” Abe started, while peeling me off his body, attempting to sit me back down on two wobbly legs.

  “I sure as hell hope not, because what it looks like is some weird-ass incest shit.”

  “Cal—” I started.

  “Sophia, stop. Cal, we need to talk,” Abe told him. He barely touched my arm as he tucked both of his hands in his pockets, looking sullen.

  “Yeah, I think we do. You,” he said pointing at me, “go to school. You,” he pointed at Abe, “get back to work. I’m going to take a sedative. Come up to the house for supper,” he mumbled walking away.

  Abe turned toward me, eyes wide.

  “Oh my God. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking,” I said putting my hand over my mouth.

  “No. It’s okay. If we have to leave, we will. I’m just glad you remember everything.”

  “I remember my dad, my house, that night,” I shivered.

  “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry you had to relive that,” he said hugging me tight.

  “It’s okay, you saved me.”

  “You better get to school, so you can take that test. I don’t want you to miss it.”

  “But, I—”

  “No, just go on, Soph. We will work this out tonight. You need to get some distance. School will be a good distraction.” He rubbed my hair.

  “What do you think is going to happen? I don’t want you to have to be here by yourself today.”

  “I don’t know, but it’ll be okay. We’ve made it throu
gh worse, right?”

  I could tell he wasn’t sure about how everything would play out. Neither was I, and the last place I wanted to go was to school, but Cal hadn’t seemed like he was joking when he told me to go. I knew Abe felt better about facing Cal on his own, but I didn’t. It wasn’t his fault we were in the spot we were in. I wanted to stay and stand up for us.

  “Soph, you don’t even have any shoes on. Come on, I’ll take you back home.”

  I nodded, and hugged him again before he took me back to the house. Luckily, Sam’s indifferent personality had her only asking a couple of questions. I told her I had a bad recurring dream, and Abe always made me feel better. I considered her questioning eyes, but she didn’t know me well enough to pry, and I was thankful for it.

  Somehow, I made a B on my final test and I had no idea how. My mind was on Cal and Tonya all day long, as well as my memories. What was Cal going to say to Tonya? Would he kick Abe out before I’d returned home? Why hadn’t my dad reported me missing? Why hadn’t Courtney, my best friend, gone to the police? Nothing made sense. As the bell rang, I didn’t even tell Sam or Ty bye. I ran out the door and headed straight for the ranch, nausea rolling through my body at the thought of what was about to happen.

  I was dreading the meeting with Cal and Tonya. I’d kept myself busy all afternoon—far away from the main house. It wasn’t that I was scared of Cal; he was the best man I’d ever met. If he was going to knock me out, he’d have done it first thing when he caught me with Sophia. But the disappointment in his eyes was a new feeling for me. I’d never felt like I’d let someone down like that, including Sophia.

  Man to man, I knew he wouldn’t respect me anymore, and that sucked. He was the only dude I’d ever tried to please. The other jobs I’d had over the years were just a means to an end, but he had given me a home. Facing him, and explaining the cluster we were living in, was going to be difficult. He’d probably make us leave and I couldn’t blame him. I would have to come up with a new plan to take care of the girl I loved.

  Sophia came home earlier than expected, declaring she received a B on her exam. I was happy for her, but all I could think about were how things were about to change for us, one way or the other. I couldn’t imagine which way it was going to go, but the fact that the police hadn’t shown up yet gave me a little hope. I hadn’t described any of my worst fears to Sophia because I didn’t want to scare her, but I didn’t have the faintest clue as to what we were going to do.

  After talking it over, Soph and I decided to just come clean. Cal had witnessed us all but making out, so there wasn’t any way around it. We respected them, and didn’t want to lie to them anymore. Honestly, I was more frustrated by the fact we had to hide in the shadows than I was by the fact we’d been caught. Living a lie got old quick. I wanted everyone to know I loved her. Hiding my feelings felt wrong, almost like I was disrespecting her in some way. I guess as upset as I was for deceiving Cal, I was mostly relieved. I didn’t like the way we were caught, but now we had to own it.

  It was time.

  We took the truck up to the main house just before dinner time. It wasn’t that I was a pessimist, but if things didn’t go well, I didn’t want to be without a vehicle.

  “I’m so sorry. I feel like all of this is my fault,” she apologized again.

  “Soph, stop it. None of this is your fault,” I said taking her hand.

  She blew out a deep breath. “I know you don’t like this word, but this is going be diffican’t.”

  I chuckled, even though I couldn’t for the life of me find anything about the situation that was funny. “Diffican, baby. Have you learned nothing since you’ve been around me?”

  “It’s just going to be hard to face them, you know?” She said getting serious.

  “Yeah, I know, but everything will work out.” I honestly didn’t know why I kept telling her that. I didn’t know any more than she did, but I guess I felt like if I said it enough, maybe both of us would eventually believe it.

  As we made our way to the door, heaviness filled my heart. I could tell she was nervous as well, so I grabbed her hand. Why hide it anymore? She tried to pull her hand out of mine, by habit, but I held on tight. Facing our screw-up was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do, and I felt like I needed to touch her.

  Tonya answered the door, her face masked. “Come in.”

  We held tight to each other and took a seat on the couch. Sophia’s hand was sweating, so I rubbed my thumb in circles over the back of her hand, trying to calm her. I absently thought about the fact that Ava was napping, since she wasn’t there. Tonya and Cal both sat across from us, each in their own chair.

  “I don’t know—” I started.

  “Start from the beginning,” Cal interrupted me.

  “We’re obviously not brother and sister.”

  “Somehow that makes me feel better.” Cal shivered.

  “Yeah, so basically, I grew up in foster care. I was abused from the moment my foster parents took me in. The first week I was in their home, I only ate two times.” I continued to stare them both in their eyes, which were now filled with pity. I hated pity. Tonya gasped, but I continued while Sophia squeezed my hand.

  “They had me work for them since I was thirteen. I had to give them all of my money. They spent it on whatever they were addicted to at the moment. I haven’t been to school since seventh grade. Everything I’ve learned, I’ve learned on my own. Basically, I’ve always done manual labor because it’s all I’ve ever been qualified for.” I took a deep breath before I admitted the rest of our insane story.

  “A year ago, I’d been on the road working—iron working—when I came home and found Sophia, beaten and handcuffed in their basement.”

  “Oh my God! Cal?” Tonya looked to her husband for answers as tears filled her eyes. He didn’t have them, so she turned back to us.

  “I’d been kidnapped,” Sophia tried to explain.

  “Kidnapped?” Tonya gaped at us, shocked. Cal’s brow creased, like he wasn’t sure what to make of our explanation.

  “They’d tracked me for weeks, then took me from my house on a night my dad was out of town.” Sophia swallowed the lump in her throat. “They broke into my house and hit me with something, hard on the back of the head, giving me amnesia. When I woke up in the basement, I didn’t know who I was, where I was from, or how I’d gotten there. I lost my memory for a very long time. In fact, that’s what Cal walked in on in the barn. I had just woken up from a dream where all of my memories had finally come back to me.”

  “You poor thing. Where is your family? Why didn’t you call the police?” Tonya wondered.

  “We did. The night I found her was the same exact night I had decided to make my escape from them. I wasn’t technically eighteen yet, and I didn’t want to risk foster care again, or worse. I also didn’t know where they’d gotten her, and didn’t want to send her back to conditions as bad as mine. So, she came with me to Texas. I called the police nearly every day for months to see if anyone had reported her missing.”

  “No one reported you missing? Where are her parents?” Tonya asked me. “Why did you just take her with you and not try to contact them?”

  I rose from the couch, taking a deep breath, too restless to sit anymore. I knew Sophia was going to get upset with me for not telling her the next part, but I couldn’t have them thinking I didn’t do everything in my power to get her back to her family. I had truly exhausted all leads, until I’d found out that they didn’t want her. I could never let her be with people like that, especially without her memories.

  “Of course I tried to find them. And . . . I did find them,” I looked down to gauge Sophia’s reaction. She was the only one I cared about.

  Something changed in her eyes. In the time it took me to say those words, we went from being teammates to something else. Her eyes fell. I’d hurt her, just like I knew I would.

  “You found my family?” she asked in a whisper.

  “When
I went back to Oklahoma, right after we got here, I made Pat tell me where she’d taken you from. It was too late to show up that night, so I went to the address the next morning. There was a lady outside, your mom, and I asked her about you. She told me you were dead to her and your father. She said they were better off without you and that I needed to leave before she called the police. I didn’t know what to do, so I came back here and said nothing. I didn’t want to needlessly upset you because you still hadn’t gotten your memories back. I’m so sorry, Soph. I just couldn’t hurt you like that.”

  “That wasn’t my mom. My mom’s dead.” She shook her head over and over, as if trying to make sense of what I’d just told her. “That was my dad’s new wife. She’s a bitch, and I hate her. Why didn’t you tell me? Maybe I would have remembered something. We could have contacted my dad.”

  “I’m sorry. She acted like your mom. I was only trying to protect you.”

  With tears streaking her red face, her breathing turned short and fast. A horrible, sick feeling came over me, and I’d never known hopelessness until that moment. I thought I had, but I hadn’t. My heart was sinking, falling through my body, all the way to my feet. It ripped through every part of me, taking all of my emotions with it. I’d never thought betraying someone you loved would feel like this.

  “She said I was dead to them?” She whimpered. “That they were better off without me?”

  “I’m so sorry.” I tried to hug her, but she pushed me away.

  “How did—” Cal shook his head and tried again. “I’m sorry, this is a lot to take in. So your last name isn’t Scott? Is yours?” Cal looked from Sophia to me.

  “My name is Abram Scott. She couldn’t remember her last name—”

  “Sawyer. My last name is Sawyer,” Sophia said.

  Cal shook his head and Tonya got up to hug Sophia. I continued standing in the middle of their living room, feeling like a lost ship at sea. All I could do was watch as Sophia slipped away from me. Her demeanor changed the instant I’d confessed. I had betrayed her, and that’s all she could see.