Seven

by Susan Renee

  My body is stone cold. My hand is shaking. Bryant running into the bedroom and knocking the door open stirs me enough to drop the letter from my hand to the floor as if it’s on fire. I jump back, covering my mouth with my hand.

  “Savannah…”

  “No,” I whisper shaking my head back and forth.

  This isn’t happening.

  Not to me

  Not today.

  Not ever.

  It can’t be true.

  There’s just no way.

  “No, no, no,” I say over and over again. The room is spinning and my head is still shaking back and forth in denial. “It’s not true. It’s not true. It’s not true,” I chant. My eyes are wide as I watch Bryant walk slowly farther into the room. He walks toward me but I can’t be near him. I don’t want to be near him. I back up until my back is against a wall. I’m trapped but every feature of my face tells him not to come near me right now.

  “Savannah, please, just listen.”

  “Listen to what, Bryant? Listen to what?” My voice is shaking. “You told me months ago that you never found out who Ivy’s donor was. That’s what you told me, Bryant. That’s what you told me.”

  His eyes are desolate. “Yeah, I know I did but…”

  “BUT WHAT BRYANT?” I shout. I point to the letter now lying on his bedroom floor. “What is that? Why do you have it? Bryant, tell me please…tell me it’s not true.”

  The speechless defeated look on Bryant’s face says all I need it to say.

  I’m right.

  Ivy has Peyton’s liver.

  “Savannah,” he whispers.

  “Just say it, Bryant. Tell me. Say the words or so help me God...” Tears are now rushing down my face as fast as the rain falls outside the bedroom window. It’s ironic that it’s storming outside, but that storm out there doesn’t hold a candle to what’s brewing in this room right now.

  “Sev, I was going to tell you…”

  “WHEN, BRYANT?! WHEN THE FUCK WERE YOU PLANNING ON TELLING ME?” I scream. I swear I’m having an out of body experience. The real me is sitting against the wall, a scared girl not wanting to have this conversation while the bitch in me stands up and fights.

  “I don’t know Sev. I just needed to protect you from all of this.” He hangs his head in shame before looking back up to me like a sad puppy that just lost his bone. “I swear I wanted to tell you but there was never a…”

  “Right time? How about the day you found out for Christ’s sake? How about when you saw me that night in your bar? How about the day you took care of me while I was sick? How about our first date? How about before I…”

  Took my clothes off and made love to you.

  I gave myself to you.

  I tore down my walls for you.

  Immediately I cross my arms over my chest and sob. How could I have been so stupid? He doesn’t love me. He just feels guilty! This was his way of making himself feel better for the guilt he’s been living with all this time. I’m such a fool.

  “Savannah, I love you. Please, I need you to understand something.” He pleads with me but his pleas are just words. Most likely the same words he says to all the girls.

  “If you loved me, Bryant,” I point back and forth between the two of us. “You wouldn’t have let this happen. You would’ve been honest with me from the get-go. I can’t believe I was such a goddam fool.”

  “NO!” Bryant shouts, making me jump and hit my head on the wall behind me. I wince, bringing my hand up to rub my head.

  “Oh fuck, Savannah I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But you have to put yourself in my shoes.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about your shoes Bryant.” I cry.

  “Then FUCKING LISTEN TO ME ANYWAY!” He finally releases his feelings, freezing me in place.

  Is he going to hurt me?

  I’ve never seen him this upset.

  Or maybe it’s fear…he’s afraid?

  What does he have to be afraid of?

  His kid is alive because of mine.

  He sighs heavily as he watches me. “What was I supposed to do Sev? Call you up and say ‘Hey, I haven’t seen you in years, sorry about your kid but thanks for the liver.’? Was I supposed to tell you I loved you back then? Should I have asked you out then? No fucking way! There was no way I could ever contact you to tell you because how would that have made any part of this better for you?” He raises his arms in question. “Damnit, I was going to try to forget the whole thing. I was going to let you live your life and I was going to live mine but then you walked into my bar that day and I…I couldn’t do it Sev. I couldn’t let you go. Not again.”

  Bryant raises both of his hands to the top of his head, pacing back and forth. “Shit Sev. I’ve fucked this all up. It’s all my fault. I knew at some point the truth would come out before I was ready to handle it and I would lose you. I’m so damn sorry. I’m SO sorry Sev. I never meant to hurt you. I would never ever want to hurt you.” He throws his arms out to his sides. “None of this was meant to hurt you.”

  Another clap of thunder sounds outside.

  I don’t think I can stay here.

  Time to go.

  I need to get away from him.

  “I should go,” I say quietly, stepping around him towards the door.

  “What? Wait, no Sev. Don’t go.” He reaches for my arm but I pull it free, grab my purse and hurry from the room, wiping the never-ending stream of tears from my face.

  “I can’t do this now Bryant. I need to go.”

  “Are you crazy? It’s pouring down rain out there and the storm is only going to get worse! I’m not letting you go.”

  “SHE WAS MY BABY, BRYANT!” I scream. “SHE WAS MY LIFE AND SHE’S GONE AND NOW YOU HAVE A PIECE OF HER LIVING HERE IN YOUR HOUSE AND WHAT DO I HAVE?”

  “Savannah,” he whispers to calm me down.

  “Nothing,” I choke on my whisper. “I have nothing.”

  I step backwards toward the door, grab my keys from the table and head towards my car. As soon as I step from the front door I’m soaked. The rain is heavy and the thunder is piercing.

  “Savannah please don’t go. Wait for the…”

  I don’t even hear the rest of his sentence because I slam my car door closed. He pleads one more time to get me to stop by pounding on my window, but his efforts are fruitless.

  “SAVANNAH!” I hear him yell as I slowly step on the gas leading my car down his driveway.

  I have nothing.

  He has part of my baby girl and I have nothing.

  I don’t even know where I’m heading. I just needed to be away from Bryant and away from Bardstown for a while. Maybe I’ll just drive until I’m tired and get a hotel somewhere so I can be alone. Maybe I’ll circle town and go to Mom and Dad’s for a while. I could go to Rachel’s but I’m almost positive that’s the first place Bryant will look for me. Within five minutes I see the entrance ramp for I62 west and decide to just take it. Who cares where I end up tonight.

  My thoughts are running wild as I play back in my head everything that happened just a short time ago.

  “SHE WAS MY BABY!”

  “I can’t believe I was such a goddam fool.”

  Tears are still flowing as I drive further down the road. Bryant is right. This rain is ridiculous. It’s pounding on the top of my car. Already there are puddles forming on the roadways that I try my best to dodge. I can only barely see where I’m going between the rain hitting the windshield and the rain, in the form of tears, falling down my face. Everything is a blur. I hear my phone ding alerting me to a text message that I can only assume is from Bryant. Taking my eyes off the road to read it would be a huge mistake so I ignore it. I make it maybe a total of twenty miles down the road before I decide not to be an idiot. Turning on my emergency flashers, I pull the car over to the side of the road. At least here I can wait out the storm alone and in peace.

  Grabbing a tissue from my purse, I wipe my face and blow my nose. I focus on breathing in and out fo
r a solid three minutes to calm myself down. Why does this hurt so badly? Why is this affecting me so much? I warned myself months ago that Bryant Wood was a douchebag and like an idiot I chose not to listen and now here I am – broken, and alone.

  I reach for the nob to the stereo, hoping that something might calm me down, but of course the world is out to kill me today. Sam Smith’s voice singing “Stay with Me” flows through the car speakers drowning out the rain. All I can do is listen to the lyrics, thinking about how Bryant would be saying these words to me if he were here right now…that he was saying these words to me before I left. I’m so confused. Deep down, as hurt and as angry and as confused as I am, I still want him here. I miss him already.

  But he lied to me.

  “FUUUUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK!” I pound on the steering wheel in front of me, taking out all of my hurt and aggression in the only way I can right now. I don’t care that when I hit the steering wheel it honks. There’s nobody here. I can cry as hard as I need to, because nobody is around to hear me.

  “Okay Savannah. Time to play Devil’s advocate.” I say to myself in between sniffles. Questioning my own thoughts is the only way I’ve been able to survive on my own. It’s the only way to work through my pain.

  What am I upset about the most? The lie, or the truth?

  This is a hard question for me to answer, which makes it the right one to be answering. Am I mad that Peyton’s liver was donated to Ivy specifically? No. How can I be? It’s not her fault. She was in a life-threatening situation and my Peyton was able to help save her. She was a hero to so many children who never asked for my child to die. It’s not any of their faults. It’s not their parents’ faults. It’s not my fault. I know all this. The fact that I can easily come to this conclusion tells me that what upsets me the most, obviously, is the fact that Bryant knew about it and never told me.

  What upsets me the most is the lie.

  Who does that to someone they love? Who hides an inevitable truth, one that will absolutely cause a certain level of heartache, from the person that they love.

  Someone who just wants to protect.

  “Sev, there was no way I could ever contact you to tell you

  because how would that have made any part of this better for you?”

  Bryant’s explanation plays over again in my head and for the first time I begin to understand. He’s right. If he would’ve told me all of this right when it happened, looking back on the state my mind was in then, I would’ve succumbed to an even deeper depression. It would’ve ripped me apart knowing that my kid was dead but a piece of her was alive in a child that not only wasn’t mine, but one that I would be running into around town.

  Love is an ugly beast sometimes, I know. It makes us do stupid things. It rips out our hearts when we least expect it. It grows on us like weeds, sometimes killing us with its poison. It throws us into the fires of hell several times during our lifetime and for what? So we can stand up, brush ourselves off and start all over again from the beginning and then sometimes, sometimes when we least expect it, love morphs from an ugly beast into the thing our hearts desire most. Passion. Companionship. Loyalty. Comfort.

  What if I still love him?

  What hurts more? Knowing the truth and staying with Bryant, or knowing the truth and leaving him?

  I swallow the lump in my throat, thinking about what Mama would say if I were sitting with her at the dining room table. I’m sure she would pull out her Bible and read me that “Love is patient. Love is kind” verse that everyone reads at weddings. But then she would probably pat me on the arm and tell me that I’m the strongest girl she knows and that it’s okay to be scared because “Bein’ scared means you’re probably thinkin’ about doin’ somethin’ really brave.”

  I miss my mama sometimes. We live in the same town, yes, but a lot of shit has happened in the past couple years and Mama has helped keep me going when I didn’t want to. This is one of those times. As much as she annoys me with her southern Bible talk, like Annelle Dosoto from Steel Magnolias, she’s still my mama. She’s the one person I need to hug me tightly and put all my broken pieces back together. Pulling out my phone, I see that I’ve missed several texts from Bryant that I refuse to even look at right now. I send Mama a quick text to let her know I’ll be stopping by this evening, and that I’ll just stay there tonight and drive to work from there in the morning. Checking the GPS on my phone I see that I’ll have to drive down to the next exit in Elizabethtown to turn around and come back this way. I take a deep breath to settle my frayed exhausted nerves. The rain is still coming down and the fog is rolling in, but it’s not unbearable. I look through my purse for one last Kleenex to blow my nose before leaving but I don’t find any there. I always keep a box in the back seat in case of an emergency, so I turn around to reach for it on the floor. I start to turn myself back around when the bright light blinds me.

  Headlights.

  Big headlights.

  Coming right at me.

  Shit! There’s no time…

  I hear the deafening crunch of my vehicle as my head hits my head rest behind me and pin-balls between both front seats. The car is being pushed forward with the force that only a semi-truck could provide.

  Oh my God!

  There’s a flash of pain in my right shoulder that doesn’t register until my body is tipped upside down, weightless, as the car slides down a hill I didn’t know I was close to and flips. My arms automatically flail above my head, hitting the ceiling of the car.

  “HELLLLLP” I scream in pain, from what I’m not quite sure.

  My eyes are squeezed closed as I feel the car roll several times, knocking my body like a rag doll against my door, against the console and back before the car stops. My head finally hits the steering wheel with a hard enough thud that blood splatters from my nose.

  “Bryant!” I’m calling to him but no sound is coming from my mouth.

  “BRYANT!” I cry.

  Please hear me.

  Slowly I move my head but my eyes can’t catch up. Everything is blurry. I taste the salty bitter taste of blood at my mouth. I don’t know what just happened. All I know is that I’m alone and wherever I am, nobody knows I’m here.

  Nobody is coming to help me.

  The world around me is alarmingly silent. I’m growing tired and my head hurts, and it’s getting harder to breathe. If I could just close my eyes…

  This is it.

  I’m dying.

  This is how it happens then.

  July Seventh.

  I should’ve known.

  “You are my sunshine…”

  It’s only a matter of time now.

  “My only sunshine…”

  It’s so easy.

  “You make me happy…”

  Wait…Bryant…

  “When skies are gray…”

  No! Breathe Savannah!

  “You’ll never know dear…”

  I can do this!

  “How much I love you.”

  Don’t you die, Savannah!

  “Please don’t take my sunshine away.”

  *****

  Beep. Swoosh…Beep. Swoosh…Beep. Swoosh.

  Chapter 28

  Bryant

  She left.

  I’m standing outside in the pouring down rain gasping for breath from running after her car down the driveway. I can’t believe she left. I can’t say I’m surprised. Her reaction is exactly what I knew would happen, yet I did nothing to prevent it from happening. This is all my fault.

  “DAMNIT!” I shout as loud as I can, leaning my head back into the cold punishing shower above. I kick at the gravel at my feet and watch as several stones fly up ahead of me. How could I have been so damn stupid? We were doing so well, why couldn’t I have just told her? And today of all days…she shouldn’t be alone tonight.

  Fix this Bryant.

  I contemplate going after her but I’m not exactly sure where she’ll end up. She probably headed back home, but could’ve he
aded to her parents’ house on the outskirts of town. I could at least drive by and see if her car is there. Running back to the house I pull my phone from my back pocket sending a quick text to Savannah:

  Me: I love you. I’m so sorry. Please at least text me when you get

  where you’re going. You shouldn’t be driving in this weather.

  I click the button to send the text and then immediately regret sending it to her in this weather. Her eyes will be blurry enough from crying and I just made matters worse by sending her a text while I know she’s driving. I’m such an idiot. Once I’m back inside the house I pull my wet hair back off of my face and pace back and forth in the kitchen, praying that Savannah texts me back. Thunder continues to clap loudly outside. It’s definitely not helping my fear for Savannah’s safety. I send a text to Rachel and Sloan asking that they let me know if they see or hear from her.

  Rachel: What did you do this time?

  Me: Long story. I fucked up. Explain later.

  I throw my phone down in frustration. I’m quite certain she wouldn’t drive to the bar. Sloan isn’t a bad guy at all but she wouldn’t go to the one place she knows people would be looking for gossip. She had to have headed home. I know she thinks she might need space but I need to fix this. Before I can go anywhere though, I need to change out of these wet clothes. Running back to the bedroom I throw my wet jeans and t-shirt in the bathroom before pulling on dry clothes. I step into my cowboy boots that I are waiting for me by the front door, head back to grab my phone in the kitchen and run out the door intent on finding the love of my life and begging her to forgive me. I’ve never begged a girl for anything in my life, but I owe this girl everything. I can’t imagine my life without her now. I don’t even have to think about it. I need her.

  The drive east into town is a ridiculous disaster. I’m lucky I didn’t run off the road with all the hydroplaning I did along the way. How Savannah’s little car isn’t stuck in a ditch along the road is beside me. Her car isn’t nearly as heavy as mine…though I suppose she drives slower than I do. Luckily, there were no accidents on the way into town. Deciding to swing by her apartment first, I hang a right towards Main Street. Immediately I have to pull the car over as a fire truck and ambulance speed past me in the other direction.