His Everlasting Love: 50 Loving States, Virginia

by Theodora Taylor

  “It’s okay…” he told her.

  “We should have used a condom,” she said, sighing sadly into his shoulder.

  He kissed her on top of her bowed head. “It’s okay. I’m clean,” he assured her, stroking her braids. “Got everything ran at my last check up, and I haven’t been with anyone else in awhile. A long while.” Because I’ve been holding out for this, he thought to himself. Waiting to find you.

  But she pulled away from him, her face miserable with regret. “Can you please…get out of me? I know moving backwards on your new prosthesis might be tricky for you, but I need you out.”

  Feeling like both a cripple and pervert now, he pulled out. Backing up. She was right. It was tricky, and he hated the way his gimp leg bent weird under him, making it necessary for him to hold on to the royal blue counter as he pulled up his pants and watched her climb down. She immediately readjusted her t-shirt but didn’t bother to look for her panties, which he’d tossed God knew where in his frenzy to get inside of her.

  “Look,” he said, hating the miserable expression she wore now. Even more so because having sex with him had put it there. “I know you’re probably scared about something…unplanned happening, but nine times out of ten, it doesn’t. And even if it did, I’m responsible. I’d be there. I’d provide.”

  The look she pinned him with was so cold and resentful, you’d think he’d said the exact opposite: that he wouldn’t be there for her, that he couldn’t be depended on…

  “I’ve got to go,” she said, her voice little more than a rasp now.

  “No, stay,” he said. “I don’t want you leaving here upset. I’ll cancel the lunch with my dad and we’ll talk about this.”

  She pushed her now very messy braids out of her face. “I really need to go.” Her voice was shaking, and he could clearly see the effort she was putting into not stuttering when she said, “Look, you’ll need to find someone else to do your PT from now on. I’ll pay you back for the car, I promise. But…you just need to find someone else.”

  But the thing was…he didn’t want anyone else. He wanted her. Only her. Administering his PT. And occupying his bed.

  “Willa,” he told her quietly. “Falling asleep with you last night was one of the best things that has ever happened to me in my life.”

  “Don’t say that!” She reeled back around to face him, her eyes wide with fear and anger. “Please don’t say that.”

  “It feels like I know you, Willa,” he went on, ignoring her pleas in order to speak his truth. “Like we belong together.”

  Willa looked from side to side, like a wild animal suddenly trapped, which made it all the more unbelievable to him when she said in a calm voice, “Sometimes…sometimes patients mistake gratitude for stronger feelings. It’s easy to get confused emotionally in these situations. And I know us sleeping together doesn’t help with that. But please realize this is both unprofessional and plain unethical on my part. It can’t happen again, and that’s why I’m taking myself off your case.”

  He just stood there, staring her down with blazing eyes and a thundering heart. “Why does it feel like I know you, Willa?”

  She shook her head. “Sawyer…”

  “Why does it feel like you’re the crazy one, not me? Crazy for not wanting us to be together? For not seeing things like I do?”

  “Sawyer...I don’t know,” she answered, with a defeated sigh. “But you shouldn’t feel like that. You shouldn’t feel like you know me. And you should be thinking and acting like a person who only started talking to me a couple of weeks ago, with a thirteen year break in between.”

  He kept her pinned there anyway, rage icing over his veins. “There’s somebody else, isn’t there? Somebody waiting for you at home.”

  The accusation dropped down between them like an anvil. Shaking the room.

  She looked at him. Just looked at him for a long time. And then she wrapped her arms around herself and gave him a quick nod. “Like I said, I’ve really got to go.”

  No! No! There couldn’t be another man. But he sensed the truth of somebody else lurking in the background of Willa’s story, like he was standing right there in the kitchen with them.

  “How serious is it?” he asked her.

  “Sawyer…”

  “You aren’t wearing a ring, so I’m thinking you two haven’t made each other any life-binding promises yet.”

  Now she just headed for the kitchen door. Like she was running away from his words. Running away from him.

  “How about if I made you some promises?” he asked her back.

  That question stopped her in her tracks.

  “Real promises. Like I promise to love you better than him, Willa. Promises like, I will take care of you better than him. Promises like, I would put a ring on it right now if it meant you wouldn’t leave out that door. If I made you a promise like that, would you stay?”

  Silence. It went on for so long, Sawyer thought they might stay like this forever. Her still as a statue at his kitchen door. Him holding his breath, his heart on a tightrope as he waited for her to answer.

  But in in the end, she said, “Sawyer, if you realized how insane you sounded right now, you’d thank me for doing us both this favor by leaving.”

  Then she pushed through the door.

  Leaving him behind. With his feeling of déjà vu.

  And his obvious insanity.

  And his all-consuming need.

  And his love.

  The love she apparently didn’t want.

  12

  Willa heard the crash of pans almost before she’d cleared the door.

  Knew that if she’d looked back over her shoulder, she’d see Sawyer in there. Sweeping the stove, like he had the counter. So she didn’t let herself look. Although it killed her to know she’d hurt him so badly.

  He probably thought he was going crazy.

  And Willa wished she could help him with that feeling. But she couldn’t. Not really. Not without him thinking she was crazy, too, or worst…

  Also, she’d already gotten herself in enough trouble helping him, she reminded herself. Twice. She couldn’t even let her thoughts stray down that path a third time.

  She’d said one smart thing this morning, and that was that she had to get the hell up out of here. Not just out of Greenlee Place, but out of Greenlee County all together.

  She ran down the hill, and through the valley. Past her father’s willow tree. Over the river, past the River Boys, who were swimming under the manmade bridge. Past the old well with the two black girls playing 1930s handclapping games in darned flour sack dresses.

  Past her grandfather, filling out the latest crossword puzzle book in the bench seat of his old cart.

  “What’s wrong?” her sister asked, sitting up in her twin bed, when Willa burst into the room.

  “Okay, I’m going to pack a bag, for the both of us. And while I do that, you’re going to call Miss Grace and ask her to check in on Marian until we’re settled in a new place and can come back and get her. Then you and me and Trevor are going to leave.”

  “What? When?” her sister asked.

  “Today,” Willa answered. “We’ve got to get out of here right now.”

  Thel shook her head. “I understand your frustration. I’m feeling it, too. But we can’t just leave. We don’t have any money left after Marian cleaned out the account.”

  “We’ll use credit cards. I’ve got one with a three thousand dollar limit. We’ll stay in hotels until we find a place. I don’t care. We have to get out of here. We have, too!”

  Thel got out of the bed then, taking Willa by the shoulders. “Sis, where is this coming from? I understand you want to get out of here, but you come in here in nothing but your nightshirt, smelling like a brothel, and now you say we got to git.”

  Thel’s eyes darkened, the fierce protective older sister once again, even if she was a good five inches shorter than Willa. “Is it Sawyer Grant? Did he do something to you?”

&nb
sp; “No…yes…b-but no. It’s m-more like s-something I d-d-did to him, b-b-because he d-d-doesn’t know.” She took a deep breath and looked down at her sister. “It’s Germany. Blowing up in my face.”

  “Okay,” Thel said, releasing a careful breath. “Okay…I know we got what some might call a special relationship. I showed up in Germany six years ago, and you didn’t ask me and I didn’t ask you, cuz that’s how the both of us wanted it. But I think it’s time, Sis. Time for you to tell me what happened.”

  IN THE END, Willa told her sister everything. Not because she had to, but because at the end of the day, her sister was the only one who would understand. The only one outside of their mother Willa knew could and would believe her.

  She told her about running into Sawyer Grant’s undecided spirit. About going against every instinct and becoming his friend, even though she, of all people, should have known better than to get too close with a ghost.

  It was just talking, she’d told herself back then, trying to ignore the way her heart sped up every time Sawyer blinked into her life at the hospital. Her giving a confused spirit some company. She regularly reassured herself that she wasn’t like her mother, who not only sought spirits out, but had done things with one. Things that had gained her a second illegitimate daughter with no father the world could see.

  But as the summer wore on, somehow her and Sawyer’s friendship grew deeper than expected. Willa found herself rushing through her duties so she could get up to the roof for their nightly conversations. Then she started taking her lunch up there.

  Then Sawyer started appearing whenever she was alone. In the empty lounge while she was working on her laptop. In the gym, after sessions, while she was filling out her patient assessments.

  Somehow she’d managed to reconcile all of it. Telling herself she and Sawyer were just friends. Truly just friends. Nothing more. Anyways, she was a busy med student with a high-octane fellowship. She didn’t have time for anything that went beyond the long and intimate chats she and Sawyer now regularly shared with each other.

  At least that’s what she told herself when she turned down the soldier who’d invited her out for a drink at the end of his strength-training session.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Because of this?” he asked, tipping his chin toward the special weight-lifting arm he was using to pull down the lat bar in front of him.

  “No,” she answered with a kind smile. “Because you’re only here for two more weeks.”

  “That’s long enough to have some fun,” he answered, all eyebrows and suggestive tone.

  “Okay, I’ll see you next week, Joe,” she said, before sending him on his way.

  “Why’d you turn that guy down? He seemed like your type,” a voice said a few seconds after the soldier left.

  She looked up and raised an eyebrow at Sawyer’s ghost, who was now posted up against the wall he’d come through. “My type? You mean because he’s black?”

  Sawyer smirked. “I mean because he’s corporeal.”

  She snorted, going back to her notes. “My standards are a little higher than simply walking around in non-spirit form.”

  Sawyer came over to the royal blue physical therapy table she was using as a resting place for her clipboard while she scrawled her notes.

  “So you didn’t think he was as good-looking as he thought he was?” he asked, fiddling with one of the hand weights Joe had left behind.

  “Oh, he was plenty good-looking,” she answered. “But again, my standards are a little higher than ‘good-looking.’”

  “Care to tell me what your standards are then?” he asked. “And why that guy didn’t meet them?”

  “Wow,” she said with a laugh. “You must be really bored if you want to hear about that!”

  “Why don’t you just humor me, Willa?” he answered, his tone still casual but with an edge in it now. Like he was working hard to keep it light.

  “Are you serious? Okay, fine…” she said with a forced chuckle. “My mom could have been a librarian for real, but she never finished her college degree because she got caught up having too much ‘fun,’ as Joe would call it, with the wrong boy. So I’m not interested in just ‘having fun.’ If I’m going to take time off from my studies and my work here to go on a date, it’s got to be for something real with someone who’s interested in something more than having some fun.”

  “So you’re against fun if it’s not going somewhere real. Check. I’ll have to remember that when I wake up.”

  She gave him a sharp look. Not just because of what he was insinuating, but because he apparently hadn’t figured out what would happen if and when his spirit rejoined with his body. She’d figured being in spirit form was upsetting enough for the poor guy. But should she tell him now? she wondered. About the amputation? About how he wouldn’t be able to re—

  But then she saw the smirk on his lips, and realized his words for what they were. Sawyer teasing her. Again.

  She turned back to her notes, her chest tight. “I know you think it’s funny to insinuate that you want to go out with me when you wake up from your coma. But trust me, it isn’t. It just reminds me of what an asshole you were in high school, and makes me feel stupid for giving you another chance.”

  “Who said I was joking?” he asked beside her.

  “Seriously, Sawyer, I don’t have time for this.” She picked up her clipboard and started heading for the door. Toward the hallway, someplace with people. Where she’d be safe from having to talk with him.

  “Seriously, Willa,” he answered behind her. “Who said I was joking?”

  Willa stopped dead in her tracks when he suddenly blinked into view in front of her. A lifetime of dealing with ghosts, and she still hadn’t learned how to not be surprised when they blinked in and out like that.

  “I don’t have time for this, Sawyer,” she told him. “I’ve still got a thousand notes to type up. Plus I’m way behind on my first fellowship report.”

  He just tilted his head, looking her up and down as he said, “So you think I’m joking, but you don’t have time to listen to me explain that I’m not.”

  No, not even remotely, she thought, trying to ignore the way her heart sped up at even the faintest possibility of his words being true.

  “Sawyer…” she started to say with a shake of her head.

  “I want to kiss you, Willa. How about that?” he said, getting in her face. “I want to kiss you so bad, I’m surprised I haven’t already gone back into my body for the wanting of it.”

  She took a step back. She couldn’t bear that he was doing this to her. Teasing her again. It made her hate him, made her voice hard as she asked, “So you’re ready to talk about that now?”

  His brow knitted. “Talk about what?”

  “The reason you haven’t made a decision about wanting to go back into your body. I mean you seem more serious about claiming you want to kiss me than you do about actually living the rest of your life. Why is that?”

  It was a sharp subject change to be sure and Sawyer gave her an ugly look. As if to say she wasn’t playing fair by asking him some practical questions, as opposed to swooning at his feet, because Sawyer Grant—the prince of Greenlee County—was pretending he could actually have feelings for Willa Harper, the daughter of The Crazy Librarian.

  “I don’t know,” he mumbled, cutting his eyes away from her.

  “Okay, so let me get this straight….” She folded her arms over her clipboard. “You expect me to believe you about wanting to kiss me, but then you go’on ahead and lie straight to my face?”

  This time it was her turn to stare him down. And she could tell he didn’t like being on the receiving end of such scrutiny. He kept his face turned away from her, his fists bunched at his sides, and something seemed to tick violently inside his jaw.

  But then he turned back to her, his swamp mud eyes glittering with anger. “You know how I know I really want to kiss you? Because when you first told me about
undecided spirits, you know what I thought? Good, I’ll just let go. Live another life as somebody else, instead of the one my dad has planned out for me. Naval Academy at eighteen. One deployment—just enough to seem credible. Then law school. Then I run for his old representative seat. Which I’ll carry for exactly four terms, just like he did. Then I’ll run for senate. But only for two terms, because eventually, I’ll need to run for President of the whole damn United States.

  Somewhere along the way, I’ll get married—probably to someone he introduced me to: an influential businessman’s daughter, with money even older than my dead mom’s. Someone like that. That’s what’s waiting for me when I come out of this coma. And I know it. I should be long gone by now. Rolling the dice, so I can actually have my own life, maybe this time with a mother who doesn’t drink herself to death, leaving me with someone everybody, including his own two sons, call The Admiral.”

  Sawyer took a step closer, getting right up in her face as he said, “But something’s been keeping me here. And trust me, it ain’t a deep desire to live. It’s you, Willa,” he snarled. “I want to kiss you. So bad, I’d be willing to come back to my shitty, completely planned out life just to do it once.”

  Willa didn’t realize her heart had stopped beating inside her chest, until it came back on line with a painful thump. Only then did she get that she’d gone a short time without getting the proper amount of oxygen to her brain.

  Lack of oxygen to the brain. Later that would be the only excuse she could ever come up with to explain what she said next. What she did next.

  “Sawyer…” she said on that released breath. “The people walking through you part, you should know that’s not necessarily because you’re a spirit. They’re only able to walk through you because they can’t see you. Does that make any sense?”

  Another knit of his brow. “Kind of.”

  She went on, trying to think of a better way to explain it. “I don’t know how much physics you learned at the Naval Academy, but there are all kinds of theories and experiments around the relationship between the observer and what he or she is observing. Kind of like, ‘if a tree falls in the forest,’ but more like ‘can and does something exist before you observe it with your eyes.’”