How could he? He doesn’t even know you. And you don’t know him. I feel like I’m lying to myself. I thought I did know Sawyer. But, how could I? If I knew him, really knew him, this wouldn’t be happening. He wouldn’t be ready to drop me on the side of the highway like a sack of garbage ready for collection.
My parents, my followers, my ex-fiancé, my foster family… none of them loved me.
Why would he?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ashley
My boots crunch in the crisp snow as I follow Sawyer toward civilization. I know I should feel happy or at least relieved to be going back to the life I built for myself. To my career. To my friends. To the fake smiles. To the lies.
I can’t help but feel like I’m marching to my execution chamber. That at the edge of the forest I’ll have to leave the stronger, happier person I’ve just started to become in a shallow grave under the snow. I’ll have to shed any revelations I’ve had, any knowledge I’ve gained, and return to a life where my greatest achievement is how I can accentuate the curve of my ass and choose the perfect filter.
Maybe I can do something with this fire that Sawyer has lit in my soul. I could go to school, or choose a different path. One thing is certain, I don’t give a fuck what Ben has been saying on social media. I’ve grown too strong and learned too much about myself to ever go back to that piece of shit.
I deserve better.
The thought is only a shadow of a whisper, but I heard it. And what’s more, I believe it. Who knows, maybe I can turn this experience into something meaningful. I have a decent following, I have some influence, right? I could slowly move away from the shallow roots of my Instagram account and talk about books sometimes, or being independent. Maybe it can be like the social media equivalent of watching a caterpillar transform into a butterfly.
Except no one cares.
Even the one guy who you thought could really love you for your true self is leading you on a Siberian death march back to a life that left you hollow.
Sawyer’s silence weighs me down, making each step a struggle. It’s heavier on my shoulders than the ice anchoring the tree branches down like peasants bowing before royalty.
Kneeling before the Queen of social media. That’s a title that would’ve made me swell with pride only a few days ago. It still feels like a massage for my ego, if I had the luxury of being massaged with hot sauce and shards of glass.
Tears line my eyes and I sniff louder than I want to. Not that he cares if I’m crying.
That’s it. I’m not doing this. I’ve legitimately been a victim in this life more times than I’d like to admit. I won’t let some hot-headed, mood swing of a man turn me into one again.
Not today.
I stop dead in my tracks and wait for Sawyer to realize I’m not moving. He turns around and levels me with his stormy eyes.
“What are you doing?” He demands.
“I’m not going.” I align my teeth, gritting them together in a determined line, like soldiers on an old battle field.
“Ashley,” he sighs as exhaustion begins to creep in over his features.
“No, I’m not moving from this spot until you tell me what’s going on. Last night, you told me you loved me Sawyer,” my voice cracks and betrays my brave face. “How can you go from loving me to sending me away without an explanation? I deserve better,” I repeat my quiet thought loudly.
Sawyer rubs his hand over his dark beard and looks at me like he’s debating whether or not to call my bluff. “You’re right,” he finally speaks and a jolt runs through me.
I wasn’t expecting him to cave so easily. I try not to look surprised.
“Of course, I’m right,” I nod stiffly. “Now how about you tell me what the fuck is going on,” I try to sound stern, but I feel like a little girl dressing up in her mom’s shoes. They’re too big and I’m too wobbly to really wear them right.
Sawyer reaches into his pocket and pulls out the tattered photograph that started this whole thing.
“Fine,” he agrees again, “you’re right.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sawyer
I stare at the picture of my once happy family. It’s faded and crinkled from years of exposure to the elements, however, I remember the faces vividly. This photo hasn’t left my side for four years, but it’s just a two-dimensional reminder of them. They still live, breathe, love and laugh in my heart every day.
I look at Ashley, her red-rimmed eyes betray her posturing. Even though I can tell she’s unsure of herself, she’s not wrong. I’ve been acting like an asshole. Something I told her not to put up with from anyone, not even me. I’m proud of her for standing her ground.
The flash of waking up to her hovering her cellphone over my family photo flashes in my mind and anger swells back up inside me like a tsunami. “Why were you trying to take a picture of this?” I hold up the permanently smiling faces of me and my family.
“I wasn’t,” her full lips twist down and her eyebrows clash together. “I picked up my phone because I saw there were a bunch of messages coming in and I happened to notice there was something in your pocket. That’s it, it’s not like some huge conspiracy or something.” Her words rub salt in a wound she’s never seen. In a wound that’s still never healed.
“Don’t talk to me about conspiracies,” my breath hangs in the air, like evidence of my anger. My pain. “And don’t try to act all innocent, like you don’t spend your time trying to record your life for your fans. You know, instead of living it,” I fire back at her. I can see from the twisting emotions on her face that my shot has landed.
“Why are you yelling at me? What is this about? I didn’t take any pictures of your family, Sawyer. Please, stop pushing me away and tell me why this is so important to you,” she keeps her voice soft and level. I can’t help but let the anger I’m carrying deflate from my lungs.
This isn’t about her. She didn’t kill your family.
“I’m sorry,” I finally force the words to fall from my tongue. “I’ve been angry so long, about the internet and social media and the lies and the phonies.” I wave my hand at her, “I’ve been taking it out on you but it’s not your fault. You had nothing to do with it.” I explain as much to myself as to her.
“What happened?” She steps forward and grabs my free hand. Ashley looks down at the photo and I follow her gaze. I rub my thumb over them, over my mother’s gentle smile and my father’s robust grin. My brother was much too cool to smirk for a photograph, instead giving a brooding stare that my mother always said ruined the picture. I even look down at myself, the old me, without a beard and without a lifetime of pain dragging me down.
“They were shot, we all were, but they were killed.” I squeeze my eyes shut and the carnage of the day seizes my memory.
“My parents were good people. All about their family, they lived and breathed for us. When Dad opened the restaurant, it was like him and Mom had another son. Like my brother and I were already the old man’s legacy, but his food, his restaurant, it was an extension of it.” I open my eyes and Ashley is watching me intently.
Her rosy cheeks are covered in tears that I can’t cry anymore. “Who shot them? You were shot too?” She sniffles and blinks fresh, fat tears from her crystal blue eyes.
I shove the worn picture back in my jacket pocket and wrap my arm around her. I pull her in tight as she cries and somehow, I feel soothed by comforting her.
“The restaurant got caught up in some bullshit internet news story, just by chance. It was fucked up. When the election happened in 2012, there was all this crazy shit going around. A bunch of made up news stories that were getting reported like they were real.” I explain.
“Fake news, yeah, that’s worse now,” Ashley nods.
“Yeah, well, back then people didn’t think to question if it was fake or not. It was reported right alongside the real news. No one could tell what was true.” I clear my throat and force myself to push the emotions away as I te
ll her what happened.
Ashley steps back from me and grabs my hand, waiting patiently for me to continue.
“So, the news was that our senator was running a child sex slave ring in the basement of my parents’ restaurant. Which is insanity, right? The senator,” I stress the words still trying to understand how anyone could’ve believed something so far-fetched.
“I think I remember something about that,” Ashley’s blue eyes cloud over as she tries to think back.
“At first my family ignored it. Dad said he had faith in his community. That anyone who knew us, knew it was ridiculous. We carried on, business as usual.” I frown at the snow covering my boots. White and pristine. Just like how the tile floor in the kitchen of Il Lupi looked the morning we were preparing to open. That is, until he came in. Crimson pools and splatters of blood stained the floor like they stain my memory now.
“I’m so sorry anyone believed that,” Ashley tethers me back to the present. The maroon tendrils of my family’s spilt blood shirk back to the corners of my mind and I continue.
“Yeah, it was total bullshit, of course, but still, our sales dropped. People started whispering when we walked down the street. People who had been coming to our restaurant for years, for like a decade, just stopped.” I can feel the bitterness coat my tongue. “Then after a couple of months, we thought we’d hit rock bottom. The restaurant was only doing about a quarter of the sales it used to. My folks were talking about selling it, cutting their losses. It was heartbreaking. It was like watching them talk about burying a child.”
I reach into my pocket and run my rough fingers over the edge of their photo. The only thing I kept of them.
“Some crazy vigilante stormed into the restaurant one morning and started shooting. My mother begged him to let us go, she said she’d show him the basement, show him it was all a lie, but he didn’t care. He was on a mission. He killed them in cold blood, shot me in the arm, but I bled so fast it looked like he got me in the chest.” I twist my face as the memory washes over me.
How I had to lie there, in a river of my family’s blood, playing dead like a fucking possum while some man who thought he was in the right, hunted us down.
“He killed them,” my voice cracks. “I buried my entire family that same week. I couldn’t go back to the restaurant. I couldn’t face it.” My hands tremble as I remember the worst part. The part that broke me. The part that made me leave society and never want to return.
“I’m so sorry,” Ashley tries to console me through her own tears. “I didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t. I know that.” I cup my hand on her cheek and engulf her face with my broad palm.
“After the funeral, I was lost. Alone. Just checked out completely. I was drinking and went online. I desperately needed a distraction, you know? Like anything was better than reliving that nightmare over and over. So, I went on Reddit to look for some funny gifs or memes,” I try to explain. “And I found a huge thread about the shooting. I don’t know why I clicked on it, I still wonder why I did that sometimes, you know?” I look up at her.
“We all do that.” She answers.
“Yeah, well, I clicked on the thread and there were so many people, so many,” I stress, “who were happy. They were thrilled that my family was murdered. So many comments about how it sucked that I made it out alive. How my perverted family got what they deserved. Like, they still believed there was some kind of sex ring operation. Even after the real news, the real cops, the real politicians all said it was bullshit. After my real parents and my real brother were fucking taken from me. Still, there were all these believers. All these people who said the story was the truth. That the fake news was right.” My voice shakes and a shiver runs through every muscle in my body. Not from the cold, well not the cold in the air anyway. From the icy memory.
“Oh my god,” Ashley leans into me and throws her arms around me.
“I left that night and never looked back. The wound in my arm hadn’t even fully healed yet, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t live in a society that let that happen. And one that still felt like his actions were justified, even when it was proven he was wrong. I just couldn’t…” my voice cracks and tears I thought I had long ago finished crying, spill out of me.
“I’m so sorry, Sawyer. That’s so awful! I’m so sorry that happened to you,” Ashely presses into me and I hold her close.
“I’m sorry I took it out on you,” I admit. “When we first started talking, all that stuff about your Instagram followers and your job, it brought it all back. Not that it’s ever that far from my thoughts. And, when I saw you with your phone today,” I pull her tight. “I just assumed the worst.”
“I know. I understand why you’d do that. I would never betray you, Sawyer. Never.”
I tuck my finger under her chin and pull her face up to mine, hovering over her lips as I look into her shimmering eyes. “I know. I was wrong. I hope you can forgive me,” I kiss her. Our lips softly part as our tongues frantically search for each other. Intertwined, they explain what our simple words can’t. They tell the story of our love.
“I love you,” I give her a quick kiss, then another, and another.
“I love you too,” she breathes.
Chapter Thirty
Ashley
“I think I see something! Up there!” I can hear a distant stranger intrude on our moment. Sawyer pulls away from me, scanning the snow drifts and trees for the owner of the voice.
I step back and twist around like an owl, my eyes wide and my senses on high alert that, for the first time in days, I’m going to see other people again.
Why does it feel like an invasion? Like these peaceful woods are a fortress for only Sawyer and I. The excited cries grow louder and more unsettling as I spot a flash of bright orange a couple hundred feet away.
Sawyer grabs my arm, “Come with me. Let’s get out of here!” he hisses.
“I can’t. It’s the search and rescue. I can’t just give them the slip. Come into town with me and we’ll figure this out together.” I plead, but I can see it’s falling on deaf ears. His big brown eyes are locked on the search team and he takes another step back from me.
“Ashley, there’s nothing to figure out. We can just go now. Fuck these guys. You don’t need to be rescued. Come with me,” I can hear the irritation grating across his vocal chords.
“I can’t,” I stand my ground. How ridiculous would it be if I just hightailed it off into the forest with him right now? They would worry about my sanity and send more people. Or assume he was keeping me against my will. This isn’t a Tiffany song from the eighties. We’re not going to stumble to the ground in each other’s arms and whisper that we’re alone now.
This is real life. No matter how disappointing and empty it feels.
“It’s her!” A member of the crew announces and begins to run toward me. I can see his partner radio in the information as others come up from behind carrying a first aid kit and supplies.
Everything is a blur of orange and white, I twist around and see Sawyer slowly walking backwards. The feet he’s putting between us feel like miles as the crowd of search and rescue members surrounds me.
“Ashley Young? You’re Ashley, right?” A fit, middle-aged man with a wide, black moustache yells.
“Yes. That’s me.”
“That’s a confirmation on finding the person of interest. Ashley Young has been found at 37.7934° North, 106.9156° West, copy?”
I can hear the radio crackle and buzz like the one Sawyer and I would wind up in the cabin. “10-4 copy that.”
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh! I tilt my head back and squint my eyes at the bright sky. Above, a black, sleek helicopter is hovering over us like a metallic eagle ready to swoop in on her prey.
“They said we need to get her to a clearing.” A woman with chestnut hair and permanent worry lines etched in her face, interrupts.
“Gotcha,” the man acknowledges her. “Ashley, are you able to come with u
s? We’ve got a lot of people who are worried about you. Are you injured? Can you walk?” He talks to me like I may have lost my hearing along with my sense of direction the night I took off in the snow.
“I’m not hurt,” I answer and almost fall over as I look for Sawyer past the neon orange. Where did he go?
“Ok, that’s great. We’re going to get you home. There’s going to be a lot of happy people to see you! It’s a miracle you’re alive,” he smiles and tugs my arm, leading me with the team toward whatever clearing they’ve been instructed to take me to.
“Just wait, I can’t go yet.” My voice is shrill as I frantically look for Sawyer’s distinctive plaid among the trees.
“Here, drink some of this, it has electrolytes in it,” the man insists, holding what looks like a Capri Sun bag under my nose.
“No, wait.” I insist. “Sawyer, come with me. Don’t leave me,” I twist like a flag in the wind, but I don’t see him anywhere.
“She’s in shock,” the man with the moustache announces to the other crew members as I follow their lead to the clearing.
“I’m not in shock. I’m fine. I need Sawyer.” I look back over my shoulder, but all I see is a mess of footprints in the snow.
“Sawyer!” I call out. But I know it’s no use.
He’s gone.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ashley
My hotel suite is quiet. Except not like the shroud of serenity that the forest would wrap Sawyer and I in. This is the silence of people trying to walk softly across carpeted halls. The silence of hushed whispers while the media prepares for the story event of the year. It’s the silence of being alone in a crowd. And it’s crushing.
Saved by the Woodsman Page 12
