They didn’t matter anymore.
“Once I really got to know you, I saw your connection for what it was. After spending even more time with you, I saw it. You’re the same person.”
This wasn’t new. Sawyer and I had always said we were separated at birth, even though he was nearly a year older than me.
But the way she was talking had me biting back the words, had me trying to see it a different way. See it her way.
“You have the same personalities and likes. And sometimes, when I talk to you, it’s like talking to him.” Her words slowed and shifted into something more meaningful when she murmured, “You have the same powerful reactions to situations. The way you pull people closer before pushing them away to avoid being the one who gets hurt.”
I sucked in a sharp breath when I remembered the day Sawyer told Rae to leave. My throat getting thick as I realized what she wanted me to.
That I’d done the exact thing I’d berated Sawyer for so many times.
I sat up and let the balloon fall as I turned so I was facing her, my words warped with my emotions. “But Cayson was going to leave. He never planned on staying.”
“I never planned on staying,” she argued gently.
“You—” I groaned in frustration because she was right, and I hated that she was. “He’s only here because he’s hurting. We wouldn’t be together if he wasn’t.”
“I was only here to get an answer. And, if you remember, I didn’t want to be with anyone at all.”
“Be on my side!” I yelled in desperation and frustration and pain.
“I am on your side,” she said calmly. “I am always on your side, Emberly. Why do you think I’ve fought so hard to get him to stay when I knew he wouldn’t?”
My chest pitched and my shoulders caved, but she grabbed me, keeping me upright.
“I knew he wouldn’t because I’m like Cayson,” she said somberly. “Not freakishly identical like you and Sawyer, but similar. I could feel his pain the first time I saw him, and I knew everything I’d heard about Cayson was wrong—that there was a deeper reason for his leaving. I knew he was guarded.” She touched her chest with her free hand, indicating their similarities. “And I knew he would leave when pushed to continue protecting himself from whatever he’s been running from.”
A heaving breath left me as I sank against the back of the couch, unable to continue arguing with her when she was so obviously right.
“I saw this moment coming like a wreck I couldn’t stop from happening, but I should’ve tried.”
“It’s like you said,” I mumbled sadly, “there was no preventing this.” I let my eyelids close when the burning there grew, refusing to let the tears build again. “I didn’t know how to let myself trust him, and I knew he was leaving anyway. We were destined to end before we began . . . I shouldn’t have let us happen.”
At least a minute passed before she said, “You know, the morning Sawyer and I blew up . . . before everything happened, I had been thinking I didn’t want to leave. That I wasn’t sure if I could.”
“You still would’ve,” I countered, opening my eyes to look at her. “Cayson would’ve.”
Her head bobbed faintly. “But I couldn’t stay away from him for long.”
“This isn’t the same. This is where you and Cayson differ.” My jaw shook as I looked away. “You left a shitty situation, and, granted, he did too. But in the process of leaving and staying away, he stayed away from me. He could easily do it again. Not to mention, there’s someone who could make him want to stay there in an instant.”
Hesitation pulsed from Rae before she asked, “What are you talking about?”
“His girlfriend—or ex . . . whatever.”
“I don’t know the story, but what I’ve heard is that she isn’t someone he’s eager to get back to.”
“Right, well, wouldn’t you say that about someone who cheated on you?” My head shook and eyes rolled. “He said they were over long before they ended. But they were together for years, and he only left her when he found out she’d been cheating. And as he was telling me what happened, I realized in that situation, I would say the same thing. Pretend I was fine, that I didn’t care about the other person . . . because I have done that. I acted like I wasn’t wrecked by him and desperately in love with him for years. And if she is with this other guy now, and if she doesn’t want Cayson back, why is she constantly calling him? Why is his phone always going off with messages from her?”
Rae didn’t respond, the questions had been rhetorical anyway. She just continued to watch me, waiting or analyzing in a way only she could.
“It’s a lot more involved and complicated than I can get into with you, but none of it changes anything.” I dropped my head into my hand. “It doesn’t change that Cayson will go back to Beaumont. And with how devastated he was over what happened, I can’t be sure that he won’t go back to her.”
She made a humming sound in her throat and sat back, mirroring my position. Elbow on the back of the couch and head in her hand. “Okay, Sawyer.”
My eyes narrowed and snapped to her. “My side.”
“Always.”
“Then act like it.”
“If you want me to coddle you and lie to you, telling you I think you’re right and he’d leave you for someone else, I will. But that isn’t me being on your side,” she said bluntly. “You’re afraid of being hurt again, especially by him, and you found a reason to push him away and used it. Now you’re trying to justify it, and I’m not buying it.”
“Justify—Rae, I listened to every word, watched every emotion as he spoke. I’ve walked in on him talking to her in the middle of the night. I’ve seen his phone light up with texts from her that say I’ll always love you. What else am I supposed to think?”
“You’re supposed to know that you mean a hell of a lot more to him. You listened and watched, I did too.” She gestured toward my front door. “The guy who has mentioned bits and pieces of his ex, who apparently cheated on him, has looked a little bit pissed and a whole lot guarded. The same guy who just said you told him to leave looked ruined. Why don’t you tell me which hurt worse for him?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said numbly.
“Yeah, okay.”
“It doesn’t change anything, so what does it matter?”
“It can change everything,” she argued. “Tell Cayson not to leave.”
“So he can leave tomorrow?” I asked shakily. “Or the next day? Or next week? He still leaves, Rae.”
She studied me for a while, her lips parting a couple times only to shut just as many. “Just like Sawyer,” she finally said, her words slow. “I wonder . . .” A sad smile pulled at her lips as her stare faded, but she didn’t continue.
“What?”
Her hazel eyes shifted to me, bringing her back to this room. “If I had hurt Sawyer in the past, if this is how we would’ve gone. Because I see how happy he is to have Cayson back, only for him to turn around and say the worst things to him. Pushing him away—pushing him to leave. And I wonder . . . if Cayson had just rolled into town as a stranger, if today would’ve ended with you begging him to stay.”
I wanted to fall to the floor.
I wanted to let myself be consumed by the hollow of grief in my chest.
I wanted to take it all back.
But I knew it would only lead us back to where we’d been today. With a lifetime of pain and insecurities, and worrying over when he would leave again. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to handle it the second time around.
I couldn’t survive falling even more in love with him, having him love me, and then losing him.
I carefully took the balloon from Rae when she lifted it from the floor, a questioning look on her face.
“You should see my room,” I said through the knot in my throat. “I found it after he left.”
She watched me for a long moment before silently standing and heading in that direction.
I knew she’d made it
when I heard her gasp echo down the hall.
I stared at the two words on the balloon in my hands, hearing them in his voice over and over again like the sweetest deception before following after her. Not bothering to pause as I pushed the balloon onto the tip of the metal lantern that decorated my end table, letting it pop in my hand.
When I reached my bedroom, Rae was standing in the middle of it with three balloons in her arms, lips parted as she read whatever he’d written there.
“What does this mean?” she asked, voice a breath as I passed her to crawl onto my bed.
I paused when I got my first real look at the folded note he’d left on the shoebox, my words catching and jumbling there for a moment before I was able to force them out. “Depends on what you’re reading.”
I dragged the box closer to me, picking up the paper to study the cupcake he’d drawn, and the words Happy Birthday, Little Duck that surrounded it.
But before I got the chance to open the card, before Rae could tell me what she was reading, the sound of the front door slamming shut had me scrambling to my knees and my heart racing at an unforgiving pace.
Only to falter.
Fall.
Crumble at his voice.
“Rae.”
“Someone’s in trouble,” Rae mumbled as she bent to pick up another balloon. “Someone might be me.”
“The fuck, Rae?” Sawyer said as he stormed down the hallway, relief and frustration fueling each word. “You just left—what the hell is all this?” His head shook sharply as if remembering what was truly important. He reached for Rae, but she stepped away.
“I answered a cry for help,” she said coldly.
His stare darted to me, concern swirling there before his focus returned to Rae. “You couldn’t tell me you were leaving?” A harsh breath left him. “You darted after my brother again, and then you didn’t come back. When I went looking for you, your car was gone. You weren’t at the house or Brewed . . . I fucking panicked.”
“Jesus, you were right,” I mumbled to Rae. “You really are Cayson.”
She turned on me and snapped, “Okay, Sawyer.”
“The fuck are y’all talking about?” Sawyer demanded, but Rae just waved it off.
“Nothing,” she said irritably. “Em needed me, I came here. The last thing I wanted was to go back into Blossom when I was worried about what I might say to you.”
“Wait, Blossom?” I asked numbly, slow to catch on to what they’d been talking about.
“Yeah, Cayson came there to confront everyone. It . . .” Rae eyed me sadly. “It didn’t go well.”
“No shit,” Sawyer huffed, then continued louder. “What do you mean worried about what you’d say to me?”
“Sawyer . . .” Rae’s head shook as she struggled with what to say. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so disappointed in you.”
“In me?” Disbelief splashed across his face but didn’t hide the deep hurt her words caused. “Did you not hear the shit he was saying?”
“Can you not see how he’s hurting?” she responded, her voice rising. “How he’s desperate for someone to believe him?”
“He’s fucking lying, Rae!” An incredulous laugh tumbled from Sawyer. “He’s spouting off all that shit about my dad and everyone else, trying to take the weight off him because he doesn’t want to be responsible for anything he did. He thinks he can push it all onto someone else, and we’ll just forget about the kind of person he was.”
“I saw it,” I said abruptly, stopping him when it looked like he would continue. “I heard it.”
Sawyer looked at me as if he’d forgotten I was there. His brows furrowed in confusion. “Heard—what are you talking about?”
“Your dad . . . I don’t know what Cayson said to you, but I heard your dad.”
All emotion drained from Sawyer’s expression, leaving a blank, hardened mask and making him look so similar to Beau.
“The night Cayson left? We were at Blossom for the party, and I was going inside to get more . . .” I blinked quickly, trying to remember. “God, I don’t even remember. But I heard voices, harsh voices, so I stopped just outside the kitchen. Your dad was saying horrible things to Cayson—calling him worthless, stupid, and pathetic. Saying he was ashamed of him. He hit Cayson and tried to get him to fight back. Said he wished Cayson would, or something like that.”
“No,” Sawyer ground out, head slanted in denial. “No, he wouldn’t—that wasn’t my dad.”
“Sawyer, I saw him,” I choked out as my vision blurred. “He walked right past me, and I’d seen the aftermath of it before. There were so many times over the years when I stumbled upon Cayson looking the same way I found him after your dad left the kitchen. Broken, crying . . . looking like he hated himself. And I never knew why until that night.”
“And you didn’t say anything until now?”
“I—” A sharp breath fled from me, and I grabbed at my chest. “I didn’t know how. I asked Cayson why he hadn’t told anyone, and he pretended like he didn’t know what I was talking about. When I kept pressing it, he said nothing had happened, like he was making sure I wouldn’t say anything. And then your dad died, how was I supposed to tell you?”
“Because we tell each other everything, Emberly! That’s how.” He dragged his hands through his dark hair, his chest heaving. After nearly a minute had passed, he shook his head in rough denial. “If that actually happened, then Cayson deserved it.”
The air fled from my lungs as if he’d hit me.
“Sawyer,” Rae whispered in disapproval.
“He got arrested that day,” he reasoned. “No one knew why except my dad.”
“For taking the fall for someone.”
Sawyer’s eyes rolled at my information. “Right.”
“God damnit, Sawyer, stop!” I was trembling with a disastrous mixture of emotions by the time I continued, making my words come out stuttered and uneven. “For once, just stop. Try believing that your brother could be a decent guy. Try imagining that your dad might not have been the amazing man you thought he was.”
“Careful,” he said softly.
“Yes, Cayson got in trouble a lot,” I continued, head bobbing a little when I repeated, “A lot. But he did what he did to make people laugh. To make people look at him for one reason and not another. He lashed out at people—at me—because he needed someone to hurt when he was hurting.”
I grabbed the card beside me, looking at the drawing for a few seconds before turning it to face Sawyer.
Confusion masked his face, but he didn’t say anything.
“Your dad was embarrassed and ashamed of Cayson because of this. Because he could draw. He called Cayson gay because of it and would rip up any of his drawings he found.”
“Cayson can’t draw,” Sawyer mumbled, but uncertainty wove through his words for the first time.
“He drew this. This isn’t the first one he left me this week.”
I set the note aside and leaned over the bed, searching through the balloons I’d first gone through and pausing when Rae lowered her arms to reveal the ones she was holding.
After taking the one I’d been looking for, I turned it so the words were facing Sawyer and held it out for him to take.
It took a month and a half to read my first sentence . . .
Took a couple more before I wrote my first.
“What does this mean?” he asked, holding up the balloon carelessly.
“That is why Cayson left,” I said thickly. “That is why your dad beat him from the time Cayson was nine years old. That’s why Cayson was the way he was.”
Sawyer reread the balloon, head moving in faint shakes before glancing from Rae to me. “I don’t understand.”
I sucked in a deep breath and then released it with a confession that wasn’t mine. “He couldn’t read or write. Your dad called him horrible things and made him feel worthless because of it.”
A stunned breath that bordered on a laugh left Sawyer. Shock colored
his features. “What? No . . . because . . . no. Cayson could read.” He held up the balloon. “He can write.”
“Now,” I said pointedly. “Did you ever see him do either before?”
His head moved in rapid little jerks as he thought, contradicting his words. “He had to have been able to. He would’ve said something. I would’ve known.”
“With what your dad was saying and doing, he was afraid to. He’s dyslexic, and he had no idea until after he’d left Amber because your dad paid off teachers and the school to hide what he thought was ‘wrong’ with him.”
“Oh my God.” Rae’s words came out on a breath as she gingerly took the balloon back from Sawyer, holding it reverently. She glanced around the room, looking like she was close to tears as she took in the balloons in a new light. “This must still be so difficult for him.”
“You believe this?” Sawyer asked, but the harshness had faded from his tone and was replaced with uncertainties.
“You don’t?” she challenged gently. “Think about it, Sawyer. You’re always grumbling about the fact that he never responds to your texts, that he calls back instead. And, Em,”—she turned to look at me—“you told me once that Cayson didn’t have social media because he wanted to disappear. But he never hid where he was from Sawyer.”
My eyelids slipped shut and a murmured curse fell from my lips.
That had never once occurred to me when Cayson had revealed his secrets and life.
“Who would want social media when it’s basically all reading?” Rae continued.
“Or if they ran,” Sawyer added.
“Okay, that too,” she conceded.
“He got a new number,” I said, looking at her and then to Sawyer. “He got a new number after moving to Beaumont, remember?”
“Right. So no one could get ahold of him anymore.”
My head shook as I told him what I’d learned only that afternoon. “His phone had still technically been under your dad’s name. They wouldn’t let him change it, so he canceled the plan and started a new one.”
Whiskey (Brewed Book 2) Page 31
