I made an approving face for her benefit but didn’t say anything.
She swiped her finger to the left and moved on to the next picture. “What do you think of him?”
“Trying to scope out my next date, are you?”
She grinned. “You caught me.”
“I thought you were supposed to choose my date. If I point to who I like, that defeats the whole purpose.”
“I just want to get a sense of who you might be interested in.” She swiped again. “See, I’d totally try to set you up with this guy, but I’m not sure you’d like him.”
I gave her an exasperated look. “He’s obviously a jock. What if he makes me do outdoorsy things?”
“Fine.” She showed me the next photo. “How about him?”
“He’s in my Math Stats class and I’ve seen him around campus with his girlfriend.”
“Okay, moving on . . .”
“How many pictures did you take?” I asked.
She gave me a sheepish look. “Approximately ten?”
I threw my head back and laughed. “No one thought it strange you were taking photos of a bunch of guys?”
She cracked a smile, completely unapologetic. “No. I got pictures of the girls as well so it wouldn’t appear suspicious.”
“Only you, Sammie.”
We both giggled as she continued to show me photo after photo. Finally, I shrugged. “I’m not really into this.”
The truth was, I hadn’t been able to get Sawyer out of my head.
“Well, I’m going to approach someone very soon so get ready.”
I winced. “Can’t wait.”
Chapter 10
Sawyer
5 years earlier . . .
Dad held up a DVD. “You ready? We’re starting the movie as soon as Mom and Zach finish making the root beer floats.”
“Please tell me that’s not, It’s a Wonderful Life.”
“Don’t knock my favorite movie,” Dad said.
“But shouldn’t we be watching that around Christmas? Last time I checked we’re in August.”
Dad laughed. “This is the type of movie you can watch any time of year.”
Rolling my eyes, I walked past him to the kitchen. I took a glass out of the cabinet and filled it with water. Zach stood next to Mom. She scooped vanilla ice cream into four different glasses, while Zach poured root beer over each scoop. A twinge of guilt hit me as I eyed the braces on Zach’s legs. I would have invited him to play basketball with me and the guys, but he couldn’t keep up since he was weaker than he’d ever been.
Mom glanced at me. “Sawyer, do you want a straw or spoon for your root beer float?”
I ran a hand through my hair and shifted my eyes away, taking a sip of water. “Can’t stay. Alex invited me to play three-on-three basketball. I’m leaving in a minute.”
She frowned. “I told you yesterday we’re having a family night this evening.”
I shrugged. “Something else came up. Besides, tomorrow night we’ll all be together at the fund-raiser.”
A shadow flickered in her brown eyes. “Your brother was looking forward to spending time with you tonight. You’re always gone.”
Hurt crossed Zach’s features. “It’s okay. I understand.”
My heart lurched and for a moment, I considered calling Alex to tell him I couldn’t come, but tomorrow I’d be stuck at that muscular dystrophy fund-raiser for three to four hours of pure torture, listening to speaker after speaker go on about research that would only serve to depress me.
Maybe I’d rather live in denial that everything was fine. I wanted Zach to get better, but listening to information about his inevitable decline was too much for me. Right now, I needed to do something active and watching a movie at home was far from that.
“Zach, we can do something another time, okay?”
“Yeah. Whatever.” He turned his back to me.
I moved towards the front door before I changed my mind. Mom followed me out onto the porch. The evening sun beat down on my skin and crickets chirped from their hiding places.
She closed the door behind her and spoke in a low, confidential tone. “Your brother misses you. It seems like you’ve been avoiding him ever since that school incident.”
“Mom, you know I tried to help him, but I wasn’t strong enough. He’s better off without me meddling in his life. The last time I got involved he ended up in the hospital.”
“Sawyer, that wasn’t your fault. Don’t you dare take responsibility.”
I avoided her eyes and glanced down at the ground. “Can we not talk about this right now?”
“He needs you. Don’t punish him because you feel guilty about what happened.”
“I’m not punishing him. The best thing I can do is stay away from him for a while.”
She grasped my arm, her voice urgent. “Don’t go. Stay with us tonight.”
“Stop trying to guilt-trip me. I just want to shoot a few hoops with my friends. I’ll make up for it at the fund-raiser tomorrow, give a substantial donation. What more can you ask from me?”
She sighed. “God blessed you with the inheritance from Roland Davenport, but don’t ever think money is a substitute for spending time with your family. Wealth can do a lot of good things, but it can never buy-back time you’ve missed out on. Once it’s gone, it’s gone forever. I’ve always taught you—God first, family second, and everything else follows. Don’t ever forget that.”
I loosened my arm from her grip. “I’ll do better. I promise.” I took a few steps and glanced over my shoulder. “Don’t wait up for me.”
Sawyer
Present Day . . .
Morning light flooded through the windows where I’d accidentally left my blinds open the night before. The sound of birds happily chirping outside felt like a slap to the face. “What do you have to be so cheerful about?” I grumbled as if the birds actually understood me.
A raging migraine thundered through my head like a level five storm, and I wanted to fall back asleep and forget everything else existed.
A breeze carried the fresh scent of wet grass through the open window, reminding me life existed outside this house.
Bleary-eyed, I lifted a family picture, framed and standing on the black nightstand next to my bed. It was taken when I was five and Zach was three, both of us laughing and making silly faces. Mom stared down at us affectionately and Dad grinned at the camera like a goof-ball.
My eyes drifted over the calendar on my wall and caught on the date. My throat went dry and I felt the blood drain from my face. I hadn’t allowed myself to think about it, but here it was, the tenth of August, and I couldn’t avoid it any longer. My breath hitched and my hands clenched into fists.
Five years. Five years ago today they died.
I pressed my fingers to my temples and buried the images and pain deep down in a place no one else would ever find. Somewhere I could barely see.
I reached for my cell phone to call Hayden but stopped, remembering he was speaking at a conference today. He’d shouldered more than enough when it came to me. I shouldn’t bother him.
Who else should I call? The reality hit like a heavy weight to the chest. There was no one. No one else cared for me. I was alone. The thought filled me with despondency and made my stomach turn.
The alarm clock next to my bed showed it was a little past nine in the morning. Florence and Ivy would be coming over in a few hours. If I hadn’t been in such denial, I would have remembered to text them yesterday. Instead, I’d waited until the last minute.
I quickly punched out a text, telling them not to show up today. My gardener, Henry, rarely came inside, and it wasn’t Loretta’s day to clean, so I didn’t have to worry about her either. Once that was taken care of, I took three Ibuprofen and crashed for the rest of the morning.
***
Sometime later, groggy, but feeling better since I’d taken something for my headache, I slid out of bed. What did one do on the anniversary of a fatal
accident?
In the past I’d watched movies to keep my mind distracted, but today . . . today I doubted my concentration would rise above that of a sugar-filled twelve-year-old with ADHD.
Still blinking sleep from my eyes, I stumbled into my walk-in closet, big enough to be a separate bedroom—two for that matter—and stared at all the designer shoes, organized on floor-to-ceiling shelves, practically untouched. For some reason, I always gravitated towards the simple: combat boots or Chucks. I hadn’t been raised with this wealth, and a part of me winced every time I took it in.
Wall-to-wall space filled with expensive clothes I never wore reminded me of a showroom, full of shiny objects you didn’t dare touch. At times, I thought my dressing room looked more like an art gallery than a closet.
My designer had meticulously taken care of every detail, from the high-end hardwood laid out in a herringbone pattern, to the carpet made by Fendi, to the footstool upholstered in Louis Vuitton leather.
I grabbed a pair of worn jeans and a simple gray t-shirt from a drawer full of everyday wear and put them on. Like I had anyone to impress. None of this matters, anyway.
Everything I owned—the house, the clothes, the cars—they were meaningless possessions that did little to soothe my unsettled mind.
My thoughts this morning were of Zach’s expression the day before the accident. He’d wanted my time, and I didn’t even give that to him.
In the end, the friends I’d ditched him for were long gone, not because they’d left on their own accord, but because I refused to face them after the accident. And now they were half-way across the country in Colorado.
Mom had been right. You can’t buy-back time missed with your family. She sensed something that night. There’d been an urgency in her tone.
Don’t go. Stay with us tonight.
God was sovereign over what happened. I knew that. Also knew whatever He allowed would work together for good in the larger scheme of things. I understood that concept, though I wasn’t sure I completely grasped how it was supposed to play out in my life.
Trouble was, I had a hard time coming to terms with the direction my life had taken; The horrible reality that I still breathed while my family would never live to see another day.
I headed towards the downstairs closet to find the photo album I’d put away the other day. The closet was a disorganized mess. As I pushed a few board games out of my way, my eyes fell once again to my old basketball—the one I’d banished to a dark corner. I didn’t deserve to play . . . not after what happened. Like a seductive mistress intent on dividing a marriage, basketball had come between me and my family.
Ruined my family.
And now I would have to live with the physical consequences of what I’d done. The marks on my face would always serve as a reminder. And the punishment I gave myself . . . my refusal to get plastic surgery . . . would in no way make up for the loss.
My eyes landed on the album in the back of the closet, and I reached forward and grabbed it, taking it to the couch. I sat down and flipped through the pages, coming to a family vacation in California when I was fifteen and Zach was thirteen.
He’d snapped a picture of me surfing at the beach in Santa Monica, a lopsided grin on my face, trying to stay balanced with arms outstretched. I still remembered him standing on the beach, hesitant to go in the water. Later, I’d dragged him in screaming, but he’d thanked me afterward. Said it was the best time of his life. We’d lived it up that day, splashing in the water like two happy seals, oblivious to everyone else, not afraid to make fools of ourselves.
If I could reach through that picture and hug my little brother one last time it might ease the throbbing in my chest . . . just a little bit.
Adrenaline pulsed through me, so I set down the album and crossed the room to the grand piano. Without thinking about what song to play, my fingers arched and leaped to Beethoven’s, Moonlight Sonata, a song Mom forced me to practice so many times I could play it in my sleep.
The music was melancholy and sad and consuming, but soothing in a nostalgic-kind-of-way, and I was lost in the rhythm my fingers made when they pounded the keys. The melody crashed over me like a wave in the ocean, and I imagined swimming at that California beach again, thrashing under a wave, deciding whether I wanted to rise to the surface and live or float with the tide and fade away.
Anyway, being caught under a wave—that never happened, but it was a thought in my mind nonetheless, almost like a dark fantasy that played over and over in my head.
A choice: live or die.
I wouldn’t kill myself. That would be taking the cowardly way out. But I couldn’t stop the thoughts invading my mind sometimes.
The front door swung open, and I glanced over my shoulder, the muscles in my shoulders going instantly rigid. I’d made it clear; everyone had the day off today. Yet here she was . . . Ivy, standing in the doorway appearing startled, that long wavy hair falling around her like an angel.
What was she doing here? I’d texted her, told her not to come. Her eyes fell to the rough ridges of my scars and my hand immediately flew to cover them.
We froze, neither of us knowing what to say. She took me in, large green eyes so beautiful and deep and expressive. I could let myself get lost in those eyes if things were different. But her sharp intake of breath snapped me back to reality because I knew how I must look.
Disheveled.
Like I had a hangover, only alcohol hadn’t touched my lips in years.
The way I looked every year on this day.
Last night, I'd stood in front of the mirror and taken it all in: tangled hair, five o’clock shadow, red-rimmed eyes. I doubt I appeared any different this morning.
Not to mention, as always, my scars were fully exposed in all their ugly grandeur, laid out, as if on display. I didn’t want her to see me like this. It was shameful . . . humiliating. I fought to keep my voice steady and under control, even as anger rushed to the surface. “I told you not to come today.”
She pulled out her phone. “You did?” She glanced down at what I assumed were her text messages, and I could tell the second she saw it because her eyes closed like she was upset with herself. “I was in a rush this morning. I must have missed this. I’m really sorry.”
Whatever. I wasn’t interested in having a conversation because if she stayed much longer, I’d lose it. I jerked my chin towards the door. “Let yourself out.”
I turned around on the bench and started playing Moonlight Sonata again, hoping she’d take the hint that I didn’t want company, that I was in a dark place and she should go. If I pretended like she wasn’t there, maybe she’d leave and spare us both further embarrassment. I heard footsteps, and then she stood by the scarred side of my face.
Exactly where I didn’t want her to be.
Almost as if she insisted on getting a close-up view.
Like she wanted to observe every last sickening detail.
As if she needed a front row seat to examine the grooves, the redness, the bunched-over skin.
This girl was a thorn in my side.
“Sawyer?” Her voice was soft, as gentle as the touch of a feather.
I spared a glance while continuing to play. “What?” It came out more like a growl than a question, and I hated myself for acting like this.
She hesitated. “Are you okay? Your eyes—they’re red.” Her gaze moved back and forth between my scars and my eyes like she was trying to decipher which one seemed worse.
I stopped playing and hardened my expression into stone. “Get out.” I pointed to the door, my voice, rougher than normal.
She blinked. “I don’t want to bother you, but you’re scaring me. You don’t look well. I’m not sure if I should leave you alone.”
Pressure clamped down on my chest. I didn’t need a nursemaid, someone to wipe my brow and pat my head. I blew out a heavy breath and stiffened my neck, knowing what I had to do. I had to shock her so she’d leave and never return.
�
�This scares you?” I asked, pointing to the burn scars falling from the top of my temple to the bottom of my jaw. I grasped her arm and pulled her closer. “Take a good look. This is what happens when your skin practically melts off your face.”
She paled and stepped back, pulling out of my grasp. “That’s not what I meant. I wasn’t referring to your scars. You seem really sad right now.”
The pity in her voice was unmistakable, and it nearly killed me because I knew what I was.
A monster.
I stood up so fast the piano bench fell backward and crashed to the floor. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her flinch. “I told you not to try to make things better for me. I told you we’re not friends,” I said, voice seething. I pointed to the door again. “Leave and don’t come back.”
Her eyes grew misty, and she withdrew as if inching away from a dangerous animal. She glanced at the door but hesitated. “I’m not trying to upset you. If you let me, I can help.”
My jaw tightened as I grit my teeth, hands flexing at my sides. But I wasn't angry at her. I was disgusted with myself. With what I’d become. “You can’t help. Just go.”
“If that’s what you want. I’m sorry I bothered you.”
Her wounded eyes drifted over my face one more time, and then she left and the house was emptier than before she’d arrived.
I hung my head in my hands. This wasn’t how I pictured life turning out. This wasn’t what I wanted at all.
Chapter 11
Ivy
Still reeling after Sawyer kicked me out of his house, I drove back to my apartment and took a few minutes on my balcony to mentally decompress. I nibbled on a chocolate Hershey’s kiss because . . . well, chocolate always took away the sting, as long as it was in moderation. Thankfully, Sammie was still in class because I didn’t feel like talking to anyone.
The Unwanted Assistant Page 8
