I did love him, is the awfulness of it. I’d loved Sawyer since the seventh grade, when Allie and I began keeping a list of the places we spotted him. I loved his quick, blistered musician hands and the honest soul he kept hidden safe under all his bravado, and I loved how I was still, every day, learning him. I loved his silly, secret goofy side and the way he had of making me feel like I was a tall tree, just from the way he looked at my face. I loved Sawyer LeGrande so much that sometimes I couldn’t sit still for the fullness of it, but when I opened up my mouth to tell him so, nothing came out.
I could do anything for him, I realized suddenly. I could give him anything. But not that. If I said that to him, I knew I could never get it back.
“Go to sleep now,” I whispered, and he didn’t say it again.
41
After
I wake up sometime after dawn, stirred by the metallic grind of the garbage truck as it clamors down Grove Street. I listen for a moment to the clang of the metal cans next door, and when I open my eyes, I’m surprised to find Sawyer still sleeping next to me: For all the nights we’ve spent together, this might well be the first time he hasn’t slipped out before sunrise.
I take the chance to look at him, face down with one arm slung over his head, freckles dotting his back like constellations. Just for a minute I give in to the urge to touch him, run my fingers over the patterns there, but Sawyer doesn’t stir. He sleeps differently than he used to. He thrashes less, breathes more deeply. It used to be that he shuddered in his sleep, trembled and muttered like the devil was in his dreams.
It’s not until I get out of bed that he wakes up, opening his eyes halfway. “Where you going?” he wants to know, stretching a little.
I smile. “Gotta get up.”
“Nah.” He shakes his head sleepily and holds the blanket open, an invitation for me to climb back in. “Five more minutes.”
“Well.” I consider. “Okay.” I slide beneath the quilt, rolling over onto my stomach and slipping a hand under the pillow. “Hi.”
“Hi. What do you have today?” he asks, one hand on my back, thumb tracing lazy circles there.
“Um.” I run through the to-do list in my head. “The hospital. And then school, if Stef can take the baby for me.”
“I can take the baby for you.”
“Okay.” That makes me smile. “And then work at four.”
“I’m on at seven.” He grins. “We haven’t worked together in a long time.”
“When we were in high school I used to check your schedule right after I checked mine, so I would know if it mattered what I looked like or not,” I confess. I feel a little giddy. “Not that you ever noticed.”
“Oh, I noticed.”
I snort. “You did not.”
“What you looked like was never lost on me,” he says, lacing one arm around my shoulder, pulling me down until my head is resting on his chest. “Nothing about you, my dear, has ever been lost on me.”
42
Before
By May, the Platonic Ideal had begun doing shows under one of the pavilions by the beach—Iceman’s uncle worked for parks and rec and had gotten them the gig, Tuesday and Thursday nights just after sundown. I went whenever I wasn’t working, either luring Shelby along with promises of onion rings and milkshakes, or otherwise flying solo, snagging Soledad’s car for the night and making the drive to the water with all the windows rolled down, humming softly out of tune. Truth was, I liked being by myself, free to sit way in the back on the low wall that separated the sand from the sidewalk behind it and stare without interruption, to listen while my boyfriend sang his songs.
Tonight I perched in my usual spot, chewing thoughtfully on my bottom lip as the band launched into a rocky version of “Come Rain or Come Shine” that I knew Sawyer had arranged. I glanced around at the crowd, recognizing several faces from other beach shows or the parties I’d been to before I stopped going: The Wiggles were there, and I tried my best not to stare at them in their shorts and bikini tops. Sawyer was trying his best not to stare at them, too. He caught my eye and grinned, fingers moving swiftly over the neck of the bass.
He was so good, and it made me so happy to watch him. His whole body relaxed when he played his music, knots pulled from shoelaces, like he was finally free. He was wearing navy blue cutoffs and a beat-up pair of Chuck Taylors, and I had never been gladder to be his girlfriend.
“So were we freaking awesome?” he asked later, sidling up to me after they were finished, the crowd breaking up and drifting away in clusters of threes and fours. I always tried to let him have his space at these things, always waited until he sought me out. I lifted my damp, heavy hair off the back of my neck.
“As usual.”
“Dude, we’re gonna head over to the Meridian for a bit,” Animal called. He was standing with one of the bikini-clad girls, whom I had silently dubbed Giggles Wiggle. “You guys wanna come?”
I held my breath, but Sawyer shook his head. “Nah,” he shouted back over the rhythmic drone of the ocean. “I’ll catch up with you guys later.”
We got a couple of Sprites at the sandwich shop across the street, then wandered back toward the water, plopped down where the sand had begun to cool. “We don’t go to the beach enough,” I observed, looking out at the dark horizon. The tide was coming in, licking at my toes. “I like the beach.”
“Real Floridians don’t go to the beach,” he replied. “It’s too hot.”
“What about them?” I asked, tilting my head to the right. In the distance, a group of kids a little older than us were grouped on a blanket. It was after ten, and besides them, the sand was nearly empty. “They’re here.”
“They’re probably from Michigan.”
I finished my Sprite and reached my hand out for his, which Sawyer delivered with a sigh. “Don’t chew my straw.”
“I don’t chew straws.”
“Yes you do.” He planted a kiss on the back of my neck.
The skin all over my body prickled pleasantly, but I leaned forward, away from his mouth. “I’m sweaty.”
“Salty,” he corrected. “You taste good. Like pretzels.”
“You really know how to sweet-talk a girl.”
“A regular Casanova,” he affirmed.
“Heathcliff,” I said. “On the moors and everything.”
“Don Juan.”
“Juan Valdez.” I giggled.
“Uh-huh. Ever had sex on the beach?”
“Real Floridians don’t have sex on the beach,” I informed him. “Too hot.”
He poked his tongue into his cheek. “Smart-ass.”
“You could try your luck with one of those girls from Michigan, though.”
“Right.” He grimaced when I handed his cup back to him. “Look at this,” he said, holding up the straw and smirking. “You’re like a woodchuck.” He flopped backward, head in the sand. For a long minute, neither of us talked. “So what am I going to do when you leave, Reena?”
