How to Love

Aaron’s face changes, hardens. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t realize you had company. It’s only your car in the driveway.”

“No, it’s just—” It’s just what? It’s not just anything. It’s sex with Sawyer LeGrande.

“Shelby Fitzsimmons, star of stage and screen,” Sawyer calls, making his way through the dining room. He sees Aaron and freezes for just one second before he recovers, a nearly undetectable smile quirking at the corners of his mouth. Already I want to slug him. “Oh. Not Shelby.”

“Not exactly,” Aaron says slowly, and God, God, I feel like garbage.

“Well, hey, man, good to see you,” Sawyer says, recovering. If you didn’t know better you’d think he was totally decent. “I’m, uh, making eggs, if you’re interested.”

“Thanks, but I have to get going,” Aaron says, edging his way to the door. “I have to get to work. I just came by to make sure Serena’s dad was okay.”

“I just got off the phone with Soledad, and she says he’s doing great.”

“That was Sol?” I ask, forgetting for one moment the massacre going on in front of my very eyes.

“Well, then, I guess that’s that.” Aaron looks from me to Sawyer and back again. “I guess … I guess I’ll, ah, see you around, Reena.”

“Aaron—” What am I going to say? I’ve been terrible to him, this good person, this soul who brought me flowers and made me smile on my ugliest of days. There’s no excuse in the world.

It doesn’t matter, really; Aaron’s already out the door. “Give your dad my best,” he calls over his shoulder, retreating like possibly my house is on fire and I’m just too stupid to notice and save myself.

“Shit,” I say, when his car is gone from the driveway. “Shit!”

“What?”

I turn on him savagely. “Shut up.”

“Oh, come on.” Sawyer has held it in as long as he can; he’s smiling now. “It’s not that bad.”

“No, actually, it’s exactly that bad. You don’t understand. You definitely do not understand.” I think of how angry Shelby is at me already. I think I’ve just annihilated our friendship for good. “I have just completely screwed myself.”

“Well.” He side-eyes me a bit, mischevious. “I wouldn’t say that, exactly.”

“I said shut up!”

Sawyer rolls his eyes. “Can I ask you a question? Do you even like him? Or is he just, like, practical? Because I’ve gotta tell you, Reena, he’s like the human equivalent of a bowl of shredded wheat.”

“Go to hell, Sawyer. You don’t know him. He’s a really nice guy.”

“So is Mister Rogers, but that’s no reason to jump into bed with him.”

“First of all, who I do or do not jump into bed with is none of your business. Second of all, speaking of things you don’t know anything about, he was a really good boyfriend.” I turn and stomp toward the kitchen. “And third of all, Mister Rogers is dead!”

That stops him for a moment. “Mister Rogers is dead?”

“For years!”

He follows me through the dining room, stopping to tousle Hannah’s hair. “Can you quit running away every time I try to have a conversation with you?”

“You’re one to talk about running away,” I shoot back, turning off the stove and replacing the eggs in the fridge.

Sawyer makes a face, like maybe that particular refrain is wearing a bit threadbare for him. “Well, I’m here now,” is all he says.

“Right.” I bounce around the kitchen like a pinball, tossing various and sundry items into the backpack on the chair: phone, keys, crackers for Hannah, a couple of juice boxes, a stuffed stegosaurus. “Until you get the itch or the urge or whatever it is that makes you do the lame-ass things you do and you take off again and I’m back where I started, except that now I have completely alienated the one guy in my entire life who actually treated me well.”

Sawyer doesn’t like that. His soft mouth thins. “I treated you well.”

“Mm-hmm. I especially appreciated the part where you peaced out without even having the decency to make up a lie about going out for cigarettes.”

“How long are you going to hold that against me?”

“Until I’m not pissed about it anymore!”

“So, forever?”

“You were gone for two years! You’ve been back for two weeks!”

“You know, what I love about all this is how conveniently you forget that you were on your way out, too, when I left. You told me every day.”

“I was going to college!”

“You were getting out of here a full year before you had to, and never coming back. You were going to go do something great and amazing and a hundred times better than the restaurant and this town, and a hundred times better than me.”

“Sawyer, don’t be such a baby. I never said that.”

“You said it in a hundred different ways. You were leaving anyway. I just thought I’d get the jump.”

“Jesus God.” I roll my eyes, try to think for a moment, and when I do there is only one logical conclusion for me to draw. I feel mean as a rabid dog. “This was stupid of us.”

He looks at me suspiciously. “What was?”

“This.” I spread my arms out. “Last night, this morning, all of it. It was a bad idea. I was upset. I shouldn’t have let you—”

“Let me?” he explodes. “You came looking for me! I was ready to sleep on the damn couch!”

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’m a maniac, and you make me that way. You’ve been back for thirty seconds, and I’m acting like an idiot all over again.”

“Well, that’s not far off.”

God, I am so frustrated with him. I am frustrated with my whole life. “Screw you.”

“Nice.” He’s angry, too. “You know what? Let’s just forget about it.”

“You know what? Let’s.”

“Fine,” he says, and he could be giving me the weather report but his eyes are cold like marbles. “It never happened.”

44

Before

“What are you wearing?” Sawyer wanted to know.

I glanced at myself in the mirror as I cradled the phone between my ear and shoulder. It was the Friday after I’d gotten my letter from Northwestern; he was supposed to be picking me up in twenty minutes for what, he promised, was going to be a Very Big Date. “Why?”

“Because I want to make sure we’re not wearing the same thing.”

“Shut up.” It was the middle of May, uncomfortably hot. “Everything I put on makes me sweat. So maybe nothing.”

“I see.” He was smiling, I could hear it. “Now there’s an idea. Be ready in ten, yeah? We’re celebrating. My girlfriend got into college this week.”

We drove to South Beach that night, windows of the Jeep rolled all the way down; the air conditioner had finally given out a few weeks before, and I smelled ocean and summer. Charley Patton twanged out into the heat: Took my baby to meet the mornin’ train… Sawyer kept one hand on my leg as we made our way down 95, breaking contact occasionally to rub at a twitching muscle in his jaw.

“I like your wrists,” he commented suddenly, glancing over at where my hands were resting in my lap. He traced the underside of my forearm with the tip of his finger.