Sawyer rakes her hand through her hair, “Did I say the right thing?” All Natasha can do is shrug. She doesn’t know.
Natasha takes on a few interesting new clients. Sawyer moves from one show to another. The weather is unseasonably warm and they spend a full day by the Esplanade, recreating one of their first dates. Natasha has a strange, unexpected panic attack on the subway, but also rereads her favorite James Baldwin novel. They almost forget about being on the list of potential foster carers.
It’s 9.30pm on a Friday night when they get the call to say that there’s a young man named Aidan heading over to them in a taxi.
When he arrives, he’s got close-cropped blonde hair, grey eyes and a baggy Boston Celtics sweater. A woman’s name is inked across the back of his hand. He’s a few inches taller than Sawyer.
He leans against the sink, gets himself a glass from the drying rack and fills it straight from the refrigerator door.
“Hi Aidan, it’s great to meet you,” says Sawyer.
“Damn," he says, raking his eyes over Sawyer and Natasha.
Natasha raises her eyebrow, “That’s not appropriate.”
He smirks, chugs from his water glass.
He walks over to their sideboard, picks up one of Sawyer's Barbies.
"Why do you have dolls in your house? That's so creepy," He sneers, wrinkling his nose.
Sawyer's voice is calm as she answers, "I collect them. Always have."
He twists the doll's little hat so it sits at a weird angle. Sawyer doesn't move a muscle.
“Can I go up to bed?” Aidan asks.
Natasha shows him to their spare room. He doesn't make any comment on the room, just pushes his suitcase in to the corner and stands awkwardly by the bed. Natasha softly closes the door, and waits in the hall to hear signs that he's settling in. She doesn't hear any noise from inside, not even his suitcase zip opening. She decides to give up and give him some space. When she finds Sawyer in the living room, she's cradling her doll in the crease of her elbow and adjusting its hat.
Natasha wakes alone in the middle of the night. Sawyer’s side of the bed is cold. Natasha finds her sitting in the kitchen, facing the door to the hall.
“You alright?”
“I feel like I’m the only thing standing between him and a pack of wolves, bears, whatever. I don’t know.”
Her face is pale, the shadows under her eyes dark. In her lap there’s a sheaf of papers.
“I’ve been reading his case notes. They go back twelve years. There’s a lot redacted but you get the gist.”
Natasha lifts them out of her lap and slots them back into the file they’ve been given.
Sawyer sighs, “There's a file like this on me, somewhere.”
Natasha reaches down the collar of Sawyer’s nightshirt and scoops out her hair, including the fine little baby hairs at the back of her neck. Natasha starts gently plaiting it, weaving the thick curls together.
When Natasha gets to the bottom of Sawyer’s hair, she strokes her fingers down Sawyer's neck and shoulders instead.
“Come to bed, Sawyer. We’ll speak to Aidan in the morning and find out what he wants to do.”
Sawyer gains Aidan's trust within the first couple of days. It reminds Natasha of when Lucia suddenly thawed towards Sawyer; the wordless understanding that Sawyer is also a member of the fellowship of people estranged from their parents. By the end of the first week, Aidan and Sawyer are firm friends. Sawyer writes him a resume and spends hours teaching him the guitar. Natasha can tell that after about ten minutes of him clumsily plucking at the strings she starts getting frustrated, but she still attempts to show him how different picks, different parts of the finger, can change the sound. They wash and dry the plates after dinner side by side, talking quietly about cars.
When Natasha's alone with Aidan, Natasha doesn't quite know what to do with herself. Her genuine sentiments get lost in stock phrases from her counseling textbooks. She so badly wants to be liked by him, to make a difference.
One evening, Natasha invites Aidan to run with her the next morning. He shrugs, and she figures that’s as close as she’ll get to an enthusiastic yes. She has to practically drag him from his bed, puffy-eyed and smelling of sweat. At first he tries to outpace her, but gives up when he realizes that she can run for at least five times as long as he can. Smoking be damned. Side by side, without eye contact, he is much more open to discussing life with her.
By the end of the month, they buy hot, greasy chicken and eat it in her car where Sawyer can’t see. She tells him the wild drug stories that she’s never even told Sawyer; they both cry laughing when she talks about shitting herself in the drive-thru with her sister’s boyfriend. At the end of Natasha's stories, he admits that drugs make him uneasy, that his friends sometimes push it too hard. She listens and listens as the windscreen gets splattered with rain, the droplets hiding them from curious outside eyes.
Natasha drives them home and Sawyer's still at work, Natasha grabs some chips and joins Aidan on the sofa to watch a film that he has downloaded.
“You know, I used to specialize in film in college?” Natasha says.
