Chapter Twenty-Nine
SAWYER
I woke up the next morning to the sound of my phone going off on my bedside table. I didn’t check who it was before I answered it, trying to force myself a little more awake despite the tiredness that rested just behind my eyes.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Sawyer!” It was my dad.
I rubbed at my eyes and glanced out the window. It seemed to be early morning, a little later than I usually woke up but earlier than most people still. I wondered why Dad was awake so early on a Sunday, and then I remembered that he tended to be awake early on the weekends. It was something I’d never understood as a teenager, but after the SEALs, it was hard to understand how a person could wake up after eight in the morning.
“What’s up?” I asked him.
“I was wondering if you wanted to go fishing tomorrow,” Dad said.
I furrowed my brow. “Don’t you have work tomorrow?”
“Nah, I have off tomorrow. We can try the catfish farm if you want,” Dad said.
I smiled. I hadn’t been fishing in some time, and I wondered if now that I was considerably stronger I’d actually be able to catch some of the catfish that eluded me in my weaker years. “Yeah, that sounds good. I’ll meet you out there.”
“Alright. Nine o’clock?”
“Sure.” I knew it was best to get out in the morning before the catfish went too deep to be caught. It was strange, how much I remembered about catfishing, even after all these years. Some aspects of living here were easy to melt back into like nothing had ever happened in the first place.
Being in this new house, though, was reminder enough that nothing was the same. I took a shower and spent most of the day unpacking the few belongings I’d brought over. The box Pete helped me bring over was almost empty, save for a few books and pictures. I set those up in different places and thought to send Quinn a picture and ask for her approval, but if all went well, she’d be over to see them anyway.
I didn’t know what I was going to do to convince her to keep seeing me. Up to now, we’d had a strange relationship based on the idea that I needed help. If I didn’t need help, I didn’t know that she’d still see me. But then she’d expressed concern for the same issue. I got ready for our date with the resolution to do my best to let her know how I felt, even if I didn’t say anything terribly brash out loud.
When I got to Quinn’s house, my irritation quickly faded into something resembling nervousness and anxiousness. She wore a dress I hadn’t seen before, something that hugged every curve of her body, and I couldn’t tell in the evening light whether it was black or navy, but I didn’t care. I wanted quite suddenly to cancel dinner and spend the night doing whatever we pleased, but I’d made reservations, and I’d promised her dinner.
“You clean up well,” she told me as we got into the car.
“Says you,” I returned. “If I hadn’t made reservations…”
She giggled in the passenger’s seat. “Then what?”
I looked at her when we hit a red light. “You know what.”
The restaurant had kept our reservation, and we were seated quickly, without any issue. I looked across the table and took a second to appreciate her, the way she tucked her napkin into her lap and stirred sugar into her tea like clockwork. I couldn’t get enough of her. I wondered for a moment if I’d replaced one addiction with another. First crack, then the military, and now Quinn.
But if this was an addiction, if this was unhealthy, I didn’t want to be corrected.
“You look like you slept better,” Quinn said. She rested her head on her chin.
It would have been easy to merely stare at her for the rest of the night. But I wasn’t about to ignore her conversationally.
“I did,” I said. “I actually slept better last night than I have in a long time.”
“No terrors?” she asked. She took a sip of her drink.
“None.” That was true. For the first time in months—I’d had these dreams before I came home—I’d slept through the night without a single disturbance. It felt like I’d slept for a few thousand years, honestly. I didn’t know how people got on sleeping through the night every single night. It was almost too much sleep.
“That’s good to hear. Do you think that getting things settled with your father helped?” Quinn looked like she already knew the answer, and I thought about something I’d heard regarding therapy before. That sometimes the therapist was only trying to get the patient to see the right answer—it had to come from within sometimes.
“I think so,” I said. “I had… you know, some stuff from the SEALs.” None of which I wanted to talk about. I was more convinced now than ever that I could leave that all behind without any trouble. Things were improving in my life, and I hadn’t had to share any secrets regarding my time overseas. Perhaps I would never need to share it.
Quinn raised an eyebrow, but she didn’t say anything. Consistently she astounded me with her ability to listen without demanding more, especially when I refused to give her more information.
“But I think that honestly, it all came from back home,” I said. “All the other stuff. It enhanced the things that happened, made them worse than they were.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like what happened was made worse by the fact that I was already coming from a stressed environment,” I said.
“That was what I had a hunch about,” Quinn said, nodding in affirmation.
I smiled. I’d known she had the answer already. “You already seemed to know that, though.”
“It’s not always about whether you know,” Quinn said. “Sometimes it’s about what you find out.”
“Journey over destination?”
“Basically.” Quinn smiled. “You’re certainly smart enough not to need me to hold your hand through everything. If I point you in the right direction, you figure out what to do in time. It’s just a matter of offering guidance. And, of course, making sure I don’t steer you in the wrong direction.”
“Wouldn’t I know if you did?” I liked to think myself capable of righting any wrong she accidentally threw my way.
“I don’t know,” she said, but her tone was teasing. “I like to think I do a pretty good job any time I’m steering—”
“Sawyer?”
A familiar voice cut in and I turned to the source. It couldn’t be—but it was. Stacy Black, in the flesh, standing at the end of our table. She wore a sweatshirt and sweatpants, terribly out of place here in this restaurant. I didn’t know how she’d gotten in or how she could have known where Quinn and I were. What was she doing here?
I could only stare. Maybe I was having some sort of hallucination. It was perfectly possible, given my current mental state—I’d thought I was on the up and up, but maybe I’d taken a drastic turn for the worse.
Where I completely failed to say anything, Quinn spoke.
“Stacy, it’s a surprise to see you here.”
A surprise! Winning money on a scratch-off card was a surprise. Getting two cokes in a vending machine when you paid for one was a surprise. This was a hellish situation that I couldn’t believe I was stuck in. I didn’t refute her, though.
Stacy looked at Quinn almost as though she was surprised she’d said anything, and set her hands on the table. A nonverbal assertion that she wasn’t going anywhere. I cursed myself for not choosing a slightly nicer restaurant. In one of the really uptight places, they would have her removed for being out of dress code.
“So, Sawyer, you’re just now back from… where?” Stacy spoke as though nothing had happened.
I swallowed thickly. “Um, Middle East.”
“That’s not a place. Where were you exactly?”
“All around.” I furrowed my brow. Why did she care? I wanted to know what she was doing, but I knew from experience that Stacy was prone to making scenes. I didn’t want to taint Quinn with that reputation. If I were alone, I would have let her detonate all she wanted. But not in front of Quinn.
“Alright, I guess.” Stacy pursed her lips. Her hair looked dirty, and overall, she didn’t look like she was doing well. I remembered when she got like this, forgetting to take care of herself and going off on drug rampages. I was always expected to be the one to save her, but at some point, I’d joined her instead.
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to add to the conversation and give her more reasons to stay at this table. I wanted her out of sight and out of mind.
It seemed my silence only served to further her resolve to stay.
“So how long have you been back?” She asked.
“A few weeks,” I said. “Maybe a little over a month.” I didn’t know the exact numbers, but it had been both forever and no time at all. I didn’t know why I didn’t just lie to Stacy and make up a number, but part of me knew there was no sense in trying to lie to her. She always saw through it.
“A little over a month,” she said. “Cool. I’ve been out for maybe two weeks.”
‘Been out’ referred to her rehab, I supposed. I’d forgotten how open she was about her drug abuse. In this public space, I dreaded the implications of her talking about it. I didn’t want people to associate her with me. I didn’t want them to think of me as having anything to do with the lifestyle she promoted. I wanted her gone, dammit!
“Right,” I said. And that was all I said, until she still didn’t leave, and so I decided to get slightly less polite.
“Quinn and I were just having dinner,” I said. It wasn’t even really impolite. Stacy was the one who’d shown up and rooted herself to the table like some sort of parasite.
Quinn wasn’t saying anything. She watched, though, like a hawk, and I expected her to swoop in and save my ass at any second. She didn’t, though; she merely watched.
“Right, you and Quinn.” Stacy frowned. “So is that, you know, legal? Since she’s a doctor and all?”
It was hardly illegal, but that wasn’t the principle that irritated me. “You want to argue with me about what’s legal?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice down. I hadn’t had time to deal with how angry I was with her, and now here we were, talking for the first time in years in a nice restaurant. This wasn’t fair.
“Ouch, hostile.” Stacy raised an eyebrow. Her face looked drawn, pinched in weird places, like someone had dragged her cheekbones out too far and made harsh caricatures of her facial features. I remembered a time when she’d been beautiful, healthy and young, in blue jean shorts and t-shirts when we snuck beers from my parents’ fridge. Only now did I realize how long ago that had been, when I could see the years reflected back in the circles under her eyes.
“I’m really happy for you,” Stacy said. “I mean, I think it’s great you found someone.”
This made no sense. This entire situation set me on edge.
“Of course,” I said.
She left, and the waiter was by shortly after with the check. I didn’t say anything to Quinn because I was still processing the situation.
“At least she said she’s happy for you,” Quinn finally offered in the car.
I stared down the highway and tried to let up my iron grip on the steering wheel. “That’s what bothers me,” I said. “She wouldn’t have said she was happy for me unless she wasn’t. It means she’s focused in on the two of us together, not just me.”
“That’s… you don’t think that’s paranoid?” Quinn didn’t sound so sure herself.
“Absolutely not.” I turned off the highway. “Stacy always has an agenda. She’s always planning on something. I don’t want to think about it if she’s got us in her sights.”
Quinn nodded slowly. “I don’t think I do, either.” She shook her head and I could tell that something else was bothering her.
“You okay?” I asked. We pulled into my driveway, and when I helped her out of the seat, the only thing I could hear for miles and miles was the sound of crickets quietly chirping. It would get louder as the summer came on, but for now, it was only peaceful.
Quinn twisted her mouth to the side. We walked to my front door, and she talked while I unlocked it.
“I guess I worry about how she pulled you in,” Quinn said. “You know, there was that… appeal, whether it was drugs or young love or whatever. And I worry now that she’s back that there’ll be some kind of… I don’t know.”
She was insinuating that I might leave her for Stacy. The thought was so absurd that I nearly laughed, at the very least nearly dropped my keys.
“Quinn.” I held the sides of her face and kissed her for a moment. “Quinn, I can’t begin to describe to you exactly how good you are for me. How good you are to me. How I can’t begin to return the favor.” I kissed her again and realized I hadn’t said all I had to say. “If I’ve got you, what else could I possibly need?”