Chapter Thirty-Six
QUINN
As soon as Sawyer started to storm off, I knew I’d gone too far. I’d known in my gut that in this situation, I was the one who needed to be apologizing. I just didn’t know how to handle any of this, and I’d not expected him to show up where I worked and pester me. It was a relief I hadn’t had a patient in at the time.
Just as I decided to go home and think about the situation, I got a call from my aunt and uncle.
“Hey, Quinn! We were just trying out the grill and makin’ some fajitas and we were wondering if you wouldn’t mind coming over? It’s been an awful long time since we’ve talked to you.” Janet sounded happy as could be.
I had no reason to turn them down, but I also couldn’t stomach talking to Stacy’s parents. I shook my head and nodded. “Yeah, yeah, sure, I’ll, um, I’ll be right over.”
“Are you alright? You sound distracted.”
“I’m just fine. I’ll see you in a bit.” I hung up and got in my car. Maybe I’d never get another minute of rest to think about this situation.
When I got to Janet and Jesse’s house, the smell of grilled beef hung heavy in the air. Behind the house, smoke plumed off into the sky, perfuming the whole block with a tempting aroma. I watched it go up into the pinkening sky and took my time walking up the short steps to their house.
“Quinn!” Jesse answered the door and beamed. His smile faltered, and he said, “I have to admit, we called you over to talk to you about Stacy.”
Once we’d gotten seated to eat, Jesse explained their situation.
“Sawyer was by the other day,” he said. “He was asking if Stacy was here, because apparently she told him that she was homeless.”
Another affirmation that Sawyer wasn’t lying, and I’d been the asshole for assuming he’d done something wrong. I nodded and took a sip of my drink, for some reason pretending I had any idea what was going on outside of the mistakes I’d made.
“We were just wondering, dear, if you had any idea what was going on,” Janet said. She folded her hand together on the table and furrowed her brow. I could tell that she was trying to keep herself from looking as concerned as she really was, and I felt guilty for not getting in touch with them sooner.
“I… It’s kind of a long story,” I said. “Basically what happened is when I went out of town last weekend for my conference, Stacy went up to Sawyer and told him that she was homeless and didn’t have anywhere to sleep. He felt bad and let her sleep on his couch for one night, and then she took a bunch of photos to make it look like Sawyer had been up to some bad stuff.”
It occurred to me then that I hadn’t gotten in touch with Stacy since finding out that she’d lied to me. I wondered if I would hear from her, or what I might say.
“Anyway, Sawyer and I fought, and we’re… we’re working on it. He’s pretty mad at me for buying anything she told me, and I’m pretty mad at myself for it, too. I handled the whole thing awfully.” I shook my head. “I don’t know where Stacy is now. I haven’t heard from her since two days ago when she gave me the photos.”
Jesse shook his head. “I told you, Janet, there’s no sense in calling the police if the girl doesn’t want to be found.”
“I thought maybe she…” Janet shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Quinn. You know she was so bad for Sawyer, and Sawyer’s done so much to move past that. He really has.”
“I know,” I said. “You don’t have to convince me. He’s done everything to move on.”
“And she won’t,” Jesse muttered. “And that’s not your fault or Sawyer’s, and you shouldn’t be suffering the consequences of it. Sawyer deserves someone who can keep their head on their shoulders, at least for a few weeks at a time.”
I offered him a small smile, and Janet stiffened, presumablyy battling with the concept of that their daughter was worth the world and also knowing that their daughter was a terrible person.
“I don’t want to get her in any kind of trouble,” I emphasized. “I really want to leave this all behind us.”
“That’s perfectly fine with us,” Janet said. “But what about you? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to try to make things right with Sawyer,” I said. “If I can. If that’s even still possible. I don’t know anymore.”
“It most certainly is,” Jesse insisted. “Sawyer’s nothing if not reasonable. I think if you talk to him and reason through it, there’s no reason why you can’t have a cordial understanding.”
“Well, how would you recommend going about that? Because I tried to talk to him, and I made it much worse.” I didn’t know if I’d made it much worse, but I’d certainly made it less pleasant, and as it stood, I owed him about six hundred apologies.
“You should talk to him, for one,” Jesse said. “And hear what he has to say. Don’t tell him what you think, don’t interject, just hear him out. And then put some genuine thought into what he says and make your apologies count.”
I sighed. “I do make my apologies count.”
“You’re also a bit presumptuous, dear.” Janet smiled at me apologetically. “You’re very, very smart, but with that comes a little bit of presumptuousness. You don’t have any way of knowing what he has to say or what’s going on unless he tells you. Everything else is an assumption, and you’d do well not to act based on those.”
It was really the same thing that Babs had told me earlier. I needed to talk to Sawyer before I went around making decisions and accusations about situations I didn’t even fully understand, only because I’d seen cases similar.
“So I should call him?” I asked.
“Well, he might not answer,” Jesse warned. “Especially if he’s irritated. You might want to go over to his house and talk to him.”
“Isn’t that creepy?” I frowned.
“Maybe a little,” Janet said, offering a raised eyebrow of caution to her husband.
“It might sound a little extreme,” Jesse said. “But Sawyer doesn’t pick up on subtleties. And it’s not like he’s dangerous. If you go over and he doesn’t want to talk, then you can go home. But you need to be there where it’s harder for him to turn you away.”
“You think I have to win him back at all costs, huh?” I asked.
“Do what’s best for you,” Jesse said. “I don’t want to tell you how to live your life. But I think that as much as Sawyer needs you, you need him, too. You just might not know that yet.”
I considered this. I didn’t like to think I needed anybody, but I was also learning that I knew drastically less about myself than I thought I did. I finished dinner and thanked Janet and Jesse for their advice and their forgiveness. I never understood how they could be so consistently forgiving and kind.
I went out to my car and dialed Sawyer’s number. He didn’t pick up. I dialed him again.
When I got no answer the second time, I sat back in my seat and wondered if there was any point in trying to revive this relationship. It seemed like the easiest thing to do was to leave it. Like before, when I’d been happy to walk away.
But then I thought of how Sawyer had come to my work, insisting that I hear him out. He still cared, in his own way, that our relationship stayed alive. He still wanted us to work. And I knew that I did, too. The thought of dating someone else made my gut turn, and I had grown attached to Sawyer, whether or not I liked it.
I decided that I would go to Sawyer’s house the next day. It was getting late, and I didn’t want to wake him up if he was asleep, nor did I want to get into an argument with both of us tired and stressed. I could go and talk to him the next day, and if he told me no, then at least I could go home and move past all of this.