I thought I’d feel like a badass walking through those doors with the “High AWOL Risk” signs tacked to them, like one of those moments when someone quits a job where they hated all their coworkers and leaves telling their boss where to shove it as they flip the bird high and proud.
But it wasn’t like that at all.
I stepped out into the stuffy July sunlight shaken and scared with a new puffy scar on my wrist, as well as a half-dozen bottles of pills for anxiety and Major Depressive Disorder, Single Episode, which was what I got for hacking away at myself with a plastic spoon. Released back into a world that was still too big and too bright and too sharp to handle. It wasn’t the same few faces anymore: therapists, patients, nurses, doctors. There were millions again, any of whom could have known my face, my body, and I couldn’t tell. As much as it irked me to admit, that hospital was the safest place I’d been since Jeff was released from prison.
But now Jeff was going back behind bars, and I was supposedly getting a say in how long. The FBI got their arrest, and Simone and I got our conviction. Jeff’s trial had been going on in Oregon while I finished serving the rest of my sentence in LA.
Three days after Agent Holt told me they had Jeff in custody, I worked up the nerve to call my mom. Cash held my hand while I listened to her phone ring through the free patient pay phone. With each ring, I prayed she would see the unfamiliar California number and ignore the call. My heart stopped when her weary voice answered, “Hello?”
I swallowed hard and forced out, “Mom?”
Weeping broke out on the other side of the line. “Sawyer?”
I sighed. “Yeah, it’s me.”
But she didn’t say anything. I sat there watching the phone timer tick away three whole minutes as she sobbed. What was she crying about? Maybe she saw the pictures the feds showed me and felt guilty. No, that was far too optimistic. It was probably because her lovey-dovey was in jail again.
Mom only saw Jeff as the carefree, kid at heart. The acoustic-guitar-playing Sunday school teacher with those cute thick-rimmed glasses. He was just too darn gentle and charming and kind to be capable of harming anyone, let alone a child. How could anyone even imagine he’d hurt a kid? The police had to have been wrong that first arrest. She was convinced the mom of that little girl had some vendetta against him. Maybe that mom tried to get Jeff into bed, and he resisted so she set him up. I guessed denial was that form of delusion people didn’t get locked up for.
My mom wasn’t alone, though. He did seem sweet, benign. Plus, he was cool and charismatic, so people were eager to please him, to be part of his inner circle. Even Simone was. Her parents hadn’t had any problem leaving her with him every day after school. Of course, Simone kept her mouth shut when Jeff raped her repeatedly. Because even in the horror and the disgusting pain, she was in his world. He made her feel special. He made her feel saved.
Apparently, I was the only one who never wanted any part of him. I wanted my dad back, not this slimy replacement. So, while Simone was his pretty little pet, Jeff convinced me that he was holding me by the collar as I hung over the precipice of hell. If only he had let me fall.
I had no idea what my mom had to cry about. I waited for her to blubber an explanation, impatiently tapping my big toe against the sole of my flip-flop.
“Sweetie,” she sniffed. “I’m so sorry. I can’t even—” More crying. Huh. Maybe she did feel bad. She finally choked out, “Where are you, honey? Please, come home.”
“Um…” I raised a brow at Cash before answering, “I can’t until July.” And even then, I didn’t want to.
But I did, the morning I was discharged. Cash and I went straight from the hospital to LAX. We flew into the hardly functioning airport in the prison town thirty miles south of my shit town.
My mom picked us up at the deserted curb, suffocating me with her hug, crying into my untamed hair. I patted her back. “It’s fine, it’s fine,” I muttered the lie. What was I supposed to say? Was it really my job to comfort her for her husband raping me repeatedly and posting it online? How was that my role?
She blabbed the whole ride home on the narrow highway darkened by ominous redwoods, through rolling green farmland, into our beach town with scattered squat buildings and poorly planned neighborhoods. It seemed like she was trying to keep the conversation light by sputtering out questions as fast as she could: How was college? What are you studying? Have you heard from Jake? Did you know his sister’s getting married? I heard Tatum got pregnant. Do you talk to her anymore? Cash, what do you study? How do you two know each other? This last question was accompanied by a sideways glance, code for, He’s cute. What’s wrong with him?
Ah! Shut up! I pressed my fingers into my temples and leaned my aching head, eyes closed, against the passenger window. “Mom, could we just listen to music?”
She muttered a passive-aggressive, “Sure, sweetie,” and stopped talking.
We passed over the bridge with the river on the east and harbor on the west, stopping at the three traffic lights of our town, turning right at the last light. A few more turns and we were on Third Street, driving onto the pavement where my demons clawed and scratched and waited for my return. I stared the street down, ignoring the nightmares flashing across it. None of the men were on the sidewalks. Simone wasn’t here. Jeff wasn’t either. Travis and his friends weren’t at the intersection at the end of the street. And Cash was here. I had Cash. I would be okay.
“Do you want me to order pizza for dinner? Or do you want to go out?” my mom asked as we pulled into the driveway of the little blue house.
Out? No. Jeff was on trial. Our whole town knew by now that he raped me, that I was all over the web. There was no way in hell I was leaving the house. “Could we order in?”
“Yep. Do you want to have any friends over? I heard—”
“No,” I answered too quickly as I climbed out of the car.
I led Cash inside through the living room into my room. After I flicked the light on, I scanned the white dresser, my made bed with the purple down comforter, the window by it. I stepped back at the memories of Jake’s skin in the moonlight, the taste of his sweat, his warmth against me under those sheets. Shut my eyes when I pictured waking up naked, half under the covers, sore and sick after Kyle’s party. I turned around to bolt out when I felt the thick fear in the room from a decade ago, bumping into Cash’s chest. “Uh…” I stuttered as my anxious eyes stared up at him. “You should take my room. I’ll, um…” I glanced past him to the living room. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“Sawyer, no, you just got out of the hospital. You should—”
“I can’t sleep in here.”
He nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
After I wheeled my suitcase into the bathroom, I sorted through my belongings. I had everything now, including triple-blade razors that didn’t scrape my skin with the added bonus of no CNAs to supervise me using them, a hair straightener, and all my yummy hair and skin products. I turned the shower on hot and stripped down, then scanned my body in the glaring bathroom lights. It was emaciated and unshaved. The mirror showed my pale skin and hair left natural and wavy, dull from crappy conditioner.
After I showered and shaved all those gross hairs into oblivion, I put on and fastened my favorite violet bra I’d saved from mutilation. It didn’t fit. Was I not a D-cup anymore? Was I a sad little C? I hadn’t been a C since I was fourteen. I tightened every strap and made the best of it. My jeans were a little loose, and my shirt hung shapeless from my shoulders. Hospital food hadn’t kept me curvy, and sulking in bed for months wasted away my athletic shape.
I blow-dried my hair and smoothed it with the flat iron, so I wouldn’t have to deal with it in the morning. I already had plenty to deal with.
I picked at my pizza at the kitchen bar, my mom on my left and Cash on my right. “You ready for tomorrow, Sawyer?” my mom asked. “You know you don’t have to do this. Maybe I could read it for you? Or the lawyer?”
“I got it,” I muttered. I took a bite of pepperoni and cheese just to have an excuse not to talk.
There was a chance Jeff would only spend a lousy fifteen years in prison, pay some fines, and be out by the age of fifty-three. The maximum was life. I was here to convince the judge that Jeff needed to die in prison. I knew this was the only way I could do right by Simone, do right by me.
That didn’t make it easy to sleep that night, especially on the living room couch with Third Street watching me through the sheer curtains of the front door. I even tried Jake’s TV-to-sleep method, letting my eyes glaze over and dry out to reruns of Friends. I was still awake when Cash got up to pee at one AM. Did he have the tiniest bladder in the world?
He saw me on the couch, the muted blue light flashing over my face. “Can’t sleep?” he asked as he pushed his hand through his hair.
I shook my head. After he went to the bathroom, he sat down on the floor, his back against the couch in front of my chest. “I love this one,” he said about the episode of Friends now on.
My fingers wandered to his curls, looping through a few of them, pulling them straight, then letting them bounce back. “I’m scared,” I whispered.
He rotated toward me, sweeping the backs of his fingers across my forehead to return a few flyaways where they belonged. “I know.” His lips curved into that sad, compassionate way he smiled and ran his hand down my back. “Do you want to pray about it?”
Oh, funny story. That morning in the hospital after I put myself into hemorrhagic shock, Cash told me that watching Jeff burn in hell wasn’t a legitimate reason to go there, that believing I was damned because my pedophile stepfather/Sunday school pastor told me so was illogical. He’d said, Aren’t you a math major? Don’t you like logic?
When I told him I was having too much fun to deal with Jesus and all his rules, he did the highest eyebrow-raise I had ever seen before pointedly staring at my taped-up arm. He’d said, This is fun? And rules? You don’t get it, do you? Then he told me he loved me, that he had been and would always be there for me no matter what I did even when it hurt him. Oh, and, by the way, Sawyer, this is excruciating. That was how God wanted me. Only he had endured more pain than Cash ever could for me. And so I gave in, swollen eyelids, dry throat, and sliced wrist, to Cash and his God.
I know. I was shocked, too.
And I knew Cash said I just needed a friend for now, but after that day, there was a shift between us, like the timer started ticking down until we got back together. It was in the way his eyes flickered when he saw me, how his hands lingered in mine, the speed at which his heart beat when my ear pressed against it. But since he broke it off, he would have to ask me out again. I had been brave enough lately.
Cash fell asleep on the couch behind me, my back against his chest, his arm over my waist. With him so close, I was able to get a few hours of sleep, too.
The court was small and sparse and had a chilled scent of mold. I barely smelled it because I couldn’t breathe. That eight-year-old I couldn’t exorcise was squeezing my lungs and kicking at my heart in protest. I could almost hear her screaming, What the hell are we doing here?
Jeff’s mom and dad were seated in the benches on the left, Simone’s exhausted and anxious parents and brother on the right. I nodded down toward them, sick with the knowledge I was about to confess to killing their daughter.
I kept on, passing through the hip-high door to the table where the prosecutor sat. He was a thin old man with deep wrinkles engraved in olive skin. He looked into my eyes with his gentle ones when he shook my hand. “It’s an honor to finally meet you, Ms. de la Cruz.” An honor. It didn’t make sense to me. Still, the words stung my eyes as I let go of his hand.
“Thank you,” I whispered as I sat in the chair he motioned toward. I couldn’t speak any louder. I was terrified. How was I going to read this letter? I shifted in my seat to see Cash and my mom seated in the bench behind me. Cash placed his hand palm-up on the bar between us, like he had on my thigh that morning in church—an offering. I placed my hand in his, the warmth sending a calm up my arm that spread through my chest where the nerves threatened to strangle me.
“You’ve got this.” He smiled. For a second, I believed I did.
A door opened at the front of the court. I snapped my head forward to see a petite woman decked in charcoal grey from shoulders to ankles, her hair curled and teased in excess, as if this was the 1980s. Her heels click-clacked over the wood floors as she approached the defense’s table. Her client was behind her, ushered by the bailiff.
The familiar stomp of Jeff’s feet I had heard approaching my room a hundred times stopped my heart. I thought for sure that eight-year-old inside had punctured my ventricles, letting the blood spill out while the cardiac muscle spasmed in vain, because my vision started clouding at the sight of Jeff’s pale blue eyes, his blond hair starting to thin, and his sturdy, tall frame that had crushed me too many times. Those pasty eyes met mine, and he suddenly appeared small, inconsequential. This time, his fate was in my hands. I felt peace, strong like I never had before. I took a deep breath, more exhilarated than scared.
“You okay?”
I glanced back at Cash and nodded.
Past his shoulder, the courtroom door opened and another body slipped in. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. I was not okay. What the hell was Jake doing here? I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t say any of this in front of him.
Jake caught my eye. For a moment, my whole body hurt. He watched me as he sat down on the bench along the back wall. No smiles, no nods, no mouthed words exchanged between us. Just an unbreaking stare. I had to wonder if his heart stopped like mine did. Of course not. He knew I’d be here. But why was he here?
“Really?” Cash interrupted my gaze. I jerked, staring at his tilted head as he squeezed my hand. “Because you look like you’re going to pass out.”
“Just nerves.” I fought through a shaky smile before turning forward.
We all stood for the judge like we were supposed to. After we sat, that big-haired attorney started her statement about why the judge should go easy on Jeff.
“He was let out of prison six months early for good behavior, hasn’t violated his parole, and is in excellent standing with his parole officer…
“Furthermore, he has committed no such illicit acts since his release last year and shows deep remorse for his crime.”
It was so hard not to cackle at this. I started to, but then covered it with a cough when the prosecutor shot me a cutting glance and put his hand over mine.
“Since this reincarceration of my client is interrupting his successful reentry into society, we ask that you allow him to serve the sentences for production of child pornography and the two counts of first degree sexual abuse concurrently, giving him the minimum of fifteen years. We also ask for the possibility of parole after eight, since he has already served seven years.”
What? I leaned to the prosecutor’s ear. “Can they do that?”
“It’s not going to happen,” he said. He pointed subtly with his hand on the table toward the judge, whose face was twisted in an Are you fucking kidding me? expression.
I sighed in relief. Not that the feeling lasted long. It was my turn.
The prosecutor stood. “Your Honor, this is Sawyer de la Cruz, whom you may recognize as the surviving victim of Mr. Lindley’s abuse. She has prepared a statement.”
“Proceed, Ms. de la Cruz.”
I pushed off the table with my hands, and then picked up the typed letter. It shook between my fingers.
“I’m eight,” I started softly, stopping to clear my throat, “in my bed, hearing footsteps approach my door. I know they’re not my mom’s. By now, I know what’s going to happen next. I know if I say ‘no’ when he takes off my clothes and sets up his camera, Jeff will tell me the Jesus I love, the God who comforted me when my dad died, will send me to hell. I know that it will hurt. I know that I have to pretend with noises and words that I don’t understand. And I know I can’t tell anyone.
“I’m nine, and I can’t tell my friend that she shouldn’t come over to play after school, that when Jeff says he wants us to play ‘dress-up’ and ‘models’ with him, it’s not as fun as it sounds. Now she’s crying and scared and hurts, too.
“I’m fifteen, and so is my friend, when four junior boys at school start to flirt with us. And we’re flattered because they’re popular and play basketball and we’re just freshman. But now we’re afraid again, because they have a video of our least favorite game with Jeff. Now we’re humiliated because if they have it, who else does? And now four juniors are gang-raping us, and we’re doing our best to comply so no one in school will see the video. Simone is broken from the silence I’ve bullied her into. Now Simone is dead.
“I’m eighteen, dizzy and drunk after a party in the front seat of Jeff’s car. Now I’m in my bed, and my pants are gone. I feel the shooting, tearing pain as Jeff tells me who is really in control.
“I’m eighteen and pregnant, terrified that I might have Jeff’s baby. And with my choice to abort, I lose my fiancé and my future.”
My vision glazed over the paper twitching in my hands. That was the end of the story as far as Jake knew. My eyes wandered up to the judge, down my right arm to the prosecutor with anxious eyes imploring me to continue. My voice was paralyzed in that moment with Jake’s listening ears pressed against me. I couldn’t go on. I slipped my index finger in the crease, and I let the paper fold over it.
A hand caught my arm, gentle but firm. The prosecutor’s voice in my ear was the same. “This is your chance. Take it.”
My gaze met his before continuing over my right shoulder to Jake. His elbows were on his knees, his fingers intertwined at his chin, his attention wrapped around me. Then he nodded, one careful movement of his head that loosened a ribbon of hair from where he had combed it back—a nod that I should go on.
I had nothing to lose. Jake and I had closed the door of our relationship over a year ago. Might as well lock it, deadbolt it, and weld it shut. I returned to the paper and unfolded it. “I’m eighteen,” I swallowed, though my throat was dry, “working as a stripper when a man offers me cash to ‘fuck Delilah.’ And I take it, because I always do, because that’s what I’m best at.
“I’m eighteen, when a client at the strip club pays for sex with Delilah. I tell him ‘no,’ because I can’t. I can’t do it anymore. He tries to rape me, and I’m arrested for smashing his head in because my mind has disconnected and I’m terrified he’s Jeff.
“I’m nineteen, in mandatory psychiatric treatment for severe PTSD and attempted suicide. My nights are filled with dreams where I’m chased and hunted, and I scream but no one hears me. My days are filled with fear and guilt for what I’ve done to my child and my ex-fiancé and Simone.
“Your Honor, please, I entreat you to give this man the maximum sentence of life. His abuse cost Simone her life. It will haunt me for all of mine.”
I looked at the next line of my letter. It was for Jeff. I folded it up and dropped it on the table. “Jeff…” I sighed. “Honestly, I’d love to stand here and say, ‘Fuck you, I hope you get raped every day in prison and then burn in hell.’ But, I think they’d hold me in contempt of court.” I glanced over at the judge. “Right?”
Cash let out a soft exhale behind me, and I knew he was rubbing the embarrassment I should have felt from his forehead. Then I heard a snicker from the back of the room. Jake. Closing my eyes, I bit my bottom lip to hold in a smile.
The judge gave me a wary look and nodded.
“Okay, so, I’ll just say this—Jeff, I haven’t forgiven you. But I’m going to, and not just because God forgave me, but because you don’t get to have that power over me anymore. You don’t have any power over me anymore.”
Raising my head toward the judge, I said, “Thank you, Your Honor.”
After I sat down and the prosecutor said his short piece, which I didn’t hear a word of, the judge announced, “In light of the severity of the abuse, the prevalence of the images, and the protracted consequences for the victims, I am sentencing Jeff Lindley to fifty years in Oregon State Penitentiary.”
Yeah, I’d call that a win.
I bolted up and turned to Cash, who was already on his feet. His hands out, he asked, “You okay with that?”
“Hell yeah!” I hugged him tight, feeling him press his lips against the top of my head.
When Cash let go, I caught a glimpse of the doors at the back open and Jake leave with his leather jacket over his shoulder. My lungs deflated with relief, but that pain in every inch of me remained. Of course he would leave. I knew he would. It was over. It had to be.
“Sawyer?” I snapped out of my stare at the closed double doors to follow the shaky feminine voice. It was Simone’s mom.
I nodded, speechless.
Before I knew what was happening, I was in her arms with her wet face against my shoulder. “Thank you,” she sobbed. “It’s okay, sweetie. It’s okay.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. I wished that meant more to me, but it didn’t. She wasn’t Simone. That was who I wanted to apologize to. But her mom’s words stabbed deep, then made me feel lighter, like they’d cut into a bag of sand sitting inside me and now that sand was spilling out. Maybe I wouldn’t have to feel the full weight of it anymore.
“Sawyer, are you sure you don’t want to stay a few extra days?” my mom asked while I collected my clothes and pushed them into my suitcase. “You don’t have to leave tonight.”
“I can’t, Mom.” What was I going to do here? Stay locked inside while everyone gossiped about the cheerleader who went to LA to whore her way through college?
“You haven’t even been to the beach yet. You don’t have to leave for four more hours. At least take a quick walk down there, like you and your dad used to.”
“Fine.” Anything to not hear her voice anymore. I grabbed A Farewell to Arms, the book I was reading on the plane, and searched the house for Cash. I spotted him through the window on the phone, so I poked my head through the back door. “Want to walk to the beach?”
“Hang on,” he said as he covered the phone. “It’s Jo. She’s having boy problems and freaking out because June’s having pregnancy issues and is on bedrest. I gotta call her next.”
“Tell her hi. I’ll be back in a bit, okay?”
He nodded and smiled. I heard him say, “Sawyer says hi,” as I closed the door.
I took the walk down the street to the beach, finding that massive fallen tree that my dad and I used to sit against on the shore. I balanced heel-to-toe across it until it met the mountainous rock at its end.
It was bright and overcast and cool like most summer days here. I took off my flip-flops and buried my feet in the warm sand, keeping them sheltered from the breeze. Snuggled in my navy Bruins hoodie with my knees to my chest, I leaned my back against the smooth wood. When I flipped open my book, a page of Cash’s letter fell into my lap. I had been using pages of it as bookmarks so I could have it handy all the time. After unfolding the lined notebook page, one from the middle of the letter, I started reading the black script at the first complete sentence.
I want you to know that this break in our relationship is not because I love you less because you are in pain. I don’t love you less. Nothing could make me love you less. We met at probably the most desperate time of your life, and I want you to be a little more whole, feel a little safer, before we move forward. I think all the time about our first date—how you didn’t want me to pay for your meal because you weren’t “putting out.” I want you to have me, just me without fear of obligation or owing me. If you can get to that point and find that you love me, too, I’m yours.
“I knew you wouldn’t leave town without saying goodbye to your dad.”
My heart tripped and then thumped in my ears when I heard his voice behind me. I held my breath and not on purpose. He wasn’t really here. I turned around to make sure I was just hallucinating, maybe a post-traumatic stress delusion. That was a thing, right?
I wasn’t.
Jake was standing on the fallen tree. Now that he was three feet from me, I recognized his shirt as the grey thermal I wore the morning after Jeff assaulted me. His leather jacket was draped over his arm. I stared at him a moment to remember what he had just said. “Am I that predictable?”
He let a soft laugh escape his nose as he dropped his feet to the sand to sit beside me. “I wish.” He reached into his jacket pocket. “Swiss Roll?”
It startled a smile from me. “Please.” I folded the letter and closed it in my book. “I’ve barely eaten anything the past three days.”
He tore through the plastic and handed me a pastry. “Can I take you to get some real food?”
Why would he want to do that? Did he not listen to anything I said an hour ago?
I shook my head. “I’m fine. I was just nervous about today.”
“You did great.” His smile was tilted and sad and made me hurt.
“You don’t have to say that.”
His gaze fell to my book. “‘What do you want to do? Ruin me?’”
“What?”
“Farewell to Arms,” he said as he tapped the cover. “That’s a line from it.”
“Yeah, but how did you know?”
“I read it.” He gazed out at the water as if it were normal for him to voluntarily pick up Hemingway. But I didn’t ask why he read it; I just studied him. His profile was just as I remembered it, maybe slimmer in the slightest, with a new scar cutting through the outer edge of his right eyebrow. I smoothed over it with my thumb. The feel of his skin made my breath stop. It was cozy and hot, the same as before, except I wasn’t allowed to touch it like I wanted. That made me hurt, made me hate myself. “How’d you get this?”
“Fight.” He glanced down at my left wrist and took it in his hand. His rough thumb drew a line over my scar. My heart drummed faster. “How’d you get this?”
I wanted to feel him, really feel his hand against my skin, but it would just make leaving harder. I pulled my sleeve down to my palm.
“Sounds like you had a crummy year,” he said as he let go of my arm.
“And you?”
In a matter-of-fact tone, he answered, “Well, my pregnant fiancée dumped me with a note and then aborted the baby, so…”
“Wow,” I breathed.
“How old would it be now?”
“That’s not even a little fair.”
“Why?”
“Because you know it wasn’t yours.”
“You found out for sure?”
I shut my eyes and lowered my face.
“Didn’t think so.”
“God, Jake! I regret it, okay? Every single day. Does that help? Will it make you happier to know that I feel like shit?”
“Come on, Sawyer, that doesn’t make me happy.” He took a deep breath. “Can you just tell me why you left?”
I cackled. “You’re serious?”
“Yeah.”
“Jake, this…” I pointed between him and me. “This judgmental crap is why I had to leave. There’s no way I could have just come home after that and expected you to accept it. You were so adamant—”
“How do you know I wouldn’t have accepted it?”
“Because you still haven’t!”
He threw his hands up. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, but where were you last summer, huh? You couldn’t even make the effort to call me back.”
“You told me not to!”
“What? I specifically told you to call me if you wanted me to come home.”
He let out a defeated exhale as he brushed his hand up his face and through his hair. “I didn’t get your messages in time,” he admitted with his eyes closed.
“In time?” My whole face scrunched with confusion. “What do you mean by in—’” Oh. The look of sorrow he gave me was all the reminder I needed. I gave him a deadline. And he didn’t know about it until it had passed.
“My phone broke the day you left.” He paused before confessing, “Okay, I threw it.”
“There it is.”
“I got all three of your messages the week after you left them.” He gazed out at the waves before squeezing his eyes shut. “Sawyer, I’m sorry. I should have called or looked for you or…”
The heartache in my chest spread through my whole body until it covered every inch of me. I whispered, “You wanted me back?”
His eyes met mine. “I’ve always wanted you, Sawyer.”
I turned away. I couldn’t stand whatever was swirling in the depth of his brown eyes.
Sighing, he continued, “It physically hurts me when I think about that baby, even if it wasn’t mine. I wish with everything in me you hadn’t aborted. But after the trial…” I finally met his eyes. “Sawyer, I’m sorry I made things so hard for you last year.”
I cringed. “You went to Jeff’s whole trial?”
“As much of it as I could.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Did you see—”
“Yeah,” he exhaled. I buried my face in my hands. “The prosecutor put hundreds of ‘sanitized’ photos of you and Simone on a few of those huge bulletin boards.” His swallow was so labored I heard it. “There was a whole wall of them. I—I couldn’t—” He paused for a shaky breath. “I made myself look because I owed you that much. I needed to understand what he did to you—what they all did.”
My fingers raked through my hair and strangled the strands between them. I didn’t want to imagine him seeing that.
“Then someone read off chat room requests and matched them up to the images. I’m sorry. I couldn’t handle it. I tried, Sawyer. But I had to leave. How did you survive—”
“Please, shut up.”
“Sawyer…” His hand was sliding across my back now. “I’m sor—”
I scooted away. “Please!”
“Okay,” he surrendered.
We sat in silence for a long moment. “You shouldn’t have looked.”
His words were gentle when he argued, “You should have told me.”
I scoffed. “Why? What difference would it have made?”
“Because…why did you tell me you were raped when you were shattered? Repeatedly? Why didn’t you tell me you were scared even when we were together?”
“Please, I was fine.”
“Right,” he snickered, “because people who are fine whore themselves out.”
I glared at him. “I’m surprised it took you this long to bring it up.”
“I mean, not to be ‘judgmental,’ but what the hell were you thinking? You could have been raped or gotten HIV or—”
“I always made them use condoms.” As soon as I said the words, I wished I hadn’t. He winced like I had just slapped him.
“That’s what you chose over me,” he muttered.
“You weren’t an option anymore! And I had to pay rent.”
“Bullshit.”
“Excuse me?”
“You don’t want me to treat you like you’re broken? Fine! I’m calling bullshit. You could have done any other job.”
“You don’t think I tried those first?”
“I didn’t think you’d just up and leave me, so what do I know?”
“Well, I didn’t think my fiancé would refuse to return my calls and leave me desperate enough to do that.”
“You left! You told me not to call!”
I raised an eyebrow. “Bullshit.”
“Fine! I was pissed, okay? You took off! You should have been the one to grow a pair and come home if you wanted to. Part of me was just waiting for you to show up at my door, mad as hell, ready to fight like we always did. You could have done more to fix this than leave a few drunken voicemails. You could have tried harder.”
“You could have tried at all.”
“Well…” He shrugged. “It looks like you’re in a better relationship now.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about tall, plaid, and handsome all over you this morning.”
“Cash? He was not all over me. And it’s not really—” I tilted my head back and forth. “We’re not really together.”
“Not really?” He lifted one shoulder and added a flippant, “So it’s like a sex-only thing?”
“Jake, come on—”
“Do you charge him per hour or per favor?”
“Oh, fuck you!” I stormed off, the sand making my stomping less dramatic than I had hoped.
“I don’t know that I could afford for you to do that.”
Okay, I set him up for that one. Still.
I didn’t make it too far before he called, “Sawyer, wait!” I successfully ignored him until he grabbed my arm. “I’m sorry.”
“Let me go!” I wriggled to get loose.
“No. Not again.” He spun me around and held both my arms.
“You know, Jake, I don’t remember you being such an asshole.”
“Really?” He smiled that damn crooked smile that made me melt and laugh when I just wanted to be furious. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” He sighed. “It just pisses me off that you were with me three years and then could go screw a bunch of other guys as if we meant nothing—like it was so easy for you to move on.”
“Easy? Jake, nothing about it was easy. And it wasn’t ‘moving on.’ It was making a living.”
“Did you think for one second about me, though? Ever?”
“I thought about you every day!”
“Really? You thought about me when some stranger was stuffing cash in your bra before shoving himself into you? Because that to me sounds like moving on.”
“Jake—” I hissed through gritted teeth.
“And I was here, up at night like an idiot, thinking ‘Is Sawyer okay? Where is she? Is she ever coming home?’”
“Jake!” I screamed. “You know how you could have answered those questions? You could have called.”
“You told me not to!”
“I swear I’m going to punch you if you say that again.”
“Okay, fine,” he said as he threw his hands in the air. “I should have called you. But it would have been too late, and you know it.”
“Seems like you dodged a bullet then. So leave me the hell alone.” I turned to leave again, but he caught my hand.
“No.”
“No? So there’s more you want to berate me about?”
“Sawyer—”
“If you want to lecture me about the things I can’t undo—like the abortion or all the things I did in that club—you can’t because I’m not your girlfriend anymore. I’m not your fiancée. I’m not your anything. You can be mad at me, you can hate me, but I don’t have to listen to this.” I flicked my wrist out of his grasp and took off through the sand.
“If you’re not my anything, why does it feel like my everything is walking away from me right now?”
My feet planted in the sand, unable to continue, but I couldn’t face him.
“Pretending like you’re nothing to me makes this easier for you. I don’t care. I’m not going to make it easy.”
I spun around. “What do you want from me?”
“The rest of your life.”
What? He’d just said it was too late. I shook my head. “No. I don’t believe you.”
“Let me prove it then.” Jake ran to me, stopping when his face was just inches from mine. Drawing in his breath, he traced his hands down my arms. He reached into his pocket and pulled out my engagement ring, that emerald surrounded by diamonds, then dropped to one knee.
No, no, no. What was happening?
“Sawyer, we can go our separate ways like before, or we can fight about this. I don’t know what you want, but I want to fight. I don’t care if we yell about it every day, forever. I don’t care if all our fights are like: ‘Jake, why are there washcloths in the sink?’ And I say, ‘Well, why did you whore around?’ And you say, ‘Why didn’t you call me back?’”
I couldn’t stand that he just made me laugh.
“I’d rather waste the rest of our lives arguing about this one stupid year than spend another day without you.”
“You’re insane. We can’t just pick up—”
His eyes were wide, his breath wisping around the words, “Why not?”
Cash. Cash was why not.
In that second, Cash was all I could think about. Running my hand over the edge of my book, I felt the folded page of his letter poking out of it. I pictured his blue eyes and perfect curls. Felt the warmth of his arms around me. I thought of all those days he was at the hospital, bringing me books and nagging me about therapy and getting forehead-vein-bursting infuriated with me for trying to kill myself even after we broke up. Those times he knew what I did, what I had done, and loved me anyway. How he never made me feel guilty or less than. How he would do anything, how he did do anything, for me, even answering my call at 1:07 AM.
And Jake hadn’t even called me back.
But all that didn’t make me want to say no. Maybe that was it. I loved Jake how Cash loved me—that unquestioning, irrational, excruciating kind of love. I loved him when I shouldn’t, when I didn’t want to. Of course I loved Cash. It was just a different texture of love. Loving Jake was like drinking whiskey neat. It stung and warmed and made me do stupid things. Cash’s love was sweet, like his brown-sugar voice. Nothing about it hurt, but I didn’t crave it the same way. I didn’t think I ever could. And Cash was the kind of guy a girl could crave. It just wouldn’t be me.
Jake raised the ring between his finger and thumb. “Do you still want this?”
Swallowing over the lump in my throat, I reached my left hand out to Jake. I made sure to glare through the tears gathering in my lower lids. “Yeah,” I whispered. “I want to fight with you.”
Jake slipped the ring on my finger and kissed me, his rough fingers digging into my hair, then running along my jaw like they always did, ear to chin and back again. He tasted and felt better than I remembered, like I’d been starving this past year and finally had what I’d been hungering for.
I pulled away to say against his lips, “I’m going to win, you know that?”
His gaze fell from my eyes to my mouth where he breathed, “Not if I get naked.” He kissed me again before I could argue.
Upon feeling my jagged rib cage during our beach make-out session, Jake declared me malnourished and insisted on taking me to eat immediately. He ordered our usual at the harbor: a large basket of fish and chips, a bread bowl, and two glass bottles of cane sugar coke.
“I swear, I could put butter on everything,” I said as I took a bite of grilled sourdough bread.
“Did they not feed you at the hospital?”
“Nothing good. And LA doesn’t use enough butter in general.”
“Wait, so why were you hospitalized again?” He lowered his voice, “You tried to kill yourself?”
“Oh.” I swallowed. “No, I did that in the hospital. Got pretty close, too.” I nodded with pursed lips.
Jake covered my hand with his, staring at me with puppy-eyed sympathy. “Sawyer—”
Please, the last thing Jake should be feeling was sorry for me.
“I got hospitalized,” I interrupted, “because I beat a congressman almost to death when he tried to rape me. So it was that or prison.”
He shook his head to process this. “Are you serious?”
“He had to breathe through a tube for a while. And he definitely can’t have any more kids.”
“Sawyer!” he scolded.
“What? You taught me to go for the groin.”
He stared at me, the left corner of his lip quivering, fighting a smile.
I nudged his arm with my elbow. “You’re kind of proud.”
“A little.”
“I could have done without the six months of psych incarceration, but it was better than actual prison.”
“How’d you score that deal?”
“Good lawyer. There are these restitution laws for victims of child pornography, so that guy I assaulted had to reimburse me for my legal bills and my hospital stay because they finally got proof that he downloaded me.”
“Wait, the state didn’t pay for your hospital?”
“No, because my lawyer set me up in a really great place. Those state-run places are hell. I mean,” I took a bite of a fry, “that’s what some of the other crazies told me.”
He laughed. “So, are there others?”
“Crazies? Yeah—”
“No, I mean others they know have downloaded…”
“Who’ve been convicted you mean?”
Jake nodded.
“Yeah, about a dozen that I know of so far. Right now, I’m up to like $160,000 of the $3.7 million I’m eligible for.”
“Holy shit! Are you messing with me?”
I tipped my Coke bottle toward him. “The cost of ‘never touching a child.’”
“How did they come up with $3.7 million?”
“Something like lost wages, therapy, medication—stuff like that—for my whole life.”
“So you’re still getting help? Like therapy or whatever?”
I shrugged. “I just got out two days ago.”
“Yeah, but you should probably still see someone, right? It’s already paid for. And, I mean, you tried to commit suicide. That’s a big deal—”
“Et tu, Jake?” I smirked, then changed the subject. “You still live with the guys?”
He nodded as he swallowed his food. “Yeah. But I’m moving out soon.”
“Yeah?”
“I got a contract with Golden Boy Promotions, so I’m moving to a city with a real airport.”
Translation: Jake was now a professional fighter.
“Jake! Holy crap! Congratulations!”
He smiled before refocusing on his clam chowder. “Thanks.”
“Where are you moving?”
“Where do you want to live?”
I twisted the ring around my finger. I got to live with Jake again. “Well, I’d like to go back to school.”
“Yeah? In LA?”
“If you want to. I mean, you can wear your Henleys there.”
“I thought you said they don’t put enough butter in their food in LA.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like there’s a shortage. It’s just my friends are there, and I like the school. Also,” I breathed, “there’s this church I like.”
Jake stared at me like I was a stranger. “Church?”
“Yeah. It’s not so bad, actually.” I took a spoonful of chowder.
He smirked, and I wished I could have read his mind. “It must be really great if you went.”
“It is. You might like it.”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “I let my mom drag me to church this year.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Desperate times. It was right after you left, and I was too depressed to put up a fight. It wasn’t as bad as I thought.”
I nodded.
He tipped his chin toward me. “How’d you end up there?”
My eyes fell to my fish and chips as I picked up another fry. “Cash.” I didn’t know what I felt guiltier about: being with Cash this past year or letting Jake put that ring on my finger while the poor guy was still at my house. I was such a bitch. How’d I get either of these guys?
“Sounds like he looked out for you okay.”
I agreed. “He’s a great guy.”
“Were you guys together?”
“For a while.” I was quick to add, “We didn’t sleep together or anything, though. We broke up before I was hospitalized.”
Jake tilted his head slowly, thoughtfully. “Can I meet him?”
My forehead crinkled. In what planet would that be a good idea? Hey ex-boyfriend who still has feelings for me and stood by me through a ton of shit I threw at you, remember that guy I was totally hung up on? Guess what! We’re getting married, and he wants to meet you. Here he is!
“Why?”
“Because he was there for you when I should have been.” He took a sip of his coke. “Because he brought you back to me in one piece.”
“Okay, sure…if he’ll speak to me after today.” My stomach twisted. I wasn’t hungry anymore, so I pushed my chair back and stood. “Can you take me home?”
Jake dropped me off at my mom’s. I walked through the front door, keeping my left hand in my sweatshirt pocket. I found Cash in my room, packing up his clothes for our flight out that night.
“Hey.” A smile flickered across his face, but then disappeared when he saw my expression, the tension in my jaw, the tears welling in my lower lids. “You okay?”
I shook my head and tried to take a breath, but it was shallow and hopeless. All I could manage to say was, “I can’t go to Georgia with you.”
He stepped in front of me and tucked my hair behind my ear. “Why not?”
I couldn’t say the words. I just froze, standing there staring up at him. Finally, I pulled my left hand from my pocket and held it in front of me. “I’m sorry.” The tears fell down my cheeks. “I didn’t expect to see him. It just—”
His throat pulsed as he swallowed. “Sawyer, it’s okay.” But it wasn’t. He was choking on his words, running his hand over his flushing face.
“You’re not mad?”
He shook his head.
“You should be. I’d really feel better if you yelled at me or something. Please. Tell me how much you hate me and how terrible I am to you—”
He held my arms in his hands. “Stop. You love him, right?”
I agreed without words, my head bobbing, sparing him of just how much I loved Jake.
“Can I see?” His hand slid down to mine, and he examined the ring. “Emerald?”
I nodded at the sound of my old name.
His lips forced a smile. “Your eyes are better.”
I laughed and sobbed and buried my face in his chest. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he whispered as his lips brushed my hair.
I didn’t let go as I said, “Jake and I are going to move to LA so I can go back to school. So I’m still going to make fun of you for sucking at math, and you’re going to force me to listen to Taylor Swift. We’ll sit with each other in church and talk about how gross Dylan is. You’ll tell me what cute things Sue is doing, and Jo can stay with me anytime. And—”
“You’ll invite me to your wedding.”
I hugged him tighter. “Please be there.”
His head moved against my hair. “You’re not going to lose me, Sawyer.” But he and I both knew I already had. We could never be the same. I felt it when his arms loosened around me, when I watched him walk back toward his suitcase on the bed. That deepest part of our relationship was in the past. And it had to stay there.
Jake answered his door when I knocked that night, my suitcase in my hand behind me. “Still want me?”
He smiled. “I guess.”
I shoved his chest with both hands, but he grabbed my arms and wrapped himself around me, opening my lips with his, desperate and honest.
When Jake and I took my suitcase up to his room, I froze at the sight behind the door. It was all the same as I had left it that morning: the wrinkled blue comforter on the full-sized bed that jutted into the center of the room, the dresser underneath the cracked-open window, Jake’s open gym bag on the floor with boxing gloves and wrist wraps spilling out of it. I burst into tears.
“Hey, hey,” Jake whispered as he pulled me close. “What’s wrong?” His question, so simple, so sweet and right, was impossible to answer. Maybe it was that the entire last year collided into me that moment. Maybe it was that being here meant Cash was gone, that the parts of our hearts that had been joined were permanently severed. Maybe it was that my last minutes in this room were some of my worst, and I’d never imagined I’d be here again. I hadn’t realized how much I missed it.
Jake let me go behind the closed door. He pulled open his dresser drawer. With blurry vision, I saw him take out that army green Henley that somehow had survived so many years of wear. He peeled off my sweatshirt and then unbuttoned my pants, letting me step out of them. Then he handed me that soft shirt, and I pulled it on, sliding my bra out from underneath it.
We curled up together under his covers, my face tight against his chest as I wept. His calloused fingers traced up and down the curve of my back before trailing down my thigh, inching me closer with each touch. I took in the warmth of his hands and the bare skin of his torso, letting him soothe me after I hurt him, protect me after I deserted him. He held me until I was quiet, until I felt safe enough to fall asleep.
Jake and I married July 28, barefoot on the beach he proposed on. Our newfound faith meant no sex until Jake had a ring. So, three-week engagement it was.
Cash mailed us an early wedding present: a Polaroid camera with a note saying, Don’t let them win, Sawyer. I relented and hired a photographer for the wedding who agreed to leave all her fancy equipment at home.
Cash flew out for the wedding with Charlotte, his ex, in tow as his plus-one. She did what I should have done with Jake: showed up at Cash’s door, confessed she was still in love with him after their year apart, and told him that no one even compared to him.
No shit, idiot.
And Cash, being Cash, took her back. When I met her, saw them together, his arm around her, his lips on her cheek, it was weird, and not because I felt a twinge of jealousy. Envy, rather. He wasn’t mine to be jealous over anymore. He didn’t look at her the way he looked at me. She made him happy, but that was all she made him. I was his whiskey neat. I wasn’t sure Charlotte ever would be. But maybe that was okay. He deserved someone perfect, and she was pretty close to it. Or at least she wasn’t as selfish and unstable as I was. I was impossible to compete with in that department. Maybe that would be enough for him. I hoped it would be.
I’d love to say Jake and I lived happily ever after, that everything between us was easy and painless. But it turned out it was unreasonable for me to expect a seamless transition from disassociating during hookups with strangers to having passionate, sweaty sex with my husband.
On our wedding night, I only came back into my body in time to roll off Jake, who was apologizing for something. I was so livid with myself for not feeling any of it, for not even being there, that I rushed to the bathroom, shut myself in, and locked the door. I filled the bathtub and turned on the fan so Jake wouldn’t hear me crying. When I leaned my hands on the rim of the porcelain, I noticed semen dripping down my thigh. He hadn’t used a condom. Right. That was fine. We agreed not to since I had an IUD and was somehow disease-free.
It was fine. It was fine. It was fine! It was Jake all over me this time, not Jeff. Right? Still, I needed to get it off me. I sank into the hot water until it covered my face, weeping silently below the surface.
When I came up to gasp for air, Jake was knocking on the door. His voice was muffled when he said, “Sawyer, I’m sorry. It’s just been a long time, and I didn’t expect it to go so fast without the condom. Maybe we can do something else? Or try again—”
I climbed out and swung open the door, naked with a puddle forming at my feet. “Jake,” I breathed. “I’m not mad at you.” How could I ask the man who had forgiven me of so much to do something for me, to give me what I needed when I needed it because I hurt him? “Remember when we first started sleeping together, and I couldn’t really deal with…”
His face fell.
My eyes teared up. “I’m sorry.”
He glanced past me and then into my eyes. “Bath okay?”
I closed my eyes and nodded. “Thank you.”
Jake took my hand and led me to the tub. He sat behind me, his legs on either side of me, my back against his bare chest. I combed my fingers back through his hair down to the nape of his neck, letting him stroke up and down my arm with his rough fingertips. I shut my eyes to feel his warm tongue and lips on my throat, then his hands on my waist. “Is this okay?” he whispered in my ear.
I nodded and guided his hands over my breasts, then waited to see if my mind would flee the scene. It didn’t.
Jake reached my thighs, starting to ease his hands between them. “Still okay?”
“Um…” I shut my eyes tight, feeling his touch less as it slid toward my hips. “I think so.”
“Sawyer, you’re tensing up. We should take a break.” He shifted behind me, and I heard his arms rising from the water. I assumed he was getting out, pissed off at me for ruining his wedding night. Instead, his hands kneaded into my shoulders and neck.
I ran my wet hands over my face to wash off the tears and said, “Thank you. I’m sorry.”
Jake brushed his lips against my ear and murmured, “Stop that. I love you.”
I sighed and wrapped his arms around me so I could nuzzle into his shoulder, my cheek against his bicep. This would get easier. It had before.