Page 5 of Unravel Me

“Hmm. I like butterfly better. I’m Sawyer Hayes.”

I went back to Mrs. Murray my senior year of high school and thanked her for sitting my future wife next to me that day. She didn’t remember doing that of course, but I never forgot it. She sat us together and changed my life for the better. Or so I had thought.

As I sit here alone as dusk draws in, with no one but myself for company, I can’t help but wonder about her. In the decade since I’ve seen her, I’ve never been able to completely let her go. One way or another she always slips back into my thoughts.

A month after we graduated high school, her phone was shut off when I tried to call. My heart began to race and I knew something was very, very wrong. Dallas and I drove over to her house and her mom met us at the door.

“Hey, Ms. Jane, is Ivy home? Her phone says it’s been disconnected and it’s worrying me.”

“Sawyer, Dallas. Ivy left last night.”

I take a step back from the door, unsure what her statement means. Ivy wouldn’t just leave without telling me. Her phone is off, that’s it. My brother looks me over, concern etched into his face. What the hell is going on?

“I don’t understand. What do you mean she left? Where did she go?”

“She left, Sawyer. She doesn’t live here anymore. I can’t tell you where she is, but she won’t be coming back.”

Her words pierce me like a thousand shards of glass. I rub the spot on my chest where my heart is supposed to sit, before falling onto my knees.

“Shit. Sawyer. Are you okay?” my brother says as he reaches for me.

“I need more information, please. What are you talking about? Ivy wouldn’t leave me. What do you mean she’s never coming back? Please, Ms. Jane. Tell me.”

I’m desperate. I have to understand what’s going on and where my girl is. She wouldn’t do this.

“I don’t owe you an explanation, Sawyer. Look, I appreciate you being good to my daughter all these years, but now it’s time for her to live her own life. She’s left Aspen Ridge and she won’t ever return. This is childhood love. You’ll move on from her.”

I watch as Ivy’s cold, emotionless mother turns and shuts the door in my face as my world crashes down around me, the weight crushing my existence and everything I thought was real.

Agony. That’s what this feeling is.

I can’t breathe. This can’t be real. This has to be a nightmare.

I vaguely hear Dallas, but his voice is muffled like he’s under water.

Grasping at my brother’s arm, I frantically lift myself to stand. I stumble forward, banging my fist on the front door.

“Ms. Jane! You can’t do this to me! Please! I need to know if she’s okay. I need to know where she is! Please!!”

“Sawyer, come on, let’s go talk to Dad. Dad will help. We’ll figure this out.”

“I can’t. Ms. Jane! Open the door! Please! Dallas, I can’t live without her. Where the fuck is she? I need her, Dallas. I love her. Tell me where the fuck she is!”

“I know. Let’s get to Dad. Get to the car. I’ve got you.”

Dallas drags me to the car, taking the majority of my weight. My legs don’t work the way they’re supposed to. I sit in the passenger seat of my truck and am engulfed in her scent. She’s in this truck as much as I am. I rub my fist hard against my chest again, knowing that if there’s no Ivy, there’s no heart behind my ribs.

I did everything I could to look for her after she left, but I haven’t been able to find her. And I’ve really tried. My parents got involved and I begged her mother to tell me where she was so many times that she threatened my father she’d call the police if he didn’t get me under control.

She took Ivy’s secret to her grave.

When her parents passed away fifteen months ago, I waited with bated breath for her to come back. I thought for sure she would at least attend their funeral. The day of, I made myself physically sick with nerves waiting for her to show her face. When she didn’t attend the service, I slept in my car at the cemetery because I couldn’t take the chance of missing her sneaking in to say her goodbyes.

She never showed.

My best friend Reid’s dad handled the estate, and Ivy’s contact information was luckily in her parents’ will. He notified her of their passing and her inheritance of the house. But he refused to give me the information for privacy reasons. I was furious. I drank myself into an angry stupor the day after the funeral. Reid and Dallas had to forcibly drive my ass home and put me to bed after I showed up drunk to Reid’s dad’s hotel room demanding he give me her number and tell me where she was.

She has no social media and I’ve never been able to find her online. I considered hiring a PI on more than one occasion, especially because we’ve got one living in AR, but there’s a partof me that accepts that she doesn’t want to be found. That part wars with the other side of me that’s furious at her still.

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