Page 48 of Sawyer

“Fairbanks,” he says.

Suddenly, he isn’t laughing anymore.

Fairbanks.

My smile fades, too.

It’s such a pretty portmanteau—fair + banks—but it’s a thief, and a liar, and a separator of people who have no business being apart.

“Don’t go,” he says suddenly, the words coming out in a desperate rush. His eyes scan my face. He leans down to press his lips to mine. “Don’t go back to Fairbanks.”

“And do what instead?”

“Stay here.”

“After the summer?”

“Why not? Get a job. Find a place to live.”

“That’s not the plan, Sawyer,” I tell him, lying back down on his chest.Thump-thump. Thump-thump. “I have to go back to college and finish my degree.”

“Fine. Go back to college, but…don’t go back to him,” he whispers.

“Sawyer…”

“He hurt you.”

“He’s sorry.”

Hesayshe’s sorry.

He’s texted it. And spoken it over voicemail. And promised me in twenty different ways that it will never happen again. Clark arrived in Fairbanks for lacrosse last week, and my father took him out for dinner.

“He’s sorry,” my father told me. “Listen, young bucks make stupid mistakes. You’ve got to forgive him, Ivy. Move on from that unfortunate incident. You could have a beautiful life together.”

Speaking of my father, his plane will arrive at the Skagway airport on Friday morning at eight a.m. to pick me up, and I will touch down in Fairbanks four hours later.

“Ivy, please—”

I lean up and place my fingers over his lips, my expression as severe as I can make it.

“You promised,” I remind him, quoting myself, “Super casual. Nothing serious. I leave for Fairbanks at the end of the summer.Remember?You promised.”

And if you can’t be strong, Sawyer, how can I?

He turns his head away from me, and my fingers are left suspended, anchorless, in mid-air. I lower them back to his chest. I close my eyes. They’re burning too much to stay open.

It’s been almost three months since our progressive date, and we’ve had sex a hundred times since then. I’ve spent hours curled up naked beside him, and he’s never broached the subject of Clark or Fairbanks or the future of us. Never. Not once. He kept his promise until now, and even now, he hasn’t shared his feelings for me, only asked me not to go back to Clark.

Meanwhile, I’ve fallen in love with him.

I’m in love with Sawyer Stewart.

He’s funny and beautiful, he’s spontaneous and adventurous and fun. (But I always knew these things about him.) What I didn’t know until this summer is how he’d seize my eyes and hold them when he moved inside of me. I didn’t know the sweet sound of possession that would slip from his lips as he sank into my body. I didn’t know the tenderness I would feel when he held me, when he kissed me, when he touched me with worshipful reverence. I didn’t know how it would feel to fit together with someone so perfectly, that you had no idea where your body ended and his began.

I started this summer believing that we could be friends with benefits, and I will end this summer realizing that Sawyer is the love of my short life.

And still, I will leave him.

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