Page 16 of Sawyer

“I think you could,” I tell him, thinking I’m entitled to a little fun as long as I’m staying in Skagway. “See you Thursday.”

Chapter 3

Sawyer

Turns out Reeve was right.Wuthering Heightsis a pretty good book, if not a little fucked up.

Take the main guy…Heathcliff. He’s adopted off the street as a little kid and taken to this nice house in the country (calledWuthering Heightslike the book) by this well-intentioned man, Mr. Earnshaw. From the get-go, the Earnshaw’s daughter, Catherine, loves him…andnotlike a brother.

For the next ten years or so, Catherine and Heathcliff go horseback riding and walk around the moors picking flowers and kissing and being wild. Eventually, the nice father dies, and the mean son takes over the household, demoting Heathcliff from adopted brother to stable boy. Meanwhile, Heathcliff and Catherine are going at it secretly, spending every second together, super intense and super in love. Like, so in love, they say they’d rather die than be apart, although it turns out Heathcliff means it more than Catherine does.

Because one day, Catherine and Heathcliff are running around the countryside, making mischief, per usual, and Catherine gets injured. She’s rescued by this local rich guy, Edgar, who owns this really nice house nearby. She stays at Edgar’s house to get well, and when she goes home to Wuthering Heights, she’s all superior and hoity-toity. Like, she’ll barely give Heathcliff, who’s supposed to be her one true love, the time of day. Eventually, Edgar proposes, and Catherine accepts. She says some really mean shit about how being with Heathcliff would “debase” her. He overhears it, and it fucks with his head, and he runs away from Wuthering Heights. (I felt for the guy.For real. It sucks when you think someone is into you only to find out that they’re not. It fucking hurts.)

A few years later, Catherine’s married to Edgar and, like, seems pretty happy, even though she always said that she was madly in love with Heathcliff. Guess who returns to town? Yep. Heathcliff. So, it turns out he went to the city and made his fortune, and then he bought Wuthering Heights’s mortgage from the bank. So Heathcliff is back, and Catherine is married, but Heathcliff is still trying to make a play for her.

Eventually Catherine has a baby, which she names Cathy (ten points for originality there, folks) but the pregnancy weakens her so much that she dies. As she’s dying, Heathcliff rushes to her bedside, and he’s all pissed at her for dying because she is his life and his soul, and he can’t live without her. He begs her to haunt him for the rest of his life as long as she never leaves him alone. (Not gonna lie, it was a totally bonkers speech, but it pushed my buttons. What can I say? I have an actual heart.) So, she does. She haunts him. Then, he dies, like twenty years later, and they can finally be together.

Whew.

It’s weird and dark and angry and passionate, and you have to wonder a little bit about the woman who wrote it. She couldn’t have had a real happy love life, but it’s still a compelling story almost 200 years later, so there’s that.

I readWuthering Heightsin three days, during which time I felt a lot like Heathcliff to Ivy’s Catherine and Clark’s Edgar. I mean, Ivy never pledged her undying devotion to me, but we fooled around every summer from the time we were sixteen, and I’vealwayshad feelings for her.

Not to mention…the summer we turned twenty-one, between her junior and senior years of college, when she and Clark were on a “break?” We did a lot more than fool around. We couldn’t keep our hands off of each other. We could get enoughof each other. We spent hours and hours in her bedroom over the Kozy Kone.

And then the summer ended. Ivy texted—texted!—me goodbye, like three months of passionate fucking was nothing, went back to UAF, and almost immediately got back together withhim.

The next time I saw her in May, she was engaged.

Now, I didn’t fly into a rage and move to Anchorage to “make my fortune” (but for the record, I’d like to know howthatworks) and buy the mortgage on Clark’s Juneau mansion so I could kick him out, but I still related to Heathcliff’s feelings as I was reading. I loved Ivy Caswell. I probably always had. How did I figure that out? Because knowing she was engaged to someone else and lost to me forever was…agony.

I spent the summer avoiding her, nursed a bruised heart with beer and scotch, forced myself to start dating again and thought I’d seen the last of her in September. But now, she’s back in Skagway. My gap-toothed best friend. My teenage dream. My twenty-one-year-old lover. And even though I haven’t laid next to her for more than a year, I couldn’t help how I felt when I saw her in the IGA last Saturday. Iwantedher. I want her so badly, it hurts. It aches. I wish Ididn’thave these feelings, but there’s no denying that I do.

So here I am, walking into the Fraternal Order of Eagles building in downtown Skagway on a Thursday night in October to audition for “Wuthering Heights”…all for propinquity, so that I get more time with Ivy. So that I can figure out—once and for all—if what I feel for her is love…and if there’s a possible us in the history of yesterday and the dream of tomorrow.

“Sawyer Stewart!” booms Bruce from the stage. “My god! Are you actuallyhere,or am I dreaming?”

My cheeks flush hot from his attention, and I’m grateful for the dim light of the theater. I make my way down the aisle to where a group of a dozen folks are sitting in the first few rows.

“I’m here,” I say, sliding into an aisle seat on the left side of the theater. “Thought I’d check this out.”

I recognize everyone else in the theater—a couple of teachers, some friends of my dad, and Vera, the police dispatcher. I nod hello to this Australian guy, Wyatt, who’s in his 30s or 40s, and his girlfriend, Layla, who’s Neena’s older sister. Besidesme, I think they’re the youngest two people—No…wait! Correction—besidesus. In the middle of the third row, scrunched way down in her seat, I spy a redhead who—unlike everyone else in the little theater—hasn’t turned around to look at me.Ivy. She’s here. My stupid heart leaps.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” says Bruce clapping his hands with excitement, “I don’t want to jinx anything, but I believe our Heathcliff may have just stepped into the room!”

I don’t know about that. I’ve never been in a play before. Honestly, I don’t want a big part. I just sorta thought I could be a tree or something.

Bruce continues a speech he was making about how community theater is just for fun, so no one should be nervous about auditioning, but that every part matters, and every rehearsal is important. I hear his words, but I’m mostly just staring at the back of Ivy’s head, wondering what she’s thinking. I know she likes theater. She did a few plays in college, and she once told me that she loved attending concerts and plays during her time in Vancouver.

“…so without further ado, let’s get started!” Bruce gestures to someone off-stage, and I’m totally shocked when two familiar faces step into the limelight beside him. “Meetmyassistants andyourstage managers, McKenna and Reeve Stewart!”

My eyes connect with McKenna’s first. She grins at me with a wink. When I slide my eyes to Reeve, she’s too busy basking in applause to wave at me.

I had no idea I’d be running into family tonight. To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about it.

“Keep that applause going for our set designer, Aaron Adams!”

Joe’s deputy, Officer Adams, steps onto the stage beside Reeve, who glances at him with thinly-veiled disdain before taking a step closer to McKenna. Aaron, on the other hand, looks wistful, then hurt, then a little pissed. Huh. Reeve and Aaron. I hadn’t noticed before now, but there’s definitely something going on between those two…I wonder if Aaron’s reasons for doing this show are similar to mine.

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