Page 103 of A Me and You Thing
“Thanks. I needed to hear that.”
Claire takes a sip of ice water. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I skip ahead and conjure up the nerve to ask what I really want to know. “How fast did it happen?”
“You know?” my mom gasps.
“About Sawyer and Bree? Yes. I overheard them talking last night. If I hadn’t, I doubt anyone would have told me anything.”
“Sawyer wanted to break it to you gently,” Mom says, covering my hand with hers. “He was worried it would push you over the edge. We all were.”
Yesterday I would’ve said there is no edge remotely near me. Today, I can see the edge. I might even be standing on it. “How fast?” I repeat.
“Not fast at all, dear. Sawyer had a hard time moving on.” Claire briefly touches my shoulder, her bracelets dangling. “I’ve never seen him so unhappy. The first year, he was a walking lump of misery. I mean, you couldn’t be around him and not feel the weight on his shoulders. It devastated him to lose you. Please know that.”
Mom brushes the hair from my face, like she did when I was a kid. Her fingers linger for just a moment on my scar. “Sawyer was oblivious for so long, Quinn. It took him forever to notice Bree or to even think of her as anything other than your best friend and the girls’ nanny. It’s not what you think.”
They don’t know about the forty-five minutes he spent in her room this morning while I sat downstairs listening. I’m still spooked by the experience. Even though I spent the time with my precious baby girls, it was torture.
Mom continues to console me. “I know this is hard, but Sawyer loves you, Quinn. He spent almost two weeks in Nicaragua searching for you everywhere. He refused to give up and wouldn’t listen to anyone until he saw for himself that you were gone.”
“He was there for two weeks searching for me?” I knew he’d been there, but I had no idea it’d been almost two weeks.
“Yes. He came home a broken man. Now that you’re home, it’s like... it’s like he’s...” My mother can’t find the right words.
Claire finishes her sentence for her. “He’s a new man. I saw it immediately in the hospital. It’s like my son came back to me.”
Why can’t I see it? I see a man who’s hot and cold. That alone tells me he’s not as sure about what he wants as he professes. “How fast?” I ask again.
Claire clears her throat. “They’ve only been dating for about four months, Quinn. I know because Sawyer agonized over the decision. Even though she’s been living in this house nearly the entire time, nothing happened between them until recently.”
“Only four months? But they’re getting married?”
Claire shrugs. “The marriage part did happen quickly.” Then she mumbles, “Too quickly if you ask me. But nobody did.”
The French doors open, and out walks Sawyer and Bree. The girls run to the playset, clearly not bothered by their shots. Sawyer and Bree stand together, shoulder to shoulder, looking very much like a couple.
I stand up at their arrival, my natural instinct to approach Sawyer, to hug him, to kiss him.
Then I stop. I can do none of those things because Bree is here. I’m home, he’s my husband, yet I can’t be with him. This is wrong. All wrong.
Sawyer looks at me with longing in his eyes. I see it. I feel it. It’s his Fletcher Christian gaze. He takes one step forward, then stops as well. I stand there, barefoot, feeling like a little girl as the breeze blows my blond hair around my face. The white sundress billows around me, shining brightly in the sun.
He doesn’t approach me, so I return to my seat. The most horrific sadness overwhelms me. I want Sawyer. My world is upside down and sideways. I need him to hold me, to ground me, to let me know everything is all right.
But when Bree sits down on the picnic bench, he sits next to her. There’s only one other empty chair, but why is it that he can’t approach me, but he can sit next to Bree? Why is this all about Bree? What about my feelings? What about me? I’m HOME.Love me. Be with me.
“How’d they do, Bree?” Claire asks.
“They did great, just as brave as ever. They closed their eyes and squeezed my hand as tight as they could. They’re so sweet. Of course, the Care Bear bandage afterwards made all the pain go away. Go figure. I need some Care Bear bandages for myself.”
She glances at me as she makes her remark, as though I’m the source of her pain. Sawyer even pats her hand to comfort her.
My heart starts to pound in my chest. I can’t do this.
Mom glances at me. The sign of affection was not lost on her. “Did you, uh, give them some Tylenol?”
“We did, right before we came out here. I held their hands and Sawyer squirted it in their mouths with a syringe. They don’t fight medicine like they used to.”
