Page 21 of The Inevitable Us

Rosalie

Igazearoundtheunfamiliar room, blinking as I rub the sleep from my eyes. Waking up in a new place is something I’ve done my entire life. I often have to take a brief moment just as I wake up to remember where I am.

My new home is lovely with all of the sunlight and the beautiful view, but it needs something. It reminds me of the hotels we sometimes stayed at. Not the beautiful luxury ones we often stayed at while touring, but the small roadside ones we stayed in when we traveled as a family for fun. The bodyguards would go into the office, rent a couple of adjoining rooms for us, and come back with the keys before sneaking Dad into a room so that he could travel with us unnoticed.

We’d done a lot of family vacations this way, traveling by car. We always brought two bodyguards, usually Sawyer and Creekman, driving two large SUVs to fit us all. When Josie and Nate would start bickering in the back, as they always did, Mom and Dad would switch out who rode in which vehicle. They always left Rory and me together when we were little as if Mom and Dad were afraid to separate us since we’re twins. Rory and I were one another’s best friends, and we shared a special bond, but we didn’t feel the need to be in one another’s pockets as some twins do.

Once on a road trip to the Grand Canyon, my brothers were in trouble with Mom and Dad for acting up in a roadside diner. When we loaded back up to start our drive again, they’d made the boys ride together with my parents and Creekman. Since Rory and I were never really separated, I would have to ride in the crowded van with all the boys. I’d asked to ride in the second vehicle, preferring to be with Sawyer, who was driving. My parents looked at one another, startled when I asked, but my mother allowed it. When I went to retrieve my video game and a small throw blanket from inside, Rory shot me a hurt look but didn’t say anything.

In the second van, Josie was already sprawled out on the middle bench seat with all of her stuff. Colored pencils sat neatly arranged next to a spiral notebook she used for her drawings. A metal thermos of water and her soda from lunch sat in a plastic cup, taking up both the cup holders in the back. She’d shot me a warning stink eye, gesturing towards the back bench. “Don’t even think about it; I have to work on my drawings,” she’d said with a scowl.

I’d caught Sawyer’s glance in the rearview mirror. My blanket wrapped around my body, I opened the front passenger seat and climbed in, shooting Sawyer a snaggletooth braces smile that asked him to let me get away with it.

His hands on the steering wheel, he’d looked over at me with a shake of the head. “You know, Little Miss, you’re supposed to ride in the back still.”

Biting my lip, I’d begged, “Please, Sawyer? There aren’t any cars around for miles and miles.” We were in the middle of the New Mexico desert, with few cars and only sand for miles. Looking to the side for a moment, he’d grabbed his sunglasses from the console. “Ok fine. But just this once.”

I smiled victoriously as I buckled my seatbelt, happy to be with Sawyer. Josie had buried her nose in her sketchbook the next four hours we drove, but Sawyer and I played road trip games as we drove down the straight, vacant highway.

“Would you rather be able to read minds or be invisible?” Sawyer asked when it was his turn at the game.

“Read minds!” I’d said without question. I’d wondered most of the last few hours what Sawyer was thinking. As the third of four children, I already often felt invisible as it was.

“Would you rather….jump out of a plane or ride a scary roller coaster?” I asked.

“I have jumped out of an airplane many times. I was a medic in the Army.” He shoots me a slight glance before his eyes go back to the road. I can see the gun all the bodyguards wear tucked under his ever-present suit jacket.

“Is that where you learned how to shoot a gun?”

“No, my Dad taught my sister Angelique and me.”

“You have a sister?” I said, happy to get such a small detail about Sawyer’s life, glancing back at my own wretched big sister. She never plays with me, saying I’m a baby.

“I have a sister. Younger, and lots of cousins.”

Suddenly I remembered Brody. His uncle had several children of his own. A boy named Billy and a younger daughter named Daisy. They’re Sawyer’s cousins. “I didn’t know you had such a big family. Do they live in Nashville?”

“No, Little Miss, they all live a couple hours away. Hey. It’s my turn, isn’t it? Would you rather sing on stage like your dad or be an actress?”

Scrunching up my nose, I’d answered point blank. “Neither. I don’t want to be famous. When you’re famous, you have to tell people everywhere you go and have cameras everywhere. You’re never alone.”

“What about the bodyguards? Do you not like that we have to be around?” he asked jovially.

I feel my face warming when I answer, “It’s not so bad having you around to keep us safe.”

I feel my eyes prickle at the memory of my time with Sawyer. You learn a lot about someone driving with them for long periods. I learned he was very tidy, and that he’d learned to drive on his father’s old pickup truck. He’d said it was his first vehicle and that he’d kept it until he was stationed overseas in the Army.

Rory had been upset with me that night and refused to play in the hotel pool with me. Still, I’d had Sawyer for a few hours and learned more about him than I had in the decade before that he’d worked for my father.

Sitting freshly showered on the couch, I look around the cardboard boxes still full and try to decide what I want to do on my first day living alone. I need to find coffee and groceries.

Grabbing my keys, I walk out the door and look up at the security camera Sawyer installed yesterday with a smile. If he said he made it nonfunctioning, I believe him. He has no reason to lie. It didn’t matter anyway since the camera or the pretense of one is only there to pacify my parents. I’m much more pacified without it.

“Holdthedoor!”Iyell, my hands feeling as if they would fall off from the heavy plastic bags I’m carrying. I scurry inside, trying to adjust the groceries so that they don’t bite into my hands so badly.

“What floor?” a middle-aged lady asks, noticing my full hands.

“Oh, ummm, three, please?” I respond, breathless from my jog from the parking lot with my heavy load.

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