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“Exactly, orbited her. I like that,” I agreed, pulling Sawyer closer.
“When we hit high school, we became more than friends. She was never a good sleeper so she used to sneak into my bedroom window at night. Said she always slept better with me, but I don’t think that was true because when I’d wake up in the middle of the night she was always either staring at the ceiling or playing on her phone or pacing the room.” I sighed and my throat started to tighten.
“I should’ve seen the signs,” I continued. “We’d just graduated. Had plans to move in together. We partied a lot, but we were teenagers just doing teenage shit. Then our Friday night partying turned into every single night partying. When I suggested we slow down, she left me.” I shook my head as if I still couldn’t believe it and sometimes I couldn’t. “Four fucking years together and she left me because I didn’t want to party like an 80’s hair-band on a Tuesday night anymore.” I looked down to where my hands were resting high on Sawyer’s thighs.
She sat up and wrapped her arms around my waist, pressing her cheek to my bare chest.
“Then what happened?” she asked, the moonlight highlighted the freckles on her cheeks. Not being able to help myself, I leaned over and brushed my lips across them before remembering she’d asked me a question.
“Then Sterling happened,” I growled. “I guess he didn’t have a problem with her partying because suddenly she went from drinking every day to being dependent on oxys. “
Sawyer looked at me with a confused expression on her face.
&n
bsp; “Painkillers,” I clarified. “She even came around asking me if I could get them for her. Asked Miller too.”
“What did you do?”
“I suggested she go to rehab,” I said, remembering how pissed off Jackie was when I’d brought it up the first time. And second. And third. And every time after that.
“Did she go?” Sawyer asked, sounding as hopeful as I did in the beginning.
I sighed and dropped my head. “No. No, she didn’t. So, I did the next best thing.” I smiled at the memory.
“Which was what?”
“I locked her in my house for a week,” I said, proudly.
“You didn’t,” Sawyer gasped.
“I did. I’d do it all over again, too because after that she was clean. At least for a while. We got back together. Moved in together, and I proposed. She said yes.” My throat started to close up and I coughed into my fist.
“You don’t have to keep going,” Sawyer said, sensing my unease.
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s just that I haven’t talked about her in a long time.”
I took a deep breath. “She bought all these bridal magazines. She was happy to be wedding planning. We both were. I guess in all of the excitement I missed the signs. She wasn’t sleeping again. Up all hours of the night, and when she did sleep she’d sleep all day. I thought she was just worn out from being up all night. Or that she had a lot on her mind with the wedding.”
I steeled myself for what I was about to say next. Sawyer sensed my unease and sat up, wrapping her arms and legs around me.
“Then one night I woke up and she was gone. Something just didn’t feel right. I called Josh and Miller and we went out looking for her. I was the one who found her.” I took a deep steadying breath that shook on the way in. “At the water park. At the top of the big slide.”
“She…fell?” Sawyer asked hesitantly, her legs tightening around my waist.
“She left a note at the top of the slide.” My voice a raspy staccato. I inhaled Sawyer’s sweet scent, needing to breathe her in, feel more of her so I could continue. “She waited until I got there, like she wanted me to see her do it. She wanted me to see her… jump.”
Sawyer
Finn held me tighter.
“What did you do?” I asked, my own voice a breathy whisper. My heart broke for him. I felt the anguish in his every word as if the story he was telling was my own. And in some ways, it might as well have been.
In others, it was in NO WAY the same. I didn’t witness Mother end her life the way he’d watched Jackie end hers. I couldn’t begin to imagine.
More and more I was understanding the reasoning for the way Finn reacted to things. To the way he treated me.
I was understanding Finn.
He stroked the back of my hair. “She jumped off the back of the slide, the side where the swamp runs underneath. I ran and dove into the water where she landed, but I couldn’t find her. Miller and Josh too. We spent hours after it went dark combing every inch of the water long after the search teams and police had left. When they came to show me the suicide note they’d found at the top of the slide, at first I couldn’t believe it. Even though, looking back on her behavior, I should’ve believed it. The signs were there. They were there long before that day. Years before.”
“Even after all that I still spent weeks on my boat searching for her. I was crazed with this idea that she could somehow be alive in the swamp, but just lost.” He shook his head against me, wiping the wetness of his tears against my skin. “Jackie was born and raised here. She knew those waters better than most. As kids, we spent every hour we weren’t in school in that swamp. But I kept searching anyway. That’s how I got this.” Finn grabbed my wrist and gently guided my fingers to trace the raised white scar above his eye that ran from his eyebrow into his hairline. “Ran my boat so fast without using a spotlight that I didn’t even see the low hanging branch. I was lucky it wasn’t more.”
Every wall I’d ever built to keep him out came crumbling down and as he spoke a bridge was built with direct access to everything I ever had to offer.
“Why did Sterling try and make it seem like her death was your fault?” I asked.
“He blames me for convincing her to get sober and for her leaving him to come back to me,” Finn explained. “He thinks if I let her do what she wanted and stopped making her feel guilty about her extreme upswings and downswings then she wouldn’t have wanted to kill herself.”
“That’s why you came out here,” I said, it wasn’t a question.
“That’s why I came out here,” Finn agreed. “Everything reminded me of her. Every person. I just wanted to be alone, so I came out here,” he said, searching my eyes and cupping my face with his hand. “And then you came around…”
“And blasted a hole right through your plans to be the grumpy hermit who lived in the swamp,” I finished for him.
Finn’s smile was tight as first. Pained. “No, then you came around.” He leaned down and brushed his lips over mine. His smile grew. The pain lifted. The lines on his face straightened. “You made me realize I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
Chapter Thirty
Sawyer
“Hey, wake up,” Finn said, lightly shaking me into consciousness. I sat up and rubbed my eyes.
Finn grabbed my hand and yanked me off the bed. “Come on. I want to show you something.” He tugged me through the front door. I squinted under the glow of the sun appearing over the trees.
“I have to get dressed,” I said, sleepily.
“What you have on is fine. Just throw on some boots.”
I brushed my teeth and threw on my boots. I also took a second to pull my crazy bed-hair into a messy bun on the top of my head.
The second I opened the front door, Finn stepped up to meet me on top of the deck and bent down, scooping me over his shoulders and carrying me over to his Bronco.
Finn looked up to the early morning sky. “Storm is coming.”
“You may not want to pursue a career as a weatherman,” I mumbled looking up at the same sky only to see clear blue and cloud free.
“Well.” Finn hoisted me up into the Bronco like I weighed nothing. I held my breath so I wouldn’t moan at the feel of his fingers digging into my skin. “The breeze is picking up, plus, I have this filling in the back of my mouth that aches when bad weather is about to come through.” He opened his mouth and pointed to something in the back I couldn’t see.
“Really?”
Maybe Finn was more off his marbles than I’d originally thought.
“No not really, but there is this one other way I know, but it’s a secret, you can’t tell anyone,” he whispered, looking around to see if anyone was around to hear him.
“What’s that?” I whispered back.
He crooked his finger and I leaned over the center console and
