"Wanna talk about it?" I bumped her shoulder with mine and the distance between us shrank, as did the years between us too. We were just two broken kids staring out into the dying sunlight carrying a heavy burden we didn't know what to do with. Mine was my heartbreak over her. Hers was a lot of grief.
She was quiet for a second and I gathered it wasn't good. "The doctors say he's not improving. The stroke did a lot of damage and they don't know how much function he'll get back even if he does wake up. Mom's barely eating. She won't leave his room. I had to practically force her to let me come open the diner today, and now I can't even keep the lights on."
"That's not your fault," I tell her. I refrained from putting an arm around her, but it was what I wanted to do.
"It feels that way."
"It's a missed bill, Sara. It happens. You'll pay it in the morning and everything'll be back up and running by the time the breakfast crowd shows up."
She nodded but didn't say anything, and I could tell the electric bill wasn't really what was weighing on her. It was everything else underneath it, the whole pile of things that'd been stacking up since her dad collapsed and probably long before that.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" I asked. "I'm not much use in a kitchen, but I can fix things and I can lift heavy stuff and I owe your family more than I'll ever be able to pay back."
"That's nice of you, Garret. But we'll manage."
"I know you will. I'm not saying you can't. I'm saying you don't have to do it alone."
She looked at me, and I could tell she wanted to say more but held back. "Danny and Andy are home. They're helping with the house and the shop and keeping an eye on things while I handle the diner. We've got it covered."
"Good. That's good." I paused. "So, does that mean you'll be around for a while?"
"For a while. Until things stabilize and Mom can get back on her feet."
"How long is a while?"
"I don't know. Weeks, maybe. However long it takes."
I rubbed my palms along my jeans and felt the familiar pull of wanting to say something that I'd been holding back for four years. She was sitting right next to me and there was no crowdand no club brothers and no reason to keep my mouth shut anymore except the fear of what would happen if I opened it.
"You know, I didn't wreck because of the gravel. I mean, the gravel is what laid the bike, but that's not why it happened." I stared straight ahead because I couldn't look at her while I said this. "It happened 'cause I went out to your dad's shop the day of the finals, when you didn't show up. He told me you'd skipped town and he wouldn't tell me where. I was so pissed, Sara. I was hurt and…"
Sara said nothing and it only made this harder. I had no idea what she was thinking now or what she'd been thinking back then when I was laid up and suffering and she hadn't come. She wanted more. I pushed her away, and if she really loved me, why hadn't she come?
But none of those things that I had wrestled with for months mattered right now. She was here now, and this was my only shot at fixing what I broke, if there was any way to fix it at all.
"I was angry because I knew I'd messed up. I knew it the night you ended things, and I knew it every day after that. I was too proud and stupid to do anything about it. When I found out you were gone, I realized I'd waited too long, and I couldn't handle it. So I rode like an idiot and it almost killed me."
"Garret—"
"I'm not done." I turned and looked at her. Her eyes were wet with tears but they weren't falling yet. "I spent three months in that hospital bed with nothing to do but think about what I should've said to you that I didn't. And then I spent four years after that trying to convince myself I was over it, and I'm not. I never was."
She bit the inside of her cheek and looked away from me toward the parking lot. "I was really hurt, Crank." I knew she used that name for me when she was angry, and I didn't blame her for being upset. "You told me?—"
"I know what I told you. And I was wrong."
"You can't just say that to me after four years." Now there were tears on her cheeks as she faced me again.
"I know that too. But you have to forgive me. I've run out of body parts I'm willing to break over this."
She almost laughed at that. It came out as a breath through her nose that she tried to stop but couldn't, and when she looked back at me her eyes were still teary, though now she didn't look angry. Sara had sadness in her eyes.
"I couldn't stop thinking about you, Sara, not once. And I'm sitting here right now trying real hard not to kiss you, because I don't know if you'd want me to and I'm not sure I could take it if you said no."
She was quiet for a long time. Long enough that I started to think I'd said too much and ruined whatever thin thread was still holding us together. Then she wiped her cheek with the back of her hand and looked down at the step between us.
"Then just do it."
She said it quietly, almost under her breath, and for a second I wasn't sure I'd heard her right. But then she looked up at me and there was a raw emotion there I hadn't seen since the last time I'd had her in my arms. I felt like I could breathe again for the first time in four years.
