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"I—"
"I told you to shut up!" Sawyer yelled. "Why?" he asked as he waved the tablet around. I opened my mouth to respond but then snapped it shut again because I had no clue if he really wanted an answer or not.
When it was clear that he was waiting for me to respond, I said, "I was wrong. Last night… I was just wrong."
"Show me the note!"
"Note?" I said with a shake of my head. "What note? I don't—"
"Show it to me!"
Sawyer was practically shaking with rage. I wasn't afraid of him, but for him. This wasn't who he was. I knew that for a fact. He wasn't someone who flew off the handle or lost his temper. Whatever was bothering him was big. I thought desperately back to the night before. "Note," I murmured with a shake of my head and then it hit me. "I wrote a note to Newt."
"What?"
I looked around my nightstand. I had to shift on the bed to reach the note which Newt had brought with him when he’d come to my room this morning. "Newt… he must've heard someone saying I wouldn't help Apollo last night because when I got to my room, he put this note under the door."
I handed the note to Sawyer. He seemed reluctant to approach me, but it wasn't like I could take the note to him. He finally stepped forward and took it. His eyes scanned the note. His silence was making me more and more nervous.
"It's an ‘I'm sorry’ note," Sawyer said softly. His tone had a strange cadence to it, like he was confused. But that didn't make any sense.
"Yeah, I haven't exactly been nice to the kid. I guess I didn't really realize how scared of me he was until last night. I just wanted to… make things right, I guess," I explained. When Sawyer didn't say anything, I shook my head. I opened my mouth to ask him what was going on when it suddenly hit me.
Hard.
"You thought it was a different kind of note," I murmured. Suddenly, his behavior when he burst into the room made sense. He’d been upset because he thought…
"Fuck," I whispered.
I was dimly aware of Sawyer moving to the window and settling on the window seat. His position meant I couldn't see him without looking over my shoulder, but I was strangely okay with that. The idea that the man had actually believed I'd hurt myself was sobering in so many ways. And I didn't want to know what it meant when it came to that kiss.
"I don't understand you," Sawyer remarked sadly.
"Join the club," I muttered. I suddenly felt cold, and it had nothing to do with the fact that I'd lost my T-shirt during the impromptu make-out session. I searched for it on the bed and then pulled it over my head as if the thin material could somehow shield me from the reality I was trying to deal with.
"Last night," Sawyer said. "What was last night about?"
I sighed because there was just no way around this. And truth be told, I was tired of the back-and-forth. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I admitted.
"Try me," Sawyer responded, his voice firm.
I was glad I wasn't facing him, but my nerves got the better of me, so as I spoke, I began pinning my jeans around my stumps so that they wouldn't get caught up in the workings of the wheelchair. "I wanted another chance with you."
Sawyer didn't respond to my admission, so I was forced to continue. Heat suffused my cheeks as I said, "I wanted to spend more time with you so that you'd see I wasn't always such an asshole." I shook my head because the words sounded ridiculous as I said them. "Don't ask me for more than that," I warned. "Not every question has an answer."
I reached for my wheelchair and maneuvered it so I could shift my body into it. "I would've taught everybody else the hand signals too. And I didn't mean that shit I said about the dog being put down."
"I think part of you did," Sawyer said.
His comment hurt but only because he was right. I told myself just to be quiet, to stay silent and this would be over. But my brain and my mouth didn't seem to be on the same page. "He'll never be able to go back to the life he had. I guess sometimes it seems kinder not to force him to accept a future he isn’t ready for."
I waited for Sawyer to say something, anything, but he didn't. He wanted the truth and he'd gotten it. The need to escape my own words was like needles piercing my skin. Without a word, I rolled my chair toward the door. I had no clue where I was going but it didn't really matter, as long as I got away from the man who had even a lower opinion of me than he had before.
