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WILLOW
“Istill can't believe my eyes,” I confess to Sarah after reading the email a few times. It’s still the same. Nothing has changed. Do I expect it to?
Turning to her, I can’t help but laugh—high-pitched, a little giddy. “I mean, is this really happening? Do things like this happen in real life? Maybe I invented it.”
Sarah, meanwhile, is still in the dark even if she laughs at my choice of words. She’s in the dark mostly because I can't accurately explain the situation with an absolute frenzy going on in my head. A frenzy set off by the sight of his name. Sawyer Cargill.
Just the thought of him makes me regret eating lunch once my stomach starts churning. Like the memory of the man attached to that heinous name is enough to set off a storm inside me.
“I would really love a little insight,” she reminds me, polishing off her sandwich.
Wallowing Willow. It’s been more than a decade since anyone’s used the charming little nickname he came up with back when I was overweight, with frizzy hair and acne, yet all the old feelings come rushing back. It might as well have happened yesterday, all the bullying and teasing and alienating.
Get it together. You are a grown, professional woman now.
“This is an email from Sawyer Cargill,” I explain. Even my voice is trembling, but not from pain or discomfort. More like excitement, and a lot of it. “He needs my help.”
“Sawyer... wait.” Her mouth falls open, her eyes going wide. “Wasn't he the one you told me about?”
“So you remember.” Yet another one of the benefits of working with my best friend: we know each other’s history, drastically cutting down on the amount of time it takes to fill the other in on a situation like this. When we first met back at Penn as roommates, Sawyer was recent history and the wounds were fresh. I had to explain at first why I had a hard time putting myself out there and meeting new people. Incredible, the wounds a thoughtless bully can inflict. I’m sure he never paid me a moment’s thought past the last time we set eyes on each other.
“No offense, but that's not the kind of story a girl forgets. He made life hell for you back in the day.”
“He made life hell for a lot of people. I was just one of many.”
Her brows draw together before she scowls. “Okay, but you happen to be my best friend, so you're the one I care a little more about.”
I can't argue with that. “Do you know how many times I have fantasized about this kind of thing happening? I mean, granted, he was usually begging for my forgiveness on hands and knees, crawling over broken glass, that sort of thing. But this is much better.”
“What does he say?”
I clear my throat, forcing back cackles of pure glee. “Ms. Anderson, you come highly recommended by a friend of mine with whom you worked in the recent past. He has nothing but good things to say about your skills—considering you got him out of an ugly situation regarding money he contributed to what turned out to be a terrorist group, it was no small feat.”
“Oh! He must be talking about that Jayden guy.”
“Probably,” I murmur before continuing. “Unfortunately, I got myself into trouble thanks to my big mouth and a bystander recording my frustrations toward the citizens of my small town—Somerset Harbor. It's a bit of a disaster that threatens to destroy my family’s business thanks to the video making the rounds and catching the eye of the wrong people. Please, I need to make this go away immediately, and you're the only person who can help.”
The only person who can help. I can't pretend those words don't stir a thrill in my chest, roughly in the area where my wounded heart sits. It's strange, really. Here I am, the owner of a business which is evidently successful enough that word has spread even to someone as wealthy and connected as Sawyer Cargill, yet I might as well be seventeen again. He has a strange way of turning back the clock. Taking me right back to the old days when he and his nasty little circle of friends made it their business to humiliate and make miserable anybody who didn't rise to their standards. I certainly qualified.
I almost expect to look down and find myself wearing a private school uniform—that plaid, pleated skirt never was my favorite piece of clothing. But now, I'm wearing the same suit I wore for my meeting with the twins and a pair of red soled Louboutin pumps. I've come a long way from those days. I need to remember who I am, not who I was.
But do we ever really change? The outside might improve, but the inside? Those scars don't magically dissolve just because a girl now straightens her frizzy hair.
“Are you okay over there?” Sarah's question brings me back to reality, reminding me I am not that girl anymore. I'm a woman with another decade of living under my belt. I'm sitting in a skyscraper in the heart of New York City, and the invoice those two kids are going to receive after our meeting symbolizes more money than I had ever seen all at once back in the day. Back when I found out simply being accepted to a private school and being able to afford it thanks to a scholarship were not enough to buy entrance into a very rarefied, elite group of people. I was never going to be one of them, despite the uniform.
“I'm fine,” I tell her, grinning wickedly to myself. Staring out the window, imagining the possibilities thanks to this simple email.
“The tables sure have turned, haven't they?”
My head bobs up and down. “And of course, he wouldn't remember me,” I muse. “I doubt he ever knew my last name.”
“Then again, if he did even half of the things you've described, he's probably too ashamed of himself to bring it up.”
“I don't think he possesses the gene that makes shame possible.” All I see in my mind’s eye is his roguish smirk, the light that danced in his brown eyes whenever he was reinforcing his superiority over me and the rest of the underdogs. There weren’t many of us, but that only shone a brighter spotlight on those who didn’t fit in.
“Could be—in which case, he's got a lot of balls, coming to you for help.”
“If there's one thing I've learned from working with our clients,” I point out while turning my attention back to her, “it's what little introspection some of them possess. When you've grown up in a world where nothing you do has any real consequences, I guess you don't think about how your actions are going to affect the people around you. And believe me, Sawyer grew up with more money than God. I would be surprised if this is the only skeleton in his closet.”
