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“We haven’t even made it to that hurdle yet. Right now, she’s too pissed at me for breaking it off in the first place. She thinks I chose the game over her...”
“And that would be unforgivable in her eyes,” Pop finishes for me. I hold up my beer in mock salute.
“Okay, so she can’t forgive you, but can she move on?”
“I wouldn’t know. Colt hasn’t mentioned any boyfriends, but I’m not sure that’s the kind of thing he’d tell me.” I teeter the beer bottle on my leg so I’m not tempted to drink the whole thing in one gulp.
Pop’s silent for a moment, rubbing his jaw. “You said Colt knows?”
I nod robotically as I answer. “He picked up on my feelings, too. And I tried to see her before leaving for school. Begged actually. I knew she was trying to run away. To hide. And it’d be years before I saw her again.”
“Hmm.” Pop grunts, staring off into space.
“What?”
His eyes snap to mine. “She still loves you, too.”
“Loved. Past tense according to her.” I take another sip.
“I’m not so sure about that.” He arches a brow.
“Why?”
“She’s carefully avoided you for years.”
“I’m aware. So?”
“So, she wouldn’t do that unless you scare her.”
I shoot forward, sloshing beer on my pants in the process. “I would never hurt–”
Pop holds up his hand. “I don’t mean physically. I mean she’s scared of being with you, and scared of not being with you.”
“How can she be both?” I frown, easing back against the cushions.
“Jen and I were. We had things in our past that made us wary of a new relationship, but we were also afraid of giving up what we had with each other. Being scared can trap you, make it so you can’t move forward or back. That’s why Sawyer avoids you and avoids relationships in general, I bet.”
I go over Pop’s words as I play with the label on the bottle. Could Sawyer really be stuck? If she is, that would mean she still feels something more than lust for me, right? Yeah, I scoff to myself. Anger.
“I hear you, Pop, but you didn’t see how angry she is. She said I’m her stepbrother, and that’s all I’ll ever be.”
“We both know Sawyer hides her feelings behind her anger, Wes. In fact, my guess is the angrier she is the stronger her feelings are. Remember how she freaked out when she thought she was losing her mom to me? It was a sign of how much she loves her mom, not how she felt about me, that made her react like that.”
I open my mouth to object, but before I can get the words out, Pop’s sink in. And I think he might be right.
I used to credit Sawyer with being so gracious when Colt disappointed her, but the truth is she didn’t have the same relationship with him that she did with her mom. That’s why he could date around with a slap on the wrist so to speak, whereas Sawyer ran away from her mom when Jen fell for my pop. Just like she ran away from me. That puts her feelings for me in the same category as her feelings for her mom, I think. And if Pop’s right, she’s still running because the feelings are still there, buried underneath the anger.
“Okay, let’s say she still has feelings for me.” I think out loud. “She’s too angry to admit it, so what do I do?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Yep. She feels safe in limbo, and if you try to push her out of it, she’ll dig her heels in. So, don’t do anything except be her friend, same as the way you started off. She’ll come around again once she’s comfortable.”
“How will that happen if I hardly see her?”
“You think she can avoid you when you live in the same city?” A knowing grin spreads across Pop’s face.
