“Not everyone thinks like that,” Sawyer murmurs. “Especially so young.”
Which is a fair point because my mom didn’t have a will or life insurance or anything. Just a random assortment of small things that followed me to a couple foster homes before being lost in transition. Just like right now, I got those things back because I became famous enough for someone to notice, to care, toprofit.
“They want to meet me.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” I say, and I’m tired of her being so far away. When we’re in a room, we’re together. I like that. I want that. But when I reach for her, she flinches. I drop my hand and then I try to search her expression. The last time she had that reaction to me was months and months ago, in the Wino Wine Bar shortly after we met, and I thought then that I startled her. That’s not it this time. She won’t look at me. “Doc, what’s going on? You’ve been off since you got home.”
“Nothing. Just absorbing everything.”
“Honestly, that’s bullshit.” I shift sideways on the couch, so I’m fully facing her, even if she won’t do the same for me. “Spit it out.”
“It was just a lot—being gone for a week and a half.”
“Something happen with work?”
“I just feel really behind. I think we should… I think we should… It was a lot of togetherness time. Space. I just need space.”
I rock back a little into the couch, surprised. But I’ve gotten really fucking good at shutting down my feelings. “You want me to go?”
“I need some time to myself.”
But she won’t look at me when she says that, so it rings hollow, false. The problem is that I don’t know whether this is code for her actually wanting to break up. Having never been so close to a woman like I am with her, I don’t know how to read this.
Shut down? Shut her out?
“I’ll get out of your way,” I say, and I rub my face before I stand. There’s a protest at the base of my throat, but I don’t know if it’s the right move to let it out. For a moment, I stare at her, willing her to look at me. Maybe it’s pathetic to chase her for something she doesn’t want to give. Most of the time when she wants something, I give it to her without question, without protest. Whatever is happening here doesn’t feel the same as those other requests.
“Did I do something wrong?” I ask, finally. At least then I can fix it, make amends, not do it again.
“No,” she says, and when she finally makes eye contact, she looks hollowed out. And I realize that I haven’t seenthisversion of Sawyer for months either, like going on the road with me cracked something in her that had been sealing shut. “I just want to be alone.”
“I don’t know what happened,” I say. “But if I’ve done something—if I fucked up—you need to tell me. You know where to find me when you want to talk.”
Then I go into her bedroom, and I stuff all my shit into my bag, and I leave the house without begging her to tell me what’swrong—which takes far more willpower than I ever thought I’d need to possess.
Back at my apartment, I try to sit in the hot tub to relax, but my mind won’t stop spinning. Between Sawyer’s need for distance, when I’m almost desperate to talk through this family shit with her, to me even having family shit to contemplate, I can’t get the tension to leave no matter how long I soak.
When I give up, I get out and change into some gray sweats before padding into the spare room. I tug open the drawer of the nightstand, and I stare at the diary my mother left behind. I’ve flipped through it before, trying not to read anything specific as the pages went by. Diaries are private, and it still seems wrong to even contemplate reading it.
With my grandparents and my uncle now trying to horn into my life, I wonder whether the answers I need are in those pages. Were they good people? Were they bad people and my mother fled from them? Is the truth somewhere in the middle?
Plucking the diary out of the drawer, I sit on the edge of the bed. The first page is dated a little over a year before I was born. The blue pen script is looping, and I trace it with my finger.
“Sorry, Mom,” I mutter as I read the first line.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Logan
The doorbell invades my dream, and it takes me longer than it should to realize the doorbell in my dream is actually happening in real life. I sit up so suddenly that my mother’s quilt, the one I crawled under when the diary pages got increasingly tenser, pools around my waist. The diary falls to the floor, and I shake my head, trying to gather my bearings.
The light in the spare room is still on, and I have no idea what time it is. A quick glance at my watch tells me it’s nowhere near morning practice time. I don’t even know when I fell asleep.
Climbing out of the bed, I rub my face as I make my way to the front entrance. I still have the presence of mind to check the peephole, but I don’t even hesitate before flipping the lock and opening the door to Sawyer. Her face is streaked with tears.
“It’s not you,” she says, and her chin trembles. “It’s not you.”
