“You mean helping herself to my business. Besides, the stupid nightmares came back right after Kevin died, Dad. Not now. And today, I was outside, I was running, I was awake!”
“I know, I know.” He held up his hands, palms forward. “I’m sure you think you really did hear something, but, Sawyer, there’s an eleven-foot iron fence around this whole development. And the gates are closed at night.”
Sawyer crossed her arms in front of her chest, hugging herself, thinking of the footsteps, the headlights from the previous night. “But they aren’t locked.”
***
Sawyer tried Chloe’s phone a second time after she got out of the shower, but there was no answer.
“Hey, it’s me again. I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay after last night. I got your text that you made it home okay with Ryan, but I’m still worried. Call me. Besides, I want to know if we’re still on for the game tonight. I totally understand if you don’t want to, though; I’m not really sure I’m up to it either…” She clicked her phone shut, feeling slightly uneasy, and made her way down the stairs. Though she had gotten up and run this morning, the heft of too many sleepless nights and the drug-addled fog started to become overwhelming. She poured herself a giant mug of coffee and sank down at the kitchen table, her mind ticking.
Could the person who hurt Chloe be my admirer?
There was no reason why, Sawyer thought, as she worried her bottom lip. Chloe was her best friend; she would never hurt Sawyer. Sawyer gulped, her saliva burning her throat—she would never hurt Sawyer the way Kevin had. The thought was errant, rushing through her subconscious, and she rolled onto her side, pulling her knees up into a fetus position.
The first time, it was barely a shove. It happened so fast that Sawyer wasn’t even sure it had. Kevin had his arms around her immediately, steadying her, kissing her, telling her it was an accident. And she believed him. He loved her so much—he told her all the time. He called her all the time. It was powerful, he said. His passion for her consumed him, and sometimes he didn’t even know what he was doing. He never meant to hurt her.
No one would have understood.
Sawyer squeezed her eyes shut, and Kevin’s face, his fervent eyes, flashed in her mind. Then it was Cooper, his hand so gently clutching hers, and her lips burned, guilty.
***
The only palm in Pacific Palms Park was four feet high and sat at the gated opening to the development. With its abandoned, chipped-paint guard shack and grass that was more yellow than green, it didn’t look like much of a park, either. Sawyer veered through the once-white latticework gates and snaked around the neighborhood of prefab houses rooted to cracked concrete. When she pulled up to the Coulter house, Chloe was already outside, pacing the carport.
“Hey,” she said when Sawyer pulled her car to a stop. “What took you so long? I thought you were coming straight here.”
Sawyer cocked an eyebrow. “Keeping tabs on me now?”
“Yeah, I’m the jealous boyfriend.”
Chloe laughed, the comment innocent and flippant to her, but it struck Sawyer. She forced herself to laugh it off. “Are you ready to go?”
“No, and neither are you.”
Sawyer looked down at her jeans and black T-shirt ensemble. It wasn’t exactly couture, but she thought it would pass for football attire.
“You look nothing like a Fighting Hornet fan.”
Sawyer tried to smile; this would be the first football game she would attend since Kevin’s death. As it was, Chloe had had to beg Sawyer for ten minutes straight to come to the game. “It’s a big one,” she reminded her friend, “and you’re going to have to go to a football game again sometime.”
Though she wasn’t crazy about the idea of the game and was less crazy about the idea of dressing up for it, Chloe was hard to turn down when she was beaming at Sawyer, her enthusiasm boundless—and catching.
“Come on in,” Chloe said, “unless you mind slumming in the double wide a minute.”
Sawyer grabbed the screen door behind Chloe. “It’s not a double wide. It’s manufactured housing.”
“Whatever it is, it comes with wood paneling and Astroturf.”
They stepped into the living room—a perfect square of wood paneling and shag carpeting, the smell of a thousand cigarettes ground in. The windows were covered with heavy drapes in a nauseating pattern of swoops and flowers, and the only light was coming from the enormous TV. It took up nearly one whole wall, and Chloe’s grandmother was in the chair directly opposite it, a cigarette clamped in the corner of her mouth. Though it was midafternoon, she was still in a housecoat and slippers, and Sawyer knew that the old lady only changed for church or for bingo.
“Hey, Nan, you remember Sawyer.” Chloe clapped the back of her grandmother’s chair.
“Hi, Mrs. Coulter.”
Mrs. Coulter took a long drag of her cigarette, her cheeks hollowing. The glow from the television flashed over her as she sat stiffly on her chair, making no move to answer her granddaughter.