There was a pang of hurt, but nothing she couldn’t handle. When a shot of a teenaged Kevin in his football uniform flashed, Sawyer felt the hot dog bulging in her stomach, making her nauseous. At least that was what she told herself, not willing to admit to the guilt—and to a slight twinge of fear.
The slide show continued the whole length of the song, and Sawyer watched, strangely riveted, her emotions rising and crashing with every other picture. As the photos got closer to the end of Kevin’s life, Sawyer felt her heart start to pound; she felt sticky and hot underneath her thin Hornets T-shirt. The people in the bleachers seemed to lean in on her, lean closer toward her, leering, staring. Anxiety burst in her chest, tendrils, like needle pricks, racing through her.
“I have to get out of here.” She stood up and shimmied past Chloe, past the row of students, and ran down the bleacher stairs, taking them two at a time as she neared the bottom. Once she was at the snack shack, she was in the midst of a full-blown panic attack and she backed into the cool, dark space under the bleachers, doubling over and working to suck in bursts of cold air. Her skin felt too tight, and she felt overwhelmed, guilt, anger, sadness, and panic washing over her in body-wracking waves. She didn’t even know when she started to cry.
“Sawyer?”
She could barely make out his form in the darkness underneath the bleachers, but she recognized his voice. “Cooper?”
“Yeah. You took off like a shot. I tried to catch you, but you disappeared into the crowd.”
“I’m sorry, Cooper, I’m just…” She shook her head, hating the way her words sounded, choked by her tears. “Crazy,” she finally whispered.
Cooper carefully picked his way toward her in the darkness. Sawyer felt his fingers first on her wrist, then walking up her arm. His touch gave her goose bumps even though her body was seizing in a panic.
Before she knew it, she was slumped against Cooper, his arms around her, fingers laced at the small of her back. And she was crying. Huge, body-wracking sobs that left a wet spot on his chest, and Sawyer hiccupping and coughing. She broke their embrace, feeling the immediate cold of Cooper’s absence on her chest.
“I’m sorry.” She stopped crying, using her fist to push away the tears on her cheeks.
Cooper stepped into her, his arms wrapping around her again, cautious, this time not pulling her close. “Don’t be. He was your boyfriend, Sawyer. You loved him. It’s okay to be sad.”
A tremble, so heavy it made her teeth chatter, started in Sawyer’s body, and she began to cry all over again.
I did love Kevin, she thought, once. But she hadn’t for a long time. Toward the end, he kissed her as often as he slapped her, and a severe hatred had started deep in Sawyer’s chest. She wanted to break up with him; she had tried a dozen times, but each time he drew her back in with promises, pleas, and threats.
I’d kill myself if you ever left me, Sawyer, Kevin had said when they lay, bodies intertwined, on the grass. I could never live without you. At the time she had found the sentiment passionate and deep and a true statement of their unyielding love. But eventually it became a threat that she found so real it filled her with dread—with guilt. He needed her. Kevin Anderson needed her so much he couldn’t live without her.
It made so much sense, then.
The tears stopped abruptly, and this time it was Sawyer who pulled Cooper toward her. She crushed him against her chest, and her lips, chapped from crying, found his. She kissed him hard, with passion and blazing anger for something she had missed. Her lips parted and her tongue slipped into his mouth just as her arms slipped around his neck, clawed at his back. She didn’t know why, but she needed this. It was almost as if she needed Cooper to wipe the taste—or the memory—of Kevin away.
Cooper groaned when Sawyer leaned into him, her body fitting smoothly into his angles, that burning zinging racing through her bloodstream, firing every synapse in her body. She wanted Cooper Grey.
Her eyes flashed open as her mind started to slow, to clear. That was when she saw the figure under the bleachers with them. It moved slowly, tentative at first, so much so that Sawyer wasn’t sure she’d even seen it. She broke her lips from Cooper’s and narrowed her eyes. Then Logan stepped into the light.
His face was set hard, his eyes having obviously witnessed the way Sawyer had torn into Cooper—the Sawyer who had told Logan that she just wasn’t ready to date.
He blinked at her, and Sawyer thought she saw the light catch, glistening on the moisture on his bottom lashes. He turned to walk away, and Sawyer felt herself consumed with guilt and shame.
“Logan,” she called. “Logan!” She stepped away from Cooper and ran after Logan, but by the time she stepped into the light-flooded mezzanine in front of the snack shack, Logan had disappeared into the hordes of kids lumbering around. “Logan?” Sawyer tried again.