“So you’re not going over at all tonight? I haven’t seen you on a Friday night in weeks.”
“No.” I shake my head, chin still in my palm. “Don’t worry, I won’t interrupt your Criminal Minds marathon.”
“Okay.” She grins, grabbing her laptop and tapping it to life.
“Is it weird that he cancelled?” I ask, giving voice to the nagging worry that’s been bouncing around my brain for the last hour.
“I don’t know, is it?” Chloe glances over at me then back to her keyboard, flipping through the options on her Netflix account. She selects an episode and sets the laptop on top of the microwave where we can both see it. She doesn’t need to pay close attention since she’s seen every episode already. Honestly, I think she just enjoys having it running in the background, the way most people enjoy music.
“I don’t know.” I twist a piece of hair around my finger and stare at her open laptop while I think. “We had a great time on Wednesday, his birthday. I slept over, he dropped me off on his way to work yesterday morning and I haven’t talked to him since.”
“So you spoke to him yesterday?”
“Yeah, I know.” I nod. “I know it was just yesterday. But it feels off somehow.” I give my hair another twirl. “Let’s just watch your serial killer show and eat pizza.”
Chloe grabs a slice from the box on my desk and sits on her bed, legs kicked out in front of her, totally content with a Friday night spent with her beloved fictional federal agents.
We’re quiet for a few minutes, the show playing while Chloe catches up to me on pizza consumption.
“Why do you like this show so much? It’s kinda dark,” I observe, cracking open a fresh can of Diet Sun Drop.
“They’re like a little family,” she says with a shrug. “Hotchner’s like the dad figure, he keeps them all together, you know? Morgan’s crazy hot, kicking in doors on every episode. Dr. Reid is the most adorably awkward genius ever. Penelope’s kinda like the mom. She stays behind at the BAU worrying about her team out in the world, but she’s really running that whole operation, right? She’s the glue. JJ proves you can be a pretty girl and still take out a bad guy with a single shot. And Agent Rossi’s the one you’d confide in if you needed advice about a secret.”
“So you haven’t given this much thought then,” I mock.
“You asked.” She shrugs.
“You officially have an agent fetish.”
“It’s comfort television.”
“It’s a show about a group of FBI agents profiling serial killers,” I say incredulously.
“Well…” She pauses, thinking. “It’s comforting knowing they’re gonna catch them.”
“You’re nuts.”
She smiles and stuffs another bite of pizza in her mouth.
***********
I wake up at ten the next morning and check my phone. Nothing from Sawyer. By noon the feeling of dread has settled firmly in my stomach. I could text him, sure. Call him, absolutely. Yet I’m not going to. Something feels off and I’m wondering why he hasn’t contacted me. I open up the text chain between us and review the ones from yesterday afternoon. There it is, the last message from him that said, ‘Talk soon.’ Talk soon? It was weird to me yesterday but I brushed it aside. Because Sawyer and I are solid.
He’s never given me a reason to doubt him, and I’m not a girl to go looking for reasons that don’t exist. I might have doubted his intentions during that first car ride, when he drove me back to school from Ridgefield the Sunday after Thanksgiving. He chipped away at my doubts during that week of Sawyer-style wooing, ending with a goldfish complete with a fancy self-cleaning tank. I look at Stella, swimming happily in the mini-fish tank with Steve, and smile. Who does all that? Not a guy just interested in a quick fling.
From the day that I showed up at his office, I knew he was all in with me.
Until today.
He’s had a stressful week, I tell myself. I’m being crazy. Paranoid. He’s going to call any minute, tell me he’s on his way to pick me up.
But he doesn’t.
By late afternoon I pick up the phone. This is silly. Maybe he thinks I’m mad about last night? Maybe I’m making myself sick over nothing.
He doesn’t pick up. I get a text a moment later. Can’t talk right now. I’ll call you tomorrow.
Okay then.
Not really. He’s never sent me to voice mail.
He doesn’t call the next day.
He texts me at 9 pm on Sunday. I need some time, Everly.
Is he fucking kidding me? I don’t reply. I stare at the ceiling of my room all night, numb, drumming my fingertips against the bedspread, my mind blank.
By the following day my mind is anything but blank, thoughts racing, rethinking every encounter between us. I’m second-guessing myself and everything I know is true. I didn’t imagine the last eight weeks, so what the hell just happened?
Forty-Two