“What do you actually want?” he asked bluntly. “Be totally honest. Whatever is in that head of yours.”
“I just want to be noticed, I guess. I don’t want to be famous or in the limelight or anything like that. People think that’s what I’m after, and I hate that. I don’t care if I’m ever rich or if the world knows my name. That’s not what it’s about for me. I just want someone to notice me. I have all these words screaming at me in my head, and I spend day after day writing them out, and it’s that feeling—that moment where you think you’ve achieved greatness . . . I swear I have moments where I feel like I have, but there’s no one there to notice it. Then you’re all alone, wondering if you’re as great as you imagined when no one else can back it up.”
Sawyer listened intently to every word falling out of my mouth.
“I’m rambling, right?” I said with a laugh. “See, it all sounds stupid when you say it out loud. But there it is. I think I’m talented at one, somewhat insignificant thing. All I’ve ever wanted is for someone to notice. When no one does, you’re left thinking that maybe you’re not so talented at all and maybe you’re just making it up in your head. I know that’s entirely possible, trust me. But when I write, it’s the only thing I’ve ever felt good at. It’s the only thing I know how to do. It comes out naturally. But if no one ever notices, then it doesn’t exist. It’s like it’s only half true. I hate that. Other people have to feel like that, right? I mean, everyone has something they do well, but if no truly notices that talent, it’s wasted. It’s like it doesn’t exist. Is everyone completely ordinary? Or is everyone extraordinary but they just haven’t been noticed yet? I can’t be the only person alive who feels like this, right? I just feel it in my bones, like I’m meant to do something with my words. Then nothing happens, and I feel like I’m making it all up. Like it doesn’t exist. Like it’s a truth only I know, and that’s where it’s going to die. It eats me alive.”
“I love staring at your face when you are all riled up,” Sawyer said sweetly, offering me a devilish smile. “That’s one of my favorite things about you.”
“You’re patronizing me,” I said playfully but sternly.
“I’m serious. You’re the most real person I’ve ever talked to, in the most disheveled, chaotic package. I love everything about it. It’s okay to admit you’re good at something, whether anyone agrees or notices or not. It doesn’t make it any less true.”
“Well, what about you? What are you good at?”
“Dancing.” He shrugged.
“Stop it,” I replied, setting down my white cardboard box of food. “Prove it.”
“You asked for this,” he stated, getting up from our sitting area. “I just want to remind you of that in case things get out of hand.” He grabbed his phone and a small speaker from the square nightstand next to the bed. He hit a button, and loud, upbeat music played from the tiny plastic rectangle. “Watch out.” He slid everything out of the way until all the hotel furniture was pushed up against the walls of the tiny room. I slid our food onto the counter, and he wasted no time.
Honestly, I expected him to be silly and offer me some uncoordinated gyration just to prove a weird point. Like if we’re good at something in our heads, then it’s true enough and it doesn’t matter what the rest of the world thinks, or some nonsense like that. But instead there he was in front of me, expertly dancing to some random hip-hop song like he was an extra in the Magic Mike movies. It was almost too much for me to watch.
“Who would’ve thought you had moves like this?” I remarked, still in shock that he could dance as well as he could. He wasn’t kidding. If he continued like this, things would get out of hand. I swear I was starting to sweat, and I wasn’t even moving. We slugged down more of the Boone’s, and I was certain my face would hurt tomorrow from smiling too much.
Another fast tune came on the radio, and I blurted out how much I loved the song. It was an old favorite of mine. Brie and I used to dance to it all the time back in college. Before I knew it, there we were, drinking out of the glass bottle, dancing around the hotel room like idiots. My smile radiated throughout my entire body. It felt young and irresponsible, and I loved every second of it.
It was a ridiculous scene: a girl who was trying hard to be anything but sad and a boy who was out to save the world and care for a girl who needed it more than he knew. Chinese food, cheap alcohol, moving furniture out of the way to make a dance floor on a Wednesday night . . . It was simple in its appearance. What was really happening in this room, however, was so much bigger than how it appeared on the surface. When I was with Sawyer, I wasn’t scared to be heartbroken. I wasn’t afraid to embarrass myself. I wasn’t interested in withholding the truth about who I was, what I thought, and what my shortcomings were. As he learned them, he smiled bigger and laughed louder and promised me more adventures.
For the first time since I’d arrived, I finally felt like I was home.
Chapter 10
Sawyer and I were flat on our backs on the floor of the hotel room, out of breath and full of laughter from our impromptu dance party.
“I want to take you to the cabin,” he said again.
“Tonight?” I teased. “What made you think of that?”
“I don’t know. Lying here like this. It just reminded me of it. All the nights I laid on the dock, falling asleep under the stars.”
“And this—lying on a rough blue carpet, staring at that heinous round ceiling light—that gave you the same vibe?” I laughed.
He leaned over and gently kissed me. “I’m serious. When we get back to Nashville, I want to take you there. You would love it. It’s quiet and beautiful. It’s a little rustic, but I swear it’s paradise.”
My phone chime sounded, which gave me both a good and a bad feeling as I didn’t know what kind of news I was going to get. It was a text from my brother. I know it’s my turn to stay at the hospital tonight, but something came up. Do you want to switch nights with me and crash there tonight? Everyone is filtering out of here.
I thought about it for a moment. Honestly, if it was up to me, I would stay there every night. My dad and I had great late-night talks, and it gave me a sense of purpose. I couldn’t do a thing for him at this point other than be there. There was always a whirlwind of people coming and going throughout the day, but at night and first thing in the morning, there was something about just the two of us getting to reflect and have meaningful conversation. I wasn’t sure what the outcome would be of this whole situation, but I knew our time together mattered on so many levels, and I couldn’t imagine passing up the opportunity—not even for Sawyer.
“I have to go,” I stated, rubbing a hand on my forehead.
“Curfew?” he taunted. “What can I do to change your mind?” He leaned in and kissed me again, even more slowly and with more intensity than he had just seconds ago.
“I’m staying at the hospital tonight,” I explained, pulling away from him. “Trust me, under different circumstances . . .” He kissed me again.
“I understand,” he whispered as his lips trailed down my neck.
“Sawyer, that’s not helping,” I replied with a soft laugh. “You’re supposed to be making this easy on me. Push me out the door.”
“I don’t have the strength. I think that dance party really took a lot out of me,” he joked, gently sliding his hands around my waist. I couldn’t help but kiss him back.
My phone chimed again, completely flustering me. It was another text from my brother. Cool if I take off now?
“You have to leave, I know,” Sawyer reaffirmed, though his lips moving back to mine conveyed a different message. “I know this is bad timing. All of this.”
“Preach,” I said dramatically, trying to keep the mood light. “I feel like I’m outside my own life at the moment. Everything around me is so serious right now, and then you come along like a ray of sunshine. The rest of this—it’s just too big. It’s messy, and it’s heavy, and I don’t know what’s going to
happen.”
“I promise, I am not trying to get in the way of all that.”
“I know,” I said. I believed him. He was the least pushy guy I’d ever been around, and I truly appreciated that. “I just feel bad though, like I’m always blowing you off for something more important.”
“It’s your family, Whitley. You don’t ever have to apologize for that. I completely understand. I wouldn’t be so smitten by you otherwise. That’s a big deal to me, trust me. I get it. That’s a strength you possess, not a crutch.”
I swear Sawyer always knew exactly what to say to me.
“I felt that once, you know,” he continued. “That bond to people who love you unconditionally. It’s a big deal. Not everyone gets that. I had it in the most amazing way. And just because I don’t have that family anymore doesn’t mean I understand it any less. I still grieve for mine in the same way that you love yours. I completely get it.”
His words made me feel a little choked up. I couldn’t imagine the immense sense of loss he’d experienced losing his parents and then recently his grandparents. I couldn’t imagine which was worse: losing his parents at an age when it meant he lost most of his memories of them, or losing the very people who had raised him and made him who he was, with endless memories of the years they’d had together. I imagined the latter was the greater tragedy, though I would never really know. On the flip side, he had a lifetime to wonder about the love he’d missed out on from his parents. The entire situation was so melancholy.
“The timing for this . . .whatever we’re doing—it doesn’t have to happen right now. I know things are messy for you. Maybe there will be a simpler time for us, when your world is less chaotic and full of heartbreak.” He smiled as he said it and ran a slow finger across my lips. “I’m not going anywhere. Let’s get you through all this, and we’ll figure out the rest.”
I rested my head on his chest, so very grateful he’d entered my life. He wrapped his firm arms around me, and a slow song came on the small speaker on the nightstand. We swayed slowly to the soft music, in perfect rhythm. It was a warm gesture, and it perfectly summed up Sawyer to me. He could be loud and crazy like a song you would blast in the car with your best friend, or he could be sweet and endearing like every slow song that made you want to dance under a starlit sky. It was amazing to me that when you least expected it, a stranger could spill coffee in your lap and change everything.
“Good night, Sawyer Grant,” I said quietly as soon as the song ended.
“Good night, Whitley Rose.”
I begrudgingly made my way out of the hotel room, wishing I had nowhere else to be, yet thankful that I had more time to spend with my father. It had occurred to me this week that time itself is the rarest commodity we’re afforded the luxury of. Not in the sense of how we waste it—working, getting through daily chores, all of that nonsense—but the reality that one day we don’t get any more of it. That’s the ultimate travesty. I imagined everyone went through each day expecting tomorrow, but now my world replayed expert after expert telling me there was no guarantee of that. It rattled me. For now, my father and I had time, and that meant more to me than it ever had before.
I made my way up to the eighth floor and quietly entered the hospital room. Per the norm, my dad was watching the nature channel because he was infatuated with learning something, anything, every single day. His wisdom wasn’t always practical when he learned it—after all, the behavior habits of sloths didn’t necessarily fit into every day conversation—but he always knew something about everything in the right moment. That had amazed me as a child but impressed me even more as an adult.
While he finished the show, I took a quick shower and changed into my yoga pants and sleep shirt. I set up my loud, lumpy plastic bed and stacked some pillows behind me so I could sit upright for conversation.
As usual, my dad and I stayed up late talking. I could never put into words what these nights meant to me when it was just the two of us. We talked endlessly. He told me about the people he’d dated before my mother and what he was like when he was young, before the responsibility of adulthood and raising a family. It’s so strange, the things you miss about your parents as a child. You see them only as they are to you: important, in charge, and wise. Then you become an adult yourself, and you finally realize there was much more there before you came along. Parents make reckless decisions and have hopes and dreams you never knew existed in someone you looked up to your whole life.
We finally drifted off to sleep in the midst of old stories, though the machines did their usual job of keeping me in and out of consciousness.
Gasping.
I awoke to a strange sound, and it wasn’t coming from a machine. My father sat up, wide-eyed, in the darkness, clutching his chest. I immediately turned on a small light next to my bed. “What is it?” I said hurriedly, climbing from the vinyl hospital couch and into a chair next to him. His eyes looked different. I couldn’t tell if they were full of chaos or peace.
“I don’t know,” he said calmly. The machines were beeping so erratically that I couldn’t decipher what was happening.
“What’s going on?” I asked again, needing him to tell me something. He looked ghastly, and it terrified me.
“Something’s happening,” he said quietly, feeling his chest with his hand.
“Do you want me to get a doctor?” I shrieked, unsure of what to do. The machines were still beeping, but other than that, I couldn’t assess what was happening.
“No,” he replied calmly. “But something is happening. Something is changing.” He seemed to be deep in thought as he said it, still feeling around his chest.
“Are you in pain?”
“No. I just feel . . . different. Something is happening,” he repeated. “I don’t know if God is fixing something right now or if he’s preparing me to go.”
Tears flooded my face. “What do you mean?” I asked again, hoping for some clarification. His expression still confused me. He didn’t look afraid or concerned, yet he didn’t seem to understand what he was feeling.
“I’m not sure what this is,” he said quietly. “Maybe this is healing. But maybe . . . maybe this is it for me.”
Sobs were coming out now, and I still wasn’t sure what to do. The machines continued to make the same erratic noises they’d always made up until this point so no doctor would be alerted to come in, but my dad didn’t seem to need that now. Instead he looked so lovingly at me that I felt very afraid of everything in that moment.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked softly.
“Years ago, when my father passed, you were little. I know you don’t remember much about it. But I sat there with him in that hospital for hours. He asked me something.”
I stared at him with burning eyes, unsure of what he was getting at.
“I know this isn’t fair of me,” he said warmly, “but I have to ask you anyway. The same way my father asked me. It’s important.”
I nodded through my tears.
“If this is it for me, if it’s my time to go, I need to know that you will let me go. I need to know that it’s okay to go.”
I heard his words clearly, but my tears felt loud on my face. The room felt calm and full of chaos at the same time.
“I’m not ready for you to go,” I said through my sobs. “I haven’t become anything yet. All I wanted was to do something great. But I am so far away from greatness.”
“Your life is greatness, darling,” he answered with a smile. “All of it. I look at you, and you are one of the greatest things I’ve seen in all my time here on this earth. You couldn’t possibly be anything more to me than what you are. That is greatness in its best form.”
“You’re not done yet,” I sobbed. “There is so much more to do. You have to dance with me at my wedding. You have to build forts and make shadow puppets with grandchildren. You have so much more to do.” I leaned forward and grabbed his hands, and my tears cascaded down his arms.
“I a
lready did the most important thing I ever set out to do,” he said affectionately. “When you were born, and every time I held you moving forward, I whispered a promise into your ear. I always said the same thing. I promised I would love you forever.” He smiled with so much love that I knew I couldn’t erase that moment from my mind for the rest of my life. I squeezed his hands as he spoke. “And if this is my forever, if this is where it ends, what an amazing thing—to do just what I always promised I would. That’s the best kind of life to live. I’ve done just that. I promised I would love you forever, and I’ve done that.”
My whole body was shaking as I clung to his hands, sobbing and trying to speak, though any articulate thoughts escaped me now. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that through this entire ordeal in the hospital, he’d had no pain, whereas my heart felt like it was breaking in a thousand pieces.
“If it’s my time, I need to know it’s okay to go,” he said again, as calmly as he’d done before. He eyed me warmly.
I nodded. “It’s okay,” I whispered, still clutching his hands as if the pressure of my hold on them was enough to change whatever was or wasn’t going to happen.
My dad leaned back in the hospital bed, looking exhausted and spent. His eyes began to close, but his mouth curled up into a smile as he continued to speak. “My favorite picture of you is that one of you on the sidewalk back at our old house. You were wearing a white, fluffy dress with your blonde curls, and you looked so happy. You looked exactly like an angel in that picture. Like a real angel. It’s my favorite picture of you.” I wasn’t sure if he was fading in and out of consciousness or just falling asleep, but the way he spoke was both lucid and like a dream all at once. I just sat there, listening and sobbing. His eyes were closed, but he still spoke softly. “You looked just like an angel. All in white.”
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