Forget You

by Jennifer Snyder

  “We got word today that there was an explosion during one of their perimeter searches.” Her voice was flat and devoid of emotion, but the words she spoke still held all the punch to them as if she had shouted them at me. “Sawyer’s unit was right in line of the blast. He didn’t…they said…my baby boy…” Sobs echoed through the phone to my ear.

  Janet’s cries of agony bounced off the walls of the storage room, and crashed into me from all angles. The air became too thick and dense all at once, and I found myself struggling to breathe, to remain standing.

  Sawyer was gone.

  The thought stabbed me through the chest, and created a pain like nothing I’d ever felt before. It burned and spread through me like a raging wildfire, uncontrollable and deadly. The bottle of hot sauce slipped from my fingertips and crashed to the floor, exploding into jagged pieces that would never fit together as perfectly as before—just like me.

  “My baby boy is gone,” Janet cried. Her words were nothing short of a choked whisper. “I don’t know what I did in this life to deserve both of my babies to be taken from me.”

  A shuffling noise over the phone filled my ears, and then Sawyer’s dad was there. “Eva, I’m sorry we had to tell you this way, but Janet said you needed to know as quickly as the rest of us.” Mr. Keeton’s voice cracked as the sounds of Janet’s breakdown became distant. “If you need anything, you know we’re here for you.”

  “Thank you,” I muttered, my voice small and broken…nothing like it should sound.

  “I think you should know.” Mr. Keeton paused in whatever he was about to say, and cleared his throat. “He loved you, you know. Even though the two of you were only together for such a short time, he’d already told me he thought he loved you.” Mr. Keeton hung up then, Janet’s distant cries were cut off, and a loud beep from the dropped call pierced my ear.

  My arm fell lethargically to my side. Sawyer was gone. Tears built in my eyes. Blinking them away, I attempted to take in a few deep breaths. It did no good. The tears continued to swell and sting the corners of my eyes in their persistent effort to fall. My surroundings blurred before coming back into view. I couldn’t be here anymore. I needed to get out of this confining storage room, out of this restaurant.

  Exiting the storage room in a hazy fog, I frantically rushed to the front of the restaurant.

  “Your table has been waiting for their check. Are you planning on making them sit here all day?” Sarah, another waitress working today, asked with more attitude than I cared for at the moment.

  Reaching in my apron pocket, I grabbed my ticket book and chucked it at her. Her face contorted into an expression of rage and frustration, but everything she said was drowned out by the pounding of my heart. I tugged off my apron, dizziness making my motions unsteady, and wadded it up. Stepping behind the counter, I grabbed my purse and coat from the area we stowed our things in, and darted out the front door of The Point without looking back.

  My stomach hardened, and nausea crept up my throat as the sounds of Janet’s cries clogged my head once more. My hands trembled as I dug through my purse for my keys.

  Gone, Sawyer was gone. How was that even possible?

  The thought pummeled me repeatedly as I crammed my keys in the ignition and started my Escape. Shifting into reverse, I floored it, and squealed tires out of the parking lot, not knowing where I was going, but positive that I had to get away.

  I traveled wildly, and more recklessly than I ever had before, down the streets of Norhurst. When the sign for Gareth’s Park came into view, I cut into the parking lot, and turned into the first space I saw. The place was nearly deserted. No one came to the park in the dead of winter. No one except me apparently. Climbing out, I started to my favorite studying bench, to the spot where this thing with Sawyer had begun. Cold wind beat against my cheeks, and nipped at my nose as I crossed the field.

  Sitting on the bench, I pulled my knees up to my chin, and finally allowed the tears to fall that had been building in my eyes since hearing Janet’s words. Wrapping my arms around my legs tightly, I pressed my forehead to my knees as all of my sadness bubbled from me in the form of salty, warm tears.

  Images of Sawyer running with his Guard buddies through the oddly warm fall sun filled my mind. The sexy smile he’d worn that day came next, followed by the way he had refused to drop his gaze from mine, until finally my mind chose to focus on his first words to me. They rippled through my mind in vivid detail, and broke the large fragments of my heart into smaller pieces.

  “The girl who can handle some serious eye contact.”

  I thought of all the funny things Sawyer had said to me in the short time I’d known him, all the hilarious one-liners, and our juvenile dates, which had ended up being the best dates I’d ever been on. I thought of how strange I found it that he hated coffee. I thought of how much he loved to run at the butt crack of dawn every day. I thought of his cobalt blue eyes, and his scruffy face he never seemed to keep clean-shaven.

  Then I thought of how I would never get to enjoy those things again, how I never would get to tell him how I truly felt.

  I had love, and then I lost it.

  The tears streamed from my eyes like twin rivers raging with a fury. I wiped my nose with the back of my hand, and twisted my body so I could lie down across the bench. After a while, my tears stopped and my limbs grew numb, either from the cold or exhaustion, I couldn’t be sure. Reaching in my pocket, I pulled out my phone, and dialed the only person I cared to talk to. As soon as I heard the first ring go through, I closed my eyes and nearly wept.

  “Whoa, a phone call from Eva during her work hours, is the apocalypse coming?” he answered.

  “Cam…” I couldn’t say another word. My vocal cords clamped. The sobs that had gripped me wracked from my body in a whole new way as I thought of how to tell him what had happened, how I felt as though I was dying because of it.

  “What’s wrong?” He panicked. “Eva, baby, answer me. What’s the matter?”

  “He’s gone, Cam, and I can’t even breathe…” I sobbed. The force of each heartfelt cry shook my body as my sadness escaped from me while I lay across the bench, reliving the moment Janet first told me the horrible news. “I can’t breathe.”

  My chest tightened even more as noises crept past my lips I’d never heard myself make before. My heart seemed to slow in my chest as my limbs weakened.

  “Oh my God, I’m coming. I’ll come get you. Where are you?” he asked. I vaguely heard the muffled sounds of him slipping his coat on, and the jingle of his keys. “Eva, sweetheart, you’ve got to tell me where you are.”

  “Gareth’s Park,” I whispered. My teeth chattered as I said the words.

  “Jesus, what are you doing there? It’s freezing out,” Cam insisted. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Hold on.”

  The phone went dead against my ear, and I closed my eyes. Hold on? I repeated his words in my mind. Hold on to what? Everything about my life had just been flipped upside down, and turned to shit. What the hell was there to hold on to?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  SAWYER

  My eyes blinked open to see a dingy, white ceiling above me. I continued to blink, hoping that when the fog of sleep left me, I would remember something about where I was, about what had happened. The smell of food cooking filled my nose, causing my stomach to growl. When was the last time I’d eaten? What the hell was going on?

  A small voice filled my ears, but I couldn’t understand the words being said. Why did everything sound so damn muffled on my right side, as though I were under water? Movement caught my attention at the foot of the mattress I was spread out on. My eyes trailed over the face of a small child. A boy. It took me a second to realize who I was seeing—the little boy who had been with his mother, walking through the alley.

  The alley.

  Everything came rushing back to me then. There had been an explosion!

  Moving to sit up, my head swam, and my vision dotted as nausea gripped my
stomach. The little boy yelled something, and then glanced over his shoulder. The same woman whose bag I’d searched rushed into the tiny room. She shooed her son away, and motioned for me to lie down.

  “What happened? I need to check in with my unit,” I muttered. My voice sounded hollow and strange to my ears.

  The woman pushed against my shoulders, forcing me back onto the bed. The spinning stopped the moment my head touched the mattress. Sighing, I brought my hands up to smooth over my face. The stubble my palms met with was longer than I remembered it.

  “How long have I been here? What the hell happened?” I asked, noticing the edge of panic to my tone.

  The woman smiled while reaching into a bowl sitting on the floor. She dabbed a cool cloth over my forehead, and stared into my eyes. I noticed the color of her eyes instantly—a smooth brown, but it was a sense of calm and kindness shining brightly in them that put me at ease. Closing my eyes, I focused on the way the cool droplets of water slipped down my temples, and the feel of the soft cloth swiping at my skin. Visions of the last things I remembered swirled through my head as sleep overtook me once more.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  EVA

  Footsteps sounded outside my bedroom door. Keeping my eyes closed, I attempted to drift to sleep, but couldn’t. Sleep wouldn’t find me. It hadn’t for days. What would have been my only escape from this hellish nightmare evaded me no matter how much I welcomed it. A throbbing pain radiated from where my heart used to beat, healthy and strong, keeping my dreams at bay.

  Loving someone, and then losing him, had weakened me.

  “I wish I could just forget you,” I whispered into the darkness of my room.

  I wished this were a horrible nightmare, but that hadn’t seemed to work. Wishing to forget Sawyer seemed to be the next logical step for me.

  For the first time since I’d found out, I felt a tear slip across my cheek and trickle along my chin. A second one came across the bridge of my nose, following the same path as the first. I didn’t wipe either of them away. I didn’t move. I was barely breathing. That was all I was asking my body to continue to do for me.

  My bedroom door opened slowly, and heavy footfalls met my ears. I didn’t need to see who it was. I already knew. The stench of his cologne had floated through my room the second he had opened the door. It overpowered any smell of food he was undoubtedly bringing for me.

  “You need to eat something.” Cam set a plate on the nightstand. He moved to sit at the edge of my bed, and laid a hand on my bare arm. Stroking my skin, he leaned in and kissed my temple. “You’re starting to worry me, Eva. Hell, you’re worrying us all.”

  Closing my eyes, I licked my bottom lip, tasting the remnants of salty tears. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t bear to see his worry for me reflected in his eyes, or worse—the reflection of myself. I knew what I must look like, how broken I must seem.

  “I get it. I get what you’re feeling—how completely wrecked and hollow it feels to lose someone close. You know better than anyone that I get it, Eva, but you also know the way you’re handling it isn’t healthy,” he whispered.

  His words stung. They made something inside of me snap and crackle to life. Opening my eyes, I locked on his and said something I knew I would most likely regret, but I didn’t care enough to force the words away.

  “You have no room to talk. Don’t tell me my way of handling this isn’t healthy. It’s sure as shit better than the way you handled the death of your parents! At least I’m not running around getting all fucked up on whatever I can find, and sleeping with every person I come in contact with,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “Good, this is good. There’s some emotion finally.” He smiled. “It’s good to see something, even if it is anger directed toward me, shift through you.”

  I situated my head against the crook of my elbow again, and closed my eyes once more.

  “I’m not hungry. Thank whoever cooked, but tell them not to make anything else because it’s just a waste.” My voice was devoid of any emotion. I’d purposely shut down again.

  Shutting down was the only way to dull the pain.

  “Everyone is here. It’s eight o’clock at night, Eva. We’ve all been waiting for hours to see if you would join the world today,” he said, his hand continuing to stroke against my forearm. “You have to come out at some point. You can’t stay hidden in here forever. It’s been three days since you holed up in here, Eva.”

  Three days. That’s all the time that had passed since I learned Sawyer was gone? It felt like an eternity.

  “Blaire and Jason’s wedding is tomorrow,” Cam said, as though that should be enough to get me up and moving.

  I loved Blaire and Jason, but how could I be happy for them when my heart was shattered beyond repair?

  “They’ll understand,” I muttered.

  Even if they didn’t, I didn’t care. There was no way I was going to that wedding to celebrate their union when I’d just lost the only guy I had ever let myself truly fall for. The only guy, if I thought hard enough, I could actually have pictured myself marrying.

  “You’re right. They will, but after this pain lifts some—and it will, trust me—will you be able to forgive yourself for missing their special day?” Cam asked.

  I brushed his arm away, and pushed his knee, hoping he would take a hint and leave. “When the hell did you get so wise? Get out, Cam. I just want to sleep.”

  “Fine, I’ll leave.” He chuckled. “But you need to get your ass out of this room at some point tonight. I’ll give you an hour to peel yourself from your bed, and get your stinky ass in the shower by yourself. If you don’t, then I’m coming in to get you myself.”

  His slight chuckle, and the lighthearted lit to his voice stabbed me through the heart.

  “Stop it, Cam! Stop joking around! Stop laughing! He’s gone! Sawyer’s gone, and no jokes or snarky things you say can ever make that any better for me!” Sitting up, I shoved him as hard as I could. He stumbled back, losing his balance for a split-second before regaining it. “Nothing will make this better! He’s gone! He was the one person I could have loved forever.” My screams turned to sobs before I could contain them.

  How could a person cry so much? How could sadness bring such physical pain?

  Cameron’s arms wrapped around me, and I pounded my fists against his chest, but my blows held no weight behind them. I was exhausted. Drained. Lifeless.

  “Shh, baby, it’s okay. Let it all out,” Cam coaxed. His tone was soothing and mellow. “It’s okay.”

  “But it’s not. It never will be,” I insisted through my sniffles. “The only way I will ever be okay again is if I can figure out how to forget him.”

  The bedroom door creaked open, and the soft sound of Paige’s voice floated through my room. “Is she okay?”

  I hated that word. Okay meant agreement or acceptance, two things I would never feel in relation to Sawyer’s death. Ever.

  Cameron never answered her. He didn’t need to; the muffled sounds of my cries were surely enough.

  * * * *

  Sunlight streamed through my bedroom window, bright and dazzling. I rolled over in bed, and covered my face with my blankets. Movement from in my apartment somewhere caught my attention. Jesus, was Cam never going to leave me now?

  Footsteps shuffled down the hall, and then my bedroom door swung open, the knob hitting the wall behind it. Flinging my blankets down, I locked eyes with Cameron. He was standing there in flannel pajama bottoms and a gray T-shirt with his arms folded over his chest, and a smile on his face.

  “This is the day, sweet cheeks. Your ass is either getting up all by yourself, or I’m dragging you out of that bed, and throwing you over my shoulder.” He turned and walked away before I could utter a word of dispute. “You have ten minutes, sunshine.”

  “I’m going to laugh when she comes out here and slaps you silly.” Paige’s voice drifted to my ears.

  “In order for her to manage that, s
he has to get out of bed,” Cam said.

  I was totally feeling the love/hate thing for him already today. God, he was one cocky SOB.

  Huffing, I slipped my blankets all the way off and swung my feet over the side of the bed. The scent of coffee wafted to my nose. It was my favorite—pumpkin spice. Hanging my head back, I forced myself up and headed down the hall.

  “Hey! You’re up!” Paige nearly shrieked when she saw me round the corner.

  With my lips still pressed together, I headed straight to the coffee. The sight of the machine nearly made me break all over again. Sawyer had gotten me the gift for Christmas. I poured myself a cup, and then dumped the rest down the sink. After unplugging the machine from the wall, I opened the cabinet at my feet, and crammed it inside. No one said a word about my crazed action, and I was glad. Pouring my creamer into my cup, I grabbed a spoon and stirred.

  “What time was the wedding again?” I asked. “I think I need a shower.”

  Cameron laughed, but Paige stared at me with wide eyes of worry.

  “Two,” she answered slowly.

  Sipping my scolding coffee, I leaned against the counter without meeting anyone’s eyes. I would go to Blaire and Jason’s wedding, not only because Cameron had been right when he’d said I would never forgive myself for not being with them on their special day, but also because it was a distraction. I’d decided late in the night that distractions were going to be what got me through this. They would be what made me forget.

  After I finished my coffee and ate a blueberry muffin I’d found wrapped in tinfoil on my counter, I hopped in the shower to wash away the tears that had salted the skin of my face for the last four days. When I got out, I pulled on the pale yellow dress Blaire had picked out for all of her bridesmaids to wear. A soft knock came at the bathroom door just as I was wondering what I should do with my hair.

  “If you’re seriously going to the wedding, we have an appointment to get our hair and stuff done in about twenty minutes,” Paige said. Her voice held as much sympathy as her eyes had earlier, and I hated her for it.