The Outliers

by T. M. Frazier

  I should say."

  The plane leveled off. Sawyer grabbed her midsection.

  "Are you going to be sick?" I asked.

  Sawyer shook her head furiously from side to side.

  The bumps subsided. The ride became smooth. "Look," I told Sawyer. "Open your eyes."

  "No!" She exclaimed, placing her hands over her already closed eyes.

  "Do you feel it? No more bumps. It's beautiful down there. You need to see it." When that didn't work I tried another tactic. "Where is my brave girl? Where is the one who wouldn't let anything stop her. Who was fearless when she should've been afraid? I need that girl to open her eyes and look because I know she would be upset when she found out what she missed. Because right now from where I'm sitting the view is incredible."

  I lightly tugged on Sawyers rest removing her hand from her eyes. Slowly and reluctantly she opened her eyes and squinted from the sun. Once her eyes adjusted I leaned over her toward the window forcing her closer so she could see the ground below. "Isn't it amazing?"

  Sawyer only nodded. Her lips parted. Wonder replaced the fear in her eyes. Her knee stopped bouncing. Her hand released mine as she pressed it to the window, trying to get a better glimpse of the earth beneath us. "It's so...wow."

  For the rest of the flight, Sawyer could not peel her eyes from the window. Right before we landed, she turned to me and said, “It makes you think, doesn't it?"

  "About what?"

  About how unimportant it all is. And at the same time how important it all is."

  I didn't know exactly what she was trying to say. All I knew was up most important thing in the world to me was sitting right next to me, squealing with joy as the wheels hit the tarmac.

  Chapter 10

  Sawyer

  “Where are we exactly?” I asked as Ethan dropped us off in the driveway of a cabin style home built into the side of a mountain.

  Finn thanked Ethan who pointed to his own home across the narrow path. "That's me, if you need anything."

  Ethan backed up and pulled into his own driveway.

  "We are in the Georgia mountains."

  "Whose house is this?" I asked, just as an excited scream pierced the night air.

  “My baby is home!”

  The front door flung open and a tiny woman leapt down the porch, running toward Finn with open arms and colliding into him with such force it knocked him back a step.

  “Hey, Mom. Good to see you too,” Finn chuckled against her head, returning her hug.

  Mother.

  We are at his parents’ house.

  I began to panic more than I had on the plane. My palms grew sweaty. My throat went dry. At least the flight he'd told me about a few hours beforehand. He'd given me no warning at all about this.

  Finn's mother pulled back but kept her hands on his arms. “Let me look at you,” she said, giving her son a once over. Her eyes were dark brown and full of warmth. Her short hair was a light strawberry blonde. She looked nothing like Finn at all and was at least a foot shorter than him. “You look great, honey.” her eyes welled up with happy tears.

  “None of that now, Ma. But you look great too,” Finn said. He placed an arm around my shoulder and pulled me into him. “Mom, this is…”

  “This is the one!” his mom shrieked, pulling me into her embrace. “It’s so wonderful to finally meet you. You are stunning. Finn, you didn’t tell me she was this beautiful.” She whispered her next words in my ear. “Thank you.”

  When I pulled back to ask her why she was thanking me, I realized I’d been wrong. She did have one resemblance to Finn. The dimple that popped out on her cheek when she smiled.

  “Are ya’ll gonna stand out there and hug all day or you gonna come on in?” Another loud yet much deeper voice boomed from the door.

  Finn and his mother walked me up to the front steps to meet the man who was Finn, just older. White hair where Finn’s was dirty blonde. A few more lines on his slightly reddened face. But his height, build, and even the way he was standing with his arms crossed over his chest was entirely Finn.

  “It’s eerie isn’t it, darling?” Finn’s mom whispered when she saw me staring between the two men.

  I could only nod. I didn’t know if eerie was the right word, but it was certainly interesting how it appeared that the mold used to make Finn’s father was reused to make Finn.

  “Nice seeing you again, son,” Finn’s dad said, “Been too damn long.” He held out his hand but the second Finn placed his hand out his father took it and pulled him in for a one-armed hug. “Get over here.”

  “Great seeing you again too, old man.” Finn said sounding genuine. I couldn’t help but smile. His happiness was downright infectious.

  “Old man? I don’t look a day over fifty-two.” His dad argued, puffing out his chest.

  “That’s because you ARE fifty-two,” Finn’s mother said with a playful shove to his shoulder.

  “This must be Sawyer,” his dad said, turning his attentions and his Finn-like killer smile on me.

  I couldn’t help but smile back. “It’s great meeting you both, Mr. And Mrs. Hollis. Thank you for having me in your home.” I instantly realized we were still on the porch. “Or…outside of your home?” I amended.

  Finn placed a hand on the small of my back. A reassuring gesture I desperately needed. I don’t know why I was suddenly nervous to meet new people. I’d been doing it practically every single day for months.

  But this is your first time meeting the parents of the man you love.

  “No need for the formalities, darling,” Mr. Hollis chuckled. “You can call me Joe and this here beautiful lady is my Josie.”

  “Joe and Josie?” I raised my eyebrows at the similar yet adorably fitting names.

  Josie placed an arm around my shoulder, pulling me away from Finn and leading me into the house. Joe and Finn followed closely behind. “You think that’s weird?" she whispered. "You should meet our neighbors. Sam and Samantha.”

  I chuckled.

  “Although, I think these kids here got us beat with the cute names, hun,” Joe chimed in.

  “How is that…” Finn’s mom trailed off. She stopped walking and spun around as the realization hit her.

  “I knew you’d get a kick out of it,” Finn said with a proud smile. “Since it is your favorite book and all.”

  Josie clapped her hands together and looked like she was about to melt into the wood floor. She glanced between us with a smile that took up her entire face.

  “Finn and Sawyer!”

  Chapter 11

  Finn

  We ate my mother’s famous roast chicken for dinner. It tasted better than I remembered. The conversation was light and filled with laughter. I found myself reaching over several times to squeeze Sawyer's hand or rub my foot against her calf under the table to reassure her. Although after a while it was clear her nerves had faded and she was just another Hollis sitting around the dinner table.

  Just another Hollis.

  Something about that made me want to sweep her off to a cave somewhere. I doubted the twin bed in my old bedroom would be as manly, it was going to have to do.

  My caveman urges were going to have to wait. After dinner, my father and I sat out on the back deck while my mother insisted that Sawyer stay in to help her with her famous cobbler.

  “Since when does Mom need help with desert?” I asked, taking the cigar my father handed to me and biting off the end to light it. Cigars weren’t really my thing but it was almost a tradition that every time I’d visited we’d smoke one and shoot the shit.

  “She don’t. That woman can bake with her eyes shut and her hands tied behind her back.” He held up the cigar in his hand. “It’s been too long since we had one of these,” he said, lighting his cigar and puffing on it until the tip turned red then handing it to me to do the same. I took a puff and blew it out.

  “Yeah, Dad,” I agreed. “Way too long.”

  “You better now, kid? ‘Cause you
look better than the last time I saw you when you practically tossed your mama and I out on our asses when we came to check on ya after Jackie passed. I know you told us that you were fine even when you weren’t even close to fine. Broke our hearts when we realized there wasn’t nothing we could do for you but let you work it out on your own. And I know it was hard, but I’m glad you continued taking your mama’s calls. It meant the world to her to know you were still trudging through the mess you made of your life instead of giving up on it.”

  I hated being responsible for their pain while I was going through mine. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I really am. Couldn’t see past my own shi…” my mother gave me a glare. I chuckled. “stuff, to understand what I was putting you through.”

  My chest tightened at the thought of them suffering because of me.

  “Yes, you hurt us. But yes, you are very forgiven. Always,” my mother said, patting the top of my hand.

  “Beat around the bush why don’t ya,” I said playfully.

  My mom beamed. “Life’s too short to beat around it when you can carve your way through it in half the time and sit back with a beer and a cigar for the other half.”

  “There was nothing you guy could’ve done to help me see my way clear of my own bullshit back then. But, yeah. I’m better now. I’m sorry I put you through all that.”

  Dad looked down at his cigar, turning it around in his fingers like it somehow held all the answers. “Looks like Sawyer may have played a part in getting you back to us.” He gestured to the window where mom was talking enthusiastically, waving a rolling pin around in her hand while Sawyer laughed at whatever embarrassing story she was probably telling about my childhood. It meant everything to me to have her there. To be part of my family. The three people I cared about most in the world were under one roof and it was a kind of feeling of being complete that I never thought I’d ever have.

  He couldn’t have been more right. “She was the first person to come along who made me miss living. I wasn’t expecting her. Or the way she made me feel. Took me by complete surprise.”

  “The good ones always do.” Dad nodded like he understood exactly what I was saying although I didn’t quite understand it myself. “I see the way you look at that girl. That’s what I like to call the forever factor. I had it in my eyes when I saw your mother for the first time,” he blew out a breath like he couldn’t believe it himself. He glanced back through the window.

  “You still have it when you look at her now,” I said.

  “That’s what FOREVER means, son.”

  I laughed took another puff of my cigar. Forever was exactly what I wanted with Sawyer. But I’d already taken so much from her. How could I ask her for forever right now when she’s experienced so little out of life?

  “Does Sawyer know how you feel? How deep this runs for you?” he asked, like he was reading my mind.

  I shrugged. “I think so, but her life’s…complicated. This is all new for her.” I looked up at the sky. “New for me too.”

  “I can see that. You never looked at Jackie that way. She was a good kid and all. I miss her like she was my own daughter, but she wasn’t your forever factor.”

  “No, she wasn’t.” I waited for the familiar sting of guilt to follow those words, but it never came.

  “So, you don’t want to scare Sawyer off with the enormity of your feelings. Then tell me son, how’s your woo?”

  “My what?” I asked, choking on the smoke. I reached down to the beer on the deck next to my chair and took a healthy gulp.

  My father cocked an eyebrow and gave me a side glare that was so heated it could melt metal. He shifted toward me in his seat. “You’re a Hollis, son. Please tell me that you’ve been wooing the girl and not just practicing marital relations. Tell me you know how to woo.”

  “You do have a way with words,” I chuckled. Also, he had a point.

  Dad rolled his eyes. “You want to lock her down on forever but you’re not wooing her? Have you even taken her out on a proper date?”

  “I…shit,” I said, leaning back and taking another puff on my cigar. “No. No I haven’t.”

  My dad scoffed. “You best get to it. If you don’t want to dump your load of feelings on your forever girl without scaring the bees out of the hive then you, son, are gonna have to woo her first.” Dad blew out a perfect smoke ring.

  I glanced back to this house. My eyes met Sawyer’s briefly met through the window. She blushed and went back to listening to whatever story my mom was telling.

  I loved that blush. I loved that her entire body turned pink when she was turned on.

  I didn’t love that my dad was right.

  “I hate it when you’re right,” I grumbled, not imagining how I’d been so naive. Between rejoining society and all the shit going down with Sawyer’s parents, I’d skipped right over dating her.

  I felt a blunt slap on the back of my head. I turned to find my father setting a rolled-up newspaper down on the deck. “What the hell was that for?”

  “She’s never been on a date before, right?” he asked. “You’ve taken up with her. Practically living together and you ain’t took her on one single date.” My dad rolled his eyes and whistled through his disappointment. “Not a movie not a dinner. Nothing. You even my son or should I get one of them fancy DNA tests of the internets?”

  “Shit,” I muttered, wiping my hand down my face and scratching the stubble on my chin.

  “In case you were still wondering,” my dad said. “That slap was for picking the apple before it had time to fall from the tree. Raised you better than that, son.”

  “Yeah, you did,” I agreed.

  My father turned upward and looked to the stars, reclining in his creaky lawn chair. I did the same.

  “Whose side are you on anyway?” I asked after a few moments of silence.

  Dad chuckled and I knew exactly what he was going to say because it was how he always answered the question whenever I talked to him in the past about my mother or even Jackie.

  “Hers, son. Always Hers.”

  Finn

  I’d been a selfish prick.

  Which was fitting because when it came to Sawyer it seems that it’s also what I’d been thinking with instead of my brain. My father was right. I’d put the apple before the falling tree or whatever garbled mumbo jump he said that broke through to me.

  She’s never been on a date.

  I’d been inside of her and never taken her on a date. Sure, I’d slept with plenty of women I’d never actually dated before, but Sawyer was unlike anyone I’d ever met, which was why the date I had planned was far from traditional.

  With everything that’s been going on I hadn’t realized we’d completely skipped a step. Actually, we’d skipped several steps. We went from the occasional kiss to keep her from freaking out to having her in my bed every night. I was over the moon happy but I hadn’t stopped for one single second to think about all the things she’s never experienced. All the things she’s missed out on.

  Sawyer had never so much as experienced high school or prom or a football game and at the first possible moment I’d claimed her as mine and somewhere in all the beautiful chaos of falling for her I’d forgotten to actually date her.