The Way We Are

by Shandi Boyes

  I’m mere inches from Axel when the quickest glimpse of a pair of red-rimmed green eyes enters my peripheral vision. Savannah is standing at the side of the ring, silently begging for me to stop as she had pleaded with Axel earlier.

  I return her stare in silence, unsure if I am coming or going. I’m not usually a violent man, but I have so much anger blackening my veins right now, I’m having a hard time recognizing myself.

  “Come with me,” I request a short time later when clarity finally forms. Her agreement to leave with me will be the only way Axel will leave this ring still breathing.

  After slinging her eyes to Axel’s slumped form writhing on the mat, she returns them to me. I feel like all my Christmases have come at once when she briefly nods. I’m at her side not even five seconds later, ignoring the two dozen plus men congratulating me with pats on the back. I don’t even stop to accept the wad of cash from Isaac. All I want to do is get Savannah out of here—protecting her from this craziness is more valuable than any amount of money.

  With Savannah sheltered under the crook of my arm, I make a beeline for the door. My heart is racing more now than it was in the boxing ring. I honestly feel like I’m a moment away from coronary failure.

  “Savannah!” Axel screams, his husky voice projecting over the flurry of men scrambling to organize the next set of contenders. “You promised you’d never leave!”

  Savannah’s stiffens for the quickest second, but her steps don’t falter in the slightest. She stays huddled under my arm, only pulling away when we reach her car parked at the side of the warehouse.

  After sliding into the driver’s seat, she seeks something from the back seat of her coupe. I slip into the passenger seat and fasten my seat belt before accepting the shirt she's holding out for me.

  “Do you need to go to the hospital?” she asks me, her tone low with worry.

  I tug a Ravenshoe High School shirt over my head before locking my eyes with hers. The worry hampering her beautiful face adds to the adrenaline thickening my blood. I shouldn’t enjoy her discomfort, but I do. It shows she still cares about me. Even if it's from circumstances beyond her control, I can’t ignore it.

  Unable to speak through the lump in my throat, I shake my head.

  Savannah’s unexpected smile makes quick work of the havoc brewing in my gut. It makes me forget the circumstances of our gathering, and why we are fleeing a derelict warehouse in her car instead of mine.

  She makes me forget everything... everything but her.

  5

  Ryan

  Savannah pulls her car to the curb outside my family home before switching off the motor. I want to say our twenty-mile commute was brimming with conversation and mutual understanding. Unfortunately, that isn't the case.

  Savannah hasn't spoken a word—not one. If she were the same girl I crushed on hard during middle school, I'd happily testify that she isn't mad, angry, or plotting my demise; she's merely deep in thought. But since I'm learning the Savannah I used to know is now a ghost, I keep my opinions as tightly locked as her lips.

  I want to know what changed so dramatically in her life that her Friday night schedule switched from River Phoenix movie marathons to socializing with mafia kingpins at underground fight rings, but I don’t know how to bring that up without making things worse.

  My anger has faded somewhat during commute, but it isn't gone. I might still try to blame some of tonight’s events on Savannah. But I don't want to do that because she's already carrying enough weight to last her a lifetime.

  Deciding to use actions instead of words, I trail my index finger down her cheek. Although Col’s strike was brutal, the natural color of her cheek hides the evidence of his slap.

  “God—Savannah. He shouldn’t have hit you... I should have stopped him... He should have stopped him.”

  My words are hoarse, strangled by an equal amount of anger and remorse. I’m not angry at Savannah; I’m furious at both Axel and myself. I should have clutched his throat tighter. I should have beaten him to within an inch of his life just for threatening Savannah. But more than anything, I should have never believed his guarantee to begin with. He played on my belief that everyone is born with decency by showing me that they aren’t. He made me look like a gullible idiot.

  “I’m sorry I put you in that situation. I just got so worked up trying to adjust Axel’s attitude, I forgot the real picture—”

  “Stop, Ryan. Please stop,” Savannah interrupts, her tone so low my ears strain to hear her even though she's sitting inches from me. “You have no reason to apologize. None whatsoever.”

  Her tongue darts out to replenish her bee-stung bottom lip before she raises her head. It feels like I’ve been sucker punched when our gazes collide. Although her eyes are as beautiful as ever, the poor street lighting can’t hide the shame clouding them, much less remorse.

  “Don’t... Fuck, Savannah,” I blubber out when I spot tears looming in her dilated gaze. “Please don’t cry.”

  Upon hearing my plea, more tears well in her eyes. I scrub my hand over the stubble on my chin, wishing I was better with words. Then I wouldn’t look like a fumbling idiot for the second time tonight.

  “This isn’t your fault. Nothing that happened tonight was your fault.” My jaw muscle spasms, my words too haunting for my body not to react.

  When a rogue tear shimmers on Savannah’s cheek, I brush it off. Her breath fans my skin when my finger lingers over a pair of lips I imagine every night before going to sleep. Her mouth is as pillowy as a cloud. If I regret anything the past five years, it's not cherishing every perfect feature of her face. I always assumed she’d be there—until she wasn’t.

  “Leave him, Savannah. Walk away before he convinces you nights like tonight are normal,” I plead before I can stop my words.

  Savannah presses her lips together before shaking her head. “I can’t,” she whispers, the honesty in her eyes the biggest tell-all. “I wish I could, but I can’t.”

  My anger jumps from a simmer to a slow boil. “Why can’t you?”

  I ball my hands into fists, silently reprimanding myself for my stern tone. Words can’t damage your body like fists, but they are just as hurtful. I’ve learned that the hard way the past five years.

  “If he has hurt you once, he’ll hurt you again,” I reason, hoping some of Savannah’s own words will influence her. She was only eleven when she said those exact words to my mom, but they stuck with me like glue.

  When Savannah faintly nods, I place my hand under her chin and return her eyes to mine. “Has he hurt you?”

  My core tightens, anticipating her reply to knock the wind from my lungs. Thankfully, it doesn’t. After her watery eyes bounce between mine for two heart-thrashing seconds, Savannah shakes her head. “No, he hasn’t.”

  I release a raspy breath, both relieved and defensive. I want to believe her statement without a second thought—her candid eyes reveal her pledge is true—but there’s still some doubt in the back of my mind I can’t ignore.

  Spotting my reservation, Savannah says, “The person you saw today, that wasn’t Axel. He’s not usually like that. Well, not around me anyway.” She fidgets with the hem of her shorts, taking a moment to contemplate the remainder of her defense.

  “When Axel feels threatened, he acts out. That’s what you saw today. A boy who felt intimidated.” She drags her teeth over her bottom lip before whispering, “You make him vulnerable, Ryan. He feels threatened by you—by what we have.” She sits a little straighter in her seat before correcting, “By what we had.”

  It’s the fight of my life not to respond to her naivety with what I tell my mom every time she makes excuses for my dad. But considering this is the longest conversation we’ve had in five years, I figure it’s best to keep my mouth shut. It’s a fucking hard feat.

  I wish drumming sense into people was as easy as grabbing their shoulders and shaking them three times, but sadly that isn’t the case. My mom has ten times more reasons to le
ave my dad than she has to stay, but she continues standing by his side, defending him with the same excuses Savannah just used. The chance of changing someone’s mindset is as unlikely as discovering your soulmate at the age of five, but it isn’t impossible. Savannah is proof of that.

  I’ve been crushing on Savannah from the moment I saw her whizzing down our street on her hot pink bike with rainbow tassels taped onto her handlebars. I was so in awe that someone so tiny could ride without training wheels that I asked my mom to remove mine that very afternoon.

  Savannah drew a rainbow heart on my cast the following day. From then on, we were inseparable. What we had wasn’t just a childhood friendship. We had a connection. We had mutual understanding. If I could make her see sense through the madness, we could still have both those things, and so much more.

  “Can I show you something?” I ask Savannah, my tone nothing like the one I used earlier. This one is calm and controlled, the one I should have been using all along.

  My chest puffs high when Savannah nods without hesitation. She knows I'd never put her in danger. She also knows I don’t need to compensate for insecurity with violence. If what Savannah said about Axel is true, he wasn't the only one acting out because of intimidation tonight. I was just as foolish as him. But there's one difference. I'm not intimidated by Axel. I'm frightened as fuck by the girl sitting across from me.

  Five years and she's still on my mind every night.

  Five years and one sideways glance still has my stomach twisted up in knots.

  Five years and I’d still forgive her in an instant if she broke my heart again tomorrow.

  Five extremely long, tiring years and I still want her to be mine.

  After clearing the tears from her eyes with a quick wipe of her hand, Savannah cranks open her driver's side door. I'm tempted to demand she wait for me to escort her out of her car as a real man should, but I once again keep my mouth shut. Those rights don't belong to me. Not yet. Soon. I hope.

  Ignoring the buzz of mosquitos’ humming around our heads, we walk up the cracked sidewalk of my house in silence. With the flicker of the TV coming through the lace curtains of my living room, I’m confident we are safe from prying eyes. My dad is as deaf as he is ignorant. When he's watching football, our entire neighborhood hears it—abusive rants and all.

  Savannah’s climb up the three stairs on my front porch stops when I curl my hand around hers. “This way,” I advise, nudging my head to the old side gate hanging by its hinges. “What I want to show you is out back.”

  A flare blazes through Savannah’s eyes before she nods her head. It isn’t a scared flare; it's one of excitement. I don’t know if she is excited because I am holding her hand or because of my declaration, but I keep my hand curled around hers nonetheless.

  When we stop at the old maple tree where we shared our last kiss, the dimly lit sky can’t hide the heat on Savannah’s cheeks. They are as red as the rope bracelet twisted around my wrist. Perhaps our last kiss wasn’t as unforgettable as I thought?

  “You go first,” I offer, gripping the frayed wooden ladder of our childhood treehouse.

  Nodding, Savannah drags her sweaty hands down the denim covering her backside before curling them around the rope. Just like earlier tonight, I demand my eyes look away from the scrumptious portions of her butt cheeks peeking out the hem of her shorts. They once again refuse to comply. Even the tenseness of our exchange can’t alter the facts. Savannah has a mighty fine ass.

  After throwing open the trap door of the treehouse, Savannah crawls inside on her hands and knees before pivoting around to secure a firm grip on the top rung of the ladder. A blistering smile spreads across my face, pleased she remembers our safety routine, performed a minimum once a day for years prior to our time apart.

  I always made Savannah climb first so if she were to fall, I could catch her. Wanting her own safety strategies implemented, Savannah started holding the top rung every time it was my turn to scale the warped wood. We climbed up to this tree house for over ten years, and not once did either of us fall, but our routine never altered.

  It wasn’t worry encouraging our safety protocol; it was our way of showing how much we cared for each other.

  Well, that’s how I understood it.

  Though my heart is racing a million miles an hour, I begin climbing the ladder. Out of the hundred ways I envisioned for us to reconnect, tonight’s event never entered the equation. Fighting Savannah’s douchebag boyfriend in an underground fight run by his mobster uncle wasn’t far off the mark—minus the mobster underground fight ring part. But I never thought I’d see her in our old stomping grounds again. Savannah put just as much blood, sweat and tears into this tree house as I did, so it belongs to her as much as me.

  With the treehouse only being ten feet off the ground, it doesn't take me long to join Savannah inside. It's amazing how massive something seems when you're only six. I thought I was on top of the world at the time, but its flat roof doesn't even extend past the second floor of my house.

  It was probably more who I was hanging with than the actual height that made it so impressive. This was my crew's favorite hangout spot back in the day. My group only had one female member. Savannah.

  “Careful,” I warn when she tiptoes across the dusty space, cautious of the weak wood squeaking under her feet.

  After yanking open the floral curtains her mom sewed for our clubhouse, she spins around to face me. The moonlight creeping in the porthole reveals the same happiness that always shone on her face when she entered this domain. It also exposes how dilapidated our treehouse has become the past five years.

  I've only stepped foot in this space five times the past five years; my focus was never on restorations. I was fixated on one thing and one thing only—the box I shoved Savannah's gift in when her dad turned me away from her thirteenth birthday party. I buried it away from the world as I did my confusion—too young to understand and too stupid to ask questions.

  Savannah’s small height allows her to stand in the middle of our club house. I’m not so lucky. Confusion isn’t the only thing that’s grown the past five years—so has my head.

  Keeping my chin pinned to my chest, I make my way to the box I slid across the floor at 6 AM this morning. Because the wood slats are covered in years of dust, it doesn’t take a genius to realize which direction it went. A dark line of wood outlines my way, showcasing the box’s location like a strip of beacons lighting up a runway. My hand rattles when I gather the box, fearful I’m moments away from being exposed as a heartsick idiot.

  My worry doesn't linger for long, only long enough for me to remember my objective in bringing Savannah here. This isn't about a five-year-long declaration of puppy-love. It's proving that not all men are like Axel, Col, or even me.

  I'm not perfect. I've made plenty of mistakes as I made the short trip from adolescence to adulthood. But being man enough to admit I'm not perfect is a step in the right direction. Isn’t it?

  Savannah's glistening eyes fall to the box when I hold it out for her. Years of sitting in unfavorable conditions means it's battered and worn, but the images I glued onto the lid are still distinguishable.

  Savannah was only a baby when River Phoenix died, but I'm confident some of the tears she shed that day were for him. She was obsessed with him during our childhood—so much so, Friday night was known as River Phoenix night in her household.

  A gorgeous giggle spills from Savannah’s lips when she spots the sickening montage of photos I created of them together. Five years ago, I thought setting aside my jealousy was a sweet, kindhearted thing to do. Now it just seems downright creepy.

  “Oh, Ryan,” Savannah murmurs breathlessly, pushing my worries of looking like a pansy out the window. “You still haven’t figured it out, have you?”

  Raising her eyes from the box to me, she trails her index finger over my quirked brow. “Same grungy haircut, same eyes, same playful personality.” My Adam’s apple bobs up and down when he
r finger slowly travels down my cheek. “And same perfectly shaped face. His DVDs were just more accessible than you.”

  Panicked she has said too much and stealing my chance to reply, she returns her focus to the box she’s clutching for dear life. My heart thumps in my throat when she pries off the lid, her pace slow. Here it comes. Years of secrets are about to be exposed.

  I scarcely breathe when she flicks past five sealed envelopes sitting nestled at the top of the stack, their thickness leaving no doubt they are birthday cards. She faintly coughs when she discovers five tightly folded notes with her name scrawled across the top. Then a rogue tear slips down her cheek when she spots the six dozen or more Hershey kisses scattered across the bottom of the box.

  "Ryan... uh... I don't know what to say," Savannah murmurs, her eyes never leaving the box.

  Deciding actions speak louder than words, she curls her arm around my neck and draws her body to mine. If her box wasn't between us, there would be nothing between us. Nothing. At. All. It's moments like these that cause teenage issues to crash into me hard and fast—"hard” being the operative word.

  We stand in silence for several minutes, the collar of my borrowed shirt soaking up the few tears Savannah’s brimming eyes couldn’t contain. For now, her tears are ones of happiness. When she reads my letters, they may turn into angry tears. The notes I wrote aren’t love letters. They were an outlet for my frustration. I expressed my every hurt, anger, and frustration in words.

  I told her how mad I was that she threw away our friendship without a second thought before begging for her to come back. I told her I hated her before declaring that I missed her for every second of every day. I told her I’d never forgive her before I issued my forgiveness on the very last line.