Truly, Madly, Deadly

FIVE

Sawyer watched Ryan as he gingerly settled Chloe into his car. Chloe gave a slight wave when he pulled away from the curb, and the gash on her eye caught the light from the streetlamp. Sawyer shivered and hugged her arms.

“Here,” Cooper said, pulling off his zippered hoodie and settling it over her shoulders. “Better?”

Sawyer nodded. The sweater would have helped if the chill hadn’t been bone deep.

“Can we get going now?”

Cooper nodded. “Yeah, of course.” He dug in his pocket for his keys and Sawyer touched his wrist gently, her fingers cold on his warm skin. “Are you okay to drive?”

He smiled. “Only had half a beer and that was”—he squinted at the clock—“over an hour ago.”

“Didn’t seem that long ago.”

“Well, there was the thing with Chloe, and before that—” Cooper bit his bottom lip in a way that shot fire crackers through Sawyer’s system. “The thing with us.”

Heat—and guilt—pulsed through Sawyer. She had been making out with a guy—a guy who was not Kevin—while someone was trying to murder her best friend.

What kind of girl are you? Her insides roiled.

“Ready?”

Sawyer nodded, and when Cooper rested his arm across her shoulders, she slid out of the half embrace. She hoped to make it seem as nonchalant or as innocent as possible, but the hurt look in Cooper’s eyes was unmistakable.

They drove in awkward silence until Cooper’s car hit the freeway.

“I’m really sorry about your friend.”

“Chloe,” Sawyer offered.

“Chloe. Have you guys known each other long?”

Sawyer smiled, remembering. “Remember when I said I was friends with Maggie?”

“I remember, but I still don’t believe it.” Cooper grinned in the darkened car, but his eyes sparkled sweetly. Sawyer punched down the warmth that rose inside of her.

“It was the three of us. Best friends. We were five—Maggie didn’t know how to be evil yet.”

“Ah, there’s the missing piece.”

Sawyer started to feel more comfortable, letting her shoulders sag forward as she sunk into the car seat. “We met at dance class. Nothing special, but we used to do everything together. Everything. The three of us.”

“So when was the huge falling out?”

Sawyer frowned. “I don’t really know what started it. We were in junior high and Maggie started to get popular. Chloe ended up having to quit dance class, and Maggie just kept nagging at her to tell everyone why. It was like she wanted to prove to everyone how cool she was by throwing Chloe—our best friend—to the wolves.”

Cooper flipped on his blinker when Sawyer showed him where to exit. “So what was Chloe’s big secret? Or is that still privileged information?”

Sawyer smiled at Cooper; she couldn’t help herself. “Chloe’s parents—I think it was still her parents, maybe a stepdad already—just couldn’t afford it.”

Cooper furrowed his brow. “That’s it? Not like every time she danced a puppy died?”

“No!” Sawyer laughed.

“Parents not being able to afford dance lessons doesn’t seem all that tragic.”

“Well, when you’re eleven, whatever makes you not the same as all the other girls is tragic. I told Chloe I didn’t care, but she was so terrified someone would find out. They moved into this crappy trailer park, sold their car. Maggie found out from her gossipy mom or something, and she pounced. Chloe’s new status went viral overnight. People made fun of her, called her trailer trash or ghetto girl.” Sawyer shook her head, remembering. “She was crushed.”

“But you stood by your friend.”

“Of course.” Sawyer smiled faintly. “She’s my best friend.”

“So that was, what? Five, six years ago?”

Sawyer nodded. “Something like that.”

“And you haven’t spoken to Maggie since?”

Sawyer gritted her teeth. “Nothing nice.”

Sawyer remembered the day the news broke that she and Kevin had begun dating. Maggie was Kevin’s ex-girlfriend; they had been apart for a little over two months, but from Maggie’s bulldog expression, one would think Kevin had walked out on the one for the other. “I don’t think Maggie’s really the making-up type, regardless.”

Cooper nodded. “You’re pretty tough, Sawyer Dodd.”

Sawyer turned in her seat. “Why would you say that?”

“Standing up to a bully? Even at eleven years old, that’s pretty brave.”

In her mind, an image flashed of Sawyer cowering in a corner while Kevin stood over her, spitting mad. Humiliation washed over her, and she looked away. “I’m not that brave.”

“Chloe’s lucky to have a friend like you.”

“It’s not like that. She’s got my back too. When I told her my parents were splitting, she came over every day with vanilla ice cream and a two liter of root beer.”

Cooper guided the car through the gates of Blackwood. “Vanilla ice cream and root beer? No chocolate? No marshmallows? Sounds kind of dull.”

“Not when you tunnel down the center of the carton and fill the void with root beer. It’s the ultimate root beer float.”

“I see,” Cooper said with a grin. “So vanilla ice cream and root beer, that’s what made you a tough girl then?”

Sawyer feigned anger. “What do you mean, ‘then’? Cooper Grey, I’ll take you down right here.”

“I kind of wish you would.” The comment was suggestive and raced like lightning through the car, hanging heavy in the air. The thrilling zing rushed through Sawyer, and as quickly as it came, it was gone, replaced by that same sense of shame, of betrayal. She saw Kevin’s narrowed eyes, saw the blood seeping from Chloe’s wound.

“This is my street,” she said quickly.

Cooper slowed. “Which one is your house?”

“You know, don’t worry about it. You can just drop me here. It’s right there.” She waved in the vicinity of her house, hunkering in the darkness.

“What?”

Sawyer clicked open the door, and Cooper slammed on the brakes. “I’m just going to get out here.” She gathered her purse and hopped out of the car. “Thank you so much, Cooper, um, it was fun—well, not fun fun, but—you know. Thanks.” She snapped the door shut before Cooper could say anything and gave him a curt finger wave before turning on her heel and heading toward the bank of dark houses. She hated the way they seemed to leer at her, these gaping skeletons, but all at once the air in the car had gone from barely noticeable to so heavy it pushed all the air out of Sawyer’s lungs. She ran to her house and disappeared through the front door without waiting to see Cooper leave.

Sawyer couldn’t remember when—or if—she fell asleep, but she was staring at the ceiling by the time the sun started to tinge the ink-black night a pinky yellow. It had been too quiet to sleep; with every breath she took, Sawyer imagined the deathly silence filling her lungs, soaking through her body. When the first finger of light broke its way into her room, she kicked off the covers and wrestled her way into a sports bra and track pants, pulling on a long-sleeve shirt and running socks. She kicked through the mess of discarded clothing and random junk on her bedroom floor until she found one sneaker; she was on the floor, flat on her chest, reaching under her bed when the palm of her hand landed on the crumbs of something cold. She withdrew her hand and wrinkled her nose at the beads of dried mud that had embedded themselves in her palm. She brushed the mud off on her T-shirt and gave the bed a good heft with her hip, moving it a few inches. Her one errant shoe was there, flopped on its side, wedged between some books she was planning to shelve when she got around to getting shelves and a single metallic flat. Sawyer snatched up her sneaker and brushed off the dirt, trying to remember the last time she trail ran; the muck that usually clung to her shoes was red track dust. She slid the sneaker on and glanced back to the heap of books and the single shoe, the littering of dried mud. She edged the bed back in place and told herself she’d vacuum later.

The cold was overwhelming and bone deep when Sawyer stepped onto the porch. Her breath came out in puffed white clouds, and her muscles seized up as her lungs sucked in the icy air. She launched herself anyway, hands fisted, legs pumping. It didn’t take long for the warmth of motion to surge through her body. She zipped past three half-built houses, studs exposed like spindly skeletons as the warm air surged through her lungs, broke through her muscles.

Sawyer was a distance runner, not a speed runner, but she left her house quickly, clearing her street and her block in record time. As she ran she could feel the memory of Kevin, of the note, of Chloe and the oozing red gash pulling her back, doing its best to weigh on her, but she pushed harder, faster, her fists punching at the air in front of her, her heart metering out a quick, hot rhythm with her footfalls as they rang out hollow in the empty street. As she ran, something nagged at her periphery—something she was missing. She was deep in thought, trying to grab the missing piece, when she heard the footsteps behind her. They were quick, keeping easy pace with her, their echo cracking against the empty streets, bouncing off the model homes. Sawyer slowed and the footsteps mirrored her rhythm.

She stopped.

Suddenly the silence was too deep, too thick. It sunk into Sawyer’s chest, enveloping her so that she felt claustrophobic. Her fingers clawed at the zipper of her windbreaker, then pulled at the collar of her shirt. The street was deathly silent now.

Had she imagined the footsteps?

A branch broke behind her, and Sawyer sucked in a breath and held it, afraid to turn around—afraid not to. Her eyes searched the horizon in front of her and the breath seeped out of her body little by little as she saw each cookie-cutter house in front of her, each as perfect and as empty as the last.

She took off like a shot.

She dug into the air with her fingers and pumped her legs until her thighs screamed, wet heat breaking across the muscles. She squinted as the wind smacked at her face, turned the tears she didn’t know were falling into painful blasts of cold. She was making headway, had reached the looped street that returned to her house as the footsteps became more pronounced, more frantic. Her feet ached and her left calf seized, the pain shooting through her like needles in her bloodstream. She tried to will it away, tried to command her brain to make her legs move more, faster, harder, but her knee collapsed over her cramped calf and Sawyer felt herself falling, the whole thing in achingly slow motion. She noticed every detail on this block’s more finished houses as she went down—the unobtrusive almond-colored paint, the chocolate-brown trim, the shadow under one of the eaves. And she knew she was being watched.

Her shoulder hit the pavement first, sliding enough to accommodate her upper arm, her splayed palms, her belly, and her chin. She felt her skin make contact with the frozen ground, felt it tear and burn as she slid in the gravel. The smack had sucked the wind out of her so when she tried to scream, nothing came out except a low, offensive moan. She searched wildly for her assailant, for the shadow under the eave—but there was nothing there. Again the silence was everywhere, until a crumpled paper bag caught on the breeze and flitted across the sidewalk, coming to rest on a would-be porch.

Sawyer rolled onto her back and worked to pull air into her folded lungs. When she could breathe and her heartbeat dipped back to a normal thump, she pushed herself up, wincing as the gravel dug itself deeper into her ruined palms. She looked around her, her fear still palpable in the early morning light, still aching in her exhausted muscles.

The street was deserted. There was no one there.

Her teeth started to chatter, and the tears fell freely over her cheeks. She sniffed as she began a slow, laboring jog back to her house. Her jaw ached by the time she reached the low arc of her property, and as she stepped onto the porch, her eyes caught the faintest glimmer of something in her periphery.

A flash—from a camera? Sawyer wondered.

It was there and then gone before she could blink, and it was soundless, but Sawyer whirled anyway. Nothing. No person releasing a shutter, taking another shot. No car speeding away. Just…nothing.

Frustration knotted in her chest, and she used her fists to rub at her eyes, then blinked, her gaze lasering in on the landscape around her: empty houses; damp, desolate street; gravel upset where she fell.

After someone had chased her?

Sawyer shook her head, trying to clear it. She imagined the morning fog thick between her ears. Had she taken a pill last night?

Yes, yes, I must have, she reassured herself. That’s got to be it. That stuff makes me see shit, makes me paranoid. That’s all it is.

But even as she worked to convince herself, something remained, something nagged at her periphery and the feeling of unease settled like a stone in her gut.

When she sunk her key into the lock, her father was on the other end, pulling the door open. He grinned until his eyes fell on his daughter, fell on the bright red raspberry on her chin.

“What happened to you?”

“I—I fell. Someone was chasing me and I fell.”

Andrew Dodd opened the door wider and pulled Sawyer inside. “Who was chasing you?” He looked over her shoulder. “Who would be out at this time in the morning?”

Sawyer sniffed. “I don’t know.”

“Do you know who it was?”

She shook her head.

“Was he in a car, on foot?”

Sawyer shrugged again. “On foot, but I didn’t really see him. I saw a shadow, and like, a camera flash. And I heard the footsteps. He was keeping pace with me.”

Andrew smiled then. “Keeping pace with you? Sawyer, are you sure you heard someone? It’s a little creepy out there with all the empty houses, I know. Don’t you think maybe your imagination was working overtime and you just scared yourself?”

Her father was trying to be gentle, but the anger boiled in Sawyer’s belly. “You don’t believe me.”

Andrew cocked his head. “Sawyer…”

“I’m not making this up, Dad.” Sawyer paused, sucking on her teeth. “Oh my God. You think this is about the nightmares, don’t you?”

“You mentioned they were back, and Tara mentioned she saw the Trazadone out on your nightstand again when she was straightening up.”

“Why the hell was Tara in my room?”

Andrew quirked a fatherly eyebrow. “Now, Sawyer, Tara was just helping out.”

“You mean helping herself to my business. Besides, the stupid nightmares came back right after Kevin died, Dad. Not now. And today, I was outside, I was running, I was awake!”

“I know, I know.” He held up his hands, palms forward. “I’m sure you think you really did hear something, but, Sawyer, there’s an eleven-foot iron fence around this whole development. And the gates are closed at night.”

Sawyer crossed her arms in front of her chest, hugging herself, thinking of the footsteps, the headlights from the previous night. “But they aren’t locked.”

Sawyer tried Chloe’s phone a second time after she got out of the shower, but there was no answer.

“Hey, it’s me again. I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay after last night. I got your text that you made it home okay with Ryan, but I’m still worried. Call me. Besides, I want to know if we’re still on for the game tonight. I totally understand if you don’t want to, though; I’m not really sure I’m up to it either…” She clicked her phone shut, feeling slightly uneasy, and made her way down the stairs. Though she had gotten up and run this morning, the heft of too many sleepless nights and the drug-addled fog started to become overwhelming. She poured herself a giant mug of coffee and sank down at the kitchen table, her mind ticking.

Could the person who hurt Chloe be my admirer?

There was no reason why, Sawyer thought, as she worried her bottom lip. Chloe was her best friend; she would never hurt Sawyer. Sawyer gulped, her saliva burning her throat—she would never hurt Sawyer the way Kevin had. The thought was errant, rushing through her subconscious, and she rolled onto her side, pulling her knees up into a fetus position.

The first time, it was barely a shove. It happened so fast that Sawyer wasn’t even sure it had. Kevin had his arms around her immediately, steadying her, kissing her, telling her it was an accident. And she believed him. He loved her so much—he told her all the time. He called her all the time. It was powerful, he said. His passion for her consumed him, and sometimes he didn’t even know what he was doing. He never meant to hurt her.

No one would have understood.

Sawyer squeezed her eyes shut, and Kevin’s face, his fervent eyes, flashed in her mind. Then it was Cooper, his hand so gently clutching hers, and her lips burned, guilty.

The only palm in Pacific Palms Park was four feet high and sat at the gated opening to the development. With its abandoned, chipped-paint guard shack and grass that was more yellow than green, it didn’t look like much of a park, either. Sawyer veered through the once-white latticework gates and snaked around the neighborhood of prefab houses rooted to cracked concrete. When she pulled up to the Coulter house, Chloe was already outside, pacing the carport.

“Hey,” she said when Sawyer pulled her car to a stop. “What took you so long? I thought you were coming straight here.”

Sawyer cocked an eyebrow. “Keeping tabs on me now?”

“Yeah, I’m the jealous boyfriend.”

Chloe laughed, the comment innocent and flippant to her, but it struck Sawyer. She forced herself to laugh it off. “Are you ready to go?”

“No, and neither are you.”

Sawyer looked down at her jeans and black T-shirt ensemble. It wasn’t exactly couture, but she thought it would pass for football attire.

“You look nothing like a Fighting Hornet fan.”

Sawyer tried to smile; this would be the first football game she would attend since Kevin’s death. As it was, Chloe had had to beg Sawyer for ten minutes straight to come to the game. “It’s a big one,” she reminded her friend, “and you’re going to have to go to a football game again sometime.”

Though she wasn’t crazy about the idea of the game and was less crazy about the idea of dressing up for it, Chloe was hard to turn down when she was beaming at Sawyer, her enthusiasm boundless—and catching.

“Come on in,” Chloe said, “unless you mind slumming in the double wide a minute.”

Sawyer grabbed the screen door behind Chloe. “It’s not a double wide. It’s manufactured housing.”

“Whatever it is, it comes with wood paneling and Astroturf.”

They stepped into the living room—a perfect square of wood paneling and shag carpeting, the smell of a thousand cigarettes ground in. The windows were covered with heavy drapes in a nauseating pattern of swoops and flowers, and the only light was coming from the enormous TV. It took up nearly one whole wall, and Chloe’s grandmother was in the chair directly opposite it, a cigarette clamped in the corner of her mouth. Though it was midafternoon, she was still in a housecoat and slippers, and Sawyer knew that the old lady only changed for church or for bingo.

“Hey, Nan, you remember Sawyer.” Chloe clapped the back of her grandmother’s chair.

“Hi, Mrs. Coulter.”

Mrs. Coulter took a long drag of her cigarette, her cheeks hollowing. The glow from the television flashed over her as she sat stiffly on her chair, making no move to answer her granddaughter.

“Come on.” Chloe grabbed Sawyer’s arm and dragged her toward the back of the house.

“Where are your parents?”

Chloe shrugged. “You mean Stepford mom and new daddy? Hell if I know. Let me just get my purse.” She grabbed a wide leather bag, stuffed a black sweatshirt into it, and began fiddling with something on the top of her bureau.

Sawyer studied Chloe’s wall, plastered with photographs—mostly of the two of them, mugging for the camera, cheering at Hawthorne games. She pointed to one. “What’s this one from?” It was a glossy photo of Sawyer in a windbreaker. She was in mid-run, her face contorted with effort, misted with sweat. Her ponytail sailed behind her, and the strain on her face was evident. The shot was so close up that there was very little in the background except a mottled gray blur.

Chloe squinted. “I don’t know. One of your million track practices. One of the million times you blew everyone else out of the water.” She smiled.

Sawyer squinted. “How’d you get it, though? It’s super close. I don’t even remember it being taken.”

“That’s probably because you were running like your life depended on it—you know how you are.” She held her forefinger and thumb a quarter inch apart. “Just the tiniest bit competitive. And I don’t know when it was taken; it’s been on my wall forever.”

Sawyer shrugged. “I guess I never noticed it.”

Chloe mirrored her shrug. “Guess not. So”—she held up two long green ribbons—“are we ready to root, root, root for the home team?”

“Okay first of all, that’s baseball.”

“And second of all?”

“Shut up and turn around so I can put this in your hair.”

Chloe handed Sawyer her hairbrush, and Sawyer brushed Chloe’s short hair into a thin ponytail, wrapping the green ribbon around it. Then they switched places and finished off with some Fighting Hornet temporary tattoos and a set of matching school tees.

“Oh, wow, we need to get going—we’re going to miss kickoff!”

Sawyer glanced up at the clock, surprised that she had been at Chloe’s house for over an hour. She was even more surprised at the sudden excitement she felt about going to the football game—she had forgotten how good it felt to be the old, school-spirited Sawyer.

“Let’s go!”

Chloe pulled her bulging bag over her shoulder and pushed Sawyer out of her room.

“Where are you two off to?” Chloe’s mom stopped the girls in the hallway, and Chloe flinched. Chloe and her mother were roughly the same size, but where Chloe’s blond hair was thin and fine, her mother’s was a constant yellow-orange nest of peroxide and oversleeping. Sawyer knew that Ms. Coulter wasn’t particularly old, but her skin had the papery-thin look of a woman much older, her milky blue eyes gave way to crow’s feet, and her lips were constantly wrinkled as she sucked desperately on a Marlboro light.

“When did you get home?” Chloe asked.

“About a minute ago. Where are you going?”

Chloe flicked the green ribbon on her ponytail. “To the White House, Mom.”

Her mother rolled her eyes, and Chloe pushed past her—a bit roughly, Sawyer thought—and beelined for the front door.

“I’ll be back in a couple of hours, Nana,” Chloe called over her shoulder.

Sawyer noticed that the woman in the chair did nothing but blink at the television screen as her granddaughter sailed out the front door.

The girls pulled into the Hawthorne High parking lot in record time. Sawyer had managed to hang on to that one surge of excitement by cranking up the radio, her and Chloe singing like tone-deaf maniacs to every car on the highway. But once she killed the engine and saw the lights flooding the football field, her heart started to pound. Chloe noticed the nuanced change in Sawyer and threaded her arm through Sawyer’s.

“Don’t worry, S. It’s going to be okay. And if it’s not, we’ll leave. Simple as that.”

Sawyer wanted to respond, but there were no words. She nodded mutely and let Chloe lead her toward the bleachers.

“Oh look, how truly fabulous. There’s Maggie, shaking her pom-poms.”

“She’s not—oh, you’re horrible, Chloe. And totally right.”

Maggie had her pompons in hand but wasn’t lined up on the track with the other cheerleaders. She was bent over the metal railing, batting her eyelashes and shaking her Fighting Hornet to a group of senior guys sitting on the front bench.

“Didn’t I tell you this would be a fabulous night?”

Chloe and Sawyer found a spot halfway up the bleachers. The view was obstructed by students randomly getting up to dance or hug a newcomer or shimmying out toward the aisles. Sawyer liked it that way.

The game started late, so the girls were just in time to see the cheerleaders do some sort of memorial cheer to Kevin—Sawyer would never have guessed that pom-poms were a good way to honor the dead—and the football team bow their heads in a group prayer, ending with an all-hands-in explosion of “Number twenty-one!”

Chloe grimaced at Sawyer. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize there would be so much”—she gestured wildly with her hands.

“Don’t worry about it,” Sawyer said. “I’m sad, but it’s not like I’m not reminded of Kevin every day.”

Chloe threw her arms around Sawyer and squeezed her, giving her a loud smacking kiss on the cheek. “You’re the best.”

The game was halfway through the second quarter when Sawyer said, “Hey, I’m going to grab a hot dog. You want?”

Chloe shook her head. “Are you kidding me? With something going on out there on the field? I’m seriously riveted to this game right now.”

“Something tells me you might be more riveted to Ryan’s ass than to the actual game going on.”

“Potato, potah-toh.” She handed Sawyer a crumpled bill. “Can you get me some Red Vines?”

“Be back in a jiff.”

Sawyer picked her way down the bleacher steps, doing her best to avoid an avalanche of Styrofoamy popcorn and pools of sticky soda.

“Hey,” she heard when she hit the lowest level.

Sawyer spun, grinning up at Cooper. “Hi. I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

“What kind of Hornet would I be if I wasn’t at the big game?”

“You’re just full of school spirit, aren’t you, Cooper?”

“Rah, rah. Where you headed?”

Sawyer waved her dollars. “Snack shack.”

“Woman after my own heart. Mind if I join you?”

“Sure, but it might cost you.”

Cooper raised his eyebrows as he fell in step with Sawyer. “Is that so? Just what do you have in mind, exactly?”

“A Snickers bar.”

Cooper’s mouth dropped open, even as the edges of his lips turned up. “Oh, so you mean it’s going to cost me, cost me?”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

They reached the order window, and Sawyer placed hers—a hot dog with everything, two Diet Cokes, a pack of Red Vines. And Cooper placed his—a hot dog with everything, a Coke…and a Snickers bar.

“What can I say?” he said with a smile like spun sugar. “You’ve got some kind of hold over me.” He handed her the Snickers bar, his fingers lightly brushing over her palm as he did so. That same tiny electric jolt that Sawyer hoped she would never get used to flashed through her.

“Um, are you here alone?”

Cooper shrugged. “With some of the guys from the track team. But our seats are pretty crap. I might be looking for a spot to move to.”

Sawyer wrinkled her nose. “Our seats are pretty crap too.”

“That’s what I meant,” Cooper corrected, “our seats aren’t crap enough. Maybe I can sit with you?”

Sawyer laughed, loving the zing of heat that went through her each time Cooper looked at her. It only took one step onto the bleachers, though, for that delicious warmth to be replaced by a gut-wrenching guilt. She slid into her spot next to Chloe, Cooper sandwiching Sawyer.

Chloe blinked at Sawyer. “I only asked for Red Vines.”

“Shut up.”

Chloe burst out with a laugh that Sawyer thought was a little too loud. She looked from Chloe to Cooper and back again, wondering if perhaps her best friend was a little jealous of Cooper. Sawyer had had a hard time juggling her time between Chloe and Kevin, with Chloe being the one who lost out most often. She said it didn’t bother her, but Sawyer knew that it did.

The three watched the game in silence until the buzzer rang and the football team trotted back to the locker room. The cheerleaders danced across the field, shaking their butts to some song with muddled words and a throbbing bass. Just as the song ended, the girls ran around and started to tug on an enormous white canvas.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” came across the PA system, “please turn your attention toward the screen being unfurled on the center field. The ASB would like to present a short video in memorial of Kevin Anderson.”

Chloe and Sawyer exchanged an eyebrows-up glance, Chloe’s full of concern. “Are you okay with this? Or do you want to leave?”

Sawyer worked lightness into her tone. “Are you telling me you’re over looking at Ryan’s butt?”

Chloe rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t looking at Ryan’s butt. At least not the whole time. But seriously, we can leave.”

Sawyer shook her head, steeling her jaw. “No, I’m okay.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah.” Sawyer rubbed her palms on her jeans and turned to Cooper. “How was your hot dog?”

“It was everything I’ve always wanted in a snack, plus nitrates.”

The first few bars of music crackled over the PA system, and Sawyer sucked in a deep breath, glancing up at the screen just as one of Kevin’s baby pictures flashed nine feet tall in front of her.

There was a pang of hurt, but nothing she couldn’t handle. When a shot of a teenaged Kevin in his football uniform flashed, Sawyer felt the hot dog bulging in her stomach, making her nauseous. At least that was what she told herself, not willing to admit to the guilt—and to a slight twinge of fear.

The slide show continued the whole length of the song, and Sawyer watched, strangely riveted, her emotions rising and crashing with every other picture. As the photos got closer to the end of Kevin’s life, Sawyer felt her heart start to pound; she felt sticky and hot underneath her thin Hornets T-shirt. The people in the bleachers seemed to lean in on her, lean closer toward her, leering, staring. Anxiety burst in her chest, tendrils, like needle pricks, racing through her.

“I have to get out of here.” She stood up and shimmied past Chloe, past the row of students, and ran down the bleacher stairs, taking them two at a time as she neared the bottom. Once she was at the snack shack, she was in the midst of a full-blown panic attack and she backed into the cool, dark space under the bleachers, doubling over and working to suck in bursts of cold air. Her skin felt too tight, and she felt overwhelmed, guilt, anger, sadness, and panic washing over her in body-wracking waves. She didn’t even know when she started to cry.

“Sawyer?”

She could barely make out his form in the darkness underneath the bleachers, but she recognized his voice. “Cooper?”

“Yeah. You took off like a shot. I tried to catch you, but you disappeared into the crowd.”

“I’m sorry, Cooper, I’m just…” She shook her head, hating the way her words sounded, choked by her tears. “Crazy,” she finally whispered.

Cooper carefully picked his way toward her in the darkness. Sawyer felt his fingers first on her wrist, then walking up her arm. His touch gave her goose bumps even though her body was seizing in a panic.

Before she knew it, she was slumped against Cooper, his arms around her, fingers laced at the small of her back. And she was crying. Huge, body-wracking sobs that left a wet spot on his chest, and Sawyer hiccupping and coughing. She broke their embrace, feeling the immediate cold of Cooper’s absence on her chest.

“I’m sorry.” She stopped crying, using her fist to push away the tears on her cheeks.

Cooper stepped into her, his arms wrapping around her again, cautious, this time not pulling her close. “Don’t be. He was your boyfriend, Sawyer. You loved him. It’s okay to be sad.”

A tremble, so heavy it made her teeth chatter, started in Sawyer’s body, and she began to cry all over again.

I did love Kevin, she thought, once. But she hadn’t for a long time. Toward the end, he kissed her as often as he slapped her, and a severe hatred had started deep in Sawyer’s chest. She wanted to break up with him; she had tried a dozen times, but each time he drew her back in with promises, pleas, and threats.

I’d kill myself if you ever left me, Sawyer, Kevin had said when they lay, bodies intertwined, on the grass. I could never live without you. At the time she had found the sentiment passionate and deep and a true statement of their unyielding love. But eventually it became a threat that she found so real it filled her with dread—with guilt. He needed her. Kevin Anderson needed her so much he couldn’t live without her.

It made so much sense, then.

The tears stopped abruptly, and this time it was Sawyer who pulled Cooper toward her. She crushed him against her chest, and her lips, chapped from crying, found his. She kissed him hard, with passion and blazing anger for something she had missed. Her lips parted and her tongue slipped into his mouth just as her arms slipped around his neck, clawed at his back. She didn’t know why, but she needed this. It was almost as if she needed Cooper to wipe the taste—or the memory—of Kevin away.

Cooper groaned when Sawyer leaned into him, her body fitting smoothly into his angles, that burning zinging racing through her bloodstream, firing every synapse in her body. She wanted Cooper Grey.

Her eyes flashed open as her mind started to slow, to clear. That was when she saw the figure under the bleachers with them. It moved slowly, tentative at first, so much so that Sawyer wasn’t sure she’d even seen it. She broke her lips from Cooper’s and narrowed her eyes. Then Logan stepped into the light.

His face was set hard, his eyes having obviously witnessed the way Sawyer had torn into Cooper—the Sawyer who had told Logan that she just wasn’t ready to date.

He blinked at her, and Sawyer thought she saw the light catch, glistening on the moisture on his bottom lashes. He turned to walk away, and Sawyer felt herself consumed with guilt and shame.

“Logan,” she called. “Logan!” She stepped away from Cooper and ran after Logan, but by the time she stepped into the light-flooded mezzanine in front of the snack shack, Logan had disappeared into the hordes of kids lumbering around. “Logan?” Sawyer tried again.

Cooper came up over her left shoulder, wiping his mouth with his hand. His cheeks were flushed, and his eyes looked slightly dazed. “Was that Logan kid watching us?”

Sawyer looked at Cooper, her mouth open. Bathed in the stadium lights, she didn’t know what to say. Finally, she shook her head, looked him in the eye, and said, “I’m sorry, Cooper. We really shouldn’t have done that.”