For You(51)
Author: Mimi Strong

“Then who are you?” I demanded.

She seemed embarrassed, and scared. My whole body felt like it was both frozen stiff and trembling at the same time.

“I’m a friend of the guys,” she said. “Do you want to stay for breakfast? I can set another plate.”

I looked down at the big knife sitting on the kitchen island between us. She’d been slicing oranges, and the tang of citrus was still in the air.

“Let me check with Sawyer first,” I said, my voice rising in pitch. “Is he upstairs? Where might I find him?”

She looked at me sideways, her eyes bugging out. “Up the stairs, first door on the right.”

“Is he still asleep?”

Not taking her eyes off me, she picked up the big knife and put it in the sink with some other dishes.

Carefully, she said, “I don’t know.”

I turned around, having to command my legs to move. One foot in front of the other. Keep going. You need to do this.

Up the stairs I climbed, my pulse pounding in my throat.

Had Sawyer f**ked that girl from the kitchen? Someone had, by the guilty look on her face.

If it was him, that was fine. Fine. Better to know sooner than later, better to be heartbroken now than made a fool of.

When I hit the top step, I heard a girl giggle, and it wasn’t the girl from downstairs. I collapsed, my legs buckling underneath me. My breath was audible, so I knew I was still alive, but just barely.

Something picked me up—some force. Rage, maybe. I stood at the first door at the top of the stairs and reached for the handle. The door wouldn’t open. The knob twisted, but it seemed to be blocked by something.

I knocked on the door. “Sawyer?”

The stereo was still going downstairs, and I couldn’t hear anything over the music.

I banged on the door harder. “It’s Aubrey. Open this door before I f**king kick it down.”

A second later, it swung open, and a surprised-looking Sawyer stood blinking at me. He wore nothing but a pair of boxers with dots on them, and his hair was messy. I could see the bed behind him, and nobody else was in it.

He said, “What are you doing here?”

I pushed past him into the room. “Where is she? I heard a girl in here.” The bi-fold closet doors were open, showing only clothes and a few cardboard boxes. I turned around and looked at the rumpled duvet on the bed. It seemed lumpy, so I whipped it back, expecting to find a girl hiding in there. No girl.

Sawyer stood there in a daze. Did he not remember sending me those messages last night? Apparently not.

I yelled, “Where is she?!”

“Aubrey, calm down. As you can see, there’s no girl in this room.”

“Who the f**k is downstairs? Who’s that?”

“I don’t know. There’s someone downstairs?”

I heard the laugh again, on the other side of the wall, and then a door opened and closed. Beyond the doorway to Sawyer’s bedroom, a girl ran past, toward the stairs. She was a blonde, and not wearing much more than the other girl I’d seen downstairs.

Slowly and carefully, I said, “Who all lives here? Just you and one other guy?”

“Yeah.” He looked cagey, and he kept turning to face me, as if he didn’t want me to see his back.

“What’s on your back?”

“Huh?”

I stepped forward and slapped him on the chest with both hands. “Don’t play stupid. Do you have scratches on your back from some f**king slut? A girl just ran down the stairs, and there’s another girl in the kitchen, so you just try and tell me how stupid you think I am.”

He held his hands out, the hint of a weird smile on his face. “Aubrey, I don’t know what to say. Obviously you’re going to believe what you want to believe.”

“Right. I see how this goes. I’m the crazy one. I’m paranoid. You have to break up with me because obviously I’m the ONE WITH ISSUES!”

He moved his head, and his expression changed, looking more confused, but still he didn’t say anything.

I wanted to hit him so bad, but I just shoved him out of my way as I went for the door. “Fuck your stupid, arty tattoos and f**k you.”

Down the stairs I went, and right out the door. I wasn’t getting away fast enough, so I started to jog.

I heard my name. Sawyer was coming after me.

I started to run, tears streaming down my cheeks as I gasped for breath.

My sandals kept tripping me up, slowing me down. I hit the end of the block and turned left, onto the pavement.

A car screeched to a halt, inches from my legs.

Sobbing and hysterical, I kept running, even as the driver got out and called after me, asking if I needed help.

I got to the end of the next block, and I kept running, feeling like I might collapse from pain. My legs were weak and starting to buckle again, just like they had back at the house. I leaned forward to catch my breath, and the ground rushed up at me.

Tattooed arms caught me. Sawyer, still bare-chested, wearing jeans but no shoes, pulled me into him.

Chapter Twenty-Four

I screamed and swore at him, beating his chest and slapping his face. How dare he make me hope, make me happy for a moment, only to take everything away. He was just like all the rest. Using me.

His mouth was on my mouth, kissing me to silence, his hands behind my head.

I reached my arms around his shoulders and felt myself being picked up, being cradled in his arms.

“Stop running,” he murmured.

I could barely breathe, choking on my grief.

“You’re the only girl I want. Even though you burst into my room and beat me up. I’m sorry I didn’t give you the answers you wanted, but you looked like you were going to murder someone and I thought it might be me.”

He was walking with me in his arms, and we came to a tall, stone fence. He stopped there, propping me up on the edge of the fence, the stone cool and solid under my butt. I couldn’t let go of Sawyer, or at least my arms wouldn’t.

“Hush now, it’s okay,” he murmured.

“I thought you f**ked that girl.”

“I didn’t.”

I whispered, “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.”

His hands were moving now, free to run up and down my back now that I was seated on the stone fence. His touch felt grounding and good.

He kissed my neck, which felt even better than his hands. I moaned, my tears stopping, and leaned my head back. There was a tree over my head, so green and peaceful. We weren’t on a main street, but in an alley, between garages and back yards of houses.

He kept kissing me, his mouth like fire on my skin.

“Who were those girls?” I asked.

He pulled back and grinned at me. “I can’t blame you for not believing me. If I hadn’t seen it last night with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it either, but my roommate… he was making out with both of those girls last night. They were joking around about having a threesome, and then they all went into his room, and by the sound of it, they really did.”