1.8
1547 Words
There was a noise at the front door, followed by the sound of something dropping through the mailbox.
Sawyer gripped the arm of the couch to stand up, but Selene beat him to it. He leaned over and picked up the shirt he had discarded, pulling it on now he was not in so much pain anymore.
She returned a moment later with an envelope in her hands. She stood in the doorway as she tore it open, and he finally noticed that the loose thigh-length gown she had on was actually Robin’s shirt.
“I guess this is meant for you.”
She handed the envelope to him, and he looked it over before checking the contents.
The address was handwritten, and he knew that it had been written by Francesca.
It was addressed to Selene Eddowes. He wondered idly whether Francesca had addressed it that way because she was unsure of Selene’s surname, or if it was the one she had chosen for herself.
It was a silly thing to think about, but she should technically have been calling herself Selene Sawyer.
“Is something wrong? Do you think I was meant to hide it from you?”
“No. I think she chose not to address it to me in case any of the pack saw.” it was just his driver's license, and the passport he had never used. He put them back into the envelope and tossed it into the draw next to the remote “I’m going to guess this means I have to find a job.”
“We’re more than comfortable without you doing that. It’s entirely unnecessary.”
“Sending me here was her idea of teaching me a lesson. She’ll keep providing for you, but she made it clear I was on my own.”
Selene sighed and ran one of her hands through her hair.
“I need to shower.”
She left him to slink upstairs.
He was oblivious to why she seemed upset. He hadn’t considered how his words sounded to her
She had been so happy to see him, but to him, this was just punishment. Being forced to spend time with her was something he had been instructed to do to teach him a lesson.
She didn’t come back down after she showered. She was back in the room with her son, with the door firmly closed so that Sawyer knew he was not welcome to disturb them.
He hated being left alone. He didn’t want to think about the past, or the way he felt, or what kind of a future he might have.
He took the envelope back out of the drawer and pulled out his driver's license. Francesca had probably enjoyed telling him that she was keeping his car, but that wasn’t what he was thinking about now.
He looked down at the card in his hand as he tapped it against the fingers on his other hand before slipping it into his pocket.
“Selene?” he called her name, and a few moments later the bedroom door opened. “Will you be OK alone?”
She padded softly down the stairs and reappeared in the living room.
Her hair was still wet, and she had put Robin’s shirt back on after she showered.
“What do you need? We probably have it here.”
“Do you have enough clothes?”
She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again she was looking somewhere past him rather than making real eye-contact.
“Yes. This is comfortable. And comforting. I didn’t want to keep any of his stuff, but then I found this here and… I assume it was intended for me to find. I’m sorry if there was some other reason.”
“I thought it would have made him happy.”
“It made me happy. And sad. But I appreciate it, so… if that was all you were going out for, there is no need.”
“There’s something else. But only if you don’t mind. I won’t be gone for long. I’m guessing you have someone checking in on you, or watching to make sure you are safe.”
“There was. But if you are supposed to be dead, there’s not exactly anyone Francesca would trust to keep this a secret.”
He sighed and questioned the decision he made while she was in the shower.
He took the driver's license from his pocket and put it back in the drawer.
“I was going to see if my old job would take me back. It was a long-shot anyway, but now I think that figuring this all out is something she had engineered to test me. I won’t be able to survive for six months with no job, but I can’t leave you alone all day. Unless it’s supposed to be about the fact I didn’t want to leave Elizabeth alone. Or maybe it’s because…”
Selene sunk down onto the floor with her back to the wall.
“…is that all I am to you? Some inconvenient puzzle you have to solve to earn a chance at looking after Elizabeth properly?”
Sawyer had been completely oblivious to the way he was making her feel. He had no frame of reference to understand the way someone with no status interpreted things.
“I swear to God that is not what I meant. It’s not about you being a burden or something to practice with before I’m allowed to take her back.”
He slid down from the couch and moved to sit against the wall next to her.
“Do I even mean anything to you at all? Because I never pretended for one second that this stupid arrangement was real, but I really thought you were my friend. You made me feel as if you respected me.”
“You are my friend, and I do respect you. I just have a bad habit of speaking without thinking. I’m sorry. I was trying to do the right thing and find a job in case my sister cuts us off, and then I felt like I can’t leave you alone, and I was second-guessing everything because I don’t want to screw this up on the first day, and I wasn’t thinking about how what I was saying might sound to you.”
“It isn’t just that. You abandoned me. When we got back to your home I was such a mess, but you treated me exactly the way you would have done if I really was your mate. I needed comfort, and you both let me stay in your bed rather than being dismissive. That wasn’t an act. You both saw that I needed that comfort, and she was fine with it, and you were fine with it. But what happened with Cordelia and Elle… Sawyer, she tried to kill my son. She tried to get me to do it. But you never acknowledged that. You just left me to cope with it on my own. That isn’t something you do when you respect someone.”
“I don’t think I’m ready for this conversation.”
He stood up, and she followed him. She was upset enough that she had planned on going back upstairs, but at the last moment, she changed her mind.
“What did you do? What was so bad that you had to leave?”
“I was just a mess.”
“You showed up yesterday insisting you should explain yourself. What did you do?”
“I couldn’t get over what happened to Elizabeth. I started using drugs to cope. I ended up off my head more often than not, and I made too many poor decisions for Francesca to put up with. It’s out of my system, and I won’t touch that s**t again.”
“Poor decisions?”
“I kissed Elle. Actually, she kissed me, but…”
He was cut off as she smacked him hard and unexpectedly across the cheek.
He blinked in surprise and raised his hand to touch where she had just slapped him. The skin was warm and the sharp stinging sensation had not subsided.
She was stood staring at her hand as if someone else had been controlling her.
“I guess I’ve had that coming to me.”
“Does Elizabeth know?”
“Yes.”
“And she let you get away with it?”
“No. But the way she gets mad is significantly more enjoyable than that was.”
“You are making it really hard not to slap you again.”
“I wouldn’t blame you. I definitely deserve a lot worse.”
- Writer
