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“Okay, okay,” Gram chuckles. “Would you go see him, please? Put him out of his misery.” She kisses my forehead, and I head down the hall and down the stairs toward Sawyer’s room, ready to apologize for what happened this afternoon.
Oh God, this afternoon. It was definitely not my best moment, begging him to sleep with me, kicking him out when he said no. Because he should have said no. I’m honestly so glad he said no.
He answers before I finish knocking.
“Hey,” he says, standing in the doorway with his arms folded across his torso. He looks so casually cool, like it’s perfectly normal to be waiting by the door.
“Hi.” My throat goes dry. “Can we talk?”
“Yeah, of course.” He digs his toe into the carpet, looks down, then up. “What’s up?”
“Can I—” I ask, gesturing into the room. He slides to the side to allow me in but stays close to the door once he’s shut it. “Thanks. I promise, I will keep my hands to myself.” It doesn’t draw the grin I hope for, so I clear my throat and continue. “Look, Sawyer. About earlier—”
He waves off the comment. “We really don’t need to talk about it.”
“Yes, we do.”
“Gwen.” He takes a tentative step toward me, relaxing his arms, rubbing the back of his neck. “I cannot begin to imagine what you’re going through. And I can’t tell you the right way to grieve or process all of your emotions.” Another step closer, and I can see the pain in the creases of his forehead. “All I can do is point out what’s right in front of you, and that’s me. To fight for you and alongside you and maybe with you, if that’s what you need. In calm seas and stormy, to laugh and listen and cry. I can give you all of that. I just can’t give you what you asked for earlier, for so many reasons.”
“I know.”
He stops, his jaw loosened, his brows furrowed. “You do?”
I nod. “I wanted to thank you, actually. For not letting things happen earlier.” He’s watching me now, waiting to see if that was his cue or if there’s more. “It would have been a mistake. And you knew that, even when I didn’t. Or at least, when I didn’t care.”
“To be clear, Gwen, I don’t view last night as a mistake.”
“Neither do I. But this afternoon… that would’ve been.”
He nods, and his shoulders hunch forward.
“Don’t do that. Please.”
“Don’t do what?” he asks, his brow knitted.
“Don’t shrink away.”
He looks at me like I’m crazy. “What?”
“You’ve done it a few times on this trip, where you kind of… I don’t know, disappear into yourself, make yourself smaller. And I know there’s a lot behind it, like being tall and the whole school incident, but you shouldn’t do it. You deserve to be you and not feel like you have to hide.”
I take a deep breath. For some reason it’s so easy to compliment strangers, but so challenging to heap praise onto the people we care most about. I didn’t get a lot of it growing up, so maybe I just never learned how. But regardless, he deserves to stand tall in the truth of how I view him.
“You’re not a distraction, Sawyer.” When his eyes meet mine, I see nervousness and yearning, and I want to wrap him in my arms. “You’re one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. What you’ve done for me this week—what you’ve done for me today—I shouldn’t have tried to reduce you to something so small, because the truth is, you’re so much more than that. And I’m sorry for not saying all that earlier.”
He straightens. “That might be the best apology I’ve ever heard.” His mouth quirks up on one side, and he asks. “You some kind of writer or something?”
“I don’t mean to brag, but I’m pretty good with words. I’ve even been called a dictionary before.” I feel myself drift toward him, and the distance between us closes from both sides. It feels dangerous, the way his grin fades when he licks his lips and looks at mine.
He cups his hand around my jaw, his thumb grazing my cheek. I snake my arms around his waist, and he tilts his face down, pressing his forehead to mine, clenching his jaw. I try to read his eyes, but his face contorts with how hard he’s trying to keep them closed. I’ve been there: on the precipice of something so monumental that if you keep your eyes open you have to own the truth, but if you squeeze your lids shut you can live in a daydream, like everything is okay and you get exactly what you need. I don’t realize my own eyes have closed until I feel Sawyer’s lips on my forehead, and it snaps me out of a vision of his mouth crashing into mine.
“So there’s a second reason why I came down here.” I snuggle my head into his chest, and his Adam’s apple bobs.
“What’s that?” he whispers, and I can’t tell if it’s hope or hesitation in his voice.
“I’m cordially inviting you back to our suite for the evening.” He drops his arms and I drop mine, taking one step back to his two. “Nancy’s coming over, too, and we’re just going to play some games and have a slumber party, sort of. And I know it’s not the most exciting way to spend your last night on the ship, but—”
“I’ll be there,” he says. “If that’s truly what you want.”
