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I had no idea why we were at the zoo; it wasn’t where I would’ve pegged Sawyer to take me, but I could roll with it. There were tons of other people here, so it wasn’t like we were alone. I doubted we’d be alone at all, no matter where we went.
“Why’d you bring me to the zoo?” I asked, tensing the moment I felt his hand find mine, his fingers intertwining with mine before I could pull away. He’d gone for my hand like a fucking ninja, and he was too strong for me to yank it back.
Ugh. Fine. I’d hold his hand, but that was it.
He turned his head to me, giving me a lazy smile. “You’ll see in a bit, but first, let’s go see the lions.” The way he spoke about them, I was able to discern a real, sincere eagerness in him. He was excited to see the damn lions. Who knew?
Sawyer tugged me along, knowing exactly where to go, not needing the map I’d shoved in my back pocket at all. He must come here a lot, then. He had to, if he knew the whole layout of the freaking zoo.
The lions were in an exhibit that had both a glass window and an open one, a great gap between the lions’ enclosure and the fence that kept people from falling in. The zoo’s pride had one large male, his mane made of tan and black, and two females. All three of them looked pretty lazy, lounging on their rocks in the dying sun.
We stood near the glass to get a better view. I stared at the lions for a while, but eventually my gaze drifted up to Sawyer. The way he watched the lions, it was…it was like I was glimpsing at a real person, not the facade he constantly put up. His mouth was drawn into a thin line, his fingers loosening on mine just a bit. It was probably enough for me to pull my hand away, but I didn’t, because I was so lost in his expression.
So serious. So quiet. So unlike him in every way.
“Sabrina loved the zoo,” Sawyer whispered, his green eyes heavy on the trio of lions. His thumb brushed along my knuckles, eliciting soft tingles in my hand. “She loved all the big cats. I think she wanted to be as fierce and as beautiful as them.”
I…I didn’t like this. Sawyer was being too serious, too solemn. This was not the Sawyer I’d come into this date prepared for. This Sawyer was…a stranger to me, one I didn’t know how to deal with. This Sawyer was one I found myself leaning into, wanting him to open up more.
“Was she?” I asked. Though we were surrounded by other families, by kids who hurried to press their faces against the glass near us, I was able to see nothing else but Sawyer.
His eyes fell off the lions, falling down a bit, but he didn’t look at me. It was as if he was caught in a memory, one that would not release him until he remembered it all. “Sometimes” was what he said. “Sometimes she was, but other times…other times she needed more help than she was ever willing to admit.”
I found myself leaning my cheek on the arm holding onto my hand. I didn’t want to press him too much about Sabrina, both because it was a depressing subject and because I felt my will toward him weakening. When he showed me this side of himself, it was impossible for me to view him simply as a haughty rich guy.
Underneath it all, under all the posturing and the half smirks and the money, Sawyer was a person. A real person with feelings he didn’t allow himself to feel.
“She was on meds since she was nine,” Sawyer said, slowly dragging us away from the lion exhibit. If I had to guess, I’d say we were headed to the cheetah or tiger exhibit next. “My parents never told me exactly what was wrong, but she was…something in her brain wasn’t wired right. She’d be happy and strong one minute and then sullen and depressed the next. When she had her highs, she often did things without thinking them through.”
As I listened to him go on and on about his dead sister, I couldn’t help but imagine her. Though I’d tried to avoid her picture online when I searched her name, in the recent weeks, I’d been lax. I Googled her. She’d been pretty. Blonde like me. Huge dimples in her cheeks. Perfect white teeth and eyes a similar shade to mine. I couldn’t blame Declan for thinking of her when he looked at me, but I did wonder if Sawyer felt the same. If he did…well, this was weird.
He brought us into a building after quite the hike, stopping us in front of the snow leopards. They paced their enclosures, walking continuously in the same path, their lengthy, fluffy tails nearly as long as their entire bodies. Still he held onto my hand, and he showed no signs of letting go, and I was strangely okay with it.
When he wasn’t acting like a supreme dick, Sawyer wasn’t too bad to be around.
“When she and Declan broke up, I knew she was spiraling, but I didn’t do anything. I was too lost in the parties around Hillcrest. The weekend that my parents found her, I was…” Sawyer’s voice dropped to a whisper, his fingers tightening around my hand. “I was on a bender. I wasn’t in my right mind. When I came to, I saw dozens of missed calls and texts.”
“From your parents?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine being his parents, coming home to find their youngest child had hung herself.
“From my parents, but also from her. Sabrina had been calling me constantly that night. She left me voicemails…asking me to come home. Telling me that she needed me.” Sawyer’s eyes squeezed shut, the pain evident on his face. “But I didn’t get to her in time. I wasn’t there for her when I should’ve been.”
I sighed, knowing there was nothing I could say to make it better. Nothing to help this horrible situation. What was done was done; there was no fixing it, no taking it back. It was an irreversible mistake, one that he’d feel for the rest of his life.
Even though I didn’t exactly like the guy, I found myself saying, “I hope you don’t blame yourself for what happened.” I knew as I said it he did, at least partially. The way he spoke, I knew he thought if he would’ve answered his phone and come home, he could’ve saved her. And maybe he could’ve—but there was no telling that she wouldn’t try it again, or that he still would’ve been too late.
“I blame everyone. I blame my parents, I blame myself…” Sawyer’s jaw clenched. “I blame Declan. By the time I got home, the note was already in police evidence. When it was officially ruled a suicide, my parents asked for it back. I’ve looked everywhere in that fucking house, and I couldn’t find it.”
“Then how do you know the note was all about Declan?” I was pushing my nose into someplace it didn’t belong, but I couldn’t stop myself. This was a mystery I felt compelled to seek out the answers to, even though it wasn’t my mystery to solve.
Sawyer’s jade eyes looked down on me. “My parents told me they didn’t want Declan anywhere near the house. They had the police look into him, but there was nothing to find. Declan might not have strung up the rope himself, but he had a hand in it.”
He drew me away from the snow leopards, and we emerged outside. He once again knew where to go, his hand possessively holding mine. I asked, “I thought they were broken up at the time?”
“They were.”
“Why?”
Sawyer’s look right then was reminiscent of his typical expression, one that told me I had no right to know. One that told me I was an ant compared to him. “That’s none of your business, Ash,” he muttered, frowning. The man could frown, but he couldn’t fully smile. Go figure.
