22. Nixon

Chapter 22

Nixon

Slowly sliding the door open, I stand in the threshold and watch the girl I love falling apart. She swipes angrily at the tears staining her cheeks. I know she likes to be strong and make everyone think she's indestructible, but she isn't. She's always been more sensitive than she lets on.

"Savvy…" I drop onto the couch next to her and open my arms wide. "C'mon, I don't bite."

"You used to," she whispers, with a soft chuckle.

"In my defense, you took my last gummy worm." I shrug a shoulder.

"You were sixteen! I don't think biting someone for stealing your candy is appropriate at that age."

"If I had a bag of gummies right now and you took the last one, I'd still bite you. I stand by my assault choice. The punishment fits the crime."

Savvy snuggles a little deeper into my side. She buries her hands in her sweatshirt pocket and slips the hood over her wet hair.

"Whose clothes are you wearing?" I glance at her outfit. It's clearly men's clothes.

"Uhh… just an old boyfriend's, I think." She fidgets uncomfortably, trying to put some distance between us.

"Is it Chad's?"

"No. He cares too much about his appearance to dress like this." She waves me off.

"Savvy… are those mine?" I arch a brow. The gray sweats are generic enough that I wouldn't recognize them, but the navy hoodie has a big paint stain from when we painted Savvy's room purple in high school.

"Maybe." She buries her face in her hands, trying to hide from me.

"Why are you hiding from me?"

"It's embarrassing! I'm wearing the stuff you left here when you joined the military!"

"It's not embarrassing." I chuckle, tugging her hands away from her face. "It's cute and adorable."

"Great. Just what I want to be, cute and adorable." She makes a sour face and rolls her eyes. A few seconds later the tears begin rolling down her cheeks all over again. "Is any guy ever going to want me? Am I really that ugly or horrible to be around?"

"Savvy, stop it. Chad's an asshole. Nothing can explain his behavior. There's absolutely nothing wrong with you, I promise."

"He was my first boyfriend."

"Shit, really?"

"Yeah. No one wanted to date me in high school. They all viewed me as Nixon Russo's girl. We didn't even date and yet no guy would come within ten feet of me, terrified of what the great Nixon would do when he came home."

"For real?" My brows kiss my hairline.

"There was this new guy who came during my senior year. He flirted with me a few times and he was cute. One day during lunch, he asked me out but before I could answer, Bobby Stratford told him all about who you were and what you'd do to him if you found out he was asking me out. He tucked tail and never spoke to me again."

"I'm sorry," I whisper, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"It's fine. There's nothing I can do about it now." She shrugs a shoulder.

Savannah looks so defeated as she slumps on the couch. I'm sure the lack of attention from guys over the years hasn't helped her confidence. Finding out the only boyfriend you've had was only dating you because of a bet, has to be a tough pill to swallow.

"I only threatened like five guys to stay away from you. I never expected it to spread like that," I mumble with my lips pressed against her forehead.

"What!" She shoves me away, creating enough space to glare at me. "What do you mean? Who did you threaten?"

"Well, there was Russell, Jared," I lift a finger as I count them all off, "James, Collen, Shane, Brian, Dan, Noel, Jax, Barry and Freddy… I think that's it."

"That's eleven, Nixon! Eleven is a lot more than five!"

"It's over twice as many." I smirk. "Look at us doing math like adults!"

"I'm serious! Why did you threaten them? Wait… how did you threaten them?"

"Why? Because they'd all talk about girls in the locker room and it wasn't pretty. I never wanted to hear them talk about you the way they talked about others. How? I told them if I found out they even breathed in your general direction I was going to gut them like a deer and hang them in my basement until they bled out. It got a little more graphic than that, but you get the gist of it." I wave her off, trying to act like it wasn't a big deal.

"A little more graphic? You threatened to kill them! How much more graphic could you get?"

"Very. Trust me. But that doesn't matter, what does matter is that they stayed away from you like good little followers should."

"Nixon," she groans, throwing her head into the back of the couch.

"Savannah," I mimic her, making a small smile tug on the corner of her lips. Her tears have dried up for a second time since I came out here. My plan is to keep her cheeks free from moisture and put a smile in its place.

"Do you remember when you tried to toss a rock at my bedroom window in the middle of the night?" She whispers into the cool night air.

My entire right side is pressed up against her left. I slide my hand over hers, slipping my fingers between hers. We're both staring out at the street below us and my house in front of us.

"Do you mean when I chose a huge rock instead of a tiny pebble?" I arch a brow, turning my head to the right until my eyes meet hers. A smirk pulls on my lips, showing off my dimples.

"I thought Dad was going to kill you. You didn't just break the window, it shattered."

"There was glass everywhere. He made me clean it up at two o'clock in the morning." I groan thinking about how long it took to get every piece off the floor.

"We had to replace the carpet because we couldn't get all the glass out of it." She snorts with laughter.

We both settle down again, the comfortable silence filling the space between us.

"I forgot you had dimples." She rolls her head towards me, blinking up at me with big eyes.

"Did you burn all the photos of me?"

"Yup. I had a big bonfire and burned everything that reminded me of you."

"Except these, right?" I pluck the hoodie away from her skin with a smirk.

"Right. These were in the wash and I forgot about them. The bonfire was so big the fire company got called. I had to explain that it wasn't my fault you left so much shit here over the years. Clearly you were the one to blame."

"Clearly," I state in a duh tone.

"Getting your Garbage Pail Kids cards to light was a tricky task. It took a ton of lighter fluid."

"You didn't!" I fly forward so I can glare at her.

"I didn't." She giggles. "But you should've seen your face! Oh, man. You got so mad."

"You're an evil woman, you know that?" I dramatically fall back onto the couch, draping an arm over my face.

"It was worth it… Do you remember when you got upset you had dimples so we tried to fill them in with Playdough?"

I grin at the memory. I laid on Savannah's floor the entire day and she pushed Playdough into my cheeks as hard as she could.

"You ended up getting Band-Aids to keep the Playdough in place." I nod my head. "Carla flipped out, she thought I got hurt. Donny laughed until he cried and told us to put the Playdough back before it dried out because he wasn't buying us more."

"I have so many good memories with you in them. I'm not sure I have any without you, actually."

"Me neither."

Silence descends again. This time it isn't as comfortable as I'd like, but I don't know what to say. I want to tell her about the accident and everything that happened as a result, but I want to wait. I want to tell her when the time is right and this isn't it.