Chapter 28
chapter
twenty-eight
Wednesdays were for group therapy—the day of the week that the Redwood Coast Rescue team crowded into the community center and unloaded their trauma. Sawyer used to look forward to the meetings. He used to enjoy the camaraderie, the shared stories, the sense of collective healing.
But now?
It had been three days since the standoff at the mill. Three days since he'd last heard her voice or held her in his arms. Three fucking miserable days, and he didn't want to talk about it. He wanted to wallow.
He still couldn't believe Lucy had retreated from him after everything they'd been through. When he tried to talk to her about it later at the hospital, all she would say was that she needed time, but there had been a finality in her voice that sucker-punched him right in the gut. She didn't want time. She wanted to run. She wanted to lock herself in behind those protective walls of hers and never come out.
And why wouldn't she? Sawyer thought bitterly. He'd failed her, hadn't he? He couldn't keep her safe. He was useless. Broken. He tried to keep those thoughts at bay, but they gnawed at him like Zelda gnawed on a particularly juicy bone.
He stood behind his usual chair, fingers tapping rhythmically on the metal back. Zelda was antsy, too. She sat at his side like she was trained to, but she was panting anxiously.
If he sat down, he was committing himself to talking…
The room seemed too tight, the air too heavy.
No.
He couldn't be here.
He had to?—
"Sawyer, you look like shit." Zak's hand clapped down on his shoulder in what was supposed to be a comforting gesture, but it only sparked off his temper like a match dropped in a can of gasoline.
He snarled and shook off the hand. "I just survived an earthquake, a landslide, jumping into whitewater, and hiking all over a mountain with not one, but three people trying to kill me." And having his heart ripped out and stomped on by the only woman he wanted. "I think I deserve to look a little rough."
Donovan whistled softly. "Woman trouble," he said without a shred of doubt.
"Definitely woman trouble," Zak agreed. "All that other shit? That's just a walk in the park for us. It's not why you're moping like someone just took away your favorite toy. It's Lucy that has you all tied up in knots."
Fuck. Why did they have to be so goddamn observant? "I don't want to talk about it."
"Oh, you're going to," Zak said with an edge of glee in his voice.
"That's why we're here," Donovan said. "It'll be nice to talk about something other than Uno's fucked up head for once."
"Or your impending midlife crisis," Zak shot back. "How's that bald spot coming?"
Donovan growled.
"Keep poking the bear, Zak," Veronica said as she breezed into the room on a soft cloud of vanilla. "I can't wait until he finally snaps and rearranges your pretty face."
Zak was unrepentant. "Aw, hear that? She thinks my face is pretty."
"For a Neanderthal."
Sawyer opened his mouth to tell them all to fuck off, but the door slammed open again and Shane Trevisano stalked in.
He was the newest member of their group, and still carried that flinty edge of a man not comfortable with attending therapy. "Let's get this over with. We all got work to do."
"Ry's not here yet," Zak pointed out.
"Rylan isn't coming," Shane said, and a chair scraped across the floor as he pulled it into the circle. "He's out looking for his sister. We should all be out there helping, not in here talking about our fucking feelings."
"Ry would be the first to disagree with you about that. And we have been searching for her," Zak said. The whole mood in the room darkened. "Every minute from dawn until dusk, but we have to take care of ourselves, too. There's no sense in us killing ourselves to find her when she's most likely no longer alive."
There was an umph of an elbow hitting soft flesh and Veronica said chidingly, "Zak."
"What? We all know it. If she was at Rylan's apartment when the quake hit, she's been buried in rubble for a week. Better we face it now than be blindsided with it later. For once, Ry's going to need us to be his support."
"We could really use Pierce and Razzy right about now," Donovan muttered. "They'd find her."
A silence fell over the group.
Nobody wanted to say what they were all thinking: If Pierce was also buried somewhere, he wasn't ever coming back.
The air in the room became so heavy it was tangible, pressing on them from all sides. Sawyer rubbed his temples, the headache that had been simmering beneath the surface now blaring loud and persistent.
"Okay, let's... let's focus," Veronica said, her voice wavering just slightly as she took control. "Rylan would want us to have the meeting. Sawyer, do you want to talk about your recent breakup?"
Sawyer scowled, crossing his arms over his chest. "What's there to talk about? It's over."
"But do you want it to be?" Veronica pressed.
He opened his mouth to reply, but found no words came out. His chest tightened, and he had to force himself to swallow. "No," he admitted finally. "I don't. I'm all in, but every time I think she's right there with me, she pulls back. What if—" He stopped, the words catching in his throat.
"What if… what?" Donovan asked.
"What if it's because I'm blind?"
Zak scoffed. "Come on." But then after a heavy moment of silence, he asked incredulously, "Wait, you're serious?"
"Of course he's serious," Veronica said with a duh in her tone. "God. Are you sure you idiots aren't the blind ones? Sawyer's always been sensitive about it."
"He has?" Donovan said, nothing but confusion in his voice.
"But he's so… capable," Zak said.
He hated when people talked about him like he wasn't there, like his disability somehow made him invisible or unable to speak for himself. "I am still in the room, guys. Talk to me, not about me."
"Sorry," Zak and Donovan said at the same time.
"Why would think your blindness has anything to do with it?" Zak asked.
Shame washed through him. "Because… I couldn't protect her."
"For real, dude?" Donovan said. "From what we saw, you put up one hell of a fight. I know sighted people that can't do even half of what you did up there. Or, hell, on a daily basis. Ask me, you're a goddamn superhero, and if Lucy doesn't know that, she's not worth it."
"But she is worth it." The protest was instant.
"Why?" Zak asked.
"Why?" he echoed incredulously. "Because she's smart and tough and sweet and a little bit geeky and… everything I've ever wanted."
"A lot of women are all of those things," Donovan said. "What makes her so special?"
"It's...I can't explain it," Sawyer muttered, shifting uncomfortably on his feet. Zelda whined softly at his side, bumping his hand with her snout. He soothed his palm over her head. "It's just...her. It's always been her from the moment I met her."
Donovan grunted. "Still not good enough. If you love her, you know the real why."
Sawyer didn't have to think about it. He didn't have to search his heart or his mind for the answer. It was simple. It was pure. "Because she makes me feel alive."
He'd gone into the cave planning to save her. But, instead, she had saved him. He hadn't even realized how lonely he'd been until she came into his life, and the prospect of losing her now was unbearable.
Zak gave a low chuckle.
"What's so funny?" Sawyer demanded, not seeing the humor in the situation at all.
"Nothing," Zak said, obviously trying to smother his laughter. "It's just… Man, you're screwed."
Sawyer groaned and dropped his head into his hands, but he couldn't really argue. He was screwed. His heart was tied to a woman who seemed to be slipping further and further away from him every day.
"So what do I do?" he asked helplessly.
"Fight for her," Shane said from across the circle, his statement simple yet full of undeniable conviction.
"How? How do I make her see that I'm more than just… this?" He gestured loosely around his face.
"Well, for one, stop talking about yourself like you're broken."
"But I am."
Donovan grunted. "What you need is some confidence, my man."
Zak hummed in agreement. "You once told me we're all broken people carrying our busted pieces as best we can, and some days are harder than others. But every day, you have a choice to either let that break define you or use it as fuel to become something greater than the sum of your shattered parts. You forget that?"
Sawyer felt a small, unexpected smile tug at his mouth. As much as they sometimes annoyed him, he really did love these guys like family. "I didn't say that. I told you therapy works because we're all here to help you glue the pieces back together when you crack."
"Okay, so I paraphrased." Zak's chair creaked as he leaned forward in it. Sawyer saw him reach out a hand. "We're here with the glue. Let us help you put yourself back together into something even a stubborn woman like Lucy Harper can't resist."
Slowly, Sawyer reached out and grasped the proffered hand, surprised at the sudden surge of emotion that swept through him.
And for the first time since Lucy had walked away, Sawyer felt a glimmer of hope. The guys might be right. It wasn't going to be easy; hell, it could very well end up being the hardest thing he'd ever done. But Sawyer had never been one to back down from a challenge.
"I'm going to get her back."
Zak released his hand and settled back in his chair with a satisfied chuckle. "Good. So what's the plan, and how can we help?"
Sawyer scanned the room. He could pick out the shapes of his friends around the circle—Donovan's big, muscled frame, Zak's leaner one sprawled carelessly in his chair, Shane's military rigid posture, Veronica's curvaceous silhouette—and felt a surge of gratitude. "Okay, here's what we're going to do..."
The group leaned in as he laid out his plan.
Veronica broke into an abrupt laugh and shook her head. "This is either the cutest or stupidest thing I've ever heard."
He looked in her direction. "But will it work?"
Veronica said nothing for a moment. "If Lucy ran because she's afraid of what she feels for you…" She sighed. "Well, I know what that fear is like. I did the same thing with Connelly for years. I found reasons to be angry with him and push him away, but he wouldn't let me. He reminded me of how much he meant to me. He reminded me of how good we were together. That's what you need to do. Remind her that you're the guy who held her in your arms and kept her alive in that cave, the one who sat by her hospital bed, the one she clung to up there on the mountain when the world was going to hell around you. Make her remember that she already trusts you, Sawyer, and, yes, if she really loves you, it will work."