Leap of Faith

Valentine's Day

I scrolled through my contacts, found a familiar name and pressed the call button. Within seconds a groggy voice spoke down the line, mumbling something that resembled a sleepy ‘hello.’

“Can you come open the door for me? I’m locked out,” I say quietly. The voice on the other ends whispers something that’s too quiet for me to hear, but I say, “Thanks,” anyway.

Within minutes the front door of the house opens.

“What happened?” Sawyer’s voice was stricken when he saw my appearance.

After I left him, I got one of The Grange’s chauffeurs to drive me home. Instead of going straight home, I had wandered along the beach for a while, trying to make sense of the evening, and of the big revelation. I had cried with every step, causing my make up to stain my cheeks, and I’d run my hands through my hair countless times so that it now looked windswept and greasy. I must have looked a state, but that was seriously the least of my worries.

I threw myself at Sawyer, wrapping my arms around his neck and clinging on for dear life. After a beat, his arms wrapped around my waist and he started to reassure me that everything was going to be fine.

I didn’t have the energy to tell him that nothing would ever be fine.

02:09

I was curled up on the couch in the TV room with Sawyer sat next to me, a mug of hot chocolate in his hand a steaming cup of black tea in mine. It had taken Sawyer twenty minutes to persuade me to come inside, and once I’d thrown myself down on the couch it had taken him another twenty minutes to scuttle to the kitchen to make our ‘comfort drinks.’

Now we were just sat in complete silence.

Sawyer, despite being the joker, was actually very perceptive. On a day to day basis, he could clown around with the best of them, crack jokes and make people laugh. But when it came to the serious stuff, he knew when to shut up and wait for the other person to open up.

It was another thirty minutes before I found my voice.

“He lied to me,” I say, fresh tears pooling in my eyes. Sawyer inclined his body towards me to indicate he was listening but he didn’t interrupt. “I met a stranger in a darkened closet on New Year’s Eve and I fell for them pretty hard. Or at least I think I did. It could just have been a product of our environment, or whatever. Then I met TJ,” a tear fell. “Suddenly, he was a part of my life and I fell for him too. This time, I really fell. Now it turns out that the guy from New Year’s Eve and TJ are the same person, and he knew but he never said anything. He lied to me.”

Sawyer nods.

“He told me tonight,” I continue after taking a sip of my tea. “And I walked out.”

Sawyer drinks his hot chocolate.

“I don’t know what to do,” I say finally. “What do you think I should do?”