Saving Sawyer | ✓

Chapter 17 | What Goes Around Comes Back Around

“Why’re you letting Tom stay?” I ask. I’ve wanted to ask her that ever since Tom showed up but she’s always working, so I haven’t had the chance to ask.

“What do you mean?” My mom questions me.

“Like, you guys are divorced and have been for like, a long time now,” I remind her, as if she could’ve forgotten. “So, why would you let him stay here?”

“Because even though we aren’t married anymore, he is and always will be the father of my children and he has nowhere else to go,” She explains then.

“There are tons of homeless shelters in Massachusetts that he could go to,” I argue. “Or he could go to Worcester to live with granddad and grandma.”

“He doesn’t want to stay in a homeless shelter and as a grown man, I am sure he doesn’t want to go back to his parent’s house,” My mom informs me.

“Well, I don’t like him,” I bluntly tell my mother in the hopes that she will make him leave.

“I know you’re still hurt over the fact that he was gone for six years, but Sawyer, he isn—“

“I am not hurt mother,” I scoff. “I was glad he was gone and I’d prefer him to stay gone.”

“I’m sorry, honey, but I don’t have time for this right now. I have to go to work,” She apologetically informs me. “You’re seeing Dr. Fontana today, yes?”

“Yeah, that’s the plan,” I confirm with a small nod and a sigh. I’m proud to say that I’ve held up my end of the deal and gone to all of my sessions lately.

“Then feel free to discuss all of your issues with your father with him. I pay him so that you can talk to him about these things, you know,” She tells me.

“Yeah, I know that,” I assure her with another small nod and sigh. It’s just 8 o’clock in the morning and I’m already sighing—this day will obviously suck.

“Good,” My mom replies, bending down and kissing my forehead. “I’ll see you later. Have a nice day at school—I love you,” She says, leaving my room.

When my mother is gone, I fall back onto my bed and consider putting a pillow over my face and screaming into it, but then I decide not to. I’m really not all that upset about having to ride with Tom, just because of the fact that my school isn’t that far away from the house and I can turn the radio up to block his dumb, patronizing voice out.

I’m more annoyed by the fact that Winter Break is officially over, which means it’s time to return to school and the next break—Spring Break—isn’t for two whole months. It’s not that I hate school or anything, I don’t, I just don’t particular enjoy going every day.

On the bright side though, I’ll get to see Graham, which is obviously a good thing. It has been a whole six days since his New Year’s Eve party at his beach house in Beverly, which is when I told him everything about my past with Flynn.

I was actually incredibly scared to tell him about that because I was slightly positive that he would start treating me like literally everyone else treats me—like a ticking time bomb who could detonate at any second and you have to walk on eggshells around.

I couldn’t have been more wrong though. After I told him, he was just really sweet and he let me sit on his lap and cry, which was a bit embarrassing because I really do hate crying in front of people. Once I had finally stopped crying, I had a massive headache and I was sad because talking about Flynn always makes me pretty sad.

Graham got me an aspirin though and instead of going back down to his party, we left the beach house entirely then and we went to get dinner at a restaurant. It wasn’t a fancy restaurant like Alessandra’s, it was an adorable little burger shack with milkshakes.