“So you haven’t given this much thought then,” I mock.

“You asked.” She shrugs.

“You officially have an agent fetish.”

“It’s comfort television.”

“It’s a show about a group of FBI agents profiling serial killers,” I say incredulously.

“Well…” She pauses, thinking. “It’s comforting knowing they’re gonna catch them.”

“You’re nuts.”

She smiles and stuffs another bite of pizza in her mouth.

***********

I wake up at ten the next morning and check my phone. Nothing from Sawyer. By noon the feeling of dread has settled firmly in my stomach. I could text him, sure. Call him, absolutely. Yet I’m not going to. Something feels off and I’m wondering why he hasn’t contacted me. I open up the text chain between us and review the ones from yesterday afternoon. There it is, the last message from him that said, ‘Talk soon.’ Talk soon? It was weird to me yesterday but I brushed it aside. Because Sawyer and I are solid.

He’s never given me a reason to doubt him, and I’m not a girl to go looking for reasons that don’t exist. I might have doubted his intentions during that first car ride, when he drove me back to school from Ridgefield the Sunday after Thanksgiving. He chipped away at my doubts during that week of Sawyer-style wooing, ending with a goldfish complete with a fancy self-cleaning tank. I look at Stella, swimming happily in the mini-fish tank with Steve, and smile. Who does all that? Not a guy just interested in a quick fling.

From the day that I showed up at his office, I knew he was all in with me.

Until today.

He’s had a stressful week, I tell myself. I’m being crazy. Paranoid. He’s going to call any minute, tell me he’s on his way to pick me up.

But he doesn’t.

By late afternoon I pick up the phone. This is silly. Maybe he thinks I’m mad about last night? Maybe I’m making myself sick over nothing.

He doesn’t pick up. I get a text a moment later. Can’t talk right now. I’ll call you tomorrow.

Okay then.

Not really. He’s never sent me to voice mail.

He doesn’t call the next day.

He texts me at 9 pm on Sunday. I need some time, Everly.

Is he fucking kidding me? I don’t reply. I stare at the ceiling of my room all night, numb, drumming my fingertips against the bedspread, my mind blank.

By the following day my mind is anything but blank, thoughts racing, rethinking every encounter between us. I’m second-guessing myself and everything I know is true. I didn’t imagine the last eight weeks, so what the hell just happened?

Forty-Two

“You’re quiet today,” Sophie remarks, wiping down the counter with a wet cloth and tossing it in the bin to be laundered. “And you’re not making any horrible drink concoctions or stuffing your face with brownies from the bakery case.” She tilts her head and looks me over. “What’s going on?”

“I think Sawyer’s trying to break up with me,” I mutter.

“You think he is or you know he is?” Her eyebrows draw together in a frown.

“I don’t exactly know.” I cover my face with my hands and shake my head before dropping my hands again.

“Okay, Everly. What is going on? Did you have a fight?”

“No!” I shake my head, my ponytail whipping back and forth with the force. “Nothing like that. I saw him last week for his birthday. We made the sex tape. He seemed to enjoy that, then poof.” I gnaw my lower lip, thinking it over. “He didn’t want to fuck me without a condom,” I tell her, glancing at her face.