He pushes open the door and ducks his head in a shy sort of way, which makes my thighs ache, and not because of the bruises. He’s holding a bunch of grocery store flowers with the price sticker still on them. He hands them to me awkwardly. “I’m sort of new at this,” he says. “The clerk at Jewel said you’d definitely like these.”
I squelch a grin. “You asked for help?”
“Sure,” he said. “My cousin Kate said I should bring you flowers, which—I know, I know—I didn’t need her to tell me that, thank you very much. But I didn’t really know, like, what kind.”
“I love them,” I say, and I can’t stop grinning.
And then, from his shirt pocket, he pulls something else out and hands it to me. “Do you still like these?” It’s a butterscotch sucker from their candy jar.
I stare at it, take it in my hand. “Yeah,” I say. “I do.” Okay . . . that almost made me cry. And I know that there’s no question that I will give him a chance to do things differently, to stand up for the things he really wants.
I love you, I want to say. But it feels very weird today to say something like that. Now that the danger is over, that is, and it appears we’ll both live. At least until our parents find out we’re hanging out again, anyway.
I slip my hand in his like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and we’re talking like we’re sixth graders again, sitting under the slide with our suckers and doing that innocent, flirty thing. Every time he says something funny, I laugh even though it hurts, and when he blinks those long lashes and looks at me with that shy grin, my stomach flips. He stays for hours, and I want the night to go on forever.
Sadly, we lose track of time.
Thirty-Eight
When my parents come in and see that Angotti boy holding my hand, and they see the flowers in the crook of my broken arm, I think my father is going to have an aneurysm. Sawyer stands up faster than the speed of light and his chair topples to the floor behind him.
I struggle to sit up.
“Get out,” my father says to Sawyer.
Sawyer looks fleetingly to me, then back to my father. “Sir,” he says, and I feel a rush of warmth when he doesn’t just go. “Can we talk about this?”
“No. Out.” My father points to the door. He’s being calm. Too calm. “You are not to see my daughter again.”
“Mr. Demarco,” he says, “Trey and Jules saved our restaurant and our lives, and I’m just—”
“Well, maybe they shouldn’t have done that. Did you look at her? She almost died because of you!”
“I know, sir, and we are very grate—”
“If you don’t get out of this room right now, I will call security.”
I can hardly breathe. “Dad, stop!” I say. “Don’t be crazy.” I cringe after I say it. “He’s on his way out anyway, and I’m glad he stopped by, and I hope our families—”
“Pipe dreams!” my father says bitterly. “Our families will never be friendly as long as I’m alive, and you, young lady, had better get that figured out right now. This is over. Do you both hear me?”
Sawyer stands his ground and stays cool, and in that moment, I see him acting on his own desire to be different from the father and grandfather he described yesterday. “I’m sorry you feel that way, sir,” he says in a calm voice, yet he commands the room. “I’ll leave now out of respect for you. But I’ll never leave Jules again because of something personal that happened between other people, so you might want to get used to seeing me around.” He gives me a look that makes my heart quake, and then he smiles politely at my mother. “Thank you for what your family did for my family, Mrs. Demarco,” he says. And then he slips out.
My father slams the door behind him.
“Antonio!” my mother says, her voice raised, which is exceedingly rare.
He startles and looks at her. “What?”
She shakes her head. “Act your age once, will you? Honestly. We’re in a hospital, for Christ’s sake.” I’ve never heard her talk like that before. Ever. “Maybe you should go cool off so I don’t call security on you.”
“Why, what did I do?”
“That boy did nothing to you. Leave him alone.”
“He is just as his family is,” Dad says.
“Oh my dogs,” I say, disgusted. “You don’t know anything about him! And if he is as his family is, then what does that make me? Am I just as my family is too? A bitter, psychopathic hoarder?”
I don’t know if it was the drugs. I think it probably was—I’m pretty good at hiding my thoughts otherwise. At least I didn’t call him a cheater. I don’t think I did, anyway. Everything got a little fuzzy right around then.
Mom says a hasty good-bye before he can explode, and she drags him out of the room.
• • •
By the time I get discharged on Tuesday, my father and I haven’t spoken one word to each other, and it looks like we won’t be speaking anytime soon. And frankly, I’m really fine with that, because he’s acting like the biggest asshole on the planet.
I spend the next week and a half at home and I can’t stand it. No cell phone, no communication with Sawyer other than a few e-mails. My father has the home phone forwarded to the restaurant so that I can’t receive any calls, and he threatens to watch the phone bill like a hawk to see if I’m calling anybody. I argue and fight, and it only makes things worse—he takes the Internet cable with him to the restaurant whenever I’m home alone. Stupidly, I talked him right out of getting me a replacement cell phone . . . at least until I’m out of this prison and I need one for deliveries again.