Most Likely to Succeed

“She wasn’t outraged at you,” I said.

“That’s how it felt. Like, What kind of family are you from? ” He took a long breath, still needing to calm himself down when he talked about this, even though it had happened a month ago. “My brother was in town, but he wouldn’t take time off work to check me out of the hospital when they said I could go home. He needed the hours.”

I nodded. Needing the hours was a foreign concept to me. My parents wanted Barrett and me to concentrate on school instead of getting jobs. Both of them had worked professionally since college. They hadn’t been paid hourly in decades. My understanding of hourly work came solely from Tia talking about her dad. He’d worked at a factory until recently, needing the hours and missing her marching band performances. But he would never have stayed at work if she’d been hospitalized. Neither would her sisters, even though she didn’t always get along with them.

The closer I got to Sawyer, the more isolated he seemed.

“Yeah,” he said, “I realized while I was in the hospital that I had a short-term goal, to be a really good school mascot in ninety-degree heat, and I couldn’t meet that goal without making some changes. But I also came to this new understanding of what could happen to me later. The biggest stoner in school is Jason Price, right?”

“I hope.” Actually, I hadn’t seen a lot of Jason lately. He’d gradually dropped out of the advanced-level classes. The last I’d heard, he was trolling business math and remedial English.

“Jason’s parents are both doctors. If he ever gets arrested, they’ll hire lawyers to have him released. Hell, they’ll probably sue the police department for taking their baby in. If I get arrested, my family will leave me there to rot. Nothing will make you clean up your act like your parents abandoning you completely.”

I didn’t realize I’d tilted my head and lowered my shoulders in disbelief until Sawyer imitated me.

“Come on,” I said. “Do you really think that?”

“You would hope my dad learned something during fifteen years of hard time,” Sawyer said. “But he treats me like his family treated him. I try to understand where he’s coming from. He didn’t exactly have every advantage when he was growing up. But not everybody raised in adverse circumstances decides to make a better life for themselves and their kids, like your mom did. A lot of them are hell-bound to repeat the process for the next generation. Somebody has to put their foot down and say, ‘I’m not playing that game.’ That somebody is me.

“I’ve known that for a long time. I felt like an outsider up in Georgia, when my mom was dragging my brother and me around to mooch off one relative and then another. If you’re on the outside looking in, it’s easy to judge and to feel superior. It wasn’t until I was lying in the hospital that I realized what I’d done. Instead of getting away from my relatives, I was becoming them. And if I got arrested at age twenty like my dad, my family would give me exactly as much help as his family gave him. I remember the exact moment it hit me.”

I went very still, hoping that moment hadn’t been some cruelty I’d paid him, one of those casual insults I’d lobbed at him before I knew the truth.

“You and everybody from school hadn’t gotten to the hospital yet,” Sawyer said. “It was just Will and me in the room. You know, he rode in the ambulance with me.”

I nodded. Sawyer had passed out on the football field. Will had hefted him over one shoulder and carried him all the way up the stadium stairs, into the parking lot to meet the ambulance. I’d just stood there among the other cheerleaders with my hands pressed to my mouth, impressed and terrified. I hadn’t known Will had this he-man superhero side. And up to that point, I’d never seen Sawyer vulnerable. Ever.

“I don’t remember passing out,” Sawyer said, “or throwing up in the parking lot, or being in the ambulance, even though Will says I was conscious for the whole ride. The first thing I remember is, Will’s in the chair next to my hospital bed, making small talk. Whether the Buccaneers will suck less this year, what the Rays’ chances are for a pennant, whether we can sneak past security to watch the Lightning practice. And I’m thinking what a shit I’ve been to this guy, and how little sense it makes for me to treat him that way. I mean, I want to be this guy. He has everything I want.”

“Tia?” I breathed.

“No! A future.” Sawyer frowned at me, only now understanding my question about Tia. His face softened.

“And then you walked into the hospital room,” he said. “You looked beautiful in red.”

“Ha,” I said. “I came straight from cheerleading practice. I was wearing a Pelicans T-shirt.”

“Yes, you were.” He laid his arm along the back of the seat and put his hand in my hair.

I smiled at the sweet feel of his fingertips rubbing my nape. “You might have sworn off mind-altering substances that day, but it’s not like you’ve changed personalities. You’re still really mean to Kennedy,” I pointed out.

His nostrils flared. “I strongly dislike Kennedy.”

“And Aidan.”

His hand stopped in midair, pulling one of my curls. “I hate Aidan.” He let my curl go. It sprang back into place.

“You haven’t changed as much as you think,” I said. “You’re incredibly smart and responsible about some things, like quitting drinking. On other things, like your diet, and getting along with certain people, you act like you’re from another planet.”