Page 87 of Branded

“Did something happen? What’s wrong?”

She sniffs and wipes her cheek with her sleeve and thrusts her phone at me. “Please explain this and tell me I’m crazy.”

I only have to read the title of the video to know what it is, and my surroundings start to shake, my stomach nearly drops to my feet.

“Sawyer, I need you to listen to me...”

“Did you know? Did you know who I was?”

Now or never. Fight or flight. Don’t fuck up, Black.

“Not at first, but... yes.”

Her eyes squeeze closed as another tears slips free. “How long?”

“Sawyer, please let me hold...”

She shakes her head and steps out of my reach again. “How long, Isaac?”

“A few weeks.”

“A few weeks?” she shouts. “You’ve known for a few weeks and you never told me?”

“I didn’t know how to tell you. It wasn’t like I could just come out and say it.”

“Yes, you could! That’s exactly what you should have done.” She pauses to take a breath. “How did you find out?”

I stand stock-still, fighting every urge I have to grab her by the shoulders and pull her to me, kissing the life out of her just so she can see I love her. I love her so much.

“When you told me about what happened to him. I never put it together before because you look so different now, but once you told me the story... I knew.”

“I feel so stupid. You just lied to my face every day for weeks. Isaac... I.... You should have told me right then. Right that second. Maybe we could have figured it out then, but now....” She is pulling away, curling into herself. I can almost see her walls building as high as the sky in front of my eyes.

“Now what? Tell me, Sawyer, what does this change in the grand scheme of things? I’m still me. You’re still you. Yes, we have a fucked-up connection to each other, but that played zero part in my feelings for you.”

“How doesn’t this change everything, Isaac?” She begins to cry harder now, not even trying to contain it anymore. “I spent five years mourning my brother, trying so hard to blame his death on anyone but him because that was easier. I spent five years hating the man who I felt didn’t react fast enough or didn’t do something better, even though I knew it was a lost cause. I felt like I was doing something right by my brother for placing that anger and resentment on that man. Then I went and fell in love with him.”

Her last words come out in a staggered breath.

“Sawyer, I did everything I could do that night... Jason...”

“Don’t!” she snaps, pointing a finger at me. “Don’t say his name. Just... don’t. You didn’t know him. Don’t talk about him like you knew him. I can’t listen to it. Not after everything. I had practiced what I would say to that man if for some reason our paths ever crossed... I guess the joke is on me though. The universe likes testing me, I guess.”

Fuck the distance. Fuck the tension. I need her to look at me. To feel me. To see me.

I step forward, taking her face in my hands and force her eyes to mine. She doesn’t pull back; she doesn’t fight me.

“I love you, Sawyer. I love you so much. I didn’t tell you because I couldn’t break your heart like that. I just... fuck... I love you so much. Isn’t that enough?”

Her bottom lip begins to tremble. “Maybe… if you hadn’t lied to me. That isn’t something I can look past, no matter how much I love you. And I have to be honest, Isaac. Every time I look at you now, all I see is his face and think about the fact he’s not here anymore. I don’t know if I’m strong enough for that.”

“Don’t do this.”

I feel it coming from a mile away. With every second that passes, a link to the chain that connects our hearts together starts to break. One after another until she pushes up on her tiptoes, presses a kiss to my lips, and snaps the remaining one free. “I love you, Isaac... but I can’t do this anymore.”

She turns and bolts back out the front of the fire station toward her car, disappearing around the corner.

I stand there in shock... in sadness... in anger at myself.

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