Page 84 of Infinite as They Come
“Trying to, yeah.”
“I take it she doesn’t know?”
My head shook. “If I tell her, she’ll buy it in two seconds. She’s got enough money to buy a hundred of ‘em. I need this to come from me. To be the thing that I give her, and I just want it to be perfect, to be that home she told me she wanted a few years ago. I remember every detail she told me. God, I haven’t forgotten about it since the day she told me what she wanted. And now we’re at that step, we’re up to that part of our lives, but this is so much harder than I thought it could ever be.”
“And bumping into me certainly didn’t make it easier,” she said.
My eyes flew to hers. “It’s not like that. It’s not. I’m so happy I found you. It was gonna be hard either way. I’m just… I’m just getting a little tired, you know? I just wanna fast forward to the ending. To the part where I give Holly the fairytale that she’s always wanted.”
“Sawyer,” she whispered, hands landing either side of my face, her fingers soft and comforting. “Look at you. Look at how hard you’re trying.”
“Trying being the key word,” I said, laughing lowly. “Maybe I’m not trying hard enough.”
“No, don’t say that. This isn’t easy. All the… boring adult stuff.” She smiled. “Money. Houses. Bills. Me and Kurt were there once. I suppose it feels a lot harder when it’s Holly you’re trying to do all this for.”
“Rich girls are hard to impress,” I mumbled.
She laughed, soft and easy. I loved that sound. “I suppose so, but she seems so in love with you, Sawyer. The way she looks at you? I’m so happy you found someone like that. Someone who looks at you like you’re their whole world. It seems like she’s your whole world too.”
“She is,” I said lowly. I looked over at Kurt who was leaning up against his car, eyes soft, arms crossed, and the smallest of smiles on his faces. Me and Mom were having a moment and I appreciated him letting us share it. Giving him a little nod, I looked back at Mom. “I don’t wanna imagine a day where I don’t get to wake up to her.”
“Oh, I bet she’ll be so happy when you show her that house.”
“Well, I don’t have it yet. I’m trying. Every day, I’ve been trying. I just wanna get my hands on it already so we can move in and just be together.”
“You’ll find it,” she said softly. “I know you will. You won’t give up on her.”
“I won’t. Never. But I just want to give her the best, Mom. She deserves the best.”
“Well, she has you, doesn’t she?”
Warmth rushed through my body when she said that, and I found myself swallowing hard.She has you. She did. She had all of me. Every last part of me was hers. Mind, soul, body.Heart. She had stolen it years ago and kept it tight in her hands, and I didn’t want anyone else but her to touch it.
“I’m so proud of the man you’ve become,” she said, eyes a little teary. “Fighting so hard for the girl you love. And you love her so much, don’t you?”
I nodded. “I do.”
“I bet she sees that. I can see it. I’m sure she can see it and feel it. You’ll find that house, Sawyer. You will.” A smile stretched across her lips. “And you’ll both be so happy forever in it.”
“I really hope so.”
She laughed softly and brought me in closer, pressing her lips to my cheek.We stayed like that for a little while, the cold wind brushing up against our bodies before she had to leave. Her and Kurt hopped in the car, and I watched them closely as they moved out on to the road and got lost in the sea of everyone else. Eventually, I couldn’t see them anymore, and I let out a rough sounding breath before making my way up the stairs and moving into the room.
It was empty as I shut the door behind me. The bathroom door was closed and I could hear the low hum of the shower. I kicked my shoes off and landed on the bed, wishing so badly that I could fix everything with a click of my fingers. Maybe I just needed to buy a fucking lottery ticket and hope and pray that I could become a millionaire overnight. I could get Holly a hundred lemon trees then.
My eyes found Holly’s laptop that she had left open on the bed, and I was just about to set it aside so I didn’t break the thing when I saw it. Her emails were open and my eyes scanned the words before I could slap myself for snooping.
A job offer. In New York. My breathing got all trapped in my throat for a second. There it was, what she deserved, what she had spent so much time working for. Holly deserved some big ass fancy job in a big ass fancy office in the biggest and fanciest city in the world. That was what girls like Holly got. They didn’t get shitty motels with tiny rooms.
I quickly shut the laptop before I could read anything else, pushing it away from me like it had burned my hands. My heart sunk fast and hard. Was that what she wanted? What she needed? I didn’t ever want to hold her back, and Holly always felt like she was destined for a hell of a lot. I didn’t want to keep her chained to the ground.
The water stopped running in the background and I reached a hand out to grab the remote for the TV, switching it on like I hadn’t just seen that email. Like I hadn’t been out all day and every other day, trying to build that life together for us by hand. Like I wasn’t searching for perfection. Like that dream wasn’t slipping right through my fingers with me desperately trying to cling on to it.
The door opened, and Holly moved into the room with a towel wrappedaround her. For a while, we just stared at each other. Her eyes on mine, mine on hers. Those Bambi eyes. Big and brown and deep and warm. I’d never get tired of seeing those eyes.
“Hi,” she said quietly, hanging there in the doorway.
“Hey,” I said, sitting up a little straighter.
