Page 46 of The Strawberry Field
Sawyer watches me, barely breathing.
“Listening to her talk about finding a way to go on after something like that… it made me see what happened to me differently. Just more clearly. And that maybe everything wasn’t ruined. Maybe I could still make something of what was left.”
Sawyer’s eyes darken and become liquid, tears falling, one by one, down her cheeks. I don’t think about what I’m doing. I just cross the room and pull her into my arms, wrapping myself around her with a desire to give her what she needs in this moment—complete understanding of her pain. Her shoulders shake against my chest. I rub her hair, not offering any words of comfort, just the silent communication that I’m here for her, that on some level, as best I can, I do understand where she is and what she is feeling. I know better than to question the place she has found herself in. I know the only person who can decide to leave it is Sawyer herself. And then she slips her arms around my waist, hugging me tightly, as if she might absorb her body into mine.
We stand there, and that’s okay with me, because I would be content to hold her like this forever, to be the one from whom she seeks refuge and comfort. When she pulls back and looks up at me, I see something in her I haven’t seen yet. I could be wrong. Maybe I am, but I swear there’s a glimmer of hope there.
After Sawyer leaves, I stand in the kitchen with my coffee cooling in my hand.
The house is quiet. Too quiet.
I set the mug down and lean against the counter, hands braced on the edge like I’m trying to keep the world from tilting again.
It’s been years, but there are still days when I miss it, the classroom. The cadence of my lectures. The way a student’s face would light up when something clicked. The sense that I was doing something that mattered.
There are nights I still dream about it. About the last lecture I never got to finish. The hallway I never walked again.
Some mornings, I wake up half-expecting to pack my briefcase and drive to campus.
Then I remember.
And the shame comes, quiet and heavy.
I lost everything because someone told a story louder than I could tell the truth. And I’ve told myself I made peace with it.
But sometimes I still wonder who I’d be now if that hadn’t happened.
If I would have been stronger.
If I would have fought harder.
The truth is, I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life explaining myself.
So I disappeared.
And maybe that’s what hurts most.
Not the loss of my job.
But the loss of my voice.
I grip the counter a little harder.
Then Hattie pads into the room, sits by my side, and rests her head against my leg like she’s reminding me of what I still have. Of what I’ve built. Of who I’ve become.
And slowly, the tightness in my chest loosens.
“The mountain you carry is teaching you how to climb.”
—Najwa Zebian,Mind Platter
Chapter Eighteen
Sawyer
I’M EXHAUSTED, but not in the collapsing way. Just tired. It feels almost strange to end a day without falling apart.
I have a dream that night, as real as any I’ve ever had.
