"He brought light into one of my darkest days once, and I couldn't even notice he had turned his lights off."
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Sawyer Raines only wants to help the sweet, kind, and caring boy who had once helped her.
The problem is, Travis Shay isn't that same...
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I could cut the tension in the room with a butter knife.
"Is that it?" Travis asks as he crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the wall.
Mrs. Shay watches him closely before taking a deep breath. "Yes, that's our final decision."
Travis suddenly pushes off the wall with force. "So I don't have any say in this at all?"
"You are in no position to have a say. I am your mother. You are going to do this because you need to... to get better. I need my son back." With that, a very demanding Mrs. Shay leaves the room without another word.
I don't move from my seat even when Travis makes his way over to the bed to sit.
"She thinks I'm crazy," Travis says more like a question. "She doesn't realize that..."
He stops and looks back at me like he just remembered that I was in the room. I stand up slowly and walk over to him, my arms crossed over my chest.
"She doesn't realize what?" I ask him.
"Nothing," he replies. "There's nothing I can do so I'm just gonna have to man up, like my dad always says."
"Travis-"
"You can go now, Sawyer."
I watch him lie down on the bed and close his eyes, allowing his hands to rest behind his head. I play with the edge of the sheet on the bed and wait for him to change his mind. He peeks at me a few times before I finally turn around and leave.
I shut his door behind me when I leave, looking up and down the hallway to see if I see Lydia or maybe Jonah. Instead I see his mom walking slowly up the hallway with her phone to her ear.
Travis will never tell her what he really thinks. He won't tell her that all he wants is for her to love him and to show it.
I make my way towards her, willing myself to just do it. Tell her that she's making a mistake. It's for Travis. Someone has to be his voice.
"Mrs. Shay!" I call and jog up to her. She turns to me, her eyebrows wrinkled together in confusion and anger all at once.
She waves me off and turns her attention back to her phone. "No, that's not what I said." She rambles on about some business deal with the person on the other side of that phone – who I can also hear rambling very loudly.
"Mrs. Shay, please," I reach for her arm and barely touch her when she flinches away from me. I pull my hand back in shock.
"I'll have to call you back," she says into the phone. She turns to me. "What do you need, Sawyer?"
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Shay," I apologize. "I didn't mean to scare you."
She drops her phone into her bag and crosses her arms over her chest. She looks away for a quiet moment. "It doesn't matter. What can I help you with?"
