sophie.

Chapter 19

JANUARY 20TH, 2014

Sawyer,

I just want you to know upfront that I'm not asking for forgiveness. I'm not asking for you to be my friend, or to talk to me ever again. I'm just writing this letter to tell you that I'm sorry. That I'm apologizing for what I've done. Whether you're willing to forgive me is a choice that you can make on your own. And to clarify, you never have to make that choice if you don't want to. I'd understand.

But I want you to know that I hate myself, too. I don't think I've ever actually hated myself this much, and that's saying something, I think. So perhaps I understand what you're feeling, because I have to live with it every day.

And I think you deserve to know the truth. All of it. I have to clear up that I'm not trying to make excuses here; I'm not trying to rationalize my decisions, or make you understand what brought me to those conclusions. I just think that if the ball is in your court, you should have all the information at hand to potentially make a decision. It's the only thing that I've been told will make me feel better.

Sawyer, I think I love him. It wasn't something that happened fast, and it wasn't very conventional; it just kinda snuck up on me one day. And you might think that it's nothing near love: that I've lost myself in the act of falling for him. I was suspicious of that too, for the longest time. I thought I was losing the very parts of me that said yes and no, the parts of me that perceived and judged and loved, but I've come to learn that he was never taking away or altering. He was coaxing out a side of me that I haven't seen for a very long time.

There's no way I can really explain to you, and it won't do much good to try, but I just want you to know that I'm still me. And I guess that's why you should hate me.

I just want you to know that I still love you. That as long as you're still around, I'll have your back, even if you don't have mine. And I'm not asking for anything in return. Just that you know the truth. And I'm sorry.

Soph

I sighed and dropped the pencil, feeling a nasty ache in my thumb after writing so much. It wasn't a seriously long letter, but I kept messing up with the other drafts and angrily crumpling them into paper balls. I didn't have a trash can in my room, so the whole lot of them sort of just littered the floor, the various alternate apologies scrawled and scribbled out upon them. I was using the paper marked with the fancy traveler's watermark on the back, the same kind I found in Adrien's apartment above the antique shop. It turns out that the insignia was actually just something that a graphic artist friend of Brady Warren's put together for a private company that Warren was allegedly setting up.

It was the next day at that point, and sometime around eleven in the morning. After checking out the window every now and then, I noticed Sawyer's jeep had driven off somewhere, and the only vehicle left in their back driveway was his mom's SUV. So I crisply folded the letter I'd written and fled out of my room and down the stairs. Luckily, no one was in the living room, so my escape was quiet and unnoticed. I hopped across the yard and made my way to their front door, and just before knocking, I thought it wise to make myself look a bit more presentable: fixing the collar of my shirt, patting down my hair. Then I took a second pause to breathe, to try and handle the upcoming confrontation with grace. I didn't know how Sawyer's mom would react, but one of three things was likely to occur. She could be mirroring her son's outlook and hate me, could genuinely be concerned about my wellbeing (as if she'd be the only one), or glad to see I was in one piece. The only curious notion was that none of the three outcomes were exclusive of one another. I decided to just go for it.

Not long after, I heard someone cross the hardwood floor of their house, and a terrible bit of anxiety anchored itself in my stomach as I waited. What if the SUV was out of gas and Sawyer's mom took the jeep for some reason? I didn't have time to worry about any other possibilities, because in the next moment, his mom opened the door. Her expression was a flushed mix of happy and relief. There wasn't any dislike in her eyes, as far as I could tell.