The Fundamental Theory of Us Read online

  “Ugh.” Sawyer got up and staggered to the bathroom just in time.

  She threw up her sandwich, followed by her intestines and lungs and liver. She threw up for years. When it was over, she curled up in a ball with her towels and slept next to the toilet. The way she felt, like a pile of shit with a staggering fever, she knew she’d be needing it again soon.

  ****

  After forever of near-death experiences and praying at the porcelain altar, Sawyer woke tangled in a few towels on the hallway floor to someone banging on her door. Pushing to her feet took Herculean strength she didn’t have. The pounding on the door matched the throb in her skull. By the time she stumbled over to answer, she had used up the last reserves of her energy.

  “Holy shitballs, Sawyer!” Rachel blew inside the apartment with Lola on her heels. “It smells like the plague in here and you look like hell. What happened?”

  Lola moved around the apartment, opening windows.

  Sawyer dropped onto the couch. “I think the universe tried to kill me.”

  Rachel examined the deli wrapper on the coffee table. “Or you got some serious food poisoning from Blowing Rock Deli. I could have told you not to eat there, if you bothered answering your phone.”

  “My phone?”

  “Um, yeah. I’ve been texting and calling you like a stalker since Saturday. You promised you’d come to Lola’s show on Saturday night. Remember?”

  Sawyer rubbed her eyes. They felt thirty-seven times too big for the sockets. “What day is it?”

  Lola dropped a full hamper on the floor near the door. “Tuesday afternoon.”

  “Oh shit!” Sawyer tried getting up, but sank down on the couch again. The room wouldn’t stop spinning.

  “Don’t worry,” Rachel said. “I took care of your classes.”

  Sawyer cracked an eyelid open. “You did?”

  “Yup.” Rachel dropped a pile of papers on the coffee table. “All the notes you missed. You have a test tomorrow in Fundamentals, and an assignment due on Friday in one of your other classes.” She shrugged. “It’s math. I don’t really care.”

  Sawyer groaned. “I’m sorry, Lola. How was it?”

  Lola waved her off. “You were obviously on the verge of death. You’re forgiven.” A smile lit up her expression. “It was amazing. I mean, I’ve danced alone in front of other people before, but never a fucking packed auditorium! I felt sick as hell until I saw Rachel sitting front row center wearing her beautiful smile. Then I just danced for her, and … oh my God, it was amazing.”

  Rachel nodded solemnly. “She really was fucking amazing.”

  Sawyer sighed. “I’m sorry I missed it.”

  “No worries.” Rachel flashed a grin. “I got the whole thing on video. You go shower off that funk, we’ll clean up in here, and then we can all watch.”

  Sawyer stood on shaky legs. “Sounds like a plan.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Taylor doubled over, rested her hands on her knees, and let her head hang. “I think—I’m going to die.”

  Andrew and Logan both laughed. “You’re not dying,” Andrew assured her while Logan rubbed circles on her back. “Make sure she drinks this.” He set a bottle of electrolyte drink near Logan’s shoe.

  While the couple recovered, Andrew gathered up the equipment and stashed it in his duffel bag. As always, his thoughts turned to Sawyer. A little over a month after he offered Sawyer the card, she still wouldn’t talk to him, and he blamed his therapist. Jennifer didn’t seem to think she deserved his blame. Maybe it wasn’t fair, but so what? Screw ups didn’t bode well with Andrew, and this one felt colossal. He and Sawyer, they’d made some headway in the mess surrounding each of their lives. At least, he thought they had. He hadn’t had nightmares while she was in his life—a definite plus. She seemed less skittish.

  Then he took Jennifer’s advice, and the delicate balance exploded in his face.

  When he finished packing up the course, Andrew checked on Logan and Taylor, who was standing upright and downing the drink. Logan waved him off, knowing Andrew had somewhere to be. This was their last session before the 5K Muddy Marathon, and he started an hour earlier, pushed them harder than before, making sure they’d be able to handle the real thing. Taylor walked away from this, so he knew she’d be fine. Logan, too.

  He almost reached his truck when his phone rang. He fumbled with the bag and his keys, shoved the duffel in the passenger seat, and grabbed his phone. Emory flashed across the screen, with the picture of herself that she took with his phone. Like he needed a picture of her.

  “Emory,” he answered.

  “Hi, Andrew.” Her voice held too much breathy moan for his taste. “Are you busy? I thought we could continue where we left off last night.”

  “With the project.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m actually busy today. Every Saturday, to be honest.”

  “Doing what?”

  Pushy girl. “Personal things. Look, Emory, I’m running late. I’ll text you tomorrow, and maybe we can meet up for an hour or so to figure out the next part of the project. Okay?”

  A long pause stretched thin over the line. Then Emory blew out a breath. “I guess.”

  He clicked End before she started up another line of questioning that lead to his personal schedule, like the last time she called.

  Back home, Andrew showered and changed. He made it to his appointment with seconds to spare. He hadn’t been to see Jennifer since she suggested he give Sawyer her card. Every Saturday for the past month, he spent outside training Logan and Taylor. Yesterday, however, Jennifer insisted he show up, or she’d make his life hell—in the form of obnoxious phone calls and possible drop-ins at his place. He hated drop-ins.

  Rosie hovered by the door, sensing it was time to leave. Andrew locked his door and stared at Sawyer’s place for a minute before he chased Rosie down the stairs to the parking lot. She circled his truck, searching for a place to go while he jumped in, impatient and dreading this session at the same time. She’d make him go deep, and he just didn’t want to go deep inside his mind and work on his “demons.” Fuck the demons.

  When he arrived, Jennifer ushered him inside her office. Rosie made a beeline for her usual cushion by the fire and dropped into a contented sleep. Andrew clenched his jaw as he took a seat. Jennifer offered him coffee and tea and water and soda, like she did the first time he came to her. He declined them all. Like he did before.

  They sat across from one another, him glaring, her studying, and Andrew ground his teeth, snapping the tension. He shook his head and spoke first.

  “I followed your advice and it backfired. She won’t talk to me, won’t look at me. Except when she does look at me, it’s like she sees through me.” Andrew pressed his thumbs into his temples. “Now I don’t have a tutor for Fundamentals class, which I’m barely passing, and I’m looking for excuses to knock on Sawyer’s door, even though I see her in a few classes every day.”

  Jennifer leaned forward on her chair, her dark hair falling over her shoulder in a silky wave. “What happens when you knock on her door?”

  “Obviously I don’t,” he admitted. “She’d just slam it in my face. Or not open it at all.”

  He had told Jennifer about the dinner with Sawyer on the phone that night. She confused the hell out of him, shutting down like she had after checking her phone. What made a person do that? Jennifer suggested he pass on her card and measure Sawyer’s response. He expected her to shy away from the card, or that she’d ignore it and maybe change the subject. Instead she shut him out completely, which was so much worse.

  “Do you think she’s waiting for you to?”

  “To what?”

  Jennifer smiled. “Make the next move.”

  “Shit, I don’t know.” Andrew collapsed in the chair, his bones melting until he was nothing but skin and muscles. “You’re supposed to help me be … normal again.”

  “Is that what you think we’re doing?”


  “Isn’t that what I pay you for?”

  Her smile evolved into a hummingbird laugh. “Andrew, remember what we said when you first came to me?”

  You’re not the person you used to be, so don’t expect to become him again. “Yeah.”

  “Remember what you decided you wanted from this?”

  Air left his lungs in a slow bleed. “I wanted to feel comfortable around other people.”

  She nodded. Light reflected off her glasses. “We also said it would be good for you to make some connections, which you’re doing.”

  He’d had several sessions with Logan and Taylor, and enjoyed hanging out with them, though he always felt out of place. The night with Sawyer, until she freaked out, was the most average he’d felt in a long time. Hell, being around Sawyer took his mind off everything he couldn’t do anymore.

  “Holding on to the things that make us happy is what all people do—or should do. Some of us let them go, because we think we should, or because someone says we should. Who told you to give up, Andrew?”

  “No one,” he mumbled. His skin felt too small, stretched tight over his body, so thin that everyone saw the scars inside, the ones he kept hidden. “So you’re saying I should keep making the initiative, even if she doesn’t want to see me.”

  “Has she said those words?”

  “Well, no.”

  Rosie let out a snore, woke herself up, and shifted on the big pillow by the fireplace. Electric light danced on her golden coat, still gleaming from her appointment with the groomers yesterday. At least someone appreciated his gifts. He had left a box filled with an assortment of pastries and gourmet cookies by Sawyer’s door (why bother knocking when she wouldn’t answer?) yesterday morning and when he took Rosie out for a walk this morning, the box was still there, untouched. He had heard her door open and shut, so she had to have seen them.

  Jennifer changed tactics. “Are you going home for Thanksgiving?”

  Andrew nodded.

  “Looking forward to it?”

  “I guess.” He stretched out his good leg. “It’ll be good to start on some of the renovations I’m planning for my house.”

  “Such as?”

  He explained the state of the property when he bought it, four years ago. “I was always going to fix it up a little at a time, when I wasn’t busy with work. I didn’t think I could do any of it after the accident, but I think I’ve got it covered. I might have to hire someone to help with the roofing, though.”

  “Is your family close by?”

  “A few hours away. I don’t know how eager they’ll be to see me.”

  Jennifer’s eyes widened a fraction. “Why do you think that?

  “I wasn’t exactly nice to them the last time I saw them.” He’d told his sister to go to hell, told his mother she could fuck off, and ignored his little brother completely.

  She nodded, tapping the end of her pen to her mouth. “It’s not too late to reach out to them. I imagine you’ve all been through the gauntlet where emotions are involved, since your ‘accident’ as you put it.”

  True. Andrew massaged the tendons in his knee. “So you think Thanksgiving is a good time to reach out?”

  “Why not?” She smoothed her skirt. “It’s a holiday where we give thanks for all the positive aspects of our lives. It’s interesting to note that mending familial bridges is more common on Thanksgiving than most other holidays, including Christmas. People recognize the need to bury hatchets and heal wounds during a time designated to giving thanks, where the future seems clearer and brighter, and people are making a serious effort where their friends and loved ones are concerned.”

  He let that sink in on the walk home, forgetting to check Sawyer’s door before he went inside his apartment. Rosie took off for her bed next to the heater and flopped down on her back. Andrew sat on the couch with his phone in his hand, wondering the best way to proceed. Before, he’d just do it—no hesitation. Now he was about ninety percent hesitation and ten percent self-loathing. Mom would be at home, unless something changed over the years and she decided Saturdays weren’t for catching up on the household things she didn’t get to during the week. Sundays were for church and dinner with friends and family.

  No, it had to be today, unless he wanted to wait and try her sometime during the week, but he didn’t know her schedule. His mom worked as a registered nurse so her hours were all over the place. Nathan, his younger brother, would be in his senior year of high school, and if he turned out anything like Andrew, he wouldn’t be sitting around at home—without his friends, of course.

  Fuck it. He dialed his mom’s number before he chickened out. Two rings later, she answered, out of breath.

  “Hey Mom.” Andrew cleared his throat. How did it sound so rusty after he’d spent the last hour talking?

  “Andrew?”

  “Yeah. I—”

  “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary. I need to sit down a moment.” When flustered, Mom’s Irish side came back in full force. She’d left the Emerald Isle at fifteen with her aunt and uncle after her parents died, and moved to South Carolina. “Andrew, I’ve been waiting for you to call me.”

  “I know, Mom.” He felt like shit. “I’m sorry.”

  “Well, it’s done now. All’s forgiven.”

  “Just like that?”

  He heard her smile over the phone. “Just like that. Oh, hang on. Nathan’s just come in for his lunch. Nathan! Your brother’s on the phone!”

  Andrew held the phone away from his ear until his mom stopped barking down the line. “I would’ve thought he’d be out.”

  “Oh, he was earlier, but he always comes home for lunch. Brings his girlfriend around, she’s a lovely girl, you should see them together!”

  A girl always made a guy do things out of character. He eyed the door for a second.

  “Andrew, are you still there?” Mom’s worried voice pinched his gut.

  “Yeah, sorry.”

  “No, not those ones, Nathan. The ones on the plate,” Mom said, the words muffled. To Andrew, she said, “I swear, he’ll be as big as you if he keeps up eating everything in sight. Anyhow, tell me how you’ve been, love.”

  “School is going okay.” Lie. “I’m training a couple for an endurance race.”

  “Sounds lovely! D’you think you’ll make it home for Thanksgiving?”

  “That’s what I’m calling about.”

  Silence scooped out his organs and plopped them on the coffee table. “I wish you’d come,” Mom said, her voice a hoarse whisper.

  “Then I’ll be there.”

  She whooped. Actually whooped. “Oh, my heavens! You’ll get to see the baby!”

  His eyes bulged. “Baby? Mom, aren’t you…” Too old? Not to mention the fact that he didn’t know she was seeing anyone. His guts churned.

  “Oh, not me, you dunderhead! Colleen’s due a week before, and with all the complications, that baby will certainly be here by then, if not a little sooner.” Mom filled him in on his older sister’s pre-eclampsia (and what the hell that was), and how she’d been having contractions since nineteen weeks, and the doctors put her on bed rest. “Wes has been just perfect through the whole thing.”

  Andrew remembered the day Colleen brought Westley Ashworth home like it was yesterday. After the shit Andrew had given him, Wes had stuck around, married his sister, and now they were having a baby. Colleen had gushed to Mom about how his mother named him after the character in The Princess Bride—Colleen’s all-time favorite book. She called it fate.

  Mom interrupted his thoughts with, “Dare I ask if you’re bringing anyone?”

  Andrew palmed the back of his neck. “I’m not sure.” He wanted to. Wanted to bring Sawyer. Wanted to show her where he grew up. Wanted to peel back the layers she hid behind. “We’re not actually … together.”

  “But you want to be?”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “You’ve got three weeks to ask the girl,” Mom pressed. “What’s her name?”
r />   “Sawyer.”

  “Oh, lovely name. I bet she’s a little sweetheart, is she?”

  “She’s—” Fragile. Skittish. Strong. “Different.”

  “Well, I won’t push. I’m just so bloody pleased that you called.” Mom blew her nose and Andrew groaned. “Oh, don’t give me that. It’s been over a year, Andrew. A mother’s allowed to feel emotional when her lost sheep returns to the flock.”

  “Not the sheep analogies again.”

  She clicked her tongue. “Don’t get cheeky with me, Andrew. Now, look. I’ve got to run, but you ring me on Wednesday afternoon if you can. I’ll be home around four and expecting your call. In the meantime, you ask that girl of yours to come, and tell her I won’t take no for an answer.”

  “We wouldn’t be staying at your place the whole time, though.”

  “You can’t take her to that construction site you call a house! She’ll run for the hills, Andrew. I’m telling you.”

  “What’s wrong with my house?” He said it as a joke, provoking her. Mom loved his house—on the outside. The neglected insides made her cringe. He told her, when he first bought it two years ago, that the bones of the place were fine, however, he’d need to add some meat and make it look nice.

  “It’s a heap, Andrew. Wes and I were out there a few months back, checking things over. He cleaned out the gutters for you, and noticed that someone had gone ‘round and smashed all the windows. We’ve had them replaced, mind you, and he checks when he can that it hasn’t happened again. But still!”

  Miranda. No one else knew about the place, and it sat far enough off the main road that, unless you knew it was there, you’d never see the house. The driveway looked more like an old, overgrown path than anything else. For the past twenty years, the house had sat there untouched, except for an old woman who dusted the inside, until she’d passed away—three months before Andrew bought it.

  “Anyway, love,” Mom said, “I’d better get this food on the table. Else your brother will inhale this batch of cookies. Oi! Hands off, you grubby, little, greedy guts!”