whole conversation, via text of course, reminded me of Mom and Liberty and gave me a little bit of confirmation that maybe they weren’t that far from normal. Well, at least their thought process wasn’t, and maybe, just maybe, I’m not either.
Another discussion was on college essays and how he wondered if every other teenager heading in that direction got pissed that two people raw-dogged it almost eighteen years ago and now they had to pay the price for their irresponsibility.
I’m so incredibly convinced he’s not one of “those men” that I created a freaking fake profile @basicbitch214, because I feel like one for getting sucked into this social media shit and now follow him on all his social media platforms.
On Christmas morning, he did a live video of him playing guitar and singing “White Christmas,” a gift for his parents, and then he and his dad did “Mary Did You Know” for Taelyn, his mom, together. Patrick sang, and that voice … truly incredible.
The other videos of Christmas were of him and his cousins—mostly Max and Amias, some with Brisa, and a couple with Truth—and they were funny, sweet, and telling of how much he loved them and how close they all were.
In a sense, had we stayed at any one of those “communities” for any length of time, I’m sure I would have made deeper connections.
This conclusion, yet another one brought on by Patrick, allowed me to draw the conclusion that so many of the things I was passionate, sometimes overly, about were because those were the things that were important to me. They were my constant. They were consistent.
And then they were gone.
What has become very consistent is every day that I work, he shows up for coffee at the very end of the shift, always the last customer, and the texts and daily pictures.
A banging on the door brings me from my thoughts.
“Savvy, I have to use the bathroom.”
God, if You’re really a thing, I’m really in no hurry to be taken now, but I could seriously use some clarity as in why … just … why?
It’s me,
Savvy Sutton
I flush the toilet and wash my hands for show. When I open the door, she’s crying. It never affected me before, but this time, it does.
It does because, when I lost it a few days ago, while crying in the rain, I wasn’t made to feel it was selfish to do so, that it was weak, which now seems to be yet another contradiction from my last life. Or maybe not? This shit is so confusing.
“What?” She sniffs.
I shake my head and walk to my bed.
While she’s in the shower, I scroll through hundreds of messages and back to the one from Christmas Eve when he stopped at The Bean before heading home after church and his family dinner. He didn’t just get coffee that night, he stayed until I came out, carrying two trash bags to put in the dumpster.
Standing against his Jeep, he waited for me, in suit pants, a matching jacket, and cashmere scarf. I couldn’t help but laugh at the way he looked in comparison to how he looked for the past couple days that we had spent together.
“Laugh it up, Savvy. I may not look like me, but I still look good.”
“You look like my worst nightmare.”
He smiled. “You sure you don’t mean fondest dream?”
“Sorry, Brad, is that you?”
“Ha, ha, ha,” he said dryly.
“All you white boys look the same in suits, are culturally washed.”
“Well, let me tell you something, Savannah; it’s what’s underneath the suit that counts.”
I shook my head and told him, “Watch it,” as I walked to the dumpster.
He caught up with me and grabbed the bags. “Trust me; I know I am living in the friend zone. Got a letter today from the post office issuing me my own zip code.”
Lifting the dumpster top, I tried to hold in a laugh, but I couldn’t.
After he tossed the trash in the dumpster, we stood there, smiling, and for as long as it was, it wasn’t a bit awkward, at all. Then Patrick’s smile lit up all the darkness surrounding us, and I wasn’t the least bit upset that my beloved darkness was slowly fading.
He lifted his chin and said, “Look up, Savvy Sutton.”
When I did, I saw snow falling for the first time in what felt like an unusually long fall season. It fell in huge, fluffy white flakes, and it fell hard.