by Brianna Cash
Without our assignments, would I have been able to guess that she’d once been fired for shoplifting? That she’d keyed someone’s car? That she prided herself on not caring what people think?
I never would’ve thought someone capable of doing those things would be a girl I want to be with. Or that she would have such a casual attitude about sex. Or that she would swear like a sailor and have absolutely no filter or remorse about telling someone her opinion.
I never thought I’d have to get my perfect girl to believe in love before we could be together.
Even knowing those things about Sadie, I still gladly tried to change her mind about love. And I’m pretty sure I accomplished it.
At least before the confrontation we had at work after the wedding—the one where I pushed her away instead of accepting her apology.
Alena snuggles into Rob’s side. “There’s also the make-up sex.”
Switching gears, I force out a groan at my sister-in-law’s comment. “I don’t need to hear about my brother’s sex life.”
“Agreed.” Rob smiles at her, then looks at me with raised brows. “Although I never thought you’d get a perfect score, especially from Sadie. Where’d you learn your tricks, Owen?”
A smirk dances across my mouth. Finally, he’s proven wrong about my so-called inexperience. “And you used to make fun of me for being a perfectionist.”
Rob pulls Alena’s jacket off the coat rack, helping her into it as he laughs, then shrugs into his own, throwing out some brotherly advice I’m not sure I want. “In all seriousness, go talk to your girl. Make us all happy, will ya?”
I really like the sound of that, of Sadie being my girl.
“Maybe…”
“Just do it. Prove her wrong. You got her to believe in love. Don’t let her think it wasn’t worth the risk; that you aren’t worth the risk.”
Sadie was afraid to believe in love. And I was so upset she didn’t think I was perfect, proving her wrong didn’t even cross my mind. I just…gave up.
That’s not how our story is supposed to end, though. She gave me the plot, warned me about the conflict, and I completely ignored the solution.
An idea pops in my head, and a small smile forms on my lips.
If I present her with a cake, will she eat it with me?
Will she trust me, and our friendship?
Does she believe in the magic we share?
If she does, how badly did I screw up my chance with her over the last three weeks, when I treated her like a monster instead of a friend?
Chapter 27
Sadie
I took today off.
The Monday after Thanksgiving is always crazy at work, but Ellie is doing great. It’s early for me to leave her alone, but she wanted me to. She says she’ll never know if she can handle it if I’m always hovering over her and correcting her the first chance I get. She’s a quick learner, she’s great at multi-tasking, if she doesn’t know something, she asks, she doesn’t just make shit up as she goes. She’s even pleasant to work with, once she quit asking questions about the guy I argued with during the first ten minutes of her first shift.
She’s nice. I kind of like her. And teaching her the job has made work somewhat tolerable. I can almost not look in Owen’s direction when he comes in. It never matters if I do or don’t, though. He never looks at me anymore.
So today, I’m taking a mental health day. One where I’m seriously considering if I should start looking for a new job. And, also, a day where I don’t have to see him and pretend he didn’t crush my heart almost the minute after I realized he finally made me believe in magic.
Lot of good it did me, huh?
Since life is so grand in the city, I stayed at my mom’s all weekend, including Sunday night.
My new roommate isn’t bad. She’s just a new person who doesn’t know jack about my life. She’s constantly trying to pry every little secret I’ve ever held close to my chest out into the open, in the hopes that she can be my new best friend.
It’s so damn annoying.
She’s young, only twenty. This is her first time living on her own. Which means she doesn’t know what she’s doing. And she’s lonely. She came from a big family—she told me she has three siblings, so one of four—and our apartment is the most privacy she’s ever had in her whole life!
Blah, blah, blah.
She should be at work now, so I drop off my rental car and ride the bus home, dreading the return to real life after the brief hiatus I was granted. I like hiatuses. Maybe I can somehow figure out a way to get paid while living in a shack on the beach, where no one knows where I am, what my name is, or that my heart, the one that just started beating, is lying in a shattered ruin around my feet.
Stepping gingerly onto each broken, bleeding shard, I make my way up the stairs to my apartment, knowing there are so many little pieces of my heart it’s impossible not to step on them, or sit on them, or lie on them when I go to bed at night. They’re literally everywhere. They cover every square inch of every surface of my apartment. They swarm the sidewalks as soon as I go outside. They’re waiting for me on every bus in the city, every bench on every bus station. They attack me at every turn. Especially at work.
They were even lurking in the shadows at my childhood home, jumping out of the corners to rip at the carefully constructed lie I told about not caring that Owen wouldn’t listen to me and I was back to being perpetually single.
Sometimes the shards are so small, it doesn’t hurt, not really. It’s more of an uncomfortable pressure than pain. Other times, it’s like I’m bouncing on a bed of a million sharp edges, ramming them into my skin over and over, as hard and as often as I can, trying to see how much pain I can endure before I pass out.
So, yeah. Life’s been fun since the wedding. Super great. Thanks for asking.
But at least I get to spend the day alone, in my apartment. With my phone off, and my laptop buried under a growing pile of dust in my room. I refuse to open it and see that, no, Owen is not completing our assignments anymore. He’d rather fail a class than talk to me in any way.
Do I know that for sure? No. Not at all. I’m not going to look, though. Because he’s right; I do know him. And there’s not a chance in hell he’ll write to me. Not with how angry he is about what I thought when I saw him man-handling his sister.
Does he care about me or how I’m dealing with his reaction? Does he think that maybe he overreacted given my past, the one I only revealed to him? Does he have any idea how pissed off I am that he didn’t trust me enough to tell me his sister was a drug addict before we were at a party where she’d have a ton of time to sneak away and do whatever she wanted? Does he care that part of me hates him because he walked away and gave up everything we could’ve been simply because he offends a little too easily? Is he happy that he walked away from me when I couldn’t follow him and make a scene, demanding he listen to me and my explanation?
After stepping into my lonely apartment, I eye the couch, wondering if I should crash on it and watch sappy rom-com movies until the new roommate comes home. But I’m not my mom. I really don’t want to cry my eyes out watching someone else get a happy ending when I know mine isn’t coming. Fuck that.
Maybe I should text Jamison.
Eh…
Dammit, I don’t even want to have sex! I’m ruined! I’ll die an old maid, with a million cats and a vag that has cobwebs in it so thick they’ll think some silkworm burrowed in there and caused my untimely death.
I turn my phone on with a heavy sigh—pretending not to notice that I don’t have a single new text or any voicemails—and pull up the website to the local animal shelter. I may as well accept my fate and start my cat collection. Maybe I’ll get lucky and the cats will form a giant spoon around my body to help me sleep.
There’s no info out there on what positions the cats like to sleep in, so my search is futile. Although there are a ton of adorable little buggers that I wouldn’t mind sharing some space with
.
I should unpack my bag. Thank God I was able to do laundry at my mom’s. Spending a day off from work at the laundromat is about the saddest thing I’ve ever considered doing.
That’s interesting. There’s a piece of paper taped to my bedroom door.
Ripping it down, I carry it with me into my room, leaving it on the dresser while I put my clothes away. I don’t want to look at my roommate’s perky handwriting or whatever she needed to tell me that couldn’t wait until she got home. She has my number. She could have texted me, but no. She likes old fashioned things like pen and paper. She sits down every weekend and writes her sister letters. Actual letters, written on paper with different colored pens. She even buys stamps because you need those little suckers in order to send out mail.
I don’t know where she came from. Another universe or century. One or the other.
Half an hour later, I have nothing left to do except mope around thinking about what-could-have-beens, and what’s the point in that?
This new roommate is also too clean. I can’t even scrub the apartment to drown out my misery.
She’s going to have to go. She’s clean, nice, optimistic… Definitely not going to work out.
I unfold the full sheet of paper with a sigh, cringing at her happy handwriting scrawled across the page. She turns her exclamation points into smiley faces and dots her I’s with hearts… Jesus, how annoying.
Wait. What does it say? Something about cake?
Starting from the beginning, I read the note instead of analyzing the way she draws each letter.
Sadie — Some tall HOT guy stopped by to see you. He left a cake! Please save me a piece!!
No way…
I mean, no fucking way!
Tossing the note to I-don’t-care-where, I make a beeline to the kitchen, where there’s a cardboard box in the center of the table. It’s almost a perfect square. It could be a cake box. It could hold chocolatey goodness made by Owen.
Why would he suddenly make me a cake? He hates me. Why make this and bring it to my apartment when he’d rather trip over every single object in the lobby of our work building, including his own feet, than look in my general direction and risk acknowledging that I exist?
My hands are shaking, so I lift the lid carefully, sucking in a gasp at the sight and smell of this magnificent dessert. It looks like a work of art. Knowing Owen, it is. It probably took him hours and hours to make in his overly organized kitchen, and he probably loved every second of it. Sliding my finger along the edge, I gather icing on the tip, staying away from the dark chocolate shavings on top, and dip it into my mouth.
Mmm, God, that’s good. There’s a hint of underlying sweetness that convinces me it’s definitely his favorite chocolate almond icing. The icing he said he’d make for me. I’ll bet the cake is triple layered, too, with some cherry flavoring in there somewhere.
Another note.
I read this one without hesitation, instantly recognizing Owen’s perfect block print.
Text me when you get this. 736
Should I? He’ll be working right now. He might not even get my text until he’s done, considering it’s already after lunch. What’s he going to say, anyway? What do I want him to say? And why did he make me a damn cake?
Fuck it. I’m too curious to wait.
Sadie: I’m texting you.
OC736: You got the cake?
Rolling my eyes, I type out the obvious. Why else would I be contacting him?
Sadie: I got it.
OC736: Did you eat it yet?
Sadie: No.
OC736: Why not?
Why not? Because I have no idea what it means! Is it a peace offering? Is it an I-told-you-mine-was-the-best-and-you’ll-never-get-it-again jab? Is it a this-is-the-kind-of-person-I-really-am display? A way to say I’m a BAKER, not a beater!
Sadie: Why do I have a cake from you?
OC736: I promised I’d make you one.
Ha! That’s not a good answer and he knows it.
Sadie: 1. You promised me a LOT of things. 2. The class isn’t over. 3. You’re supposed to eat it with me.
OC736: Can we do number three?
Sadie: Code or for real?
OC736: Not code, not right now… But would it matter?
Oh, fuck him! How many times do I have to tell him it wasn’t just sex to me? Maybe that’s what I revert to when things get scary and real, but he knew it was more than that!
Sadie: YES, IT WOULD FUCKING MATTER!!
OC736: Just making sure…
Sadie: Why do I have a cake from you?
OC736: We’ve been over that already.
Sadie: Fine. Why are you suddenly trying to make good on ONE of your MANY promises?
OC736: Because I miss you.
Oh, fuck him! Again! How dare he use that line on me! How dare he tell me he misses me when he’s the one who’s been avoiding me for the past three weeks!
Sadie: Enough to forgive me for something I couldn’t help? Enough to hear me when I say I’m sorry instead of pushing me out of your life?
OC736: Yes.
That’s honestly not what I was expecting. Praying this isn’t some joke, I take a deep breath and type out a simple reply. All the while knowing that if he comes over to eat cake with me, things are going to get scarier and more real than I’m prepared for, and I won’t be able to revert to sex without it being a total cop out.
Sadie: When?
OC736: Are you at your apartment?
Sadie: Yes.
OC736: Is your roommate there?
Sadie: She will be. In about…three hours.
OC736: I’ll be there in five minutes.
Owen
I’m still not saying I was wrong.
After everything we’ve told each other, all the late-night, middle-of-the-work-day, and any-time-at-all conversations we’ve had, after all the things she’s told me and all the things I’ve told her, she should have known, without a doubt, that I’m not the kind of person to ever hit someone in anger. Especially not a girl. Especially not my sister!
But I will agree that I might not have been right.
It wasn’t right to not tell Sadie about Chris before the wedding. It wasn’t right to ask for her help with Chris and Lizzy—especially when she told me she wasn’t comfortable with it—without explaining the situation first. It wasn’t right to expect her to not freak out when she saw and heard the things she did, knowing what I do about her parents.
So, while I wasn’t wrong, per se, I could’ve handled it a lot better than I did.
I was surprised she wasn’t home last night. Part of me was scared she was out getting fucked and doing her best to forget my existence. But when she didn’t show up at work today, and I learned she asked for the day off in advance, I had hope that she was staying at her mom’s for an extra day. I worked until lunch, then told Alice I needed the rest of the day off. According to my boss, I’m sick.
I wasted my time away at a coffee shop, half a block from Sadie’s apartment. She’s due back at work tomorrow, so she had to come home today. I wasn’t sure she would text me when she got the cake, but I had to be close in case she did. I’m running out of time to find the right words to fix this.
She greets me with a scowl. She’s in a pair of yoga pants, an oversized sweatshirt hanging off her shoulder, her hair a greasy, tangled mess. She didn’t change a damn thing about her appearance when I told her I would be right over. Is it wrong that I find that aspect of her stubborn personality incredibly attractive?
“Hi,” I offer when she simply glares at me.
“What’re you doing here, Owen?”
“I want to eat cake with you.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “Why?”
I step closer to her without a word, more than willing to press my body against hers if she refuses to let me in. I’m not going to force my way into her apartment, but I will remind her of the way we fit so damned perfectly together, and I’ll enjoy every sec
ond of it.
I’m not sure if I’m happy or not when she steps back and allows me safe passage into her humble abode.
I try to look around and get a feel for how she keeps her apartment, but my eyes are drawn repeatedly back to her face. She can be a slob, a neat freak, an OCD labeling organizer, or a hoarder. I don’t care. None of that matters.
“When did you figure out who I was?” It’s completely irrelevant to the things we need to talk about, but I want her to stop looking at me as if I’m the reason her sun stopped shining and she’s sitting in a dark, cold puddle on the ground. I want her to eat that cake with me. I want her to believe.
She huffs out a breath. “When I came over for croissants.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I wasn’t sure.”
“Do you know when I figured out who you were?”
“No.” Her reply is short, and she tries to convey indifference, but her eyes are studying me with interest, giving her curiosity away. At least to me, since I memorized every one of her expressions after I realized she was my great kisser, and my SD.
She’s not totally convinced I’m a monster. She still wants to believe, even if all evidence points in the opposite direction.
“What did you do with your car?”
“What car?” she sneers.
“In your autobiography, the one to me and not the professor, you said you bought a car after moving to the city. You don’t have one anymore.”
She moves into the kitchen, and I follow her like the puppy I am, in love with her and dying for some of her attention. She grabs something out of a drawer, pulling two plates out of a strainer next to the sink. The box is already open, and she uses a server to cut the circular cake down the middle, then spins the whole thing and makes a slice down the middle of the half closest to her. She’s not one of those slobs that cuts a piece for herself, leaving the rest of the cake uneven no matter where or how you slice it.
I might not be an OCD perfectionist anymore, but there are some things, like cutting a cake into haphazard pieces, that I still can’t stand. Judging by the way she cut the cake, Sadie and I will get along just fine, no matter what area of life we’re talking about.
