Chapter 29

Sarah

On Friday, Monica and I are waiting at her place for Larry to come home so that we can pick up my stuff from the cabin. Lindsay is at a friend’s house, and I’m relieved. I don’t want her to see me in the state I’m in. I’ve been crying all day, and I don’t have what it takes to be in a good mood, not even for a seven-year-old child. Monica has been on sister duty all day, trying to make me feel better. Sadly, she’s been failing.

The truth is, my heart is broken. The pain I feel is almost impossible to imagine, especially considering how little time I’ve really spent with Graham.

“I wish you would speak to me,” Monica says. Since we came home after I left Graham’s house, I haven’t spoken much. I cried a lot, and that already has Monica in distress.

“What is there to say?” I ask. “There was a reason why I didn’t give my heart away to another man. After Jacob, I did well getting my life back together. I was an idiot, falling for Graham this fast.”

Monica shakes her head. “Sometimes, you can’t help how you feel. From what I can tell, Graham was absolutely everything you wanted in a guy. If it wasn’t for this…”

“But that’s the thing. This happened. This nullifies everything else he’s done. If he lied to me about this, what else did he lie about?”

Monica can’t answer me. She doesn’t know him the way that I do — which doesn’t seem to be very much at all. Since the moment I found out, all through the night, I turned everything that happened between us over and over in my mind. I don’t know how to bring the two people, the Graham who evicted me and the Graham I got to know in the cabin, together. Part of me desperately wants to believe that this couldn’t have happened, that this is some mistake. But he admitted it. Graham is my landlord, or was, and he evicted me before Christmas. The eviction notice I’ve got is a lie, too. I was told that the landlord needed it personally. I don’t know who the hell was living in the house, maybe Monica was right about him having another girlfriend, but I know that it’s not Graham.

“I wish there was something I could do to help,” Monica says. She doesn’t ask me if I’m all right anymore. She knows the answer. I’m not.

“It’s okay, sis,” I say. “This is on me. I was so careful with so many guys for so long, that it was stupid of me to drop my guard with him so quickly.”

I can’t believe that happened. Somewhere in all the conversations I had with Monica, she said something about fate, but I don’t believe that now. Fate, destiny, none of those things should hurt this much.

“Don’t worry about it so much, Sarah,” Monica says, hugging me. “I know it hurts a lot now, but this too shall pass.” I roll my eyes at the saying that my mother raised us with. I used to believe in it before Jacob.

“There are better men out there,” Monica says.

I know she means well. I just don’t think it’s true. Monica was lucky with Larry, but he’s one in a million, and I’m not going to keep looking.

“I’ve sworn off men. This is it. I’m not trying again. First, it was Jacob, and now this. They didn’t do the same thing, but both have one thing in common — neither of them respected me enough to tell me the truth. I’m not willing to live through something like this ever again.”

The more I think about it, the more absurd it sounds. It doesn’t make sense to me. The person I’ve gotten to know in the cabin would never have evicted someone just before Christmas. That Graham was so kind and caring. The one who evicted me, I don’t know who that is.

“Can I say something?” Monica asks, and I already know it’s not something I’m going to like. I nod slowly.

“Sarah, I know Graham really messed up. What he did was completely wrong, and I’m not trying to justify it. But he did try to find you a place to stay, and he gave it to you rent-free. Surely, that means something?”

It does sound like she’s trying to justify him, like she is taking his side somehow.

I’m getting angry. “Yes, it means something,” I say. “It means that the son of a bitch felt guilty that he fucked me over so badly, and giving me a place to stay would at least give him a clear conscience.”

Monica shakes her head, and I know she disagrees, but she doesn’t say any more. Smart woman. My emotions fluctuate between extremely angry and extremely heartbroken. I don’t have anything in between. I don’t know how to control my emotions, and I don’t want to. I am going to be angry, I’m going to be sad, I’m going to ride out every emotion that Graham gave me because he messed up, and I won’t apologize for how I acted to him when I found out. He should have told me.

No matter how nice he was afterward, no matter what Monica says about the person I got to know, and all the memories I have with him that back that up, he shouldn’t have lied to me. I wrack my brain for signs, trying to find something that pointed out the hidden truth. But there’s nothing. Graham managed to hide it so well, and it only makes me feel like a fool.

Monica’s phone rings, and she steps away from me to answer it. I hear her talking to Larry. She is on the phone with him for a while before she returns. Her face is serious.

“I have a bit of bad news,” she says. “Larry has a work emergency, and he can’t come until later tonight. Will it be possible to postpone this until tomorrow? I know you want to handle it as quickly as possible, but it looks like there’s no getting around this.”

I shake my head. “Really, it’s fine. I know that I’m relying on you and Larry to help me out, and I’m not going to demand that you change things around for me. Tomorrow will be fine. Thank you, I really appreciate your support.”

Monica nods and hugs me again. I feel a little bit claustrophobic with all the attention she’s giving me, but I know she means well, and she’s mothering me the way she mothers Lindsay. She can’t help it, and I won’t make her change.

When I can, I manage to slip away. I leave the house and go for a walk, trying to clear my head. I’m so upset, I don’t know what to do with myself. Memories swirl in my mind — memories of Graham everything we’ve done — and it makes me more and more upset the more I think about him. It’s not just what he did that gets to me so much. It’s how I feel about him and how much this is affecting me that upsets me even more. After Jacob, I promised not to get attached to someone because if they hurt me, I would fall apart.

It seems like this is exactly what happened anyway.