It was about two weeks after our dinner with Val when I finally talked to Sadie again. I’d seen Aaron’s truck come and go from the house, so I was fairly certain things were back to normal across the street—or at least normal for Sadie and Aaron.
If they had done something crazy, like break up and call off the wedding, I was positive I—and the world—would’ve heard about it. But Sadie wasn’t one to ever lose face, and Aaron had principles, so it wasn’t clear to me where that left them. I couldn’t imagine either of them calling the whole thing off, but I also couldn’t picture a future where they were married.
When I pulled my car into the driveway after class, I noticed Sadie standing just on the edge of the steps at Brooks’s place. There was no way for me to know if she was coming or going, and that thought sent an uneasiness to my gut. It was possible she was coming over to see me, but in the past couple weeks I’d gotten as bold as to keep my car in full display in the front of the house.
If she didn’t see my car, she should’ve assumed I wasn’t there, so why was she standing so close to his house?
She looked gorgeous in a light gray sweater dress and her hair swept up in a bun, but she also looked pensive. I felt a knot in my stomach at the thought of talking to her, but knew it was inevitable. I was her oldest friend, after all.
“Hey, hey,” she said, walking toward me and trying to sound normal, but I could hear the difference.
Was she being weird because we hadn’t talked, or was it because she’d done something behind my back?
“Hi, Sadie.”
“How was class?”
“Oh, you know, it’s class.” I tilted my head to one shoulder, feeling terribly awkward.
“So dish, girl. You’ve been practically living here.” With the wave of her hand in the house’s general direction, she seemed herself again.
“I know.” I smiled, unable to hide my feelings. “I really like it here.”
“Yes, yes. But how do you feel about the man, not the house?”
“I like him too. Obviously.” That was an understatement.
She seemed to consider this like it wasn’t obvious, like I’d be spending all my time there for no reason. “So you’re like, together now? You and William?”
My relationship with Brooks suddenly seemed very private—like I needed to protect it. I guess it was always private, as most things were to me, but besides my mother, no one knew enough to ask me about it.
The girls in class remarked how different I seemed lately, and most assumed, out loud, that it was because of a guy, but they all knew me well enough to know I wouldn’t talk. That was how things worked in class. I’d listen to all the conversation but only minimally participate. The girls were sweet, though; they always tried to include me.
Brooks and I weren’t even doing things out in public for the most part, because the things I wanted to do to him were against the law if performed outside of the privacy of your own home.
If I thought about it, I was concerned, or at least I felt I should be concerned, that we weren’t going on more dates. That whole “everyone else is doing this, so shouldn’t we?” kind of feeling. But when he’d give me the choice to go out or stay in, I picked staying in.
Taking time to dive deeper into my subconscious would’ve revealed the reasoning behind wanting to stay in and it wouldn’t have been pretty. I still didn’t feel good enough for him, but I put massive amounts of effort into not thinking that.
Sadie, being the gossip hound she was, needed to sniff the story out, and I could tell she needed to do it now.
“Yes, we’re together now,” I eventually answered.
Her expression was hard to read, but it made my stomach turn, as it didn’t sit right on her face. “You’re telling me he’s your boyfriend? Or I guess I should say manfriend.”
Brooks had proclaimed himself my boyfriend a couple weeks earlier. He’d say it often and unnecessarily in our private moments together, but I wasn’t comfortable saying it aloud myself. If I did, I’d give him the opportunity to correct me.
“Yeah.”
“Gee, Ollie, stop gushing so much,” she said sarcastically. “Come on, you know how hot he is. Let me live vicariously.”
Please let her only ever know him vicariously.
“We mean a lot to each other. We’re very close.” I used regurgitated words and knew I sounded like a robot while delivering them, but giving Sadie intimate details was a sacrilege.
“Yeah, but you could say the same about us. Do you love him?” Her expression was completely unreadable with that question. It was like her smile was trying to tell me she was happy, but her eyes were telling me a totally different story.
I shook it off but refused to answer. “How’s Aaron?”
She made an overly acidic face—just for a fraction of a second, and only I could’ve caught it—before she answered. “Oh, you know, he’s Aaron. He’s outgoing and outspoken and out with friends and all that.”
“I know how Aaron is”—believe me, I knew—“I mean, how are you guys together?”
“We’re engaged, so you know, we’re in that lovey-dovey happiness stage still. That’s why I haven’t been seeing you as much lately. I’m sorry about that. I’ve been a bad friend.”
“Sadie, it’s okay.” Though her apology was misplaced, since I was mostly to blame for the lull, it was appreciated.
Never mind the fact that I didn’t buy the lovey-dovey-stage crap for one second.
“I’ve been distracted too.” It was my turn to gesture to the house and all that it implied.
“Why don’t you come over for a little?” She smiled and bumped her slender shoulder against mine.
As much as I longed for my Brooks fix, I needed Sadie time too. I glanced back wistfully at my sanctuary as we crossed the street. Brooks’s hours usually varied, but lately he’d been getting home just before me. Would he wonder where I was? Would he worry? I liked the idea of him worrying about me.
Sadie and I sat on the couch in our normal body-touching positions. Sadie had changed into comfortable clothes, which meant a crop top, always a crop top, and I wished I’d done the same—not the crop top part, the comfy clothes part.
I couldn’t deny there was a part of me that wanted to girl out with my best friend and talk about boys, but something was holding me back. I wasn’t ready to share my happiness. I wasn’t sure if it was even real. No matter how much I felt myself changing for good, I still hadn’t done a complete one-eighty. All I wanted was to feel like the old me, but even with my happiness at being with Brooks she still seemed so far away.
Being back in Sadie’s place was reassuring and nerve-racking at the same time. I wasn’t quite ready to face Aaron again, and I never knew when he was going to pop up at the Connors’ place, but I dreamed of the days when I wouldn’t be Sadie’s miserable sidekick anymore. I was finally the leading lady of my own love story. It had to be a whole hell of a lot better than Sadie’s sloppy seconds.
“Anyway, this is what the centerpieces will look like.” She handed me her phone to look at a few shots she took, and for the first time since their engagement was announced I didn’t want to lose my lunch at the thought.
“Where’s Aaron?” I asked, unable to handle the suspense any longer but hating that I kept asking about him.
“He’s translating a play for that couple again.”
“The extra money must be nice, especially with all the wedding expenses.”
“Yeah, he could work every night till then, and maybe after too. That’d be great. Not like you’d have to worry about any of that if you marry William.”
“What’s that mean?”
“The guy’s loaded, Ollie.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s been my neighbor for a while now and I told you we talk.” Sadie’s exaggerations were back. At least I hoped they were just exaggerations. I wanted to live a life where I didn’t have to worry about my best friend and my boyfriend talking, but that wasn’t the kind of world I lived in.
“And what topics do you discuss during these talks?”
Her eyes lit up at the thrill of having information I wanted. “Come, come.” She waved her hand for me to move closer to her on the couch, like she had some great secret, and wrapped her arm around me. “He has old family money. His parents are mega-rich and live in one of those big old houses in Sewickley Heights.”
I was relieved I knew that information. He’d already told me where they lived and I had assumed about the money.
While I wanted to know where his “old family money” came from—strictly out of curiosity over Brooks’s life, not because I wanted to get my hands on it—I was happy Sadie didn’t really know the answer. That was something she easily could’ve Googled, and knowing Sadie, she probably did. She just wouldn’t willingly tell me the answer, and I wasn’t going to ask.
“Ooohh,” I said, doing my best at feigning interest.
“So you’ll be set, dear.”
“We just started dating, I’m not really thinking about any of that.”
Okay, maybe I thought about things like marriage and babies and committing our undying love to each other, but I also thought about winning the lottery, becoming a mermaid, and aliens.
“Money aside, he’s so sexy. He’s older too, so he’s probably crazy romantic. I’m so jealous.”
The smile that escaped my lips answered for me. “He’s perfect.”
Sadie popped off the couch and ventured into the kitchen. “So it seems like this might be it for you.”
“You sound like the narrator from a cheesy superhero movie. Why are you in such a hurry to marry me off?”
“I’m not. I’m just trying to feel out your romance,” she said as she reappeared. “See what it’s like.”
She passed me an open bottle of Black Cherry Fizz. Sadie seemed to have an endless supply of them, like it was 1999 and it was a cool thing to do. I thought the wine cooler obsession would end once she turned twenty-one, but it didn’t show any signs of stopping. Instead I had the sinking suspicion I’d see half the fridge space dedicated to the sugary drink.
“Have you been talking to my mom?” Time for a slight change of subject. If I could, I’d stop her from ever knowing what it was like to even kiss him on the cheek—if I wasn’t already too late.
She drank deeply before saying, “Maybe.”
“Sadie! How many times have I asked you not to tell my mom anything?”
“Oh, come on. You know how it is with Val. She talks a mile a minute, gives me a few dozen compliments, and next thing I know I’m spilling my guts. And I didn’t tell her everything—just that she should check in with you.” She waved her hand dismissively.
“It’s a big deal. She walked in on us…”
“On you…?”
“Don’t make me say it.” I squirmed away from her and pulled the blanket off the back of the couch to hide my face. Since I was recently de-virginized, I wasn’t comfortable talking about it. But even years from now I probably still wouldn’t be.
Maybe it was my constant desire to be left alone, or maybe it was because Brooks was so precious to me, or maybe it was because it was all so good, but the mention of sex made me blush—call me a prude.
Her eyes got so wide she looked like a cartoon character, and if I wasn’t mistaken, she was having a difficult time swallowing. “Wait. You had sex with him?”
“Well, yeah, Sadie. What’d you think we were doing when I was sleeping over?”
Her astonishment at this revelation baffled me. Wasn’t it obvious? Or did she never really think Brooks would be interested enough to actually put his penis in me?
“I don’t know, watching movies? Reading? Cooking? Sleeping in separate beds too, if I had to guess, possibly on separate floors of the house.”
Okay, so she knew me a lot better than I gave her credit for. Or maybe she knew me perfectly well but still chose to be a mostly shitty friend.
“How could you? How could you hold out on me?”
“It’s an extremely personal thing. And I really thought you’d figure it out on your own.” How could I know she needed me to spell it out for her?
“Don’t give me this ‘personal thing’ line like you’re not talking to me. I’ve let you live through my experiences for years, and now when you finally have something good to talk about you don’t even tell me? I don’t assume anything when it comes to you, Ollie Oxmend, because you’re a big freak.”
And that’s how it was with her, hot and cold.
“Sadie, relax.” I threw the blanket off and grasped her hand. “We can talk about anything you want. Just ask a question and I’ll tell you.”
I didn’t want to talk about any of it with her, but my brain kept saying fixthisfixthisfixthis.
“No. I don’t want to.”
“I’m sorry. Please, can we talk?” Was I sorry? The panic and dread of having Sadie mad at me was there, but did it really matter? I wasn’t even in the wrong with this one.
“No. You have this great life with this rich, hot guy and I don’t get to be a part of that world. That’s not fair, Ollie.”
After that comment everything was so clear. Her beauty on the outside meant nothing because she was just as miserable on the inside as the rest of us. She had a guy, a great guy at that, but that still wasn’t enough. Jealousy always rears its ugly head. In that moment of clarity, I actually felt bad for her.
“You’re right. I got so caught up in it. Let’s talk about it.”
She brightened slightly, and like a child, was easily won over with a kind word and smile. I was giving her details despite myself. It was odd to want and not want to talk about it at the same time. I wanted to keep Brooks private and close to my heart, but I also wanted to rent the billboard on Main and plaster it with a picture of us making out.
I managed to find a happy medium and give Sadie some details, like how he was an amazing kisser and so patient with me. She made it much easier by asking questions, but I think her questions were more thorough and descriptive than my responses.
The sound of the door clicking open was followed by a “Babe?” Aaron tumbled up the steps of the split level.
“Aaron?” I shot up. He was clearly intoxicated. “Did you drive here?”
He gave me a glassy look. “Of course not, Mom. As I was saying, babe, will you take me to get my truck before work in the morning?”
“Yeah, fine, Aaron.”
“Where was he?” I asked as Aaron staggered back outside to tell his ride to leave. Sadie was lucky her mom wasn’t home from work yet. She’d hate to see Aaron in his current state.
She shrugged. “I have no idea. I thought at the play. But drunk Aaron is fun Aaron.” She went to get herself another drink so she could, in her words, “catch up” to Aaron’s level of drunkenness.
The potent stench of stale beer and fried food hit me before Aaron even managed to make it the whole way up the steps.
Looking good tonight, O, he signed in slow, undefined motions.
I knew for sure then he was drunk because I wasn’t looking good. Of course I had enough makeup on me at any given time to get me through at least a week, but I never seemed to have enough clothes at Brooks’s. The ones I did have were constantly being washed, resulting in my wardrobe mostly looking stretched out and boxy.
Aaron, on the other hand, actually looked good in his work clothes: black pants, green button down, and his dark hair wild to match his eyes. For the most split of seconds, I wondered what it would be like to have sex with him.
I checked to make sure Sadie wasn’t looking.
What are you doing? I asked.
Looking at you, and I like what I see, he signed back. It wouldn’t take someone with previous knowledge of ASL to know the kind of things he was saying to me.
Are you trying to ruin my life and yours? You have to knock this shit off.
This is the only way to get your attention.
He went and sat on the couch with Sadie after she came out of the kitchen.
That phrase chilled me to the core. It meant one thing to me, the one thing I was more sure of than the passage of time: self-destruction.
“Where were ya?” Sadie asked with a slap to his knee, looking excited to start the party.
“We got some drinks after the show, ran into some people.” He was looking at me funny.
“What kind of play is over this early?” I asked.
“A matinee, Ollie. Get some culture.”
Sadie snickered.
“Has he been doing this a lot lately?” I directed my question to Sadie.
I’m not a child, O. I can answer my own questions.
As she watched him signing, Sadie shifted a bit in her seat and Aaron almost tumbled over. “No. Why?” To cover up Aaron’s slip, she leaned into him to support some of his weight, but I noticed.
“Just wondering.” I took a seat in the chair closest to the couch.
Sadie’s cell started to ring. “Ooohh, it’s Heidi, it’s Heidi!” Her face could’ve illuminated a cave in the center of the earth. She answered and left the room before I could ask the obvious question.
Aaron slid further down the couch and closer to my chair. Heidi is our Jennifer Lopez wedding planner, and yeah, I know that movie. She never speaks to me, though, only Sadie. We both prefer it that way. If it was up to me we’d fucking get married at the courthouse, maybe not at all…
I don’t buy that. You’re the marrying type.
I think I did my best to keep any kind of reaction off my face.
I’d been waiting for Aaron to say something negative about the wedding since they’d gotten engaged. That was part of the reason why I tried so hard to distance myself from him for a while. But there it finally was. I pushed back as far as I could in my seat, leaving my feet dangling above the ground.
Aaron was always so frisky when he drank. We never had sex when we were dating, partly because he only ever tried when he was wasted, which really wasn’t all that often back then. I was not the kind of girl who wanted her first time to be that way.
You can be the marrying type all you want, but it doesn’t mean shit if it’s with the wrong person.
I fiddled with my hands and stared out the picture window facing Brooks’s house, anything not to look at him. And to think I could be kissing Brooks right now instead of signing to Aaron.
You’re only over here till he comes home, aren’t you? he asked, following my gaze.
I’m here because Sadie invited me.
But when his car pulls in that driveway, you’ll be right back over there.
You’re wrong, Aaron. He’s over there now. I wanted to add, “and he’s probably wondering where I am so he can undress me,” but I didn’t.
Well, thanks for honoring me with your presence when you could be over there. I started to answer but Aaron cut me off. “Do you love him?” he asked out loud.
Aaron, come on.
I wanna know.
Why are you being like this? Where’s this coming from?
We sat there for a few long moments—him looking at me, me looking everywhere else. All I could hear was Sadie’s muffled voice through the walls talking about wedding things that I wasn’t sure were going to happen anymore.
Eventually, he answered my question.
For someone so deep you sure are dumb sometimes, O.
Motion from Brooks’s porch caught my attention. He came out of the house, walked down the steps, and checked to see if my car was in the driveway. “Fuck him,” Aaron said out loud, like Brooks could hear.
I thought you liked him.
That’s right, liked. Past tense.
He picked up Sadie’s left-behind cooler and took a swig.
I snatched it from his hands. “You don’t need any more.”
He reached for it again, but actually getting it would’ve required him to stand up, and that was something he just couldn’t do.
You can’t tell me what to do anymore, Ollie Oxmend.
“I gotta go. Tell Sadie I said bye, will you?”
When I stood, Aaron reached for my hand, and for some idiotic reason I gave it to him.
That’s telling me what to do again. He smiled and clasped our fingers together when he finished signing.
“He’ll wonder where I am.”
“I wonder about a lot of things…” Aaron was strangely poetic in his condition.
“Like what?” We were holding hands, but I wasn’t worried about it. I could still hear Sadie in the other room.
“Where you are and what you’re doing. Mostly what it’s like to be with you, though.”
He grabbed my side with his free hand and pulled me closer and closer until he buried his face in my stomach. It was something he always did and something I always hated, mostly because I had the kind of stomach a face could be pressed into. But it also let me know he really needed me.
“You know what it’s like to be with me.” My free hand automatically went to his hair. He was being a child, after all, and he needed to be comforted.
“That’s not what I mean,” he told my stomach.
I watched Brooks walk out to the sidewalk and stare into the house. He took a few steps like he was going to cross the street, then returned to his place. I knew he couldn’t see me but I pushed back from Aaron anyway.
“I have to go.”
“Fine.” He dropped his hold on me then without a fuss. “Just know that tonight when I’m fucking Sadie, I’ll be thinking of you.”