Page 104 of Married With Lies

Then she wheels her suitcase all the way to the house and walks right inside without looking back again.

29

SADIE

Time has been kind of suspended since I curled up in a ball on the bathroom mat. But of course Gus was eventually going to knock on the door.

“Sadie? You okay, cupcake?”

Sitting up, I lean against the vanity cabinet and hug my knees to my chest. “You can come in. The door is open.”

The brass knob turns and Gus’s concerned face peers inside. She’s wearing a new purple swing dress with skulls all over the skirt but she drops to her knees beside me anyway.

“It’s negative,” I tell her before she freaks out, showing her the stick as proof. “I knew it would be because my period just showed up but I took the test anyway to make sure.”

“Oh.” She squeezes my hand. “That’s good, right?”

“I suppose so. Getting knocked up by my fake husband wasn’t really on the bingo card for this year.”

Gus sighs and leans against the vanity cabinet with me. “Have you heard from him?”

“Barely. In sixteen days I’ve received two extremely brief phone calls and a handful of texts. Then one really weird voicemail where he said nothing. The only way I knew it wasn’t a butt dial was because I heard him clear his throat and sigh before he cut the connection. Maybe he’s just terrified that I’ll tell him I love him again.”

“Is that what you really think?”

“No.” I stretch my legs out. “He didn’t want to leave. I know he didn’t. It just feels like there’s a side of him I can’t reach and every day that goes by he slips further away from me.”

Now I’m sniffling. This is nothing new. I’ve spent too much time moping around since the day Cale dropped me off at the gate of Bright Hearts and returned to Mafia Mystery Land.

Gus withdraws a hankie from the pocket of her dress and hands it over. Gus is possibly the last person in North America who still carries an old fashioned handkerchief. This one has flocks of bats embroidered in the corners.

“I’m becoming a sad sack, aren’t I?” I dab at the corners of my eyes with Gus’s hanky, trying not to mess it up too much.

“You’re not a sad sack.” Gus pats my arm for reassurance. “Whatever that is.”

“It’s somebody who checks her phone seventy times a day in case the pretend husband she didn’t mean to fall in love with tried to call. Look in a dictionary. My picture is next to the definition.”

“You’re being too hard on yourself. Let me tell you a story about Edgar Allen Poe.”

“Your cat? Sure, Edgar and I are good friends. Does he still love the squeaky toy mouse I gave him?”

“He ripped the mouse’s head off so I had to take it away. But what I wanted to point out is that when I adopted Edgar from the shelter, he was an ornery, unsociable menace.”

“Ah, I see where you’re going with this. You’re trying to convince me that Cale is also an ornery, unsociable menace so I’ll stop sobbing over him on the bathroom floor.”

“Hush. This is my story. Edgar hissed ferociously at every living creature. His fur grew so used to standing on end that he started to look like an electrocution victim. I got scratched so many times that whenever I went within ten feet of Edgar I had to wear falcon gloves that came up to my elbows. I was still in veterinary school and my weekly study group had to be relocated to somewhere other than my apartment because everyone was petrified of Edgar.”

“Is this a fictional story? Edgar is a doll.”

“He is now. These days Edgar follows me everywhere and purrs at my feet at night. But getting there was a journey and not an easy one. The most worthwhile journeys never are.”

“I don’t want Cale to purr at my feet. But if he shows up out of the blue and professes his eternal love to me then I’ll stop complaining.”

She elbows my arm. “Don’t you dare settle for less than the world. If Cale is going to become the kind of man who truly deserves you then he’ll work for it. But in the meantime don’t lose your optimism. A Sadie who doesn’t look on the bright side isn’t Sadie at all.”

I know she’s right. Wallowing has never been my habit. After dabbing at my eyes again with the bat handkerchief, I’m ready to stand up and use the day for something more productive than my Cale obsession.

Gus needs to get back to her clinic in town but she makes me promise to call later if I’m feeling the least bit blue. Or even if I’m not.

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