Page 97 of Mad Love

“What? Why? She’s hardly even leaving the house.”

“Well, apparently she and Caleb were out buying diapers the other night, and a few days before that, they were at lunch with her parents. It’s caused a lot of commotion that she wasn’t at your game yesterday and her parents were.”

“You said it was best for her not to go, and she’s taking your word for it, believe me.”

“I still believe that’s for the best. Unless you want to do another statement of some sort, but I feel like that could backfire on you. Bottom line, I don’t want this interfering with your game.”

“It’s not. I want her at my games, but she’s convinced you’re right about that.”

“Can I have a stylist send her some clothes that she can wear when she goes out? Send her measurements and we’ll overnight it.”

“Are you serious right now?”

“Well, yes, that athletic wear she wore on Saturday looked like it could fit three people. It was horrendous.”

“Joan, come on. Sadie hasn’t looked horrendous a day in her life. She’s fucking stunning.” I pause, my head dropping. “Shit.She and Caleb are out right now with her mom while I worked out. I need to make sure she doesn’t see those magazines.”

“If she goes anywhere that has periodicals, she will see them,” Joan says primly.

“Fuck.”

“Think about what I said about a stylist,” she says.

I growl and hang up.

I’ve never growled at Joan and I half expect her to call me back and chew me out, but she doesn’t.

I call Sadie and it goes to voicemail. I’m too agitated to leave her a message, so I try again, and hang up a second time when she doesn’t answer.

I pace around the living room for an hour and finally go take a shower when I still haven’t heard from her. When I get out, I put on gym shorts and a tee and think I might hear something downstairs. I jog down there and Sadie and Caleb are in the kitchen…next to the kitchen table covered with a slew of magazines. Fuck.

I look at Sadie tentatively and her eyes are red-rimmed, but her face is dry and her shoulders are squared.

“Hey, beautiful,” I say, moving toward her and lean in to kiss her. It’s what I would say to her any other day, but today she looks at me suspiciously.

It’s only then that I realize her mom is also in the room. I drop my hands from Sadie’s waist, unsure of what to do. “Hey, Pam.”

She smiles at me. “Hi, Weston. Sadie told me about the two of you a few days ago. I’m happy for you guys.”

I sag in relief and put my hands back on Sadie, grinning. I told my family about us right away, but Sadie didn’t, and it was starting to concern me a little bit that she hadn’t.

“Haven’t you heard? I’m not beautiful.” Sadie kisses me back and picks up a gossip magazine. She’s on the cover, and I’ve honestly never seen the face she’s making on the cover. It’s the worst angle, and she looks like she’s about to say something but is going to be sick first.

I study it.

“I’ve never seen you look like that, not one time, and I live with you.”

“Well, I don’t believe you because look…” She holds up five other magazines. “I look equally terrible in all of them.”

“I swear, you don’t,” I tell her. I lower my eyes to hers and put my hands on her cheeks. “Every day I’m in awe of how beautiful you are. I love every way you look, whether you’re just waking up, or you’re all dressed up, or Caleb has just spit up on you.” I lower my voice, “Or you’re in my jersey. But I swear to you, I’ve never seen you making those faces.”

“I told her the same thing,” Pam says. “Some of those magazines are just trying to make people look bad…”

“I’ve been avoiding looking at anything online, but we drove into Denver to go to Whole Foods and Target, and I was everywhere I looked,at both places. And they’re saying such mean things.” Her cheeks are splotchy as she gets angrier. “I’ve hardly been anywhere in weeks, months really, but both times I was out the past week, they’ve captured it. And wouldn’t you know, both times I’ve looked like a gross blob.” Her eyes fill with tears. “At leastUs Weeklyhas a shot of me at that one game, so I look better there, but then they also show this awful one…like a before and after downgrade. And then I went online on the way home, and the things they’re saying on there are so much worse. I can see why they’d think I’m a gold digger when I’m out looking like that. Ineedsome money to help that mess.” She waves her hand at the mound of magazines and her mom giggles.

“You’d never be a gold digger. They don’t know how much you love a good sale,” Pam says.

“Yeah, there’s a whole other group of people who are mad that I’m not wearing designer clothes. I never even shopped at Whole Foods until I met your sorry ass, and I went today to get something foryou,” Sadie says, glaring up at me. “I’m sure there will be a bunch of pictures of that too.” She points at her outfit and then lifts both hands up, giving the magazines the bird.

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