Page 86 of Pretend for Me

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

I typed a message on my phone and let him read it before sending it.

Congratulations!

I added a red heart emoji at the last second. I wasn’t quite ready to forgive Charlie, or to vocalize the love I knew I still had for my sister, so this would have to be enough for now. The ice was thawing around my heart, and while Charlie and I would never be what we once were, given this new information, now she was an unavoidable part of my life.

I needed to make peace, not for Charlie’s sake but for my own. Holding onto the hatred I had for Charlie wasn’t only hurting Charlotte, it was hurting me too, which subsequently hurt my relationship with Matthew and all those around who I loved.

Part of working on myself was noticing these mistakes and making a positive difference.

After all, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results was the definition of insanity. Except when it came to tackling a green-eyed boy in a kitchen.

In that case, you do that over and over again. Forever.

47

CASSIE

One year later

“Alittle to the left. No, your other left, Cassie!” Matthew chuckled, as I tried to steady my phone against the mailbox.

I stuck my tongue out at Matthew, and then I snuck a peek inside the mailbox, looking for our first pieces of mail as the new tenants. It was only junk mail, addressed to “resident,” but it was a start.

“Come on, baby! The timer is going to run out,” Matthew warned, beaming with happiness.

I quickly jogged up the porch stairs and jumped in the photo right as the flash went off.

Our first photo as homeowners.

“The furniture should be delivered between ten and two,” I informed him as I went to collect my phone from across the lawn.

“Which means it won’t be delivered until four,” Matty remarked. Waiting for home furnishings was not for the faint of heart.

Once I had made my way back up the steps, I started shuffling through the boxes that were scattered all over our front porch. We didn’t have enough belongings to hire movers, so we’d loaded everything into Matthew’s new—well new to him—truck. Goodbye Range Rover, hello Ford Explorer.

After his car had been seized by the police, we hadn’t been in a rush to purchase another vehicle with the proceeds from the sale of his apartment. Who needed a car in the city after all? But now that we had moved back out to Jersey, transportation was a must. It didn’t matter to either of us that the car was more practical and cost-efficient than anything else. Neither one of us wanted to live an extravagant lifestyle.

Our home was a charming colonial which consisted of three bedrooms and one and a half bathrooms, a fenced-in yard, and an unfinished basement that Matthew said “he had plans for.”

Not long after Matthew had moved into Audrey and my apartment, we decided to start looking for a place of our own. Unfortunately, it proved to be not an easy task. We spent months looking for the perfect place, and everything was either out of our price range or needed a tremendous amount of work which would only cost us more money.

We were starting to give up hope when we found this one a little over two months ago. It didn’t take us long to decide to put an offer down. The owner had three other bids above asking when Matthew and I waltzed in the open house and met the owner, a little old lady, who had just lost her husband of forty years. Not being able to live on her own anymore, she was moving into an assisted housing development.

We got to talking, and Matty and I shared a bit of our story—how we found our way back to one another despite the oddsagainst us—and the lady was moved to tears. She said she saw how in love we were, and we reminded her of how things had been with her late husband. She accepted our offer and wished us luck on our journey. Love was all that mattered in the end.

“Mrs. Wright, I can carry the packages inside,” Matthew admonished, walking up behind me and embracing me from behind while looking around the greenery our neighborhood offered. It was so nice to be out of the hustle and bustle of New York.

“Oh well, Mr. Wright, let me tell you that I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself,” I joked and turned in his arms, handing him a box.

We got married three months ago at the courthouse, and instead of me taking Matthew’s last name of Adams or him going back to his birth name, he decided to take mine. Adams wasn’t right for Matthew, let alone something I could see myself linked to. He wanted us to start off our marriage right. A fresh start, completely untainted by all the terrible things from our pasts.

I also legally changed my name from Cassandra to just Cassie. Cassandra only held bad memories. It was often used with disdain or disgust.

Cassie Wright. Matthew Wright. Mr. and Mrs. Wright. It suited us well.

We had kept things small, but all our friends were there including Charlie, so we still had quite a crowd with us. Afterward, Parker and Joy threw us a beautiful luncheon to celebrate. It was a low-key affair, nothing fancy or snooty. I wore a simple white dress and my hair in a braid which Audrey insisted on doing. Bridget bought me a Tiffany blue necklace for my something blue. And Charlotte gave me back myVelveteen Rabbitbook that she’d found mixed in with her stuff when she was moving into Bridget and Holden’s place.

---