Page 51 of The Secret Life of a Stepford Wife

Messages from Jamie.

Dude, Jamie is blowing up my phone. Are you okay?

Where are you?

Even Danielle had texted.

And one more. The most recent.

You left. You could have said goodbye.

Thatcher.

The phone slipped from my weak grip, dropping into my lap as I hung my head in my hands, silent sobs racking my body. I had done it. I crossed a line I swore I never would. Not again. Not after before.

Jamie had been the exception. Jamie was always the exception.

“Sadie, is that you?” Jamie’s voice called out from down the hall.

“Yes,” I answered, swiping at the deluge of tears that refused to quit.

“Oh good! I want to hear all about your night, but I have big news to share. I started talking with someone, and I think it’s time to tell you about it. Honestly, I’m really excited and — Sadie?”

I didn’t even lift my head as he rounded the corner, spotting me there in a slump of walk-of-shame glory.

“Sadie.” The sound of his quickening footsteps sounded as he flew to me, then his knees hitting the hardwood floors. Arms grabbed me from where I slumped against the door, pulling me into the strength of his embrace, his strong chest pressed to my tear-stricken face as my sobs began again, renewed and without repression.

I clung to him, hands grasping, fingers twisting, and tears staining the softness of his tee-shirt. My lighthouse, my beacon in the storm of emotions that ripped through me, the vortex of this discrimen. Breaths panting, sobs choking, I broke in the safety of Jamie’s arms.

“Sweetheart, talk to me.” His words, soft and sure, pled with me, the pain making his own voice hoarse. The back door opened, pulling Jamie’s attention.

“Girl, I swear I just saw you run through the street in last night’s clothes, but surely — Oh, shit!” Danielle’s voice caught as she rounded the corner from the kitchen into the hallway, seeing the two of us there, crumpled on the floor. “What the hell happened?!”

I heard the sound of her feet running just as Jamie’s had, and then there were two sets of arms wrapped around me. Comfort washed over me with soothing calm, and then it pivoted, turning and twisting from consoling to suffocating. I pushed them both away, their embrace pulling apart like the precarious emotional stitches over the newly ripped-open scars of wounds long left buried.

“Stop,” I whispered through clenched teeth.

“Sadie, I’ve never seen you like this. What happened? And why are you in last night’s clothing? Oh, God, did you have —”

“Danielle.” Jamie’s quiet but firm warning was all Danielle needed to halt her words. I was grateful; I couldn’t handle that level of creative interrogation this early in the morning.

“Sadie, what happened? Talk to us, sweetheart.” Jamie’s fingers brushed a lock of my hair behind my ear, and I leaned into the touch.

“I slept with Thatcher,” I muttered, my voice thick from tears, sleep, and the emotional current that would not cease.

“Did he hurt you?” Jamie’s words were soft and kind, no judgment in his tone as his thumb ran over my jaw.

“No, nothing like that.” I reassured him, my hand covering his.

“Then what happened?” Danielle pressed.

“I haven’t…. not since… and everything that happened before?” My words, disjointed and illogical, made absolutely no sense to Danielle, but Jamie heard me loud and clear.

“Sweetheart.” He pulled me into his arms again, disregarding my protests as he just held me.

“I can’t. I can’t talk about this now. Not this.” I begged them both, getting to my feet on shaky legs, and with unsteady steps I made my way to the kitchen.

“Whatever you want, love.” Jamie’s kind acceptance helped and frustrated me in equal accord, as I stole the cup of coffee that had obviously been his from the countertop and drank it, burning my tongue. The pain of my now-numb taste buds somehow made it better, equalized the pain of traumas I did not and would not face today.

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