As angry as I was, Henri could still set me back. Despite everything, there was a part of me that responded to his entreaties, that craved his happiness. Did I owe him a conversation? Did I owe him a chance? I understood objectively that the answer was a hard no, but if I kept going this way, I knew his sorries would eventually supersede my anger. My rage would fade, and when it turned to loneliness, or boredom, or fatigue—how vulnerable would I be to him?
It was something I understood deep down. Henri could wreck me. I had been strong until now, but someday he might find the right words. The words that would have me overlooking all his transgressions, all the poison he’d unleashed into my life.
I went into the kitchen and grabbed my lotus, placing it on the bed next to my phone. I paced and fidgeted, huffing and internally cursing at how difficult this was. And it washard. It took ten minutes. But, finally, with one glance at the wooden flower, I picked up the phone and gave myself the best birthday present I could.
He had put it plainly in his last text. He would never stop. So, I had to stop.
I blocked Henri.
February 13, 2015
4:01 p.m.
UNKNOWN:Darling it’s Henri. When I figured out you’d blocked my number I was angry, but I finally got it through my head that you were done with us for a while. It impressed me. I didn’t think you had it in you. But it’s time. I’ve screwed around enough and it’s been fun this past year but mostly it reminded me that I want to be with you. That hasn’t changed. It’s hard for me to imagine that you don’t want to be with me too.
4:04 p.m.
UNKNOWN:I’ll be in Los Angeles for work next month and I want to see you. I need to see you. You owe me more than this silence. We have things to say to one another.
4:08 p.m.
UNKNOWN:I’ll apologize again and again if that’s what it takes. I know I screwed up. But I can’t say I’m sorry for my son. I want you to meet him. I want us to be a family. I want to tell you I’m sorry, but then I want to tell you how much I love you and how much I want us to be together. I want us to move on from this mistake. We were good before darling. We can be good again.
4:11 p.m.
UNKNOWN:Happy Birthday Sadie. You can’t pretend we didn’t happen. I’m never going to stop loving you. Never. What do I have to do to make you understand? What do I have to do to get you back? We belong together
PART
Two
CHAPTER
Fifteen
October 31, 2015—Technically November 1, Since It’s 3:21 a.m.
“Sadie.”
“Renn.”
I blinked and he came into focus. Even in a skeleton unitard and full-face makeup, I knew. He was my Renn. I reached behind myself to grab a table, worried I might crumple under the weight of my shock. He raised his arm as though to steady me, but pulled back at the last second, pushing the hood off his head. He ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture so familiar it made my breath hitch.
“You said that someday…” Renn closed his eyes and slowly opened them. “You said that someday I’d pick up the phone, and you’d be on the other end…and you’d ask me to come to you.”
“I remember.” I surprised myself by getting the words out, whispered as they were. It felt like I’d lost the ability to speak.
“Somehow I wasn’t picturing this.” He waved his hand back and forth between us and then was silent for a few moments before beginning to pace. “I wasn’t picturing it would be eight months until I heard your voice again.”
His tone rose at the end of that statement, and I could see he was working hard to maintain equilibrium. He dragged a hand across his face. I digested the evidence of his pain, his ragged breaths and ice-laden words. The accusatory gleam in his eyes. I gripped the table harder.
He ceased pacing and waving, turning to face me. “Sadie, I’ve had fifteen minutes in the car to get myself together, to think of what I wanted to say to you…but…I’ve got nothing…I just need to know…” He pushed one balled-up fist into his other hand. “…you…ghosted me…just…why?”
Hurt etched across his tight jaw, naked on his face. He deserved answers. And more. A low moan across the room interrupted us.Shit! Blanketcape.
“Your…mom…is over there.” I was still in disbelief, processing. He’d had fifteen minutes. I’d had zero. Renn was here. And Blanketcape was somehow his mother, passed out on the floor at Hal’s. I walked him to her. “I told her she could sit up in a chair, and I offered the couch in the office, but she just wanted to stay there. She seems okay. Not totally blacked out or anything. It doesn’t look like she got sick either, so that’s good.”
I kept babbling as he gently lifted the woman from her slump. Getting tugged upright revived her. She stood on her own as he led her, stumbling toward the door.