Chapter Forty-One Sadie #2
The room is cold; I know because Rhys’s mom is wrapping her husband’s jacket around her arms as we listen to the doctor speak about my father. But I can’t feel anything, just numbness.
And embarrassment.
Rhys’s mother and father took me straight back, but I didn’t see where Rhys went. He might’ve told me, but I can’t remember. I feel like I’m watching everything from far away.
My father is in a four-point restraint. I’d heard the nurse warning the Koteskiys about that before we came in, but it’s a bit worse to see than I thought. He’s still flailing and yelling at the nurse, who ignores him and finishes her dosages and notes before leaving with a sympathetic smile.
No, not sympathetic. Pitying.
“Sadie,” Dad saws out, chest heaving. His gray, reddened eyes are a mockery of my own. “God, Sade, please get me out of here. They’re trying to take the boys. C’mon, sweetheart.”
I can’t look at him. I feel a bit like I’m dying.
He switches like a trapdoor. “Don’t be a fucking brat, Sadie. I need you.”
Anna Koteskiy suddenly stands in front of me, arms crossed. She’s a small woman, but still taller than me, and she covers me completely; intentionally.
“Calm yourself down if you want to speak to her,” she demands, keeping her voice semi-quiet but firm. “You need to calm down either way.”
“You’re the people trying to take my kids.”
He’s turning manic, but I don’t say anything. No one is trying to take anyone. Doesn’t he realize he’s already fucked us up enough? That no family like the Koteskiys would want us?
“Stay away from my fucking kids,” he shouts, tearing at the restraints, kicking against the bed. “Sade and I take care of them just fine.”
A fire seems to light within Anna, her slight form expanding in the room as she continues to stand in front of me, her beautiful gown brushing the harsh hospital flooring.
“Your child is taking care of your children. Sadie should not be responsible for those little boys, all while going to school, working, and taking care of her alcoholic father.”
I stand in shock, floored by the overwhelming wave of emotions that roll through me. Anger, fear, and confusion all muddled under the weight of shame and embarrassment. I can’t recall a time that someone has stood up for me like this—and not just someone, a mother.
“You fucking bitch,” my dad shouts. He spits at her, and my stomach drops.
“That’s enough.”
Max Koteskiy abruptly steps forward, his face a hard mask of anger. He looks so much like Rhys; if not for the slight lines of age and the gray strands in Max Koteskiy’s darker hair, they could pass for twins.
He grabs his wife in a gentle grip, pulling her slightly behind him. When she begins to protest that she’s fine, he brushes a hand along her cheek and whispers, “I know you are, Trouble. But let me handle this, okay? For my own stupid male pride .”
I can tell it’s some sort of inside joke between them, just from the way it softens her.
“Why don’t you take Sadie to see her brothers?” he suggests, all while his eyes never leave my father.
She nods, albeit slightly reluctantly, and he turns to grant her a private smile.
“I love you so much it hurts, rybochka. ”
His voice is soft, but his intention is clear. Protection.
The words echo in my head. Affection, open and honest and deep—it’s what Rhys would be like as a father or husband. If this were something I could have. It’s something I don’t know; something I’ve never witnessed before seeing his parents.
Growing up, I didn’t have time for friends.
The girls I skated with were competitors, and according to Coach Kelley, I wasn’t allowed to skate or play with them. At school, I was too concerned with keeping my secret. So I never saw what real parents and real love looked like.
“Come on, Sadie girl,” Anna coos, her tone suddenly gentle—gentler than the firmness of her beautifully round features as she pulls my nearly catatonic body into the hallway. “Rhys and Freddy are with your brothers in the waiting room.”
Freddy?
“Freddy’s here?”
Another wave of embarrassment flushes my skin, an itch starting down my spine that I know I won’t be able to scratch away.
They see it, they know now—everyone knows. My father called her a bitch. Spat at her. I know they won’t want their family near mine—especially Rhys.
I try to repeat his words from Halloween again, but all I hear is my father’s shouting. My coach’s honesty. I’ll never be like these people, just like I’ll never skate like any of the girls I looked up to. I’m destined to be just this .
My terror.
I hate how much I have to resist the urge to call Kelley, to ask him for help. Because Rhys loves me, but he thinks I can be better, can heal.
Will he love me when he realizes that this thing I am is all I will ever be?
We turn the corner into another room, almost like a conference room, but I don’t question Anna as she leads me through it.
The view is a shot to the gut.
Freddy has Liam perched on his knees as my youngest brother giggles and plays a game on an iPad that definitely isn’t ours. And Rhys…
Rhys is holding my twelve-year-old brother in a tight hug, sitting on the large ledge of the hospital window so that Oliver can stand between his legs and keep his head against Rhys’s chest. Rhys is whispering into his ear at a constant rate, and the nod of my brother’s head without leaving the embrace, fists tugging at his suit jacket, tells me everything.
Oliver hates being touched, and yet he’s wrapped completely in Rhys’s arms.
The door closes softly behind us, but it still pulls their attention. Liam notices first with a shout of, “Sissy!” and an unceremonious leap from Freddy’s lap that leaves the man holding himself in pain.
I scoop him up quickly, the practiced expression of serenity slipping easily into place as my brothers both look at me. Liam is still bright-eyed and somehow okay, but Oliver’s eyes are red, cheeks puffy as he looks toward me without leaving the bubble of safety around Rhys.
And I don’t blame him—I’ve been there. I know how warm and comforting it is.
“Hey, bug.” I smirk, kissing his cheek hard. “Did they get you all checked out?”
Liam smiles and lifts his elbow, where a bright orange Bluey Band-Aid gleams. It makes my chest ache.
“He’s all right, just scratched up his elbow a bit—right, little man?
” Freddy says, standing and messing with Liam’s mop of hair.
The Waterfell playboy is still dressed to the nines, looking more like he should be on the cover of GQ than in a hospital boardroom.
But beneath the smile he offers my brother, there’s a sympathetic look in his eyes.
“Freddy said I’m the same age he was when he started playing hockey,” Liam says, skipping to a new subject just as quickly as usual. “He says I’m gonna be even bigger than him one day.”
“I did not!”
My brother dissolves into a fit of laughter, but my eyes never leave the window, watching Oliver and Rhys with a desperate ache gnawing at my chest.