Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Sadie
I didn’t sleep much. And the sleep I did get is the type where you’re not sure if you ever really dropped off because your mind doesn’t fully shut down.
Hardly surprising after the shit I pulled last night.
I only eat enough breakfast to enable me to take some ibuprofen for the hangover and insomnia combo headache, and then listlessly go about my morning routine, choosing the first top and trousers I come to in my wardrobe without caring if they match, and staring angrily at myself in my bathroom mirror as I clean my teeth.
How could I be so stupid? So reckless with one of the most pivotal friendships in my life? What even came over me? Well, clearly too much wine or something. But I’ve been drunker than that before and would never have done anything so careless with one of my closest friends.
Thank fuck it was only a kiss.
I grimace. There was nothing ‘only’ about that kiss. Leo sure is a technical genius when it comes to a good lip locking, and it doesn’t matter how much I trample it down: that was the best kiss of my life. Bar none. Not even close. Even now, twelve hours later, the thought of it makes my stomach melt and my lady parts clench and tingle and burn with longing. For Leo . My buddy. The biggest pants-charmer-offer in town.
Nothing Peter and I ever did in bed together set me alight the way one kiss with Leo did…
Stop it , I snap at myself, spitting out the last of the toothpaste. It was the booze. The booze and being at a wedding so soon after the breakdown of my relationship. Plus, I guess Leo's just an amazing kisser due to excessive practice, or whatever. Get ahold of yourself and stop being so dramatic.
Everyone saw…
I cringe as I remember the faces of my closest friends, gaping and grinning in shock at me after the hot and heavy display he and I treated them to.
My phone pings. I don’t want to look…
Ugh, so many text messages. A few missed calls from Emily after I... shit , I ditched her wedding reception. Her wedding reception . She had to take time out of it to try to check up on my sorry butt, and I didn’t pick up the phone to her. I didn’t even say goodbye when I left. Fortunately it was very late in the game as things were starting to wrap up, but god, I suck as a best friend. I owe her a massive apology. Eli, too. Shit.
But I’m a little relieved when I see the latest message is just my brother, Tim.
Hey, u ok?
I almost smile. I love him, and I would even if he wasn’t my twin. He’s always been so easygoing and non-judgemental. I know that, in spite of my ho-bag display yesterday, which I wailed to him about over the phone last night, all he cares about is that I’m safe and not dying of embarrassment in my flat. I’m just glad he and Eleanor had left by the time it happened.
I fire a quick one back. Yeah, I’ll live. Building up the guts to leave my flat. Expecting to be followed by that nun from GoT ringing her bell and yelling, ‘Shame!’
He then sends me a picture of my niece eating cereal, looking startled by her dad’s camera once again, eyes wide, spoon in her mouth. Jesus, I still can’t believe she’s in high school now. I remember cradling her in my arms when she was a tiny baby, her little hand gripping my thumb, and that feels like it was only last year. Eleanor says you got this.
I grin, feeling a little better as I gather my keys. I’m lucky. No matter what, Tim will be there if this all comes crashing down, supporting and loving me no matter what.
Deciding to lay low, I arrive at Wishbone around eight a.m. I’m relieved to see it’s locked up and empty. Still, I can’t help smiling a little at the sign a certain someone left on the door.
We are obviously closed and in recovery from Em and Eli’s wedding. Pray for us and leave hangover cures at the door.
I let myself in and quickly lock up behind me. In times of trouble, my safe place, my comfort blanket, is my studio. Another reason why I am seriously pissed off with myself: for jeopardising not only one of my greatest friendships, but my job. I would never want to work anywhere else. I work with my best friends, and we’re practically family. I have an incredible amount of creative licence, both with my designs and the way my studio is decorated. I’m not just an employee here. I can’t lose this place. I just can’t. It’d break me worse than Peter ever could have.
I walk towards the studios, but I can hear the kettle boiling in the kitchen. I frown. Blast . I’m not alone, after all. They shouldn’t be here; then again, neither should I. Unwilling to creep out again, I stay still while I consider my options. I want to be here. I don’t want to be anywhere else. So, OK, I’ll stay. Hopefully whoever it is will be willing to give me some space and won’t pepper me with questions I don’t have an answer to.
And please, don’t let it be him…
I peer around the door frame to the kitchen, and...yep. Leo.
Because of course it’s him.
Well, screw you, too, universe.
He’s wearing black pyjama bottoms and a black sleeveless t-shirt, his feet are bare, and his hair is loose around his shoulders. He must have spent the night in the bedroom upstairs. Well, duh, it is closer to the hotel events room Emily and Eli hired. Leo’s actual home is a few miles away, but since he’d been drinking last night, too, he clearly made the smart choice and walked here. He looks tired as he fills his mug with hot water and stirs it.
I sigh silently. Can’t avoid him forever, and might as well get this over with so the damage is minimal. So maybe it’s a good thing he’s here, after all.
“H-hi,” I mumble. It’s not like me to stutter, and I clear my throat. He looks up immediately, grey shadowed eyes narrowing slightly as they look straight at mine. For a long moment neither of us talk - I have no idea how to begin - and then he wordlessly slides his coffee mug towards me.
Though he’s done it several times before, this time I’m oddly touched that he’d just give me his coffee, no questions asked. What’s wrong with me?
“Uh, no, no thanks,” I say, stumbling over my words. He shrugs and pulls it back. “I, um…” Shit. I really didn’t plan for this. I thought I’d have some time in my studio to doodle some more designs, clearing my head enough to let me think about what to say to him the next time I saw him. I should have known he’d be here.
“Y’alright?” he asks, taking a sip of the coffee I declined.
“Uh, yeah, I’m all good. All good in the hood. I mean, you know, uh, a little, haha, hungover, but…” Jesus, I seriously need to pull it together.
“Same,” he says, with a trace of the old Leo grin that’s become so much a part of my day, and that I didn’t even realise I’d come to depend on. His eyes, however… They’re not the same. They’re watching me carefully, almost...warily. It hurts. I don’t ever want him to look at me with uncertainty. Not ever . I hate it. And that, more than anything else, galvanises me to start talking properly.
“Look, Leo, I just wanted to apologise,” I say, and my heart is starting to pound with anxiety. “I’m really, really sorry I kissed you last night. Really . It was wrong of me to...well, I didn’t mean to take advantage of our friendship, but I’m sure that’s exactly how it came across, and...that’s really not what I wanted to do,” I mumble, trying to quickly clear my head so I can do this more articulately. He’s looking tiredly at the floor, scratching his thumb across the scar on his eyebrow as though distracted, but he’s listening.
A lot rides on this talk. I need to get it one hundred percent right. “I would never want to overstep boundaries with you, you’re too important to me. I was just…” I sigh hard. “I was a few too many glasses of Prosecco into the evening, and it was the wedding , you know? And I was a little raw, and a lot insecure and sad, and you…bore the brunt of it.” I give him a rueful smile, hoping with every cell of my body that he can understand and that he doesn’t feel uncomfortable around his friend, the crazy lady who launched herself at his mouth in a fit of confusion. “So...whaddaya say we draw a line under it?” I ask with comically pleading eyes, fluttering my eyelashes for all I’m worth. “Just, let’s pretend it never happened, and move on. Carry on as normal, and never speak of it again. Sound good?” I grin at him, wanting him to agree, anticipating that he probably will.
“Fuck off,” he bites out.
My heart stops beating, and then leaps into my throat. Did he just… “What?”
“ Fuck. Right. Off ,” he enunciates slowly and firmly, his normally cheerful golden hazel eyes now dark and flashing with fury.
For a long moment, I am completely flummoxed, without a clue what to say next. I can’t believe he just said that to me. This is not the Leo I know or was expecting. Given how he responded to the kiss, and didn’t push me away, I never imagined he’d be angry with me. I thought he’d call me a slutty old lush, sling his arm around me, tease me for a bit, admit that he was half cut as well, and then shrug it off and let it go with his trademark good natured humour.
Not this. Never this.
Before I can open my mouth to speak, though I’m not sure how I’d even begin to respond, he starts again.
“I’m not doing this anymore,” he snaps, frustration emanating from him like radiation. “I am sick to death of tiptoeing around my feelings for you. I’m not living in fear of you finding out for one fucking minute longer.” I have never seen him like this. It’s jarring, like when you see the most calm, stoic person you know burst into tears. My heart beats even harder. Feelings? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Because I know he’s not talking about love, or even lust. There’s just no way.
“Look, I - ” I start, but he interrupts me.
“No, you look,” he snaps. “For almost four miserable goddamn years I have been hiding how I really feel about you, and it has been soul destroying . I never meant for you to find out like this, but last night, you kissed me , for crying out loud. So, yeah, OK? You know now. And you’re just going to have to know. And deal with it. I don’t even care if I crash and burn with you, I am not keeping it a secret anymore. And, OK, maybe that makes me a total dick, and maybe I was stupid for hoping, but I’m not going from last night back to... I’m not . So forget it.”
“What the actual fucking hell are you talking about?!” I burst out, starting to tremble a little.
“I’m sorry that you’re sorry,” he rages on, ignoring my question, “but I am definitely not, and I never will be.”
I’m so taken aback that I feel like my world is a shaken snow globe. I have never been so…blank. And muddled.
“Oh, come on ,” he shouts, banging his coffee mug down and storming past me towards the spiral staircase leading up to the small studio apartment he maintains in the shop.
“Come on what? ” I shout back, stalking after him, suddenly mad at him because I can’t understand why he’s so upset, why he’s turned on me like this, in a way I never thought he ever could.
“This is fucking ridiculous,” he grits out, with a horrible, mirthless laugh quickly following on as he stops at the bottom of the stairs. “No, I’m the ridiculous one. I am so cocking bloody ridiculous it’s not even funny anymore.”
“Will you stop ranting and raving like a crazy person and just talk to me normally ,” I almost yell at him.
“NO,” he bellows back, and I can’t believe my eyes, seeing him like this. I don’t like it and I want it to stop, rewind, restore to factory settings, but he clearly has something he desperately needs to say. “No, absolutely not, because talking to you normally means continuing to lie to you, and fuck that .”
“Just...just stop,” I say as calmly as I can, trying not to beg, “take it down a notch, and take me through it, because I’m getting really confused.” I am. He’s talking about feelings, but what feelings? And he’s so angry, completely out of the clear blue nowhere.
“You’ve never, ever lied to me before,” I insist, but my heart sinks when he shakes his head and laughs bitterly.
Taking a deep breath, he says quietly, “Babygirl, I’ve been lying to you from the day we met.”
The threat of tears starts to sting my eyes, and I blink quickly, determined not to become a watering pot. Not even with the provocation of knowing one of my best friends in the world - no, my actual best friend - is admitting such a dreadful thing to me as constant dishonesty. Not Leo. I trust him as much as I trust my twin. A betrayal like that…even the idea of it slices into me in a way I don’t think I’d be able to recover from easily, if it’s true and this isn’t some sick joke to get me back for last night. “About what?”
Both his hands rake through his hair and stay there. He is the picture of pained frustration, and I feel an urge to comfort him that I cannot explain. “About pretending that I'm not hopelessly - no, not just hopelessly, uselessly in love with you, almost since the first moment we met,” he says, looking me dead in the eye, like he’s being one hundred percent serious, even though he can’t be. It’s not possible.
I laugh for half a second, annoyed and relieved, thinking he’s been pranking me this entire time. But then I pay attention and really see his eyes. They are more honest than I have ever seen them, and there is a world of carefully smothered pain in their brown liquor depths. “Come on,” I say uncertainly, feeling topsy turvy for the millionth time in the past twelve months or so.
“And that kiss, which I’ve been dreaming about and wanting for year upon year upon year,” he says dully, “is something that you’re apologising to me for, and trying to wipe out of our loves. You’re telling me to pretend it never happened, and I can’t take it. I really can’t, Sadie, I’m sorry.”
Forget topsy turvy. The bottom falls out of my world entirely.
“U-um…” I croak, closing my eyes.
“Do not tell me it meant nothing,” he says quietly but insistently. “Do. Not.”
I turn my head so I can open my eyes and run a hand through my hair, reeling. “So, you’re telling me that since...since the moment I met you, you’ve…” I try to clear my throat, feeling it thicken and almost close with nerves.
“Say it,” he tells me. "Say the words. In love with you. Say them."
I don’t. I can’t. Forcing any words at all out of my mouth is impossible just this second.
“That kiss was... everything ,” he says, his voice aching. “I do not believe two people can kiss like that and it means nothing. I’ve kissed more than enough women to know the difference, and that was…” He pauses, and I risk looking back at him. He’s rubbing his eyes, and looks entirely exhausted, down to his very soul. “That was something special, and I think, in your heart of hearts, you know that, too.”
I feel the urge to cry again. All these years, our entire friendship … How did I not know? How could I have known? Both thoughts are screaming through my mind in an infinite loop. “I didn’t know,” I whisper pointlessly. “You never told me.”
“How the hell could I?” He asks in a voice that sounds brittle enough to crack. “You were all in with Peter, and I didn’t want to make you feel awkward. I didn’t want you to leave because you didn’t feel right about it, or felt sorry for me, or...for any reason at all. I couldn’t lose you.” He says the last part incredulously, like just the notion was unthinkable, and then leans backwards against the iron handrail for the stairs.
I have literally no idea what to say. A bomb has gone off in my life once again, and, as Emily would say, I don’t have the spell slots to deal with it a second time. I haven’t known which way is up since Peter left me, hurt and reflective and full of rage every single day, and now the one thing that's kept me going, that's been a bedrock certainty I could rely on, has pulled the rug.
I just wanted some stability. Some same old, same old.
Because while Leo’s revelation is by no means an insult or hurtful, I am so bewildered by it that I’m scared to say anything at all in case I fuck up and lose my main source of comfort and relief: him .
“Listen, Sades,” he murmurs, defeated, “I’m...really sorry if I’m being unfair, or if this is embarrassing or uncomfortable for you. That’s not what I’m setting out to do here. I just can’t stand this anymore. I cannot go back to pretending I don’t love you, cos I’ll go nuts. So I’m afraid you’re going to have to know about it now. And I’m not telling you in the hope of you suddenly turning around and feeling the same way. It’s clear you don’t.”
Hold on a second, there.
I jump a little, not sure where that tiny klaxon of a thought came from.
“But...it is what it is, and...the cat’s out of the bag, or whatever, and we’re gonna have to deal with the fallout now. We’ll both have to deal with it,” he emphasises, and then he turns and takes the stairs two, three at a time, leaving me swaying slightly in reception, not sure what the hell just happened or what it means for him, for me, for all of it.
I storm over to the door of the parlour, yanking on the door and muttering to myself when I remember I locked it behind me. With fumbling fingers and a great deal of unnecessary noise and clattering and banging, I unlock it again and run out, not bothering to shut up behind me because I have to get away. I have to go home and really think about what he just told me.
I have to be alone.
Leo
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fucking FUCK!
From a new WhatsApp group started by Emily Gastright called THE TIME HAS COME!!!! (Members: Emily Gastright, Eli Gastright, Dean Gastright, Liaden O’Brien, Tippi Mills, Tim Stewart)
Emily Gastright: I’m scared to jinx this
Emily Gastright: But I’ve also wanted to create this group for so long, and now there’s finally a reason to do it!!!!!! And I can’t wait a single second longer
Dean Gastright: LOL
Eli Gastright: I love the way your new name looks, chere
Emily Gastright: 3
Emily Gastright: Me too. It’s the bestest 3 Anyway, LEO AND SADIE [wow emoji] That KISS
Tippi Mills: Calling that a kiss is like calling the Sistine Chapel ‘home decor’.
Liaden O’Brien: Small wonder. It’s been SUCH a long time coming.
Dean Gastright: She sure did run out of there fast, though. Tim, have you heard from her?
Tim Stewart: Yes, and I’m not breaking any of her confidences, but she’s embarrassed, guys. The fact that it happened at all is a lot for her to deal with, but the fact that it happened in front of you all is really playing on her mind. So I know this doesn’t need to be said, but still, go easy on her.
Emily Gastright: Of course [sad face] Bless her, she doesn’t have to feel embarrassed
Emily Gastright: It made my wedding day even better
Tim Stewart: I know - but making a huge deal of it will make her pull back. I know her.
Dean Gastright: We won’t. And I don’t know what Leo’s feeling right now, but he wanted to be left alone after she bolted.
Eli Gastright: I checked in on him via text earlier. He was very short and to the point when he replied.
Liaden O’Brien: I just keep wondering where they can go from here. In our dearest wishes, they fall into each other’s arms and live happily ever after. The reality is, they fell into each other’s arms and freaked out.
Emily Gastright: I can’t believe that that’s it. That nothing else is going to happen. I know for a fact now that happily ever afters exist. They need theirs. I NEED them to have theirs. Especially since there’s no good reason why they shouldn’t have it
Tippi Mills: I get it. The urge to meddle is so strong for me, too, but I’m with Tim here. This needs to be something they handle themselves
Eli Gastright: You’re right, Tip. I mean, it’d serve him right after all of his ‘benevolent meddling’ if we did the same thing to him, but this is too important to fuck around with.
Tippi Mills: [GIF of man pointing upwards with the word ‘THAT’ glowing underneath]
Dean Gastright: It’ll happen, guys. For Christ’s sake, If I can have my happy ending, Leo’s definitely getting his. Let’s not forget, SHE kissed HIM.
Emily Gastright: And how…
Emily Gastright: That has to mean something, right?
Emily Gastright: I’ve always said, it’s not just Leo with feelings
Liaden O’Brien: Let’s pick this conversation up at brunch. I have some thoughts.
Emily Gastright: What kind of thoughts? Tell
Liaden O’Brien: I will, Mrs G. Over maple syrup soaked waffles and a decent cup of Earl Grey.
Emily Gastright: You’ve got yourself a deal