The Lies About Truth(25)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Some Emails to Max in El Salvador From: [email protected] To: [email protected]
Date: September 13
Subject: Prayers
Max,
I know you’re the praying sort, so if you don’t mind, would you say one for me and Gray? For the first time, I am starting to believe we won’t make it.
He came over yesterday and . . . I think he wanted to break up with me and couldn’t figure out how. I just sat there. I honestly don’t know whether to hold on or let go.
Sadie
From: [email protected] To: [email protected]
Date: September 15
Subject: Bad News
Max,
I went for a walk on Monday night and caught Gray and Gina on the beach together. She said he was drunk. He swore it didn’t mean anything. She pleaded with me to understand it was an accident. (WTF? Is there such a thing as accidental groping?) He said he was sorry. She cried. They promised they never meant for anything to happen.
There wasn’t much to say after that.
Sadie
From: [email protected] To: [email protected]
Date: September 18
Subject: No
Max,
I don’t want you to beat him up. I just have to figure out what to do.
Sadie
From: [email protected] To: [email protected]
Date: September 20
Subject: Done-Done
Max,
I broke up with him.
Sadie
From: [email protected] To: [email protected]
Date: September 24
Subject: Theory
Max,
I can’t believe you overnighted that card. It was the first time I smiled in three days. Thank you.
I have a theory on what happened.
Step one: Change happens. (The wreck.) Step two: Pretend the change doesn’t exist. (What wreck?) Step three: Get angry the other person can’t be who they used to be. (You’re a wreck.) Step four: Create change. (Wreck this.) I wish I could hate them and mean it.
Sadie
From: [email protected] To: [email protected]
Date: September 30
Subject: RE: Theory
Max,
No, the worst part isn’t that it was with Gina. That’s awful. Sure. The worst part is this feels like it’s my fault.
My dad’s mom, Pazie, has this formal dining room, and it’s so formal no one is allowed to use it. Some people have hearts like that, and I’m worried I’m becoming one of them. I feel myself shutting down, closing off, like I should tell people, “No, we don’t use this heart anymore. It’s too fragile.”
It started with the crash. I held on to all these emotions and truths that I should have expressed, but I didn’t know how to say what I needed to say. I thought that would ruin us. Well, silence ruined us too.
I’m not saying Gray and Gina are off the hook, but maybe some part of what happened between Gray and Gina happened because I put my heart in the formal dining room and told him (and her) he couldn’t go in there.
I don’t want this thing in my chest to beat me to death, but I also don’t want to protect it so much that I never use it again.
Sadie
From: [email protected] To: [email protected]
Date: October 2
Subject: Pinkie swears
Max,
Yes, I’m a little bit better today. And I promise I will try to never put our friendship in the formal dining room. I can’t lose you, too. I won’t have anyone left.
Sadie
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Mom banged on the fitting room door. “Sadie.”
I opened it, and she slipped inside. She was always slipping behind my barriers.
“Oh, honey,” she said when she saw me.
Oh, honey opened a floodgate. I’d changed many behaviors over the last year, but I rarely purged emotions for anyone. She sat, and I lay my head in her lap. “I’m sorry I made you do this,” she said.
Sorry slid nicely into my broken places until I was able to sit up again. Mom held my face in her hands, thumbed away my rogue tears.
“I don’t know why I’m crying,” I said. “Why this is all so hard for me. Why everyone has to be my intervention. Jesus, even Sonia thinks I’m broken.”
“I don’t know either, baby doll.”
“Mom . . . I don’t want to be mad at them anymore. I know it was an accident, but when I see them, Gray or Gina, something tightens right here.” I shoved my fingers into the place at the bottom of my rib cage. “Will that ever go away?”
My mother stroked my hair and gave me an honest answer. “I don’t know.”
“I hate hate.”
“Me too, Sadie. Me too.”
She didn’t try to fix the hurt or offer trite expressions. My mother spoke with her arms, tightening them around my body, until my breathing returned to normal. I lingered there in her safety until my stomach settled enough so I could stand.
“What do you say we call it a day?” she said. Then she gathered up the jeans I never tried on and slipped out of the room.
I followed her example. She was at the counter, buying all four pair of jeans, so I darted toward the door and escaped. Max’s hand found mine again, and he walked us away from the crowds. Back at the van, he opened my door for me and handed me a sack.