Page 74 of Love Resurrected
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Tenley
I wake at four in the morning after having barely slept the entire night. Thoughts of Brad run through my mind. Whether we can just be friends. Am I trying to make something out of nothing just because I feel like Sadie and I are drifting apart? Do I want marriage? Kids? To go with the status quo, just because? If I ever marry, will I be just like my father?
He can’t seem to get it to stick. Just when I would start to get used to a stepmom, maybe even bond with them a bit, he’d come home to tell me they were breaking up. As far as I know, there was never any cheating, it was just that she didn’t have what Dad was looking for. What if I can’t ever find what I’m looking for?
I enjoyed talking to Nessa, but it brought up more questions than it answered. Why can’t it just be simple anymore? Meet a guy, fall in love, live happily ever after? It’s like I hit my thirties, and everything went to shit. All the sudden, casual sex is frowned upon and relationships are the goal. Or maybe it’s always been that way, and I only just noticed.
I put on music, my favorite playlist of Motown, classic rock, and pop. It’s an eclectic blend, but every song on it makes me happy. Then I clean my house. Everything from the window and door tracks to crazy cobwebs above light fixtures that no one ever sees. I take over six hours, but it looks great by the time I’m finished. Not that it was dirty before.
I make a second pot of coffee and go out on the balcony to enjoy another cup. My phone dings with a text from Sadie.
S-SUE: Are you awake yet?
I video call her in response.
“Hey, you!” she says, her voice amplified. “I kept waiting to hear from you.” She sounds filled with false cheer.
Why?
She knows.
She already knows we had sex, and Brad left and threw up over the thought of it.
“You know,” I say.
“Know what?”
She’s the worst liar in the history of liars.
“Stop it,” I say.
“Okay, fine.” She sighs heavily. “Brad called Ethan this morning to tell him he was at the urgent care because he broke his knuckles. Ethan went down to wait with him. One thing led to another, and Brad ended up telling Ethan everything.”
I stay silent, shaking my head. I run my hand through my hair, annoyed that I can’t even usemybest friend as my confidante anymore because she already knows everything before I do. Or at least, this time she does.
“What’s everything?” I ask, hoping maybe Brad left the major parts out.
“Um. That you went to happy hour and dancing then went in the bathroom and had sex and he left.” She runs the words all together, so I almost can’t understand her. If I hadn’t experienced the night for myself, I may not have.
“Shit, that’s about right.” I stand and pace along my deck.
“I’m so sorry, Tenley. Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I scoff. “I’m fine. It’s just, he threw up afterward, Sadie.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that part.”
“Well there you go. Now you really,reallyknow everything.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I guess. I’m just confused about how I feel, which is weird for me since I’m used to not really caring. And I’m trying to figure out why that is.”
Since Sadie is my best friend, and we can usually be open and honest with one another, I ask her, “Do you think I want to be in a relationship just because you are, and I feel like I have to catch up to you?”
“Hmmm.” She taps the tip of her finger on her nose as she thinks. “I suppose it’s possible. I mean, do you feel you’re rushing the whole relationship thing?”
