by Jamie Berris
Sadie hated the fact that the dunes had been planned as a double date. No way was she going to hang out with Travis and Paige all day, even if Cody was there as a buffer. She didn’t need to see Paige hang all over Travis.
What came out of Sadie’s mouth wasn’t true or what she wanted, but she said it anyway. “Dylan had mentioned driving up, so I better stick around here.” She knew she sounded both competitive and pathetic at the same time, but she had no choice.
“Okay, we’ll catch up with you later then. But really, Sadie, you should reconsider. I mean, if you reconsider, shoot me a text or something and we’ll wait for you.”
Travis winked at Sadie, and just like that he was gone, and Sadie was left standing in the kitchen, mad at herself. Mad at what exactly, she was unsure. That there was this weirdness between her and Travis? Or wasn’t there? He winked at her, was that a peace offering? Did it mean something more? Did he want her to go to the dunes because he wanted to spend time with her? Get her away from Dylan? Or rub Paige in her face?
She now felt like she had to invite Dylan over, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. She wished she had the courage to look Travis in the eye and ask him if he had feelings for her. Were the Bitmojis a way of flirting or simply for fun? She also wished she knew if she wanted to love or leave Dylan.
~*~
Kurt
An hour later, Kurt was sitting with his daughters, having omelets and French toast on a deck with the mid-morning sun hot on his back. The charter boats had pulled back into the marina, and the captains were busy skinning the fresh caught salmon in front of many spectators.
It was already too hot to be drinking coffee, but after last night, Kurt needed it. Both Sadie and Jayna were sipping on their icy, blended, flavored-syrup laced, whipped-cream-topped coffee drinks—something Kurt knew Lydia would not go for. He could almost hear her freaking out about how much sugar was in the drinks, not to mention they shouldn’t be having that much caffeine at their age. Sometimes it was easier to cave. You’ve got to pick your battles, and this certainly wasn’t going to be a battle, Kurt reasoned.
Jayna was first to speak, asking her dad if they could finish reading their mother’s diary. After they talked on the beach, he had taken it from them. He hesitated and said he would have to think about it.
Jayna argued that they had already read the major stuff, so everything that followed would just help them to understand what their mother had gone through.
Kurt knew arguing with this would be tough; Jayna had a good point. Kurt also knew that it wasn’t always the bold print that did the most damage; more often it was the words in small print, the details. Lydia poured out her feelings, and they weren’t always pretty. He knew there were upcoming pages that would be hard for the girls to digest.
“Will you at least tell us what happened when Mom told Marissa?” asked Sadie.
“Honestly, that was the day all hell broke loose.”
“I don’t get why Marcus didn’t confess to Marissa right after you went to his boat.”
“I told him he couldn’t. I wasn’t going to let the bastard put his twist on the story. If he was the one to tell Marissa, it would have been your mom’s fault. The entire thing would have been worse had Marcus been the one to talk to Marissa first. I didn’t need Marissa driving over in a fit of rage, screaming at Mom in front of you girls.”
Kurt went on to explain that, after the day at the beach, Lydia did take Marissa on a walk and told her something went wrong the night she went to visit Marcus and that she was pregnant. He flat out told the girls that it was bad, very ugly for weeks. The months that Lydia was pregnant were not easy on anyone, and the divorce between Marcus and Marissa was an all-out battle, to say the least.
Kurt clenched his napkin in his hand as he explained that he even got harsh with Marissa, letting her know what he threatened Marcus with, if either of them spoke anything about the mess to anyone. What happened was horrible, but he had to be certain that it wouldn’t spread like wildfire through the neighborhood, their school, the tennis club, and the small town they lived in.
“I was not going to let you girls grow up and be whispered about. Most of all, I didn’t want you to find out what happened through trash talk. Marissa understood quickly enough that, if word spread, Marcus would be losing his job and she could kiss her child support and alimony good-bye.
“Anyway, our main focus should be on protecting Nicholas. He’s far too young to be told any of this. I love that little guy. You girls know that.”
~*~
Sadie
It was nothing new that Sadie felt nauseated at the mention of Marissa’s name, but for an entirely different reason now. Knowing it was her mother and not Marissa that was responsible for the end to their friendship added a new awkwardness. Sadie’s defensive wall was still up towards Marissa. It had just shifted from defending her mom’s honor as Marissa’s victim, to defending her mom’s honor as Marcus’s. She wondered what Marissa really thought and if dating Kurt was part to get back at Lydia in a really weird passive-aggressive way.
She half felt like an idiot, wondering why Marissa hadn’t just come right out and told Sadie she wasn’t the one at fault, even when Marissa was well aware that Sadie thought she was the one to blame. Sadie felt embarrassed about the way she had been acting, but she had no intention of apologizing. Facing Marissa was going to be harder now than ever!
Sadie couldn’t help the anxiety rising from the pit of her stomach. “So how in the heck did you and Marissa end up dating? It sounds like you were pretty pissed with each other too.”
“I was never angry with Marissa, honey. I was certainly standing up for and protecting my family, and if that meant putting Marissa in her place, that’s all it meant—it wasn’t personal. Believe me. Marissa and I were both in a lot of pain. We had all been friends for a long time. I felt awful for what she was going through, but my job was to protect my wife and kids, not her.”
“Had you”—Sadie paused and spoke slowly, knowing she was on the brink of tears— “ever had feelings for her back then?”
Kurt looked both his daughters in the eye. “No, never!”
“So how . . . why now? Why her?”
Kurt seemed to choose his words carefully. He explained that, in Lydia’s final months, Marissa and Lydia had spent a lot of time talking and working through three years’ worth of issues and emotions. Marissa had been the one to reach out to Lydia and forgive her.
In the months following Lydia’s funeral, Marissa had called every so often to see how Kurt was, but mostly she was concerned about her best friend’s daughters and even Nicholas. Kurt affirmed to Sadie and Jayna how much Marissa cared about them. It made Sadie uncomfortable. He went on to explain that Marissa would check in from time to time, letting him know that, if he needed help with looking after them, she was there.
It wasn’t until they started seeing each other at Sadie’s tennis matches that they began to talk more and eventually started meeting up from time to time for a cup of coffee or lunch. Kurt assured his daughters that their relationship had nothing to do with their mother and what happened in the past. He had never, in all their years of friendship, thought of Marissa as anything other than their mother’s friend.
“So how long have you been sneaking around seeing her?” As soon as she said it, Sadie knew her tone was snotty and she deserved the look her dad gave her, but luckily, that was all he did, and she almost felt guilty for getting away with it.
“It’s been a few months, mostly since late spring.”
Sadie had a flashback to her sixteenth birthday party, wondering if that’s when their relationship started.
“We are taking things slowly. It’s been nice having someone to talk to.”
Both Sadie and Jayna shifted in their seats and sipped their frozen coffees. What could she say to that? The rest of the breakfast went mostly question and answer, and for the most part, Sadie was surprised with how much they were able to get out o
f their dad. At times like this, she actually appreciated Jayna’s bluntness. She asked all the questions that Sadie wanted to ask but didn’t dare.
Chapter 36
Sadie
After breakfast, Sadie, Kurt, and Jayna went fishing off the pier. They didn’t catch much more than a bunch of gobies, but it was peaceful, without a whole lot of conversation. When they got back to the cottage, Sadie changed into her suit and found Nicholas and Benton digging holes in the sand (sand pools Nicholas called them) while Andrea filled the holes with buckets of water.
Sadie appreciated the fact that Andrea didn’t baby her with hugs and a bunch of consoling words. Kurt had told Andrea why he was taking off with just his girls. Andrea handed Sadie a bucket and told her to start filling the holes with water.
Nicholas was on a mission to have several pools for his Spiderman, Batman, and Iron Man figures to swim in. Sadie was drained both emotionally and physically, and this monotonous, mindless work felt soothing.
She was glad Travis, Cody, and Paige had already left for the dunes. Sadie purposefully acted interested in fishing longer than she really felt like it. The last thing she needed was to see Paige hanging on Travis. She felt relieved that the Jeep was long gone when they got back.
Dylan was working at the golf course today and had texted her several times, asking her what she was up to. His tone in his texts seemed bitter, so Sadie kept her responses clipped. She didn’t feel like dealing with his jealous, pissy attitude.
She hadn’t called Dylan to tell him what she and Jayna discovered in her mom’s diary. Normally, she would have called him immediately with something like this. She knew her dad didn’t want her to talk to anyone about it, but under different circumstances—mainly if she wasn’t annoyed with him—she would have told him.
Sadie could feel things unraveling between them, and it scared her, but then again, maybe it was for the best. He would soon be a college boy joining a fraternity and beer-bonging with the sorority girls in a matter of weeks. The thought of being boyfriend-less scared Sadie. He had been her crutch through plenty.
Sadie excused herself from dumping water in the sand holes, grabbed her phone, and fell to her beach towel. It was Myla and Kyla she needed right now. She thought about calling, but honestly, she was so sick of talking, so instead, she just sent them a two-page email explaining what happened.
She knew her dad said no one, not a soul was to know, but she could trust her two best friends not to breathe a word to anyone. She needed them, needed their support and their advice, especially on how to handle Marissa.
Sadie’s cell rang and she saw that it was Kyla.
“Can you flippin’ believe it?” was Sadie’s greeting to Kyla.
Sadie poured her heart out to Kyla for a solid thirty minutes before taking a deep breath. Wow, it felt good to vent! She could tell her friend was sincerely concerned, but she could also tell Kyla was distracted and had something else on her mind.
“I’m sorry. I’m going on and on about my family saga. Something’s up. What’s bugging you? Dish your problems on me for a change.”
Kyla took a deep breath and let out a groan. Sadie knew it was big. “I wish that were the case, Sadie. I heard something today.”
Kyla’s voice sounded grim, and Sadie got that prickly feeling she got before she heard bad news. “Lay it on me, girl. How terrible can it be?”
“Well, not so hot. I ran into Madison Cruz at the mall today, and she asked if you and Dylan were still going out. I told her yes, that I had just spent the day with you two in Pentwater, and that he drove me and Myla out there to see you.”
Sadie’s heart was pounding hard. “Talk faster, Kyla.”
“Madison was at Allison Cooper’s party last night and so was Dylan. She said he got there late, but was still there when she left.”
Sadie could feel her blood begin to boil. Allison Cooper was Dylan’s ex-girlfriend, the one he dumped for Sadie. Allison hated Sadie and talked nasty about her any chance she got.
“He must have gone there after he dropped Myla and me off. On the way home from Pentwater, he got a call from Jake, and I heard him say, ‘Yeah, I’ll stop by,’ but I figured he meant at Jake’s house, so I didn’t think twice about it.”
Sadie was fuming. “What an ass. I can’t believe he had the nerve to go to her house. He says how much he can’t stand her, so he shows up on her doorstep? He’s doing this to make me jealous because he thinks I have a thing for Travis.”
Kyla went on to describe that Madison saw Allison hanging all over Dylan. Allison was really drunk and talking trash to Dylan, something about how she knew he’d eventually come begging her to take him back. Madison didn’t say much more, only that when she left at 2:00ish Dylan was still there along with about ten people, none of which were his close friends.
Sadie’s head pounded. Could this day get any worse? She had reached her limit, was on information overload, and needed some time to process everything.
Dylan hadn’t mentioned anything today in his texts about stopping at Allison’s. At first, Sadie thought he was trying to make her jealous, but wouldn’t he have mentioned it then? Was he trying to hide it? Did he kiss Allison? Or more?
Sadie wanted to pick up the phone and chew him out. She checked the time. He was just finishing work at the golf course. She needed an escape, but she knew Travis, Paige, and Cody would be getting back from the dunes anytime, and she certainly didn’t feel like dealing with that either.
So there she was, kicking back on the couch, seething, and trying her hardest to read the latest celebrity trash in the tattered People magazine Andrea gave her. From the couch, Sadie had a clear view out the screen door to the picnic table on the front porch where Jayna was playing a game of Memory with Nicholas.
Ever since they got back from fishing earlier, Jayna had been by Nicholas’s side, playing in the sand with him, swimming, getting him snacks and drinks, and now playing games. Sadie was usually the one doing this while Jayna was off being Jayna. She wondered what was going on. Was Jayna afraid of losing Nicholas? Or was she analyzing him to see if he was anything like Marcus? Whatever it was, it was out of character, but Sadie enjoyed the break and hoped Jayna’s behavior stuck.
Sadie couldn’t help but get annoyed by the fact that Nicholas was her half-brother instead of her full brother. Mostly because that meant she shared him 50-50 with Paige. Petty, yes, but Paige barely knew him. Sadie had more than earned the right to full sisterhood, practically motherhood. She felt defensive, hoping Paige wouldn’t try to win him over once she knew the truth.
Sadie had a clear view of her dad pacing back and forth, up and down the beach in front of the cottage, and talking on his phone, surely to Marissa. He wouldn’t be talking business for that long at dinner time. She wondered when Marissa would tell Paige and what her reaction would be, and felt the knife twisting in her stomach again.
She heard footsteps coming up the porch steps and knew it was Andrea when Nicholas began to brag to Miss Andi that he had three more matches than Jayna! From the sound of it, Andrea had brought over something yummy, because next Sadie heard both Jayna and Nicholas cheer and yell, “Yummo!”
Andrea had brought over lemonade slushies and her homemade Heath bars, which she made with saltine crackers, brown sugar sauce, and melted chocolate chips. She kept them cool in the fridge, but they always stayed good and gooey.
“Figured I’d find you in here,” she said as she came in the screen door, bearing treats for Sadie.
Instantly, Sadie knew Andrea was here for a talk. She must have seen her dad on the beach, Jayna and Nicholas on the porch, and figured all she needed to keep them put, and talk with Sadie alone, was a cup and plate full of sugar.
For some reason, Sadie felt nervous, and she started making excuses why she was sitting alone inside, saying she was tired (which she was), and had cramps (which she didn’t and wasn’t sure why she said it), and finally saying that once she picked up a People she couldn’t put
it down.
Andrea handed Sadie her cup of lemonade slushy and didn’t waste any time making small talk. She started talking about what a wonderful person Lydia was—that she would never do “that sort of thing” intentionally. Andrea also apologized for the additional hurt that this news was bringing.
“If I could take all the pain away from you girls, I would.”
Sadie scoffed. “Ha! I’m immune to it now. My skin is so thick a razor couldn’t slice it.”
Andrea gave Sadie her motherly look. She wasn’t buying it, and neither was Sadie, really. She patted Sadie on the leg and stood up. “Let’s go for a walk. I’m sure your dad and Benton can handle getting dinner together while we’re gone. Besides, Travis isn’t back from the dunes yet.”
Sadie hesitated. She really wasn’t up for it, but Andrea was already holding the screen door open for her before she could protest. Once Sadie’s feet hit the wet sand and the waves spilled over her ankles, she knew this was exactly what she needed. She felt like hugging Andrea, pretending for a moment that she was her mother. She hadn’t had that kind of motherly hug in almost a year and a half.
Andrea opened right up, explaining that Lydia’s actions were not intentional and that her family and friends were everything to her. Several times, Andrea gave reference to what a good woman Lydia was and that Marcus did a horrible thing, taking advantage of her when she was completely out of it.
Sadie didn’t talk much. She just listened to Andrea speak highly of her mother—probably painting a much better picture than was true. But Sadie didn’t mind; she hung on every word.
“Marissa and I had a long talk the other day when she was visiting. Bottom line, Sadie, is Marissa forgave your mom a long time ago. She knew your mother better than pretty much anyone. She knows the truth. It just really hurt, and it was easier for Marissa to keep her distance with your mom. Seeing your mom pregnant and then with a young Nicholas in her arms wasn’t easy.
“Also, between us, I asked her about the relationship between her and your dad. I can assure you it started well after your mom passed, and it has nothing to do with your mother. They are simply two people who know each other well and enjoy each other’s company. Sure, they spent a lot of time together in their younger years, but the feelings they have for each other have developed slowly over the last few months.”