Love Me Always (The Invisibles) Read online

  “You love her, right?” Rob asks and my eyes fly up to meet his. That’s not even a question. He must notice the piercing anger in my eyes. He holds up his hands in defense. “Whoa. I have to ask. It’s you and Sadie. You guys talk about all kinds of shit. I’m just shocked.”

  I nod. He’s right. From the minute I met Sadie, we’ve talked about everything. Strike that. From the moment she cornered me in that emergency room. Her words still resonate with me. ‘I’ll always be by your side’.

  What happened to that?

  “You have to push her to talk,” Trey insists next to me. His eyes ping from mine to the swing set. “Tara!” he screams. “Hold that thought.” He jogs over to Tara swinging from the monkey bars head down.

  “Trey’s right. Force her before you make such a drastic decision. There’s no coming back from that Brady.” Grant spouts his fatherly advice. They call me the father of this group, but I can’t hold it together anymore.

  “I’ve tried guys. Now the ball is in her court.”

  Sadie

  ADDY LIES STILL in my arms, having already fallen asleep. I place her down in the Pack ‘n Play.

  “What’s going on?” Jessa steps forward toward me, but I make a beeline for the kitchen. Her prying eyes are annoying me. Sometimes this whole close group of friends, digging into each other’s lives, is too much.

  I open the fridge and my hands almost reach for a beer, just to numb this dreadful disconnect between Brady and I.

  “Sadie.” Jessa sits in a chair and brings her legs up to her chest.

  I know what she wants. She wants to cut my chest open and plop my problems on this table. Then she can pick me apart so she can fix me. There’s no fixing this.

  “I don’t think Brady wants to marry me.” The words gut me. Maybe it’s the blame of my doing with this wedding shit or the fact he won’t just let it go.

  She tilts her head and confused eyes focus on me. “What are you talking about?”

  I join her at the table and she reaches over for my hands. I tuck them into my lap.

  “He asked me if I would leave and marry him, just him and me.”

  Jessa leans back into her chair. “What did you say?” Her voice changes octaves because she’s worried. Why the hell is everyone questioning my love for Brady? Including him.

  “I said yes.”

  “But?”

  “But I don’t know. You know what’s it’s like to want this big wedding. We’ve dreamed of this stuff since we were kids.”

  Her eyes turn down. “I got married with forty people, Sad—”

  She’s right.

  “It’s just hard. With Theo—”

  The doorbell rings and Jessa covers my hand with hers. “Hold on.”

  She opens the door and Drew barrels through the doorway with an exhausted Kailey right behind him.

  “Sadie!” he screeches and his little legs barely reach to me.

  I bend down and hold my arms out for him. He buries his face into my chest and I swoop him up.

  “What’s up, buddy?” He sits in my lap and his fingers play with my hair.

  “Food?” he questions and Kailey drops a McDonald’s bag on the table.

  She circles around the table and collapses in the chair across from me.

  “I’m here. What’s the 911?” she asks and Jessa eyes her from the corner of hers.

  Kailey narrows hers trying to figure out what she’s trying to non-verbally tell her. Jessa shakes her head.

  “Jesus, Jess.” I stop opening the bag of food to stare over to her.

  A small giggle squeaks out and she shrugs. “Re-enforcements.”

  Kailey shakes her head. “Spill.” Her head falls back on the chair and she stares over to me. Drew’s hands manipulate his chicken nuggets and the ranch dip.

  “Just wedding stuff,” I say, trying to end this conversation before it gains a momentum I’m not comfortable with.

  “Is something wrong with the dresses, your dress?” She sits up straighter and I love that she’s worried about the things that consume my life every day. Finally someone who sees it how I do.

  “No. It’s Brady.”

  Her eyes veer away. Does everyone know something I don’t? “What is it?” She opens up the ketchup for Drew. I should have multiple stains by the time I leave here today.

  “I don’t think he wants to marry me.”

  She waves her hand and leans back into the bench. “You’re talking crazy. That boy loves you.”

  “He might love me, but I sense something bad is about to happen. I’m usually right about these things.” I concentrate on Drew eating, trying to push the memory of the night Theo got jumped. That knot in my stomach that resided for the year, reforming.

  “What were you saying before Kailey showed up?”

  “Oh. Well, Theo—”

  The doorbell rings again.

  “Seriously, Jess?” I call out to her as she walks to the door.

  Sure enough, Paige and Chrissy pace through the doorway and join us in the kitchen.

  Chrissy swings her arm around my neck. “You look as bad as your fiancé.”

  At least if he looks horrible, it must mean he still loves me.

  She kisses my cheek and I hate being in this spot. I much prefer the other way around. When I’m picking up my friends from the despair of their men. Not this way.

  The two new girls slide out chairs and sit down to offer me advice. Advice I probably gave them at one point. Advice I failed to follow myself.

  “Sadie, we’re your friends,” Jessa says and I glance down at her hand laying on my arm.

  “Come here, Drew,” Paige calls him over to give me the space. He was a great buffer.

  She’s right, they are my friends. Each one of them has been there for me at some point in the last few years.

  “Do you all think I’m being a bear?” They each think I don’t hear the snickers behind my rants or the roll of the eyes by the men. The lack of email responses after I send one out with specific instructions. Then it all goes wrong and Rob got fitted for the wrong tuxedo.

  “No.” Kailey rushes out. Always the people pleaser.

  “Yes.” Jessa whispers next to me and my hurt eyes fly up to hers. She shrugs in apology, but it tears me up that she thinks that.

  “I wouldn’t say bear . . .” Chrissy chimes. “We just want you and Brady to enjoy this planning time. You seem so stressed out.”

  Paige sits there quietly. She’s the new girl of the group and I think she’s not exactly comfortable spouting advice or publicly shaming me.

  “I just want it to be perfect.” My thumb picks at my nail bed.

  “It will be, Sadie, but you have to slow down and enjoy yourself.” Jessa scoots her chair closer to me and swings her arm around my shoulder. “Remember when you and Brady first met?”

  I narrow my eyes. “You weren’t even there. Your tongue was down Rebel’s throat.” She laughs and her head falls back.

  “Oh, I forgot about that.” She waves off the other girls. “Sorry girls, inside thing.”

  None of them seem to mind.

  “Okay, maybe I wasn’t there for the initial encounter. But do you remember when he came to pick you up for your first date? How excited and scared you were? You never thought he’d accept your past.” As though the word past flickers a light bulb in her head. She sucks in a breath and wetness fills her eyes. “This is about Theo?”

  I only tried to tell you twice in the past twenty minutes.

  I remain quiet. It’s still painful to think about.

  “Everything’s done. The bridesmaids, the groomsman, the caterer, the favors. But one thing is still missing,” I murmur, praying someone will speak up to put me out of my misery. My heart is literally breaking all over again.

  “Someone to walk you down the aisle?” Jessa chimes in and the girls’ shoulders fall. I’m not sure what they know about my past, but I guarantee they don’t know the half of it.

  Since the thr
ee other girls are in the dark about my father disowning me and my brother dying, they sit there quietly like good Catholics at church.

  “When Brady proposed, I was so ecstatic. Couldn’t wait to become Mrs. Brady Carsen, wear his ring and start our family. Then, that part of my childhood dream, when my father would hand me off to the man who stole my heart came into my head. I suddenly realized I don’t have anyone because of what I did.” A tear falls down my cheek and it drops to the table.

  “One of the guys will do it. Brady’s dad. Hell this is two-thousand and fifteen, have your mom or grandma,” Kailey speaks up and I nod. Those are all good options. Options I’ve thought about, and I’d be okay with them. Every time I think about it, I can’t help but focus on Theo missing from this event of my life.

  “I wouldn’t want my dad, even if he agreed.”

  Don’t get me wrong. I know I can’t change it, but it’s like I’ve been doing all this planning to divert any attention to that fact. Now we’re a week out and I haven’t asked anyone. No one has actually mentioned it—including Brady.

  “I know it’s not.” Chrissy kneels down by me, her hand on my knee. “I understand where you’re coming from.” Of course she does, I’m not the only one here without a father figure, but I am the only one that killed her brother. “You have to move on, Sadie.”

  “I tell myself that twenty times a day.” I turn to Jessa and she wipes the overflowing tears. “I miss him. He should be here with me. Ready to marry the girl that swept him off his feet.”

  My head falls and my sobs vibrate against her chest. She wraps her arms around me and squeezes tight, telling me she’s here and she’ll see me through it.

  The other girls circle around us, each putting a hand on my back. Their comforting friendship feels nice. Much nicer than others ever have before.

  “You need to talk to Brady.”

  I nod into her wet sweater. I know I do, but I can never manage to find the words.

  Two hours later, I’m dehydrated from the spent tears. I sit on our couch and Brady walks through the back door. I hear his hat thump on the kitchen table and slide across until falls to the floor. He doesn’t come in to say hello and it pains me because he had to have parked his car next to mine.

  This is my time to fix us. I step over our wedding crap packed in every corner of the dining room and lean against the doorframe, watching him bent over, his head in the fridge. Even from here I can see his back is tense and stressed.

  “Hey,” I whisper and he doesn’t turn around.

  “Hey.” He mimics my tone, pulling something out of the fridge. “What do you want for dinner?”

  How can he think of dinner now?

  “Brady.” I sigh, but he’s not going to come to me this time. It’s my time to tell him exactly what’s going on.

  “Don’t, Sadie. Just don’t. I don’t have the energy to fight anymore.” He slams the fridge door. Never in the years I’ve been with him have I seen his eyes so angry and disappointed. The fact they’re directed at me is a knife to the heart.

  His palms tighten around the edge of the countertop and he leans his weight on it. It hurts to see him so distraught, so I break the distance and lay my head on his back. He inhales a deep breath and I wrap my arms tight around his taut waist. His jeans hang low on his hips; I lift up his T-shirt and snake my hands to feel his warmth. Intimacy used to be easy with us, never forced. Never would I have thought a week from our wedding we’d be in a state of flux. But it’s my fault because I should have told him the guilt that’s been racking me since he proposed. How much it all makes me miss my brother so much; it’s hard to carry that weight around every day.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper and tighten my hold on him. His own hands cover mine and I close my eyes, thankful to have a forgiving fiancé.

  We stand there together silent, knowing our love is still very much present between us. “Can we talk?”

  He swivels around and when he notices the tears filling my eyes, his hand cups my cheek and brushes them away. “Yeah.”

  My arms stay fixed around his body as we walk to the family room. I sit first on our lumpy couch and he faces me, his hand anchors in mine.

  “I’m sorry, Sadie. It’s just, everything is so much about the wedding and I feel like we’re losing the reason we’re getting married.”

  I place my hand up in the air. “No, it’s me. There’s stuff I haven’t been telling you.”

  He inches back and his brows rise, although he’s been waiting for me to be truthful with him and myself.

  “Ever since you proposed and I said yes, I can’t stop feeling guilty . . . about Theo.”

  He releases a breath and wraps his arms around me. My face buries into his shirt that is embedded with the smell of home to me. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  I draw back, but scoot closer to him so he can continue to hold me. Nothing is safer than Brady’s arms.

  “I didn’t want to spoil anything. The more I started planning, the more the guilt got masked with colors and dresses and catering. But now, I see what I’ve done and . . . I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t ever be sorry, but you have to tell me these things. Remember, I’ll never let go . . . ever.” He speaks the promise he made me two years ago. Looking back now, I’m not sure why I never told him my concerns except for he was so happy and I was so sad during what should have been the best time of our lives.

  “He’ll never have a wife or a wedding or . . .” My voice cracks. “A future.”

  The tears break from my eyes and rush down my cheeks. “Baby.” He pulls me into him again. There’s nothing he can say to make this better. Nothing can be done. I’ve been through the therapy; I’m supposed to be better now. “You need to go see someone. You know that.”

  He’s right. I do. I need to talk to someone about what’s going on. But the thought of putting my past out there to a stranger again is as appealing as a bikini wax. Re-telling the story about how my brother died because of me is more gut wrenching than what I’ve been going through the past year. But Brady’s right. I’ve pushed my guilt aside long enough. “I know. It’s just—”

  His hands push my shoulders back so he can search my eyes. I’ve never seen him this determined. “No. You need to make an appointment. You can’t feel this way forever, Sadie. This will be an ongoing problem and you need to find someone here that you trust and are willing to talk to.”

  How am I the counselor and he knows more than me?

  He pulls out his phone and shoves it in my hand. “Call.”

  “Later.”

  “Now.”

  “Brady.”

  “Sadie.”

  “Come on.”

  “Call.” He stands up and leaves me on the couch with his phone in my hand.

  I stare down at the phone, my insides clenching at the thought of living the story again. But I catch a glance of a picture on the wall. Brady and I that first Halloween, dressed up. That night when Brady carried me home. How much he was hurt that next morning, knowing I was keeping a wedge between us. Me scared he would never accept what I’d done.

  Never again will I see those destroyed eyes pinned at me. Never again.

  I dial my boss at the counseling center, asking if she can give me the name of someone locally. I might be willing to go through therapy again, but not with one of my colleagues. She rattles off a name and tells me it’s who she sees. I end the call and dial the number she gave me. After it’s all done, I’m scheduled for noon the next day. My eyes float around the room to all the pictures of Brady and my friends. How different my life is now, and I wonder how I’ll ever allow myself to enjoy it because Theo’s face will never fill one of the frames again.

  Brady

  SADIE BROKE ME that afternoon when she admitted the guilt that’s been burying her as of late. I was foolish to think she was over that part of her life and I should have thought to ask her if she was doing okay. Occasionally, she tosses and turns at night, nightmares r
acking her body into a fit. She’ll murmur and scream in her sleep, but she never fully wakes up. Usually I wrap my arms around her and lull her back to sleep. That’s why I hate myself for not thinking the shame of her past could conflict with her happiness of the future. But she went to the therapist yesterday and appeared a little better when she returned home. At least her sunken eyes weren’t as visible.

  I light the candles on the table. As soon as she comes home from work, her phone is in the drawer for the night. She’s mine. I position our plates on the table in front of the candles. This will be our last night together before the families trickle in. I need her in my arms for the whole night.

  Her car drives up the driveway, parking alongside mine. My heart warms knowing she’s home. Just thinking of spending the rest of life with her sets a smile on my face.

  She saunters in the door and stops, catching my surprise for her. Her lips crease into a smile and she drops her purse on the floor and runs to me. Her arms tighten around my neck and she jumps into my arms. Never has anything felt so good as her attached to me. “You’re so romantic.”

  “Well, I do aim to please.”

  I circle us around and prop her up on the counter. My lips find hers and I quickly slide my tongue into her mouth. Her fingers thread through my hair as my lips become more demanding, anxious to have all of her.

  Her phone rings in her bag and she moves to inch back, thinking I’d let her answer it.

  “No,” I murmur against her lips and my fingers skim under her shirt. She pushes into me more the further I reach up her torso and the need to have her in my bed is too great.

  Her phone dings with a voicemail and she tries to slow the kiss, but I don’t give a shit what wedding catastrophe is happening in this moment. She’s mine for the whole night.

  My hands grip her ass and I slide her off the counter, into my arms. As she’s propped in my hands, I shift my weight to turn off the burners. The food will have to wait.

  I walk her up the two flights of stairs, and her lips feather kisses along my neck as she grinds into my hardness. I try to focus on my end point—our bed. Otherwise, I’m about to lay her across the wooden steps and rip her clothes off. We haven’t had sex in weeks—at least not the kind that lasts any longer than minutes. She was always rushing somewhere and now I know she was deflecting her internal battle. Sadie deals with things by ignoring them.