“You’re lucky then,” she mutters, her shoulders slumping.
“I’m not so sure about that,” I mumble. When she gives me a confounded look, I add, “I couldn’t remember because I was repressing everything, but it wasn’t healthy.”
“So you’re saying you’re happier now that you can remember?” she asks, confused.
“I still can’t remember everything now, but what I did remember helped them track the people down.” I slant forward in the chair and rest my arms on my knees. “I’ve learned over the past couple of years that running away from your feelings only allows them to grow and feed off you, and eventually they’ll nearly kill you if you don’t learn to deal with them.”
“You sound just like I remember,” she says softly, almost smiling. “You always had a poetic way of saying things.”
“I did?”
She nods. “You did. It was always fun listening to you talk when you got really passionate about something.”
“I’m glad there were fun times . . . Sometimes when I look back at the past, all I can see is darkness.”
“There were a few good times I can remember . . .” She trails off as she scoots back in the bed and rests against a pillow.
“Are you tired?” I ask, getting ready to stand up and leave. “Maybe I should let you sleep.”
She shakes her head and motions for me to sit down. “I don’t want to be alone. But I don’t want to talk about the past right now. I know you say it’s not healthy, but I just can’t yet, okay?”
If that’s what she wants, then that’s what I’ll give her. “What do you want to talk about then?”
“You.” A trace of a smile rises on her face, but pain and fear haunts her eyes. “I want to hear all about your happy new life.”
“How do you know it’s been happy?” I wonder curiously.
“Because I can see it in your eyes,” she says with a shrug.
“It hasn’t always been that way, though.”
“Then start from where it does get happy.”
I rack my mind for the moment in my life where things turned around for me, where happiness felt within reach. “Well, I was adopted by this really amazing family,” I say with a smile as I remember the day the Gregorys brought me home.
“Oh yeah?” She rotates on her side, cradling her casted arm. “Are they the ones who keep peeking through the doorway?”
I glance over my shoulder right as Lila walks by, trying to look casual as can be. I chuckle under my breath, turning back to Sadie. “That’s Lila . . . My mom, I guess.” It’s strange to say that to Sadie, to call someone else other than our real mother my mom.
“She seems worried about you,” she says. “She’s walked past the room about a thousand times.”
“That’s just how she is.” I pause, debating whether to tell her what Lila and Ethan told me in the car. “They want you to come live with us.”
Her brows shoot up. “What? They can’t . . . There’s no way they’d want . . .” Her eyes water up again.
My heart aches at her self-doubt, the feeling of unworthiness of having something good.
“I think you should live with them,” I tell her. “They’re really nice people who’ll help you get through this.”
“Did they . . . Did they help you?”
“They did,” I say. “And so did Lyric.”
Her forehead creases. “Who’s Lyric?”
How do I even begin to explain who Lyric is? The girl I’m in love with? No, she’s more than that. Way, way more.
Not knowing how else to explain it to her, I start from the beginning, telling her about my journey with the Gregorys and how I fell in love with my best friend.
“So . . . you’re in love?” Sadie asks after I’m finished.
I nod, fiddling with the leather band Lyric gave me. “I am.”
She blinks, trying to hold the tears back, but they pour out of her eyes. “I’m so happy for you. I really, really am. I was so worried that maybe we both ended up broken and ruined but . . . Seeing you like this . . .”
I scoot forward in the chair and place an unsteady hand over hers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m glad you did . . . And I’m glad you fell in love.” She sniffles. “It gives me hope that maybe I’m not completely broken . . . That if you can make it, maybe . . . Maybe I can too.”