Affliction (Finding Solace) (4 page)

The next morning came and I was ready to start anew. I
rolled over and whispered in her ear "Good morning my beautiful" and
then the shit hit the fan. She was seriously pissed off. I asked her every way
I could think of, she wouldn't budge. She spouted out that she had personal
issues or something like that. I didn't know up from down at that point, she
had me so confused. I saw my chance though, so I took it. I asked her how the
non -complicated relationship we were having seemed to be getting more
complicated. If that isn't an opener I don't know what is. I hoped so badly
that she would say that she was changing her mind. That maybe we needed to
reestablish what we were doing. But when she said she didn't have the answer, I
knew what she was saying was, she didn't have the answer that I wanted to hear.
I had to be okay with that. Everything that I hoped to get out of these couple
years are her couple of years too. So I thought maybe I needed to just drop the
whole idea and go back to having fun with her. And hell yeah we had a lot of
fun for the next few hours. That is what spawned the next drama session. Are
you tired of those yet? Sorry, I got a lot more to tell you. Hang in there.

Okay, so yes Sadie and I had amazing sex. AMAZING! And
maybe I did tend to do everything in my power to make her scream, guilty. So
when Heather came into the room later and embarrassed Sadie for being so loud,
I thought I could save her by putting it on me. Cocky men always get put back
in there place. But it so didn't go the way I planned in my head. I thought
Heather might snap at me but Sadie ripped my head off. She started screaming at
me about all the other girls I have been with and then something about the
bathroom at the bar. And then the fact she has been talking to them. What the
fuck? This was crazy. How did we get here? All it did was make me realize we weren't
ready to commit. I had accepted everything about her, past included. She just
screamed at me about what? The fact I had been with other people. Since when am
I doing something wrong? We never decided to go against our agreement in the
first place.

She came back in the room explaining how she feels cheap
by the way I hid what we had. I know what you are thinking but I thought I was
protecting her. I didn't want all the guys talking about her the way they did
about the other girls. I wanted them to respect her. This was all getting too
fucked up for me to handle. I didn't know how to balance us like she was
asking. I knew in or out and I had to be honest with her that I wasn't ready to
go all in yet. I needed to be confident she was with me and I knew she wasn’t.
But there was also no way in hell I was ready to lose her either. Sadie made it
all seem okay again when she told me that she wanted to see other people and do
our own thing when we were apart but when we were together, it was just us. I
know that I at times seemed like a selfish prick. You would agree. But where in
her story did you hear her tell me what she told you? Didn't think so.

So you all know that I slept with Geoff's girlfriend.
What you don't know is that I had no idea that she was anybody's anything when
it happened. I completely felt bad for the guy, for a while. Then it just got
old. And there was no way in hell he was going to bring Sadie into this. It
wasn't an eye for an eye kind of thing. I didn't go after his girl, she came to
me. He was pursuing Sadie only to piss me off. I let it go until the hotel room
thing happened. He needed to learn to shut his mouth about her. Sadie would
never be considered a flaw to anyone, especially me. I know, I should have just
told her from the beginning that Geoff was doing all of it because of me. I
didn't avoid the subject, it truly never crossed my mind until we were sitting
at the fight and she kept saying it was because of her. I never wanted Sadie to
feel blame. How many ways can you tell someone something though before you
snap? And yes, I'm not perfect by any means, I snapped at her. So when she came
back from the bathroom with Shawn, I made sure to grab her hand so I could hold
on to it. It was my way at the moment for an apology. It seemed to work, so we
went on watching what turned out to be the coolest fight I have ever seen.

After Mike kicked Reynold’s ass, we all headed out for a
drink. Everyone was having fun and we were all about to do a shot, when I
noticed Sadie had been gone awhile. You already know about the girls but I
swear, when Sadie was around I never wanted anything else. Then as Bryan was
talking to me, I heard the most beautiful voice start singing. The bulk of the
time we had been at the bar I tried my best to tune out the karaoke but this
was different. The whole room got quiet. Slowly all eyes moved to the back of
the bar where there was a mini stage and on it was my beautiful girl. She was
amazing. She looked fantastic up there and I found that my legs were moving me
closer and closer still to her. As I was able to take her in more clearly
though, she looked scared to death. Her knuckles were turning white from the
death grip she had on the microphone and her eyes were closed. But the sound,
the sound that was coming out of her caused goose bumps to flood my body. She
was just simply amazing. She was singing Rihanna's song 'Stay' and I would
swear she was singing it right to me, at least it felt that way. I didn't care
anymore who was around to see or what they might think, I needed to kiss that
woman like I needed my next breath. The whole bar started screaming and
hollering at us but I wasn't ready to let her go just yet. She eventually
pulled herself from me and walked back to the table full of our friends. I made
sure I could still hold on to her a little, even if it was just her hand. The
rest of that night I couldn’t stand to let her go. Something about that moment
when she said, "I want you to stay" stuck with me. Maybe we could
still make things right with us.

Chapter 8

Everything was going fantastic for me. Work was still fun
as ever, school offered me a spot assistant coaching and I jumped at the
chance. Sadie and I were still going strong. We never did talk about a label
but it seemed we were moving toward one. That was until the bowling alley night
made me question how people were judging her. I was on cloud nine with my life
and I thought she was too. When Mike’s brother Tony picked her up and kissed
her though, I felt I had no choice but to go outside and grab a hit to calm
myself down. I wanted to rip his head from his body. When the fresh air hit me
and I took a couple tokes off my one hitter, I managed to calm down. She wasn't
mine. If she wanted to see what it was like to date Tony, as much as it would
kill me, I needed to let her. I wanted her to experience life too. I just hoped
she wouldn't want to.

When I walked back inside, everyone was looking at me
like I did something wrong. What the hell did I do? That caused my eyes to
search the room in a panic for Sadie. I didn't find her there. But I did see
Heather standing outside of the girl’s bathroom, pointing for a woman to use the
men’s. I knew something very bad had happened, I just didn't know what until I
heard her side of things. Why anyone that is supposed to be a friend would be
so mean is beyond me.

I walked past Heather and closed the door behind me. I
could hear her sniffle and it broke my heart knowing she was crying in there. I
begged her to tell me the truth but she wouldn't. I pushed and pushed. I knew
they made her feel bad about what was happening between us, I just hoped she
trusted what we had was enough to keep going. I even told her to date Tony but
you all need to know that in the back of my mind, I wanted her to stay as far
away from him as possible. She got so mad at me and told me that I didn’t
respect her choices. What a crock of shit. I respected her more than anyone or
anything. I just hated seeing her sad. So I asked her what she wanted me to do
and I would do it. When she said "take me home" it was done. I really
would have done anything for her. She just had to say the word.

Chapter 9

Six flags was a blast until Tony started spouting off at
the mouth again. She and I had so much fun riding rides and just playing
around. We had way more fun once we got back to the room but she already told
you all about that. Sometimes I feel I don't get to tell you all the good
parts, but why would you want to hear about the same thing twice, more than I’m
dragging you through anyway. I have to just say one thing and then I will be on
my best behavior. That fucking bikini will always be part of my fantasies! I'm
trying very hard to not talk your ear off and still get you to understand.

Back to Tony. So we were all joking around about Sadie’s
vocal ability when he stood up and asked her to go with him so they could talk.
I prayed she would tell him to kiss her ass and stay with me, but she got up and
went anyway. It pissed me off, badly. Tony seemed to be on a mission to get in
her pants and was playing the friend card. She knew what we were and was
letting everyone else dictate what they thought she should feel or do. Why tell
me that she was in control, if all it took was Tony saying something and then things
were all fucked up again? When they came back, everyone was loading up. I
couldn't even look at her I was so angry. As we got in the car, I jumped in the
front seat. Let them sit together if I mean so little to her. It was all but
confirmed when she got in and didn't say a word to me. I was fucked again. I
had no idea where to go from there. She made her mind up and I needed to accept
that.

I didn't talk to her for a week. A week! It killed me to
not respond to all the calls and texts from her but I needed to clear my head
so I went home. Spending time with Maddie always helped put things back into
perspective for me. I had a little over a year left at school to have fun and I
was hell bent to give it my best, which meant the drama had to stop. If she didn’t
want more and I wasn’t sure what I wanted we needed to just go back to having
fun.

I did call eventually and ask her to pick me up from the
airport. I had a car, but I hated to pay to park it when we didn't live that
far from there. She was so pissed off when I saw her. I know I didn't get back
to her but I really did need space to think. I offered her lunch to chill her
out and it worked slightly.

So I know I have avoided the elephant in the room and
this is where all of you started to probably say to yourselves "what the
hell?" Yes, I had a lot of locks start popping up around my house. A
monkey was seriously on my back and it was getting out of control. But we will
get to that later.

I begged her to stay with me but you would too. Once you
have Sadie Warren in your arms you never want to let her go. I spent a week
telling myself to let her go and it all went out the window once I was with
her. When she agreed to spend the night with me, all seemed right with the
world again. Well, that was until the next morning after I made her breakfast
with week old groceries. To defend myself, I did ask her if I needed to go to
the store remember?

All of you know every single detail about that day. You
know more than I even did and I was there. It was hands down the worse sickness
I have ever faced in my life. The faded memory of her saying she shit herself
still makes me laugh my ass off.  In a creepy way, I'm still glad I have that
story to share with Sadie though.

The reason I brought up this day was to address the guy
at the door. I was so sick I had forgotten that he was coming over. Having her
be anywhere near an exchange is what changed my mind about everything. Just
having her in my house bothered me. I didn't want her anywhere near all the
drugs I had there but selfishly, I couldn’t not have her there with me either.
I really did think stupidly that I could keep them separate. But that night, I
decided I was done. And that's when I quit. Pay attention to this detail. This
night was in the beginning of the summer.

Now this one was kind of funny if you ask me. I know you
all thought it was mine too but when Sadie confronted me about that crazy ass
Liz having my baby I almost fell over. NEVER would I be with that nasty chick.

Speaking of nasty chicks, you know I am talking about the
one that was straddling me when Sadie walked up. Terri was her name and what I
was whispering in her ear was that she needed to get off my lap before Sadie
came back out. Terri was best friends with another one of my employees who knew
all about Sadie. She wanted to create drama and boy did she ever. And for the
record I never let that bitch anywhere near my dick, more or less the bathroom
of my bar.

That night was one of the worst between us. I followed
her home knowing something was brewing in that head of hers, but not having a
clue what to expect. Fun times huh? Not so much.

When she asked me if we could talk, I just knew shit was
going to hit the fan. How was I supposed to advise her on how to deal with my
past? I couldn't. She needed to figure out if she even could all on her own. I
never would be able to control what other people say or do. And if they were
coming after her for some reason, she really did need to decide if she could handle
it. I personally couldn’t, and I told her that too. I wanted her to respect
herself even more than I needed her with me. But never and I truly mean never,
did I think she would ask me to leave. Man, she broke my heart. I was so hurt
and yet so very proud of her all at the same time. When I went to leave, I knew
I had to kiss her just once if it was going to be the last time, but then she
started to cry. Nothing could pull harder at my heart than to see her so sad. I
looked into her eyes, knowing she could see the tears in mine but I felt no
shame. She needed to know what she meant to me. And then she slammed her mouth
back on mine and I was done for. I made love to Sadie for the very first time right
before I walked away from her.