The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic(91)

“Everything checks out. We should keep her awake, though. Why? Why did she do this?” Jake demanded, and there were broken shards in his voice.

“Because she’s an idiot.”

Sadie listened for the broken shards in his voice but heard only a swarm of angry bees. Or perhaps they were hornets. Wasps?

“I have to go call Raquel before she has an aneurism,” her brother said. “I told her something was up. Stupid twin connection.”

“Thank God for that,” Jake said. “I’ll stay with her.”

The room swished with the air that Seth took with him as he left the room. And then the couch depressed as Jake sat next to her. She opened her eyes. How long had they been closed? She was hot but there were goose bumps on her skin. The ticking of the grandfather clock sounded like canons. She felt like Clara in The Nutcracker, everything around her growing impossibly large, stretching to dizzying heights and locked in a battle between gingerbread soldiers and the Mouse King. Only instead of sweets and rodents, it was life and death.

She reached out and touched Jake’s arm to make sure he was real. His skin felt like cotton candy. She was there and not there, and she thought how sad it was that this was how she felt most of her life. One foot in, one foot out. “Fold it in half, tuck it away.”

“Hey,” he said softly.

She trailed her fingers up his arm, and he stilled. As though the movement cost him a great deal of effort, he took her hand and laid it on her chest, giving it a pat for good measure.

“Jake,” she whispered. “I think Seth is mad.”

“I’d say that’s an understatement. I’m not too thrilled either. What the hell, Sadie?”

“I was trying to fix everything.”

“This is not what I meant when I said you’d sacrifice anything,” he practically growled.

She thought about answering, about telling him she’d been trying to save Seth’s life, but the words were too thick and dull.

“Sadie,” he said, concern in his voice. Like it wasn’t the first time he’d said her name.

“I’m okay,” she said, closing her eyes. “I’m fine.” She sleepily wondered when that lie had gotten so easy to tell.

“My whole life, I’ve always felt like I was a step behind where I was supposed to be,” he said, and even though it seemed to come from nowhere, she listened. “When everything happened with Bethany I thought … hell. Get married. Have a kid. And even though something was missing, I knew I couldn’t put my own kid through a broken home. I wanted the happy ever after. I want to be a dad. But, when Seth called me”—he put his hand over his eyes and then pinched the bridge of his nose—“I almost lost it, Sade. You’re the love of my life.” His voice broke, and it sounded like waves crashing. Waves Sadie wanted to swim in. Let the undertow drag her down until she was suffocating with the beauty of it. But maybe that was the tea. “So, tell me,” he said after a beat, “what am I supposed to do here?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

“You always know.”

The front door opened.

“Raquel said she’s going to kill you too,” Seth said as he came back in, and as he did, Jake stood.

“I accept that,” Sadie said wanly, her heart still beating fast from Jake’s confession. “But can I go to sleep first?”

Seth looked to Jake.

“Wake her up every hour,” Jake said. “And I should go. I need to figure some stuff out. Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Thanks,” Seth said.

“No problem.”

After he left, Sadie couldn’t look at Seth. She was so tired. And didn’t want to be yelled at. But he surprised her by taking the place Jake had occupied next to her on the couch.

“I know you feel like you always need to do everything by yourself. And tomorrow I’m going to be so pissed at you. But for right now”—he cleared his throat—“I’m glad you’re okay. And Jake is suspicious, by the way. I think he wanted to pass this off as your grief over Gigi, but he knows something is up. I’m in no position to give advice, but I think you should tell him what’s going on. But don’t worry about that now. Just rest, okay?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, and it seemed a hollow sort of sentiment for what she really wanted to convey.

She closed her eyes, but the tears came anyway, silent and painful.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, taking her hand.

And she slipped into sleep.

Awhile later, after Seth had woken her twice, she heard the front door open and the family filter in, noisy but trying to be quiet as they saw Sadie asleep on the couch. She kept her eyes closed and listened as Seth told them in hushed tones that she had drunk too much and was sleeping it off. A moment later she felt a cool hand brush the hair off her face.

It wasn’t a familiar hand, which meant it was her mother’s, and the tears began to sting again. Her mother had changed the course of her life to make her children proud, and Sadie finally wondered if she was the type of person her mother could be proud of. The hand vanished, and aunts and uncle and mother dispersed.

“I only told Raquel,” Seth said quietly. “You can tell the others if you want.” He shrugged in the near darkness. “But I didn’t think it was my place.”