Sadie (18+)

Chapter 17

a/n: i'm SO sorry this took so long. pls forgive me

Julia had told me a long time ago that Vincent hated his job. She also told me that he and Gina were high school sweethearts, and that they never fought.

One of those is a lie.

It was weeks after the trip; I started going home more, but only ever stayed long enough to let my mother know that I was okay. She was indifferent during our conversations, but I could live with that, baby steps and whatnot. If she seemed lonely, I stayed the night, but it was hard to tell with her.

I still preferred the Alessi household, even if Vincent and I had been avoiding each other. I started to get used to not seeing him, even prided myself with the fact that I'd managed to put an end to whatever relationship we had concocted. Sometimes at dinner when I had to see him, he held my gaze, or I held his, but it was never long enough to mean anything.

My mind sometimes wandered to the way his lips had felt on my neck, so desperate and passionate, but I got better at pushing it away. Was he doing the same, pushing it away?

Julia and I were doing our homework at the table while Gina cooked dinner, a gentle flurry just beyond the foggy windows. When Vincent came home from work, he was unusually quiet. He shook off his coat dotted with snowflakes and tossed his bag down, then walked over to the office and slammed the door shut, which halted Gina's cooking. An anxious expression contorted her face, her shoulders rigid as she joined Vincent in the other room.

Julia was oblivious; perhaps she wasn't observant enough to know when there was tension between her parents, or maybe they were good at hiding it. Either way, I sensed it immediately and had my own parents to thank for that. While the memories of my father were fuzzy, I never forgot the way the picture frames shook and rattled against the wall when he would slam the door, the same way they did just now.

While Julia continued her writing assignment, her fingers clacking against the keyboard of her laptop, I followed the muffled voices, hovering near the bathroom so that I had an escape route. I straightened a picture frame by the office door, a young, smiling Tony in his football uniform, Vincent next to him with an arm over his shoulder, a whistle around his neck.

This disagreement seemed as though it had started earlier today, maybe even before then. I couldn't make out the words very well, but some lines were clearer than others and indicated such: "You shouldn't be telling me where I can and can't go. You've never done it before."

"It's different lately, Vin. You haven't been yourself. There's other ways to deal with your awful boss and with all the stress you've been under I don't think—"

He harshly cut her off. "I'm way too tired for this. I don't tell you how to cope with your shit, do I? And I'm not an alcoholic, Gina."

Ouch. I wanted to stay and listen more, but I retreated back into the kitchen and quickly shut Julia's laptop. She looked up at me, her brown eyes slightly bloodshot from staring at the screen. "Hey! I wasn't done."

"Let's go upstairs, Jules," I said quietly, putting a finger to my lips so she knew to lower her voice.

Her eyebrows immediately pulled together, concern outlining her face. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I said, feigning a normal composure as though I hadn't just heard her parents arguing. "Let's just finish our homework upstairs."

Even though I've committed the kind of act that will surely ruin her life if she were to find out, I still felt the need to protect her from this. Hearing your parents fight, especially for the first time, is a different, helpless kind of pain that I didn't want Julia to experience. Not to mention I would be invading their privacy by sticking around for when they come back out. I obviously wasn't meant to hear any of their arguing at all, but of course I had to be nosy like the inappropriate house guest that I was.

Julia had insisted more than once that they always got along, and I used to believe it—who wouldn't? They were always laughing, always intimate and sweet with each other, but I was starting to think that there was much more going on behind the scenes, and maybe there always have been.

On our way up the stairs, Julia got a quick earful, and her pained expression put a knife through my heart. I threw an arm over her shoulder and kept her close as we retreated to her bedroom.

"I've never heard Dad so mad before," she said, hugging a pillow to her chest, her legs crisscrossed on the bed. "It's kind of scary."

"Men always sound scary when they're mad," I said, shrugging. "But I promise you Jules, you've got a good father. He's just upset about work, I'm sure. You said his boss was a dick, right?"

She nodded. "He is. Dad's the best they've got and they take it for granted at that stupid company."

"What does he do, again?" I asked.

"Something with accounting," she replied, using her sleeve to wipe a tear from her cheek. "Really boring. He always talks about how he wishes he went with something that involved nature, like a park ranger."

I smiled to myself, but only for a moment. "I can see him doing that."

We shut the light and held each other for a while. My heart was doing all kinds of twisting and turning as Julia lay beside me sniffling. Dusk crept by slowly, the sky swirled with a faded orange, the thin blanket of snow shadowed from the sinking sun.

Gina called us for dinner soon after. We cautiously made our way downstairs as though the house and everything in it were made of glass. Vincent was there, brooding, lips set in a thin line, one hand massaging his temple while Gina made up our plates.

He asked Julia how school was, but the forced conversation faded from a lack of enthusiasm on both ends.

Dinner was insufferable and beyond uncomfortable. Nobody spoke, the only noise being the scraping of silverware on plates. Julia sensed this, too—we texted from under the table and agreed that they needed some privacy and I should come back tomorrow. I shoveled forkfuls of sausage and peppers into my mouth, then excused myself from the table, thanking Gina for dinner, as I always did. I put a hand on Julia's shoulder and squeezed before leaving.

The walk to my car in the driveway was insignificant until I heard a set of keys jingling from behind me. I whipped around to find Vincent pulling them out of his pocket and walking down the front steps.

"Where are you going?" I asked aloud, confused.

He stopped in front of his car, then directly spoke to me for the first time in weeks. "I'm going to the bar. Do you want to come?"

I was frozen in my spot like a deer in a headlight. This wasn't like him, to ask such a bold question, to initiate what we both know is dangerous territory.

But the worst part of it all? I imagined Gina and Julia still sitting at the table and staring at his empty spot, a clear indication that something was really wrong. To leave the house so impulsively was deeply alarming and entirely uncharacteristic of him—even I knew that.

The driveway was dimly lit, but I could just make out the deeply set eye bags and disheveled hair that could only look good on him. I looked back and forth between Vincent and the front of the house, my heart thumping wildly. I mulled over this decision, undecided like a compass with a broken arrow, flickering, flickering.

"I probably shouldn't," I said. "And my car's here."

He nodded, then ducked into his car, seemingly unbothered. I felt my heart sinking into my stomach at the realization that I had turned him down when I wanted nothing more than to do the opposite.

It all came flooding back to me like an addict using again after being clean—that afternoon in the car where I'd felt his length pulsating beneath my fingertips, his stubble scratchy against my skin, his hands on my waist, his lips on my neck.

When he began to back out of the driveway, I ran up to the passenger side and knocked on the window. He rolled it down, perplexed, an eyebrow raised.

"I'll follow you," I said.