Sadie, Someday...

Chapter 2 - More Than You'll Ever Know

Chapter 2

More Than You’ll Ever Know

A/N - Picture on the side is of the GORGEOUS Caden Grange (;

"I'm not the one that you want, I'll only let you down, And I'm pretty sure that you've caught on, And you can say that 'Oh, I'm just feeling sorry for myself,'" ~ Intensity In Ten Cities - Chiodos

I woke up the next morning with an arm tightly wrapped around my waist. When I opened my eyes, his chest was right there, just a few mere centimeters away from my nose. I breathed him in, reminding myself that this was the reason I was sticking around. We couldn’t fight this without each other.

“Mm, I always tell you that’s creepy,” Caden murmured, casting those gorgeous eyes down on mine.

“What is?” I asked, feigning innocence as my eyes traced the outline of every muscle on his arms and chest. His navy blue t-shirt was stretched taut against his hard chest and I found myself running a finger against every line.

“Watching me like that,” he whispered, watching my fingers move against his now hardened abs.

“It’s not creepy. It’s curiosity,” I retorted, stopping my movements as his grip tightened around my middle. This caused me to look up at him beneath my lashes and give him my full attention. “What?”

He stared at me longingly for a moment, his luscious locks standing up in different angles. “Nothing,” he sighed. “Just like knowing that you’re here, right here,” he said, squeezing me again.

Waking up like this was nothing out of the ordinary for Caden and me. The night owl visits on the fire escape and the talks at my window were just routine now. I used to suffer from panicked nightmares, the kind that woke you up in a cold sweat as your lungs felt trapped beneath the sheets. I confessed to him one random night the fear that flew through me those nights, and he’s been staying each night ever since. He always says that we help each other sleep, that he can’t obtain even a wink without me in his arms.

I questioned this a lot, wondered if the words he told me were true. If he couldn’t sleep all those years, why didn’t he tell me sooner? I could have helped him like he’s helped me so many times in these past years. Maybe he was just saying that so I wouldn’t feel so bad about keeping him out of his bed every night. Maybe he really did like me waking up in his arms. I would never know, but my mind still ate away at my self confidence. It always reminded me that Caden probably did everything for me because he felt sorry for me, because I was the girl whose parents didn’t care whether she was living or dead. I was the girl who hid her face behind locker doors and in bathroom stalls everyday. I’m the girl who can’t stray away from the blade, who can’t keep her thoughts and whispers in her head in order.

Who would want to deal with all of that?

“Fresh one, huh?” he asked, his voice thick with hurt and sometimes what I detected as disgust. His thick, calloused finger traced the line of dried blood I’d left on my arm just hours before he showed up last night.

“Stop, Cade,” I urged, pulling down my sweatshirt sleeve and trapping the end beneath a tight fist.

He sighed heavily as I caught the last bit of him rolling his eyes at me. “So you can stare at mine for hours on end without my saying a word…” he trailed off, taking a deep breath. “But when I even point out yours, it’s this big secret. I thought we didn’t have secrets,” he stated, running his fingers lightly on the skin left exposed on my back.

“We don’t,” I said softly, keeping my eyes fixated on his chest.

He was right, that I treated my scars like they were government secrets. I couldn’t help watching Caden’s scars whenever he was around. They reminded me that what I was doing to myself, that the chaos apparent in my mind day after day…wasn’t so odd. If a perfect boy like Caden Grange had scars with secrets left behind the curtain of them, it wasn’t so weird that I was doing it to myself. His scars gave me the smallest shred of hope that everything I was going through, what my mind was putting me through, might eventually come to a pause. I could get on with my life and not have to think back to the time when my parents could care less and the whispers in my head were all I could hear.