Mess You Made

I walk inside mine and Sadie's house.

Everything was dark. I had to stop myself from tripping over the side table near the door. I hiss when my toe stubs against it. I feel around for the switch and flip the kitchen light on.

It was quiet. I couldn't hear anything. Is she asleep upstairs? I see a small, ripped piece of paper beside my foot as I look down. My brows scrunch. I glance around, finding an envelope on the side table I had just broken my big toe on. I pick it up, my eyes widening a bit as I see the front read Jack. I felt my entire mouth go dry.

"Sadie?" I call out, my heart pounding.

It's only been two days since the rehearsal dinner. She has to be here, she has to be running out to meet me. She has to be ready to explain everything. After a lengthy conversation with my mom, I knew I needed to hear her side of the story.

"Sadie?" I call again, scenarios of her lack of answer starting to pulse in my brain.

I look back down at the letter in my hands, my fingers itching to open it. "No," I murmur, squeezing my eyes shut and shaking my head. "She didn't leave. She couldn't have."

But everything was telling me that she did.

Finally, after taking a few deep breaths, I rip open the envelope. I pull out a piece of paper, my eyes watering as I unfold it, my heart breaking at the sight of her long penmanship. I could see a few drops here and there, dried, but tears nonetheless. I felt as if someone had reached down my throat and cut up every single one of my vital organs. This isn't how I wanted things between us. I need her to come back so we can make this right.

I finally suck down my humiliation and anger and everything and force my eyes to scan over the words. The first line made my knees go weak, shaking like jelly.

Dear Jack,

First off, I know you hate me.

No, no, no. I don't hate you, Sadie. I could never hate you. Yes, I am so angry that it's like white hot rage, but that doesn't mean I hate you. I just want to know why you did this. I can't even begin to fathom what's going on...

Well, I think hate could be a strong word, but then I remember what I did and I truly believe you hate me. It's not like I meant for this to happen. I never wanted it to. It's like I was balancing on the edge of a cliff and suddenly a strong wind hit me and I was tipped off, spiraling through the air with nothing to grab onto. Something like that.

I should probably start at the beginning. Which takes us back two years, to when you first introduced me to your friends. I feel like that day was the last day of 'Sadie and Jack'.

After that, it became 'Sadie and Jack and everyone else'.

Why didn't she ever just tell me this?

Don't get me wrong; I didn't fall in love with Alex the moment I saw him. I did have that reaction that most girls have whenever they see him for the first time, but I didn't want to fall to my knees and proclaim my love for him. Regardless, as I continued to get to know him, I fell deeper and deeper into the abyss of Alex and I couldn't swim my way out no matter how hard I tried. And that is something I will regret for the rest of my life.

Now, I was never going to act on these weird feelings for him. I was with you, which was what I wanted, and he eventually found Rein along the way. But then, as if by some awful punishment from God, everything began to fall apart.

When I first found out about their engagement, I was torn apart.

I felt salt on my tongue and I wipe at my face, my hand coming back wet with my tears. I sink my upper teeth in my bottom lip. Why is she doing this to me?

I never thought Alex settling down would affect me so bad. I wanted to settle down with you so it shouldn't have hit me so hard like a car crash. But when he told me that day he had proposed, and that she had said yes, my world came crashing down.

I am not telling you this to hurt you, Jack. I am telling you this because you need to hear my side of the story.

Mission not accomplished. I'm more hurt than she could ever imagine. She's loved Alex for two fucking years? How could she have kept up that facade for so long?

And then, do you remember the night I left because I had some problem at work, and I never returned home and told you that I spent that night at a co-worker's after having had too much Jack Daniels? Yes, well...that was a lie. I wasn't at a co-workers. Instead of going to solve a problem at work, I had gone to pick up a drunk Alex at the bar. I broke him out a fight before driving him home, where Rein was absent since the two had had a fight.

I took him up to his room and attended to seeing him to bed before trying to leave. But then he asked me to stay with him. It was everything I felt like I'd wanted for so long, you know? I hated myself for feeling my heart lift at sleeping in the same bed with him. So, being the idiot that I am, I said yes. And I stayed the night with him.

Remember this: he was drunk. We didn't have sex.

At this, I felt livid. I can understand the fact that Alex was drunk. I've had...my own fair share of drunken mistakes, but for Sadie to say yes? Instead of returning home to me where I had been worried sick about her? I couldn't believe it.

The next morning is when he first confessed to having feelings for me.

I guess you could say that started the affair. I don't like that word though. Affair. We kissed that morning for the first time. But I left, I promise. He can vouch for that. And then, the night of the hometown show, I left the venue early. Alex followed me back to our house.

That was the first, and only time, we slept together.

This hit me like someone had shot me in the chest. I fell to the floor, my knees banging painfully against the tile of my kitchen. I knew they'd slept together, but to see her confessing it, in print, made it so much more believable. I guess a very small part of me had hoped they hadn't slept together. But I guess it was true.

That may be hard to believe, but it's the truth. We only slept together once. Which really doesn't make my cheating any better, because there were many, many kisses. And that's still cheating.

And then the next morning is when you proposed. I promise, we broke off the affair. I avoided him the entire month after that. I didn't see him until that lunch at Applebee's when we first announced our engagement. We stopped everything because we knew we had screwed ourselves more than we should have.

That's a fucking understatement.

Jack, I never meant to hurt you.

I never meant for everything to go how it did. I never thought anything with Alex would happen. I just had those forbidden feelings for him, which is unfair to you since I was with you the entire time I had those feelings. And I can't even begin to explain how awful I feel for dragging you along when I knew my heart belonged to someone else. Someone else who didn't even know they held my heart. And it's my fault that it's like that. I loved you Jack, but not in the way I needed to. You were never mine even when you thought you were.

All oxygen left my body and my vision goes black around the edges. I try to keep hold of my reality long enough to finish the letter, the last words scribbled carelessly like she had been in a hurry.

You deserve someone so much better than me. Someone who won't fall for your best friend. Someone who can stay with you through everything. I know you can move on from me. I'm nothing special and I wasted two years of your life. I can't apologize enough.

Maybe we were just never meant to be together. Maybe we were.

But for now, you need to find your someone. I lost mine, and I have to deal with those consequences.

Sincerely,
Sadie.