“You have to know,” Ava put in before I could process what Daisy said. “That what it is with these guys is different than what it is with other guys. It’s different than what it is with the kind of guy who would hurt you, either what that man did to you or how other men can tear you down. They come on strong because they are strong not because they’re jerks or anything.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “Okay.”
“Hector’s a good guy,” Jet told me and I looked at her.
It hit my drunken brain what they were saying and I felt my shields go up automatically.
“I know,” I replied.
“You have to let him in.” Daisy squeezed my hand.
Oh no.
Just.
No.
They didn’t get it. They probably couldn’t. They weren’t me.
There were two sides to this coin. The one side was me and the fact that Hector was likely too good for me. The other side was life as I knew it, that I couldn’t trust anyone and that nothing worked out for me, it couldn’t, I was who I was and I deserved whatever Hector had in store for me, using me then leaving me behind.
Maybe a girl who’d had friends, whose mother hadn’t been murdered while protecting her, whose father hadn’t kept her imprisoned in a beautiful mansion her whole life, a girl who hadn’t been brutally raped, could trust, could understand.
But that girl wasn’t me.
I couldn’t tell them any of that.
I wanted to.
But I couldn’t.
Because they wouldn’t get it.
“We’re okay,” Pretend Sadie promised on a smile.
They all stared at me.
“No, really,” I said.
“You’re holdin’ somethin’ back,” Daisy accused.
“No, I’m not,” I lied. I was drunk but not drunk enough to share. I’d done enough sharing. Sharing was only going to get me in deeper and I was deep enough as it was.
Ava looked at Daisy then at me. “You’ll want to run, to keep yourself safe. I know the feeling, we all do. Listen to the voices of experience and move beyond this faster than we did. It’s worth it, I promise.” I nodded but she got closer. “Seriously, Sadie, it’s worth it. I promise,” she repeated and I knew she knew that, the way Luke held her that night. And I was glad she had that, she was sweet.
But that was never going to happen for me.
I wanted it, more than anything in the world, to know Hector was putting his arms around me. But he wasn’t. There was no “me”. He was either putting his arms around “His Sadie”, a creature that didn’t exist, or his latest conquest.
Simple as that.
These were good women, they’d never been taught that lesson.
And I hoped they never learned.
I pulled in my lips and pretended to think about it.
Then I nodded.