For them. For you. For me.
This is Sadie.
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“Shit,” Paul whispered angrily to himself as he ducked behind a column. People walking by looked at him and were confused by his behavior. Paul uncomfortably smiled a smile of “excuse me” at some and gave an angry look of “mind your own business” to others. After a few seconds, when he felt it safe to do so, he peered around the column. The girl he was following was gone.
“Shit,” he said again, though this time it was more out of frustration.
The shopping mall was a relic of a time before the internet made the entire world a department store and reduced shopping to a web address and a simple click. These days (at least on a day like today) it wasn’t the case. There was a good amount of traffic flowing in all directions. And it wasn’t even a holiday.
Paul made his way through the crowd frantically looking for the dark haired girl like a parent desperate to find their lost child. He looked into several stores and into seating nooks. Nothing. He even walked into several restaurants to see if she went in to have a meal. Still nothing.
Paul, visibly irritated and cursing under his breath, drew the ire of some parents with little children. They gave him angry looks as they hurried their children away from the man spewing language that they were not yet ready to hear with their tiny, virgin ears.
“Paul?” a voice, inquisitive and tangible in tone that it felt like a tap on the shoulder, broke his attention.
Spinning around he was greeted by a familiar, though much more mature, face that he hadn’t seen in nearly two decades. He immediately fell into her dark brown eyes and was transported to another time.
“Sadie,” was all he could say.
Sadie could be stunningly attractive and still disappear into the crowd. She wore her hair, straight and a dark chocolate brown, very simply. She kept her clothes, devoid of wild patterns or colors, basic. Her makeup—if she used any at all—was minimal. She didn’t call for attention but somehow naturally commanded it. She certainly commanded Paul’s attention. There was an “it” to her that he couldn’t ignore.
Though they had known each other since kindergarten, it wasn’t until middle school when Paul actually knew he had feelings for her. That entire period he said maybe thirteen words to her. But when you leave elementary and enter middle school, you enter a maturation process. Paul found himself attracted to Sadie. Each day of school he looked forward to seeing her. He knew her schedule and the very hallways and intersections of the school where he would see her depending on the period. Five of their six classes were within several classrooms of one another. He would race out of his class to catch a glimpse of her, even if it was just seconds in passing. They would be only one, maybe two students apart and yet to Paul the gulf between them felt much greater. Walking home he’d imagine scenarios in his head where he would suavely approach her with a smoldering frown that would cause her to fall madly in love with him. Or there would be the heroic moment where he would swoop in and rescue her from some danger. Paul could imagine quite a bit.
When they entered high school as freshmen, Paul summoned enough courage to at least speak to her. In truth, it was just a few words here and there. Or, sadly, it was at an unavoidable moment mumbling, “Excuse me” to avoid bumping into her as they passed each other in the hall. Then in sophomore year he finally decided to just talk to her. It came in Chemistry when they had a substitute. He asked her to tutor him.
“You’re passing and I’m lost,” he pleaded with her. She looked at him with an expression that he took to be of disgust when in reality she was just caught off guard by the suddenness of his ask.
“I can pay you,” he quickly followed up.
“It’s not necessary,” Sadie said softly.
“Well, then I’ll make you lunch,” Paul replied. He had seen it in some romcom movie. To this day Paul swears he caught a glimpse of joy in her face when she accepted his invite.
She came over on a Saturday morning. Paul, standing in front of a bathroom mirror, scrutinized the position of every hair on his head and practiced several stances to find one that exuded confidence. When Sadie knocked on the door, Paul sprinted to answer but was beaten by his mom. The door swung open and Sadie stood there innocently with a gray backpack slung over her shoulder. Paul was in genuine awe. His mom noticed and smiled warmly. She let them get to work in his room but the door had to stay open. It was an odd requirement since they truly had no intention of doing anything that would require them to keep the door closed and keep their activities away from overly inquisitive parents.
After a few introductions and small talk about school, they studied from 10 am to 11:30 am then broke for lunch. During lunch they ate tomato soup and grilled cheese. The soup was from a family recipe on his mom’s side. He would make it with her on rainy days and so was adept at cooking it himself. Paul also made the grilled cheese, choosing to use Gouda instead of the standard yellow American. Sadie seemed to genuinely enjoy the meal. They spoke very little aside from small talk about school. They returned to studying until about 2 when Sadie’s phone alarm (oddly to the tune of Pop Goes The Weasel) alerted that it was time to go. They stood outside waiting for her father, exchanging nothing but small talk about school. They made very little eye contact, typical of two awkward teens unsure of what to do and say. When her father pulled up, Paul thanked Sadie profusely. And just like that, their time had ended.
Now Sadie looked at Paul with an expression of shock and annoyance. She looked the same but different. It was like a newer version of her that he found to be greater than the one he had last known.
“Why are you following me?” she asked.
Paul felt the sweat pool in his underarms, on his forehead, and on the lower part of his back.
“I was—well, I’m here—in the mall to get something and I see you from far away and I’m like, ‘Hey I know her!’ and then like, ‘Hey that’s Sadie!’ and I was trying to catch up but—” Paul was a mess.
Sadie’s lips tightened into a thin straight line, which Paul interpreted to mean she didn’t buy any of his bullshit. And it was obvious that he was trying to serve her bullshit.
“You’ve been following me for the last hour,” she said calmly.
During that hour Paul was debating how he would approach her and what exactly he was going to say. In the hour prior he sat in his car looking at the list John had given him, also wondering the same thing. He couldn’t tell her that he knew that every Saturday and Sunday from about 10 am to 1 pm she would come to the mall and just walk. Instead, he fumbled with his explanation and looked completely guilty…of something.
“Why are you back in Florida?” she asked, her voice soft and innocent but forceful.
“Well, I came to the mall—” he began.
“—you came all the way to Florida to go to a mall?” Again, it was soft and innocent and forceful, but now also skeptical.
“I know, right?” Paul continued through a nervous laugh.
“No, I don’t know,” Sadie replied, soft, innocent, forceful, skeptical, and, now, annoyed. Remarkably, this whole time she didn’t look at all upset. Sadie looked as if she was really trying to make sense of it all
“It was a coincidence that—” Paul pressed on.
“—yesterday, when I first saw you following me, you could probably say it was coincidence—” Fuck, Paul cursed to himself. “—but today you’re following me again and it’s kind of…unsettling.”
Sadie’s expression—pure and genuine—was asking for a truthful answer from someone she hadn’t seen in almost 20 years. Paul felt ashamed. He slumped his shoulders and set out a long exhale of a breath as if to tell her that he was hoisting a white flag in surrender.
“Ok, look, I did follow you—” he began.
“We’ve established that I know you were following me yesterday and as well as today,” she said, in a tone that was soft, innocent, forceful, skeptical, annoyed, and, now, impatient.
“Yes,” Paul sighed. He needed to reset. “Can we go somewhere to talk?”
Sadie sized him up. Paul was wondering what she could be thinking. Perhaps it was about how some guy who she hadn’t seen in almost two decades and had been following her for two days was now asking to sit with her. Paul wouldn’t have been surprised if she had a stun gun in her purse at the ready. It would be much later that she would reveal that she indeed did have a stun gun in her purse.
Feeling safe, Sadie agreed to sit with him. She chose the food court, which was bustling with shoppers who were on break from buying and had shifted to eating. They were sandwiched between a harried mother trying to get each of her three kids to eat and behave and an old man who was taking the longest time to put each spoonful of mac and cheese into his mouth.
“So you’re here because of John.” Sadie wasn’t asking, she was telling. Paul was taken aback. “He’s…gone, I guess.”
The last part Paul couldn’t tell if she was asking or stating. Regardless, her previous tones were gone and it was now one of sadness.
“He helped me through a difficult period in my life.”
After high school Sadie attended the University of Florida and met a guy. She gave no name, only that he was a “guy”. Paul noticed that the moment she recalled this “guy”, Sadie almost unnoticeably shivered from the memories before immediately composing herself. She described it as a whirlwind romance. She dropped out of school and left the State with him in his beat up white Mustang. She should’ve known he was trouble when she saw the “Will Work For Beer” bumper sticker he proudly displayed. They bounced from Atlanta to Wilmington to Pittsburgh, and finally to Cleveland. He couldn’t find work and always thought that the next city was going to be the one that had a permanent job for him. The “guy” wasn’t ever fortunate to find that job. Though without a degree, Sadie was good with math and used what she knew from the two years of a four year accounting program to get bookkeeping work at every stop they made. She even worked part time as a cashier, a hostess, a waitress, or a dog walker. The money she made kept them sheltered, clothed, and fed. It also paid for his drinking. When the “guy” wasn’t blaming her for all that was wrong in his life, he would essentially rape her and physically and emotionally abuse her. Somehow, she found a way to escape and return to Florida. The last time she saw the “guy”, he was passed out on the couch with a bottle of Bud Light in his hand. Sadie had that image etched in her mind forever. The “guy” died when he hit another car carrying a mother and young son. Sadie was notified when a police officer found her name in his phone. She was the only name in his phone. Sadie had nothing of the “guy” other than a ring he had given her. As a form of burial, she had the ring melted (it wasn’t gold despite what he protested) into a coin and tossed it into a landfill. That chapter was closed but it would still be in the book of her life.
Paul was amazed that as Sadie recounted her story, she never once looked away from him. There wasn’t any shame. In her eyes, posture, and tone, Paul saw poise and strength.
Sadie made her way back to school, transferring her credits to a local college and graduating with a degree in accounting. She worked at a small accounting firm in Boca Raton—a job that John helped her get—where she became an exemplary employee. When not working, Sadie saw a therapist and took part in a support group for women who were victims of physical and sexual abuse.
The weekends were the hardest. With no work to occupy her mind, the “guy” would return to her thoughts and invade her dreams. She tried volunteering and found a local dog shelter that a former classmate, Randy, had recommended. It was a branch of the shelter he was fond of near his South Carolina home. The busy work was rewarding, but it didn’t help in the way she thought it would. One weekend she decided to go to the mall. She’d just walk, sometimes get an ice cream, and people watch. Mostly she just walked. The noise of conversations, shopping bags rubbing against one another, and footsteps on the faux marble floor were of comfort. She realized it actually worked. And so every weekend she would walk the mall, sometimes get ice cream, and people watch.
“It’s another way to not feel so alone,” Sadie explained, as she smiled at the woman and her three children and at the old man who was finally finishing his mac and cheese. Both parties were oblivious to the two of them and carried on with whatever they were doing.
“So, how did you know about John?” Paul asked.
“We talked. We texted. You just know,” was all she said. Paul understood.
Then there was that awkward silence. The entire food court seemed to go mute.
“So, it’s been a while,” was all that Paul could offer. Sadie nodded in agreement.
The last time they saw one another was at the high school reunion. Paul made a quick lap around the hotel ballroom and left. He had somewhere more important to be.
“I thought you saw me,” Sadie said. Paul did.
“And I thought you were going to come over.” Paul didn’t.
“What I remember was that you were in such a hurry.” Paul was.
“Then the last thing I saw was the back of your head as you left,” she concluded, softly laughing.
Paul tried to laugh along with her. It wasn’t working.
“So, what is this, Paul?” Sadie asked pointedly.
This time he had an answer. But for some reason, he, a man of 42 who had been to so many places and experienced so many things that more than half of the people in the world would never, reverted to his 16 year-old self. Paul felt as if he was actually shrinking in his seat.
“I thought it’d be nice to see you,” Paul offered weakly.
Sadie looked back at him. Her dark brown eyes expressed a lot. This time they were of pain.
“It would be ‘nice’ to see me?” Sadie asked. Paul knew it was never good if someone repeated your words back to you. He immediately squirmed in the flimsy plastic food court chair.
At that moment, Sadie’s eyes began to tear. And for the first time she had to look away from him. Paul’s heart sank. Hurting her again wasn’t his intention.
It was their senior year. The relationship between Paul and Sadie had slowly grown from that time when she tutored him in Chemistry at his home where the non-Chemistry talk they talked were the small exchanges about school. They would study together several more times in their sophomore year. Once at his house, a couple times at hers, and a few times at the library. The student to student relationship became friend to friend during their junior year. Sure they talked about school and classwork, but it did expand into more typical teenager chit chat. Who dated who. What teachers were great or terrible. Where the best food was in town.
Paul began to open up to her in a way that he had never done with anyone. In turn, Sadie loved his vulnerability. She found it refreshing. He was different. She looked at Paul as the first person she had ever been attracted to. Though many had asked her out (she never accepted) she never seriously considered any of them. Paul would be the first. But he would have to take the first step. Her father had taught her that it was the measure of a man to be able to take the first step. And so Sadie waited. Fortunately, she didn’t have to wait long.
Stuttering and nervous, Paul asked her out to dinner. They had coffee, lunch, and dessert together many times before but this was different. It was dinner at a local restaurant on the budget of a high school student. But this time they had a truly meaningful conversation. Sadie dreamed of traveling to Italy. Paul talked about movies. Sadie spoke of writing a book. Paul wanted to start a business. They both talked about family. The time flew and the night had to end. Standing at her doorstep under the warm glow of a porch light, Paul took his chance. He leaned in and kissed Sadie. She responded by wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him closer. As they both withdrew and looked into each other’s eyes, it was as if they were thinking the very same thing: the kiss was years in the making. Sadie smiled warmly and bid him good night, disappearing into her house.
The days, weeks, and months that followed were the greatest of Paul’s life. Judging by Sadie’s smiles and laughter whenever they were together, they were the greatest of her life at that point, too. Their casual moments turned intimate. They talked of a future that saw them beyond high school and college and into their retirement age. Sadie was happy. Paul was happy.
Eventually, graduation was upon them. They had already decided where they would go to college and unfortunately it was not the same school. Because they had both been accepted to the same schools, they took turns trying to convince the other to go to the university of their choice. It didn’t work.
Enter John. He was constantly in Paul’s ear about reconsidering his decision.
“You’re running away,” John said to Paul, who was confused. “Why else would you choose to go to NYU and not UF with the one girl you’ve ever been in love with?”
“You wouldn’t know,” Paul snapped.
“If you’d fucking tell me I would,” John came back at him. “Hell, an explanation like I was a five year old would be acceptable.”
Paul was angry but didn’t once share why. In the months that he dated Sadie, he watched as she and John became rather close. Oftentimes, he was the third wheel. It didn’t bother him much because John was the kind of person who connected with anyone and everyone. But something in the back of his head kept telling him different. It started as a whisper and continued to grow. He would try his best to not let those thoughts consume him. But they did. Yet Paul never said anything to John or Sadie. He would simply let the jealousy get the better of him.
Graduation wasn't the happiest moment for either Sadie or Paul. The last time they would see each other wouldn’t be for another couple days. Graduation was simply the point where their paths would officially diverge. Paul decided to get acclimated to the city much sooner than his Fall Semester start date. He bid his parents good-bye and hopped into his car and headed to see Sadie. Very little was said between the two other than well wishes and the cursory, “Let’s stay in touch”. Neither addressed the primary issue of their relationship. Sadie waited. She thought of her father’s advice when she knew Paul was on the cusp of asking her out. This was the measure of a man to take the first step. Paul did not. Sadie anxiously waited as they held several moments of uncomfortable silence. She was met only with disappointment. For Paul, he wanted to explain himself, but he couldn’t. And he didn’t. Instead, he gave Sadie a tiny kiss on the cheek (the kind you would give to a younger relative you only see during holidays) and jumped into his car.
“The last thing I saw was the back of your head as you drove off,” Sadie said somberly.
Paul tried to distract himself from the embarrassment of how he acted and how he treated Sadie. His actions, though not at all physically deplorable as the “guy”, was no less painful. He nervously looked around the food court and noticed that many diners had left. The lunch rush was over. They were somewhat alone.
“I used to read our texts when you were up in NYU,” Sadie said in a near whisper. “But I had to change my number and get a new phone when I left him. John helped me get all that in order.”
Back to John. Paul couldn’t believe that despite the death of his friend and now being reunited with who he considered the love of his life, he was still holding onto that jealousy. The years of suppressing those feelings were coming back to the surface.
“Good ol’ John,” Paul mumbled sarcastically. He tried to say it under his breath but loud enough for Sadie to hear. She did, looking at him with a confused expression.
“You know, it was because of John that I was able to get away. I ran into him in Cleveland. He was there for something—I don't know. He recognized me immediately. I guess I didn’t look so good and he asked me why. I just let it all out. Next thing I know he’s purchased me a plane ticket, $500, and reservations under a fake name at a hotel his friend managed.”
Paul couldn’t believe it. Even though he knew his friend was a good guy, John’s acts of kindness still surprised him.
“I lived in that hotel room for about a month. Only John and my dad knew. Said it was just to make sure that I was safe from, you know, him. John knew he’d try to find me at my dad’s and probably do something. But then he died so then I had nothing to worry about.”
Paul felt more shame. How could he feel or think negatively about his friend?
“I was jealous of you and John.” It just came out of Paul’s mouth. He felt tremendous relief. Sadie shook her head as if she didn’t hear him properly. And so he said it again, “I was jealous of you and John.”
Sadie took a deep breath.
“There was nothing between me and John that wasn’t the same as between you and John,” she told Paul. Looking into her tear-soaked eyes, he believed her.
“Sorry,” he explained. “I was young, you know?”
There was another shared silence between them.
“So, what is this, Paul?” Sadie asked again.
This time Paul didn’t hold back.
“I never stopped loving you,” he declared proudly. “And this? This is me getting a second chance with you. I was consumed with—it doesn't matter—something that ruined the one person I loved.”
Sadie slowly straightened upright. Her face had become clearer as the sadness receded like a passing storm.
“You didn’t ruin me,” she replied. “I’m still here.”
“If I’d done what I was supposed to, we wouldn’t have to—you wouldn’t have had to go through what you went through.” At this moment, the tears were streaming down Paul’s face. “We could’ve been happily ever after.”
Sadie took Paul’s face into her hands and wiped the tears.
“We can still be.”
Paul wrapped his arms around Sadie and pulled her tightly against him. It was as much to keep her from going as it was to protect her from anything that could do her harm. Sadie nestled herself in his arms and for the first time, in a very long time, she felt safe.
After the long embrace they slowly pulled away and composed themselves. Though it felt fresh and new, this wasn’t a restart but a continuation of the relationship they were supposed to have.
“You know the first time I knew I loved you? That grilled cheese. You could’ve just had your mom do it or made something else. But you took the time to make it for me and it showed me you cared.”
“The first time?” Paul asked.
“The second time was when I saw you following me.” They both laughed.
Paul slowly rose and took Sadie’s hand into hers. He smiled down on her warmly.
“Let’s see where we can get you a grilled cheese.”
The two began to walk off. Like in previous times, Sadie saw the back of Paul’s head. This time, however, he held her hand and wherever they went, it would be together.
To be continued.