Mid October. 2016

Leaving Phoenix hurt. It did. That was why I chose to do it when he was sleeping. His arm draped across me, his other bicep under his head. I felt like the weakest piece of shit in the world when I blew him one last kiss and snuck out of the room, tears streaming down my face.

Finding out that we'd been engaged sealed the deal for me. We were at different places in how we felt about each other and while I felt bad for leaving someone who loved me so much, I couldn't wrap my head around how different our perspectives were.

I thought I was fine with where we were in our relationship. I thought I'd adjusted to the situation but the truth bomb was too much and the revelation made my head spin. I needed some time to think and figure out if this was something I could accept for what it was or if I needed a clean break.

Ash didn't give me shit when I arrived at her room and I told her I needed to hang out until it was time to leave. She didn't waste time and started packing up as soon as I told her what had happened. When Phoenix woke up and found me missing, he'd tear the place apart looking for me. Ash knew that and wanted to get me out of there as soon as possible. That meant a lot to me, that she knew I couldn't cope with his pleading right now.

I couldn't cope with him falling to his knees in front of me again. The memory of his broad shoulders below me, his large hands holding me at the back of the thighs, it was all too much. I'd been so close to caving under his touch last night, so close to getting on the ground as well and begging him to love me like he knew how to so well. I couldn't risk that kind of weakness right now.

In Vancouver, on the drive home, I silenced my phone because it hadn't stopped ringing as soon as I got off the plane. The guilt of leaving Phoenix like that, no answers, no explanation, it was eating at me. But I needed time to come terms with this apparent engagement and whether being together was something we could make work.

Lottie was at Jason's this weekend and the house was quiet when I went inside, bag rolling behind me. I propped it up on it's feet behind the entrance table and took a deep breath. Perhaps I could come at Sadie with some semblance of understanding and calm instead of going off the handle like my temper was begging me to do.

There were a few light thuds coming from the end of the hall, so I toed off my shoes and went in the direction of Lottie's bedroom where I found Sadie. She was standing on a ladder, hammering picture hooks into narrow strip of wall beside the closet and window. On the bed were frames with watercolor art animals in them.

"Hi," I said.

Sadie looked over her shoulder and smiled when she found me leaning on the door frame. "You're back. How was it? I'm just doing a little bit of redecorating before Lottie comes home tomorrow."

"I'm engaged."

Sadie's shoulders went rigid, her arm fell to her side, the hammer hanging from her hand.

Exhaling a deep breath, I went for calm and collected. "You have to stop keeping things like that from me."

The room was quiet, so much so that the noise of traffic outside filled in the gaps. I wasn't sure what Sadie was thinking, if it were guilt or regret, but my hopes that she'd understand vanished as she stepped down from the stool and turned to face me with a flat, remorseless stare.

"I won't apologize for doing what I thought was best. It was too much, too soon."

"Nope," I said, that simmering anger starting to surface. "You should've told me from the get go. As soon as I met him. It should all have been laid out. I asked, didn't I? I wanted the truth."

Sadie swung her arm, tossing the hammer onto Lottie's pink and white comforter. "You barely coped after the head injury. Every new piece of information made you reel. You were a shell, you couldn—"

"If I was a shell," I shouted, taking another step into the room. "It was because I didn't know who I was and I had no information to start building on. All I had, was whatever you decided I should be drip fed. You don't have the right to withhold details of my life from me and I've had enough."

Sadie scoffed, propping a hand on her hip and shaking her head in a pose I recognized well. She knew I was right and she was never going to admit it. She'd stand here and tell me I was insane, she'd tell me I'm ungrateful, she'd tell me I don't know what I'm talking about.

My teeth ground hard as I fought the little pulsing tick in my temple. "Finding out that I was engaged from the beginning might have been shocking but I had a right to know."

Now, she did look at me, a hardness turning her brows in. "You didn't even know how how to deal with the fact that you were in a relationship. It was all I heard about. 'I don't know how to be with him, I don't know how to get over the fact that he loves me.' Whine, whine, whine. You really think you'd have known how to deal with being engaged?"

"No," I shouted. "I'm not saying I would've known how to handle it, I'm saying I had the right to know about it."

Sadie threw up her hands and laughed, a cruel, mean laugh as she stormed past me and out into the corridor. Sadie and I had been fighting our entire lives and she'd done this part for as long as I could remember. Walking. Hiding. She didn't want to get into it, so she disappeared.

Too bad, not this time. Following her down the corridor and into the kitchen, I noted the candle flickering on the narrow cabinet beside her egg chair, the glass of wine on the kitchen bench, her crafts scattered on the big oak table. Our footsteps echoed in the big open space, the tall ceiling dragging the sound into it's slats.

"Just admit you were wrong," I pressed, watching Sadie rip open the dishwasher, steam came billowing out of it and then she moved onto the sink and started rinsing plates and cups. "Admit you should've handled things different."

She didn't look at me when she answered, voice almost muffled by the strong stream of the faucet. "What would that achieve? What's done is done."

"I'd at least know you understand where I'm coming from."

The plate clattered on the stainless steel lip of bench as she dropped it and smacked off the faucet. "I don't know where you're coming from. I don't. I did what I thought was best. What I thought my sister could handle. I was looking out for you. Just like you have always looked out for me."

Deep down, there was a pang of understanding at her vulnerable statement. But it was quiet enough that I could push it aside for now. At least until I was done with my point. "You might seem older because my brain has decided to revert to a different time in my life. But even when I was twenty-two, I could look out for myself. I knew what was best for me. That has never been your role. You're not the big sister, so stop trying to be."

Hurt rippled her features for one moment, just a small moment and then she was scowling again, folding her arms across her chest.

"What's the problem with the engagement?" She asked, her shoulders lifting in a little shrug, her lips pursed tight. "You're engaged to this wonderful man who is so besotted and obsessed and you're into him but finding out you're engaged is a drama? I mean, did he get yelled at too? Because we both kept secrets."

I leaned a hip on the table and fought the urge to pull Sadie's fucking hair like I used to when we were kids and she pushed me to a breaking point. Her snark little attitude, her tone. It made me volatile and I mirrored her position, folding my arms.

"I left him, Sadie, because I need space to figure out if being with him is what I want or if we both need a fresh start."

Sadie recoiled, staring at me with a bewildered sneer. "You're so fucking stupid sometimes. He is the perfect man. Right there."

"There you go again, deciding what's best for me. Get off the high horse, Sadie. It doesn't suit you."

She huffed a humorless laugh. "Of all the idiots you've dated, he's the game changer and you're going to let that go?"

Her words confused my resolve. I thought I'd done the right thing but there was a moment of doubt when I thought about the weight of her words and whether I was just being ridiculous for the space I thought I needed.

The confusion was so disorientating that I said the first mean words that came to my head. "You're jealous, is that it?"

Her eyes widened at the accusation.

"You're jealous because Jason cheated on you and I have a man who would do anything for me. Was dictating what I know about him a way to help me through recovering or a way to have the first line of communication with Phoenix? You into him or something?"

I said it to be mean, to hurt her, because this argument had dredged up such an ugly side of me that wanted to win no matter what it took. But perhaps, deep down, there was a genuine fear behind my question. What if she was into him?

"Get out."

I swallowed the bout of regret as she stared at me from behind the kitchen bench, her arm pointed rigid and straight in the direction of the door. I'd gone too far but I was overwhelmed, confused, pissed off at her for thinking she had the right to control aspects of my life that were none of her business.

"Yeah, I wasn't planning on hanging around."

With that, I spun on my heel and went up the corridor to get a few things together. Phoenix wasn't going to be at his apartment for a while and it did feel weird to go there, but it was better than hanging around here. Sadie and I would bounce back, perhaps it would take a little longer this time, but we would.

                               On Monday, I sat in my new office, the time in the corner of the screen read eleven  nineteen and I'd had one and a half coffees, a light lunch and chosen three client profiles. Two of them were apartment remodeling. The entire house, all five rooms. That was a huge commission and an overall challenge. It meant that I would be busy, distracted.

The third profile was for some dudes home gym. I'd never done a gym before. It sounded like a challenge and I wanted a challenge right now. I wanted to push boundaries and learn and expand my knowledge so that I could get the most out of this new adventure.

That was what it felt like. An adventure. Nothing I'd ever done before felt like that. Not when I could earn an income doing it.

I was tapping out an email to the third client, arranging a meeting so that I could go over and assess the space we'd be working with, get a bit of background from the client about his vision and talk budget. I'd have to draw up contracts and a quote after that. It was a process before the actual process but I was humming with excitement until I got a text.

Peering down at my screen, fingers still hovering on the keyboard, I saw another text message from Phoenix.

He'd text me on Saturday night, somehow knowing I'd gone to his apartment and told me he was glad I was there and I could be there for as long as I liked, he even offered to have some of his things sent to Leighton's so that he didn't have to come home and bother me. It made me unsure on whether I wanted to be bothered or not.

He'd text me three more times since then to apologize.

With a deep breath, I picked up my phone, cradling it between two hands as I opened the message.

I hope work is going well. I miss your voice.

A swell grew in my chest and my grip on the phone tightened. I missed him too. I did. So much that the distance was starting to make less and less sense. That was what I wanted to figure out, if this space was something I needed in order to thrive, or if being with Phoenix was a genuine want, rather than obligation to the past.

It wasn't like I had to go back to being engaged. We could keep dating, we could keep falling in love. Because I liked him enough to know that falling in love with him was inevitable.

Before I could respond, a figure appeared in the door of  my office, and I looked up to find Ash wearing her scrubs. A little black purse hung next to her hip with a padlock and skull key chain dangling off it.

"Ash," I smiled, setting the phone down and standing up to round the desk. "What are you doing here?"

She looked around the office. It was on the smaller side, but I didn't mind. It had cabinets, a big window with a beautiful view, the sill had room for trinkets and frames that I planned on decorating with at some point.

"I just wanted to come in on the way to work and have a look," she gave a slow nod of approval, her dark plait hanging over her shoulder. "The receptionist is a sweetheart. Too bad she slept with the idiot downstairs."

Jason was on the floor below us. I wasn't sure why he was lower, instead of higher. A fear of heights perhaps? That reminded me that I wanted to go and talk to him later about seeing Lottie next week while he had her.

I hadn't talked to Sadie and I didn't see that changing before the end of the week. Not unless both of us swallowed our pride and apologized for the awful things we both said. I wasn't innocent but considering she'd started this whole thing by keeping secrets, I felt like she should reach out first.

"Jason is a good looking guy," I admitted, factually of course. "I'm sure he can be charming when he wants to be. It's insane that she has no idea she ruined an entire marriage though."

"Well, she didn't," Ash gently reminded me.

I felt my cheeks warm. "Right."

"Sadie said you two had a massive—" she bumped her fists together and made an explosion noise as she flared her fingers out.

"Yeah, we did. If you're here to advocate for her, come back another time. I'm not ready to listen to it."

She tilted her head. "I came to see how you are. First Phoenix and now Sadie? You must be. . .sad?"

I cocked a brow at her uncertain tone.

"I'm not sure what emotion gets slapped onto this sort of situation. You're pissed at the secrets. I get it. But I'm sure it hurts to not be speaking with either of them."

I swallowed hard. "It does hurt."

She winced at the confirmation and slipped her phone out of the pocket of her lavender purple pants. "I have to get to work," she said, dropping the phone into her purse. "Come over to my place tonight. Sadie has the little one this week so she won't be dropping in unannounced with a bottle of tequila to drown her sorrows."

"She did that?"

Ash gave a big exaggerated nod as she backed toward the door. "Saturday night. She was so drunk by eleven that I actually considered dragging her into the hospital and leaving her in the ER so she was someone else's problem."

"You'd never abuse the medical staff like that."

She threw up her finger gun. "Yeah the staff are over worked as it is. Next time, I'll bring her to Phoenix's apartment."

I rolled my eyes, knowing that if she'd brought Sadie to me like that, I would've looked after her. It didn't matter what was going on with Sadie and I. She was my baby sister. I would take care of her no matter how mad I was.