“Okay.”
“I mean it, Cadence. I fell in love with you for so many reasons. You make my heart feel. You bring joy to my life. It was never just primal attraction for me, though when I saw you on the highway that afternoon, I knew I had to have you. It was a desperate feeling I hadn’t felt in so long. I went home that afternoon determined to find you. I knew no one else in the world would be able to heal my heart. It had to be you.”
Cadence listened to the words and tried to tuck them inside her heart, but they kept falling out. All she could think about were his previous words. Words like “non-history,” “blank slate,” and “easy.” A girl who means nothing. Brand new and malleable. Easy to love. Easy to train. Easy to bend and break. Those were the words she really tucked inside her heart, and she wouldn’t soon forget them.
Tonight, though, she took Mark to bed and tried her hardest to ease his heartache. It was something she could give him because she had already taken away her heart. He didn’t know now, but he would.
Eventually.
***
Cadence didn’t bring up Andy the following morning. Mark asked if she’d like to talk about her more, but Cadence shook her head, saying blandly, “The past is the past.” Mark was startled by her statement. Nothing about it reflected the young woman he knew. Cadence was curious about everything.
She didn’t sound angry or hurt, though. She didn’t sound like anything. She just sat at the table pouring cereal and eating—going through the motions in a mechanical way. He felt her slipping into indifference. He wished she’d scream at him.
“I’m going to Carrie’s tonight to work on our English assignment,” Cadence said after a moment. “I thought I’d just spend the night with her.”
“Oh?”
“I mean, if you don’t mind.”
Mark studied her face. It was blank.
“I don’t mind at all. It’s not like you have to ask my permission.”
“Well, I know. I just wanted to make sure you wouldn’t mind.”
“I don’t.”
“Okay.”
Silence.
“Do you still wanna meet up with Dylan and Jon this weekend at that music festival?”
Cadence thought for a moment.
“You should probably just go. I don’t really fit in with them anyway. I was gonna hang out with Carrie and Michael.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. There’s a discount movie theatre on campus. I think we’re gonna see a movie.”
Mark nodded.
“I think you fit in just fine,” he said after a moment.
Cadence snorted. “Not really.”
She took her empty bowl to the sink and rinsed it. She placed it in the dishwasher, then jumped when she felt Mark behind her. He turned her around and cupped her face.
“I think you fit in just fine,” he said softly, then kissed her lips.
She let him, though her mind took her far away. It screamed at her, “You don’t belong here! You never did!”
And she was starting to believe it.
***
“Married?” Avery breathed. She was about to take a sip of her coffee when she decided to set it back on the table.
“Yeah,” Cadence replied. She took a deep breath, then pulled her hair back in a ponytail. She pulled her cardigan tighter. Why was this coffee shop always so damn cold?
“This is, like, monumental,” Avery said. She eyed Cadence carefully. “How are you doing?”
“Fine. He apologized for not telling me, and everything’s fine.”
Avery rolled her eyes. “Give me a break, okay? How are you really doing?”
Cadence rubbed her forehead. “I can get past the wife thing. I can. I mean, it was a big, fat lie, and I feel like an idiot, but I think I can forgive him for that. And it’s terrible what happened to her. I feel so sorry for Mark.”
Avery nodded.
“But he said things to me that I can’t shake. And I think they were truths about me that were never supposed to come out, but he was angry, so they came out. He said he didn’t believe them, but I don’t think that’s true.”
“What did he say?”
Cadence bit her lower lip. “He said he pursued me because I was easy. He said I don’t have a history because I’m young. That I’m a blank slate. And that’s what he wanted after everything that happened with Andy.”
Avery’s mouth dropped open. “Fucking. Asshole.”
Cadence shrugged.
“Do I need to go over there and let him have it?”
“No.”
“Because I totally will. I’ll get all up in his face and let him know what’s what.” She sat bolt upright in her seat, waiting for Cadence’s signal.
“Appreciated, but no.”
“What the fuck was going on in his brain that he would say that to you?”
Cadence squirmed in her seat. “Is it true?” she blurted.
“Huh?”
“What he said. Is it true? Am I unimportant? Is there nothing really to me because I’m young with very little experiences?”