Chapter 35 — As Told by Sadia

Sadia’s POV:

After my breakup with Lexus, I felt so broken. “Sadia, are you going to be okay?” Stella asked me as she came into my room. “I’m worried about you and so is Lydia.” 

I was sitting in a beanbag on my phone. “I don’t know…”

Lydia walked in after her with a third girl around their age in the pack. Lydia was 15 and the youngest while Stella was 16 and the third girl looked a little older than them, maybe 17. Still a few years younger than me. “This is Cindy, her boyfriend cheated on her too.” 

I guess they thought we could relate. They all sat down in front of me on my carpet and we talked. We talked for hours, and it felt good. For the next week we hung out a lot. They were there to listen and be there for me and I actually gave them a lot of advice. They treated me like I was their older sister. “I can’t believe Aqua did all of that to you,” Lydia said.

“I know and the worst part is I kind of miss her and Lexus.” I used to text with Aqua all the time and I couldn’t gain the courage to delete our messages. I really did miss her. “Not enough to forgive them and if I do forgive them, I don’t think I can be friends with them again.” 

Cindy nodded. “You don’t owe them friendship.” 

There was a knock on the door and when I answered it, it was Calvin. “Cade’s here, do you want me to get rid of him?” When I told Calvin that Lexus cheated on me with Aqua, I think he was a little hurt too. He didn’t know Aqua all too well, but he did like her. He was already rejected by her and now he knows the whole time he was pursuing her she was sleeping with my fiancé at the time. 

I shook my head. “No, I’ll talk to him.” 

The three girls left my room and Cade walked in. “Hey Sadia, I’m probably the last person you want to see.”

I shook my head. “No, Aqua is the last person I want to see. You got it just as badly as I did.” 

He rubbed the back of his head. “I guess so, but I wasn’t in love with Vella.”

I had been thinking about Cade a lot in the last week. “I didn’t love Lexus either.” I sighed. “You were right, I liked him, and I was so caught up in the life we would live together. I mistook my excitement of being his future wife and queen for love. I wanted us to be in love because it made it seem more permanent. I was attached to the idea of the lifestyle and my jealousy came from my fear of having to give it up if he loved someone else and not me. I wanted to have both the escape to a better life and love.”

“I still shouldn’t have said it the way I did. It wasn’t my place to tell you that you didn't love him and that he didn’t love you.”

Tears were in my eyes. “Well, it was true but me not really loving him didn’t make what he did to me hurt any less.”

Cade hugged me. “I know, trust me. I didn’t love Vella, but it still felt like betrayal. The night of the ball she begged me to take her back.” He chuckled because of the ridiculousness. “She said she loved me. At the time I felt so bad for not taking her back.”

“At least I know why she was avoiding me…” I took a deep breath. “Let’s forget about them.” He smelled so good. I pulled away a little and stared up into his eyes.

We leaned close and kissed. We didn’t stop there, we started to make out and then moved to my bed with him on top of me. He felt under my clothes, and I moaned against his lips. We stripped each other down to nothing and had sex.

We panted and laid next to each other when we were done. We didn’t say anything for a few minutes before he broke the silence. “You know I was thinking to myself. ‘It’s kind of weird that I had sex with someone my best friend at sex with.’ Then I remembered we both had sex with my ex-girlfriend.” He sighed.

There was a question I was dying to ask him. “When you told Lexus, you had feelings for me was that true or was that just to spite him?”

“It was true… did you have sex with me to spite Lexus and Vella?”

I chuckled. “No, Lexus wouldn’t care, and Vella isn’t worth it. The only person I’d care enough to get back at is Aqua. Other than Lexus she was the closest thing I had to a best friend. I know it sounds pathetic because I’ve only known her for a month but it’s true… I thought we connected but she—” I stopped myself because I didn’t want to get emotional or even more emotional.

“Anyway, since Aqua was sort of my best friend, I guess I had sex with someone my best friend had sex with too. I wish I knew how Lexus had always seen me; it was just as friends from when we met to when we were engaged. We weren’t in a real relationship, so I wish I didn’t convince myself we were. I want to blame everything on him and say he wasn’t honest but if I asked him at any point if he were seeing other people, he would have told me the truth. When I asked him if he loved me, he told the truth. When I asked him if he even liked me, he told the truth.”

Lydia and the other girls told me not to blame myself, but I didn’t explain the situation in full to them. They didn’t know Lexus was only marrying me as a favor and that we didn’t start off romantically involved. Maybe our relationship was set up to fail. You can’t just marry your best friend without them having feelings for you when you have feelings for them.

Cade had insight on my relationship that I didn't. “He once told me that he assumed you didn’t expect him to be monogamous before marriage. He made it seem like he only hiding it out of courtesy. I still think it’s bullshit Sadia. He would have told you if you asked but he knew you wouldn’t ask. He could have told you himself that he was still seeing other women.”

“Maybe…” It made me think that communication could have saved my engagement. If I knew from the beginning that he’d see other women and would stop once we were married, I probably would have been fine with that. Only because it’s not like we were together before. It’s better I wasn’t with Lexus otherwise I wouldn’t have just had sex with someone who cares about me. “Anyways I had sex with you because…”

“It’s okay, you don’t need to have a reason or need to tell me it if you do.” But I did have a reason that I didn’t mind sharing, I liked Cade, but it felt too soon to be with him. 

I turned over with my back to him. “You knew right?”

He hesitated. “Only towards the end, I tried to get them to stop. They planned to but then they wouldn’t because they’re…ugh sorry I know they don’t deserve to have secrets because of what they did but—”

“It’s fine I don’t want to know.” Cade knew Lexus was cheating and that’s probably why he tried so hard for me to see that I didn’t love Lexus and that he didn’t love me.

Pillow talk wasn’t something Lexus would do with me, but it was nice that Cade would. I needed someone to talk to. “I know you quit, I heard you yelling it at Lexus, where are you moving to?”

Cade turned onto his stomach. “I’ve been looking nearby. I have a lot I need to figure out. The king and queen say I can stay without working until I find a place. 

“I hope you find a nice place and better job.” 

“Do you want me to go now?” He referred to leaving my room.

I didn’t want him to leave. “No, you don’t have to.” I turned over to face him and he was smiling. Sex with Cade was better than sex with Lexus. Lexus might have been more experienced and better in that way but there was more emotion with me and Cade, so it meant more. 

For the next couple weeks when I wasn’t hanging out with Lydia, Stella, or Cindy I hung out with Calvin and Tam. When I wasn’t hanging out with either of those groups I was with Cade. He went on patrols with me, we went on flights together, but we didn’t have any more sex. The sexual tension was always there but we were taking things slow. 

Cindy laughed. “When do you think, Cade is going to ask you to be his girlfriend?” 

I shrugged. “I don’t think either of us is worried about that right now. We both got cheated on after being in serious relationships. We don’t need the commitment yet.”

“I think that’s a good idea.” Lydia said. “I miss Hannah, she’s been so busy the past couple days and we were already seeing each other less because of her new preparation to possibly become queen.” I thought about how busy Lexus was but now I wasn’t sure if he was busy with preparation to become king or with Aqua…

Later when I was hanging out with Cade I asked, “Are you okay?” We were in my room after he had just come over.

Cade shook his head. “No one knows where Aqua is. The last time anyone saw her was two days ago. If you don’t want me to talk about her, I understand.” We hadn’t talked about Aqua, Vella, or Lexus for the last couple weeks. 

“No, she’s your sister, it’s okay. Do you think she’s with Lexus?”

Cade shrugged. “I don’t know, we don’t know where he is either. He’s not at any of the hotels in the kingdom.” It sounds to me like they ran away together. “I tried to be there for her even though she knew about Vella and Lexus. She was a mess the last week she was in the castle. The king and queen worked her hard and she just didn’t seem mentally stable.” Aqua always seemed like a really sensitive girl but it was hard to have any empathy for her. “The guards are out looking for her, but our father and Gray are really worried.”

I couldn’t help but be a little worried for her too.

I didn’t feel too good a week later. “Are you sick or something?” Calvin asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know, I don’t get sick too often. Let’s just go for our run.”

“I don’t know, Sadia you’ve been like that for the last couple days.” Tam shrugged. 

Calvin frowned. “Does it have something to do with Cade? Or…”

I shook my head. “No, I feel nauseous.”

Tam grabbed my wrist. “We’ll be back for the run, Calvin, hold on.” She pulled me into the pack house. 

Next thing I knew she had me peeing on a stick. “I don’t think this is what it is Tam, I’m really careful.”

“When was the last time you had your period?” 

I didn’t respond because it had been a while. When I finished, I pulled my pants up and Tam turned around. “Now we wait, it’s important to know now…” Tam knew that well, the night of the festival she had only got so drunk because she had miscarried. She didn’t want to feel the pain anymore. 

When the results came in, I had her look first and by her expression I knew it was positive. She insisted I take at least two more and, they were positive. Unfortunately, my first thought was that I wanted to tell Aqua. I’m glad Tam was here with me. I was pregnant but the problem was… I didn’t know for how long, so I didn’t know by who…