Plagiarized (11 page)

“I’m sorry that I thought the worst about you,” I offered. I needed to get to Keegen’s. “And just like you couldn’t cancel your meeting last minute, I cannot cancel mine. I hope you understand Tom—I may not be running a company, but my meetings are just as important as yours. Don’t you ever expect me to cancel things last minute again.” And with that, I dramatically left in a huff and made my way to our bedroom. I now had less than twenty minutes to get ready and Sage Roby didn’t get ready in twenty minutes. What the fuck was I supposed to do now? Keegen was already pissed at me, I think. If I told him I was running late, there was a chance he would just say forget it and not wait for me.

Then there was the part of me that felt badly for the way I had treated Tom downstairs. He had looked completely crestfallen when I had declared I wasn’t canceling my book meeting for him. But it was hard for me to keep all the balls I had spinning in the air, too. I had a lot of shit going on in my life.

I took the fastest shower of my life and knew I had broken an all-time record with how quickly I had shaven my legs. I was so pissed that I couldn’t take the care needed to pick my lingerie out especially for Keegen. It was going to throw my entire game off.

I got dressed in another record-breaking amount of time and was flying out the door when Tom called out to me. I stopped for a minute and then kept going. I couldn’t risk being even later than I already was. Even with my record-breaking attempts, I was still late. Like twenty minutes late.

As I pulled in to the lake parking lot, I saw Keegen with his arms folded over his chest and he was leaning against his pickup truck. I’m not even going to lie to myself, even though that was my usual go to scheme—he looked pissed.

I got out of my car slowly and sexily sauntered over to him. I put my hands on his shoulders but he didn’t move a muscle. This wasn’t going to be good. I could feel the tension in the air, the air around the lake that was supposed to be soothing and quiet, but it was anything but.

I put my arms down to my sides and stood there.

“Nice of you to finally show up,” he said through clenched teeth.

“I texted you that I was running a bit late and that it couldn’t be helped,” I pointed out as I tallied one point on my side of the chalkboard I had effortlessly created in my mind.

“Yeah, you did,” he sighed. “I can’t do this anymore, Sage.”

Fuck!
He was going to break up with me. All of a sudden, I felt panicky. He couldn’t break up with me. I was the one in control of this relationship.
Me!
Not him! I was the one who was gambling everything by cheating on my husband. What did he have to lose?

“I want more,” he said quietly.

“More?” I looked at him blankly.

“I want to be the only one. The only one in your life,” he explained.

“You are!” I touched his cheek. “You are the only one. I told you my husband and I don’t ever have sex.” Lie.
What about Wednesday night
, my conscience asked. I excused that one by saying it was in my ass and not my pussy. That didn’t really count as the sex he meant, right?

“You know that isn’t true, Sage. You told me you do it with him every couple of weeks. I don’t care if it isn’t good. He’s still sticking his dick in you and that bothers me.”

I had nothing, no idea of how to handle this. “You are way more important to me than he is.” I tried, but was grasping at the rapidly falling straws. “I want to be with you, but you can’t support me and you know I want to be an author full-time. I’ll be quitting my teaching job soon and then what?”

“I can support you. There are things you don’t know about me. But I don’t want you to pick me because of those things. Money shouldn’t matter. I love you, Sage. I love you and want to be with you, just you. That’s what should matter, love. I love you with every fiber of my being. I want you to think about things and decide what you want. Come to my place on Monday and we’ll finish this discussion.”

And with that final word, he flung the door open to his truck and drove off before I could say anything. He was gone.

I looked around in disbelief. I had blown off my husband for this? I could still fix it, though. I could run home and tell him I changed my mind. Yes! That’s what I would do!

I quickly jumped into my car and drove the twenty-minute drive back home. I refused to think about anything, so I blasted my radio as loud as I could stand and sang along with the songs. Every time thoughts started to creep in, I pushed them back and sang louder.

Once I got home, I felt emotionally wrung out. The porch light was on, I noticed, as I made my way slowly up the walk. I was conjuring up a plan of how to seduce Tom as I opened the front door. This was totally going to work.

The foyer was empty. “Tom,” I called out. “Tom? Are you here?” I thought I heard something upstairs, so I went quietly up the carpeted steps. I opened the door and there was nothing there. I was home alone, after all that.

I decided to take my anger out on the keys of my computer. I tapped on the keys and immediately started to feel better as I purged my feelings out onto the screen.

Phone calls started to dwindle. Texts became less and less. There were even two weekends back to back that I didn’t get to see him. I started to worry that things were about to end between us. I didn’t want that to happen. I knew it would be my fault, since I still hadn’t told my family, but I couldn’t find the right time or the right words. I had to make it right somehow.

I loved him more than life itself and couldn’t imagine living it without him. I felt desperate to gain control of the situation I had been put in. I was devastated by the thought of our relationship ending. It couldn’t. I wouldn’t allow it to end and that was final!

“I miss you like crazy,” I told him once he finally answered his phone. I had called him ten times in a row until he had finally answered. I knew it was stalkerish, but didn’t care. The desperation was driving me now. There was no reasoning with me.

“I know. I miss you too, baby.” His voice sounded rougher than usual, and almost like he was out of breath. My mind raced with possibilities of what he had been doing to cause him to be out of breath, which made my feelings of missing him even more frantic!

“Why can’t I come see you this weekend? I already told my grandma that I had a youth group thing to go to so they’re already expecting me to be gone,” I blurted out, begging him to hear the underlying need in my tone.

“It’s just been crazy busy here with finals starting. I have exams to come up with and then grade. There’s just too much for me to get done that I won’t have any time to spend with you. I’m so sorry, but I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”

“I’ll come up and just sit next to you while you grade the papers. Maybe I can even help you? I don’t care what we do as long as we’re together. I need to see you!”

“You know that if you come up here, I won’t get anything done,” he said as he chuckled.

“Do you still love me?” For the first time since meeting him, I was scared of his answer. I would have always bet my life on his answer being yes in the past. But something had changed. I could feel it.

After a moment of painful silence, he finally spoke. “Of course. That’s a silly question.” His voice sounded strange and sent the hairs on the back of my neck up.

“You haven’t said it first in a while.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve had a lot on my mind. College is a lot harder to teach than high school. I wasn’t expecting it to be this much work. You can’t pull as much over on college kids, they’re more on your level. I can’t get away with as much. I have to stay on top of my game. Not to mention, I have never taught these subjects at this level before. Cut me some slack, okay, Sarah? I just have to find a good routine first.” It didn’t go unnoticed that he still hadn’t said those three words that I desperately needed from him.

“So… when will I get to see you again?”

“Spring break is coming up in two weeks. I’ll come down then and get a hotel room for us. I told you I would make it up to you. We’ll have the whole week to ourselves. Just make sure to come up with something to tell your family. Or, you know you could always just tell them the truth.”

Two weeks? That felt like an entirely different lifetime from now. There was no way I could make it two weeks. I felt tears fill my eyes. And then he had thrown my family into the equation once again. I didn’t want to have that argument for the tenth time.

“I was actually thinking about just going to the courthouse, like you suggested before.”

“Really? You would do that?”

His hopeful voice made me think. Maybe that’s what I should do? It wasn’t what I wanted to do, but I was feeling like my back was against a rock, and in front of me was a hard place. I knew two things—I didn’t want to disappoint my family, and I didn’t want to lose Ben. There was no way around disappointing my family, so that left me with only one thing to do.

“Yes, of course I would. I love you, Ben. I want to be with you… forever,” I said and meant every word. I had made my decision.

“Oh my God, Sarah! I love you, too! This news just made me so happy.”

I couldn’t help the smile from taking over my entire face, my tears from earlier instantly drying. I was going to fucking get married! “I’m glad.”

“So spring break is it? We’re going to the courthouse during spring break?” he asked excitedly.

I hesitated, not sure how to respond. I had just come to the conclusion that we would get married. Two weeks? That seemed awfully fast. “We can talk about it. I was thinking more of once this semester is over. That way we could have more time together over the summer after the wedding. Even though I said I would marry you in a courthouse, I still want it to feel like my wedding. It will be my only one, after all.”

“Sarah,” he muttered with a new sadness in his tone, “I am a professor now. There isn’t such a thing as summer break in college. I will have summer classes to teach. Not as many as in the spring or winter semesters, but I still have a class to teach.”

“Oh,” was all I could come up with. “But at least you’ll still have some time to spend with me, right? Won’t you have like a week or something that we could go on a honeymoon? Or a few days where we could make it a long weekend?”

“I’m sure we can come up with something. I just don’t want to wait any longer to marry you.”

“Me either.” I said glumly. “I love you, Ben.”

“Me too, Sarah. Me too.”

And with that, he hung up the phone.

And I planned my impromptu wedding.

I realized that I was crying by the damp trails of tears on my cheeks. I quickly wiped them away and continued to write. I had decided to include some of the drama I had found my own life immersed in and it was a doozy.

With my family already under the impression that I would be gone for the weekend, I decided to surprise Ben with an impromptu visit. I knew he said he had a lot of work to do, but once he realized I was there to marry him, I was sure he’d be more than okay with the visit.

I had it all planned. Marissa and I went out to buy a pretty, yet simple, white dress for me to wear. It wasn’t floor length, but fell in flouncy waves between my ankles and knees. I felt absolutely beautiful in it, like a bride. I stared at myself in the mirror and couldn’t believe it was me. I didn’t usually wear such expensive things. Marissa had even talked me into buying Ben a white tie. It was such a nice touch, one I hadn’t thought of because my nerves were driving me at the moment. I was scared as hell, but the thought of spending the rest of my life with him made the nerves subside. It felt right.

It wasn’t until I reached his apartment when my nerves picked back up again. This is the man you want to spend the rest of your life with. This is the man that you love with all of your heart and can’t even begin to imagine life without. I sat in the car I had borrowed from Marissa, got into the right frame of mind, and recited my lines. I had practiced them for days, anticipating this very moment.

“Let’s go to the courthouse now and get married, then we can take the week of spring break and use it as our honeymoon. My family won’t be able to say anything about it,” I spoke to myself in the mirror on the back of the visor in the car.

“What about our living arrangements?” I said, deepening my voice to sound like Ben. I figured it would be a question he would ask. I had to be prepared for anything.

“I’ll spend the week packing and then move everything in next weekend, just before our weeklong vacation,” I answered. I looked in the visor mirror one last time and took a deep breath. “Okay, Sarah, you’re prepared for this. Time to go marry your man.”

Yes, I was prepared for it all.

Except what I walked in to.

I opened his front door after knocking. It was unlocked so I assumed he just didn’t hear it. Just before calling out his name, I realized why he hadn’t heard the knocks. It would be hard to hear anything past the grunting and screaming noises coming from his bedroom.

My first thought was that he was watching an X rated movie.

That I could’ve handled.

What I couldn’t handle was what he was doing instead.