He wrote about his anger. Frustration. He wrote about the joy and satisfaction of being able to write, and of his despair when the words wouldn’t come. He’d filled document after document with his careful phrases, the small spare haiku and long, rambling freeform poetry he’d once mocked as cheating.
He wrote about how he loved me.
He wrote about how he hated me.
It was the most honesty I’d had from him since his accident, and he’d hidden it from me. Angry, I dragged it all to the trash. I hovered the mouse over the delete button, but at the last minute, I undid what I’d done and returned my husband’s words to the file he’d named after me. I backed them up to the portable hard drive, which I labeled carefully and put away in the box where I stored special things like the clipping of his hair.
Those were Adam’s thoughts and dreams. Himself and me, painted in pictures of words. They were his perceptions and images, and whether or not they were true made little matter, now. They were Adam’s pictures. Adam’s stories.
Not mine.
It was time to stop being what Adam had needed me to be, or what he thought I was. Time to stop trying to be the wife I thought I had to be and become the woman I wanted to be, instead.
Epilogue
August
I’m a psychologist, and I love my work. I like to run and read, I like peppermint stick ice cream and scary movies, and my favorite color is red. I love the smell of lavender. These are not things I have just discovered, though some of them were hidden from me, for a time.
I’ve stopped being surprised by my face in the mirror. I know the shape of that face, the color of those eyes, the fall of hair. Now my reflections shows someone I recognize, even if I’m still learning who she is.
Today the wooden bench cradles my back as I lean. The flowers along the path in front of me nod yellow petals in a breeze that stills smells like summer.
There was much I needed to figure out before I could decide if this bench was a place I needed to be. It’s taken me a while. I’m still uncertain what this means, but I’m sure of my desire to find out.
I have no place to go and nothing to do but sit and wait, and the waiting is pleasant enough that I don’t mind. Mothers pushing strollers and people walking dogs hurry past. Squirrels chase each other around the trees, while birds peck for bugs in the grass and I wait.
Then, he is there, covered in sunshine. He wears it like a suit of gold, shining. He sits beside me carefully, and the bench shivers at the new weight.
There is, perhaps, much to be said, but neither of us says it. Time and circumstance have made us new to each other. I look at him, but he’s looking at his hands, linked in his lap.
At last he looks up at me with one eye squinted shut against the brightness. He straightens and turns. He holds out his hand, and I take it, waiting, breathless.
“Hi.” His fingers close around mine. “My name’s Joe Wilder.”
“Hello, Joe,” I say, and add with utter confidence. “I’m Sadie.”
Our fingers squeeze together. “It’s nice to meet you, Sadie.”
There are many things I don’t know, but quite a few I do. I know you can’t be lost if you know where you are. I know that life is full of precious and fragile things, and not all of them are pretty. I know that the sun follows the moon and makes days, one after another. Time passes. The world turns, and we turn with it, and though we can never go back to the beginning, sometimes, we can start again.
“It’s nice to meet you, too, Joe.”
I’m uncertain of how the story will end, but sitting in the sunlight with Joe’s hand in mine, I have no doubts about how it begins. There is only one truth of which I feel confident, one thing I know that nothing else can change.
This month, my name is Sadie.
Playlist
Broken
I could write without music, but I’m so glad I don’t have to. This is a partial playlist I used while writing Broken, both in 2006 and during the 2019 revision.
Closer — Joshua Radin
Ever the Same — Rob Thomas
Unfaithful — Rihanna
Precious — Depeche Mode
New York — Snow Patrol
Someone You Loved — Lewis Capaldi
What if I Never Get Over You — Lady Antebellum
And the song that was playing on the stairs…
What if You — Joshua Radin
Read the Companion Story
Shatttered: Available now
Joe Wilder has never had a long-term romantic relationship. He’s a cheater, a rogue, a flirt, a womanizer. He ruins everything.
Until he meets Sadie.
They fall into an unorthodox friendship, meeting once a month on a park bench to share a lunch and stories of Joe’s sexual conquests, but soon Joe discovers that once a month is not enough. Relentless bachelorhood is not enough. All those women…not enough.
Yet Sadie has troubles of her own, and no matter what Joe wants, he can’t make himself what she needs. It will take personal tragedy for both of them to find their way to each other, but can a love that grew from such rocky soil ever be expected to bloom?
Or will he once again ruin it all, and leave it not only broken, but shattered?
Also by Megan Hart
Absolute Solace
All Fall Down
All the Hardest Choices
All the Lies We Tell
All the Secrets We Keep
A Heart Full of Stars
Always You
Broken
Beg For It
By the Sea of Sand
Castle in the Sand
Clearwater
Crossing the Line
Hold Me Close
Hurt the One You Love
In the House of Broken Glass
Letting Go
Passion Model
Precious and Fragile Things
Ride with the Devil
Stumble into Love
The Favor
Womb
Unforgivable
Pleasure and Purpose
No Greater Pleasure
Selfish Is the Heart
Virtue and Vice
Beautiful Thorns
About the Author
photo credit: Whitney Hart Photography
I was born and then I lived a while. Then I did some stuff and other things. Now, I mostly write books. Some of them use a lot of bad words, but most of the other words are okay.
If you liked this book, please tell everyone you love to buy it. If you hated it, please tell everyone you hate to buy it.
Find me here!
www.meganhart.com
readinbed@gmail.com