SADIE MAXWELL BELIEVES with all of her heart that babies are the sneakiest pieces of shit alive.
She once read an article in one of her mother's pregnancy books that infants know a lot more than people think, and she has always known that. She remembers when she was a toddler, cursing out everyone that even dared to look at her. So now, she looks at her baby sister and prays that she's got the same gene that she did those many years ago.
"Just say it," Sadie urges her on in a hushed tone, her hands on her knees as she stares down through sunglasses at Vivian, who looks pretty occupied with the glitter pen in her hands. "It's just one word, V. You can do it!"
"Sadie." The voice is her mother's warning tone, coming around the corner with birthday cake in tow. "Can you stop encouragin' your little sister to say bad words, please? And took off those sunglasses; you look like an early 2000's most recent coke-head."
The blonde teenager lets out a dissatisfied huff and stands back up to straighten out the black pants of her track suit, slipping off the sunglasses to reveal slightly reddened and glassy eyes. "Grandmother says that I cussed out everybody that even held me in their arms. Why should she be any different from the childhood that I had?"
Kitty sets the cake down on the island and turns around to give Sadie the infamous Maxwell bemused face, hand on her hip. "Your grandmother also told you to never fight ugly people because they didn't have anything to lose when you were nine."
"A piece of knowledge that helped shape my early adolescent years, may I add."
Kitty replies, "A piece of knowledge that helped fuck you up, may I add—" She winces when Vivian below erupts in a fit of giggles, holding her hands over her mouth as she runs out the room to declare that her mother said a bad word. Shaking her head, she steps closer to her daughter. "Look, I know that your upbringing was a little... different, than what Judas and I are trying with Vivian, but do you mind not being a bitter bitch about it?"
Sadie rolls her eyes and folds slim arms across her chest, white sneakers scraping against the ground. "Can't believe you let him turn you into a Stepford wife," she mumbles, disappointed blue eyes looking at her mother. "So forgive me if I'm being a bitter bitch about not being able to recognize my mother anymore."
Kitty pulls a smile on her face, turning around and plucking a party hat off of the kitchen counter. One quick move later, and the hat is on top of Sadie's head and the snap of the band around her chin stings her only slightly. "Oh baby, the whole I-Hate-Mommy routine ain't fitting you at all. It's always been you and me, whether you like it or not."
With that she winks at Sadie and takes a long stride out of the kitchen and through the glass door to the backyard, leaving the blonde alone in a party hat, feeling quite the opposite of the ambiance inside the house.
. . . . .
After much deliberation on her part — and half a joint — she decides to finally go outside to face the music with her sunglasses back on.
By all accounts, it's the cutest birthday that she's ever been to. There's streamers and glitter and shimmer all over the place that's gonna take eons to get out off their bodies, and Vivian is even in a Princess Belle costume. It should be enough to make the girl swoon and cry from everything being so adorable, but Sadie has never quite been one of those people to do such a thing.
The girl already stepped outside to support the child; she didn't promise she was going to have a good time doing so.
She plopped down right beside her brother and his husband, blowing hair out of her face and crossing her legs. "You know, I ain't even sure why a two year old needs a birthday party, anyways. It ain't like she's gonna remember it. I don't even know why you guys flew up here."
Sullivan laughs a little bit, casting an amused glance down at his sister. "It's called creating a happy memory for our little sister. You know, the thing that your mind can't compose any of?"
Scoffing, she blows another bubble with her gum and quickly pops it, indifference settled in her features. "Oh please, she's got the attention span of a cracked out goldfish, and I do have happy memories thank you. Remember when I got that teacher fired? That was some good shit."
"You're demented."
"And you're a bottom, but you don't ever see me holding that over your head."
Arthur cracks a laugh or two out about that, running his fingers through his hair to brush it out of his eyes and off his shoulders. "How do you manage to deliver the most vulgar lines to seem endearing?"
"It's a Maxwell thing," she says simply, as a matter of factual evidence. Sadie looks over at Arthur and nods with acknowledgement. "Congratulations on the Heisman nomination, by the way. It's a big honor."
The blonde young man shrugs modestly, a genuine smile pulling on the sides of his mouth. "Thanks, Sadie. I appreciate it."
"Sullivan, congrats to you as well. Not everybody chooses the right one to take it up the ass for, but you did!" She gives a condescending clap and a smile to accompany it. "Marry the rich not the ditch, I always say."
Sully replies, "Fuck you."
Sadie gives a mock stretch and yawns obnoxiously. "No thank you, I'm saving my virtue for someone special. My probation officer, perhaps."
"Oh yeah, how's that coming along for you?"
She shrugs. "They're moving me to a new program next week. Something along the lines of I'm a mischievous con artist, I'm disrespectful, they can't control me, yada yada," Sadie waves off the rest of the report with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Bunch of bullshit, if you ask me. I mean, I've been nothing but an angel to those people!"
Her response is enough to invoke an eye roll and a snort out of Sullivan. "Are the fallen allowed to keep calling themselves that?"
"Ha ha," she says, monotone, as she tosses her gum into the bushes.
"C'mon, I'm gonna need you to take this more seriously, Sades. This is your chance to change your life. People aren't gonna keep giving you passes; you're gettin' older," Sullivan says with raised eyebrows, wondering if she's really hearing him out.
She's not.
She stands up and adjusts the zipper on her jacket before looking down at the two men who were once right beside her. "I'll make sure to keep it in mind, SJ. C'mon, they're about to cut the cake or whatever."
The time to cut the cake is finally upon them, and Kitty brings out the cake with sparklers and candles lit. The chorus to Happy Birthday is being sang out, and Sadie makes sure to hum along with it so she doesn't tarnish the "happy memory" being created for Viv.
Sadie is happy, though only for a moment, because she looks up and glances at the people that used to be her family.
Yeah, they still are, but the whole dynamic has changed between each and every one of them. She feels left out, in the cold watching them cuddle up by the fire and she can't help but to feel... sad.
She watches as Arthur and Sully look at each other with nothing less than adoring and loving eyes, and she glances down at their wedding bands intertwined together and feels empty. Sadie then turns to Judas and Kitty, who're holding both of Vivian's shoulders and beaming down at the child that they made, and she feels even emptier.
It doesn't feel happy and touching within the moment — instead it feels... mean, it feels like someone stabbed her in the back and took the knife out her back to let her bleed out.
Don't get the girl wrong; she's happy that they all have found people, she really does.
Sadie just wonders if she'll ever find her person, too.
