When You Know

15 - But what if Bree tries to take me back?

I was getting so used to my wonderful, always-happy life, with my new and growing family, and my new family friends, and my new and comfortable house, and our new way of living together, that I forgot what it felt like when something came along to beat all that happiness back into the ground.

But that's what it felt like when Mum and Ruben sat us all down at the kitchen table for a family meeting a couple weeks later.

We had never had a family meeting before, so when they called Jet and I in from kicking the football outside on the street after school, the two of us were terrified about what they might say. I started worrying about whether we had accidentally broken something that we didn't tell them about, and Jet was worried that someone was either sick or dying—he was sometimes a little more morbid than I was.

"Which one of you is it?" he asked when we were all seated with a drink and a stack of freshly baked cookies each. They were plying us with sugar so whatever it is, it mustn't be good.

"Which one of us is what?" replied Ruben questioningly.

"He thinks one of you must be sick or dying and that's why you've called a family meeting," I said, offering an explanation and taking a bite of cookie, the melted chocolate smearing across my lips.

Mum and Ruben both laughed, which helped us relax a little as we assumed they wouldn't laugh at the idea of one of them dying.

"As far as we're aware, no one is dying," said Mum.

"Then what is it? Are we grounded or something?" said Jet.

"Have you done something worthy of being grounded for?" asked Ruben, slyly. He knew we hadn't. We were generally pretty good kids, but I think he found it entertaining to make us squirm a little.

"Just skipping school and smoking crack. Madden, too," joked Jet, but now I really started to worry that I would get in trouble.

"Hey! I've never smoked crack. I don't even know what crack is," I said, defensively.

"You bet your little ass you haven't. Nor will you ever, young man," Mum said sternly, glaring at both me and Jet very seriously.

"What she said," Ruben said to Jet, gesturing his head towards Mum.

"You know I wouldn't, Boss." Jet grew suddenly serious. "So, what is it then?"

"Well, we've been talking about our wedding, and have decided on a few things, but we wanted to run it by you two to see what you thought," said Mum.

"Whatever you guys want to do is fine. You don't need to run anything by us. Just do what makes you happy," Jet said, which I agreed with completely.

"We appreciate that, Jetty. But you are both the most important people in our lives, and we need to make sure we're doing the right thing by you and making sure you're happy with the decisions we make that involve you."

"You guys always do the right thing by us, Sadie. You don't need to worry about that."

"Well, this time it's a little more complicated . . . for both of you." Mum looked at me very seriously. "Especially you, Madden."

"W-what is it?" I asked her, my nerves wrapping around my stomach almost painfully.

Mum looked at Ruben, and he took over the talking for a while. "We've decided on a venue and a date. Late August, and it's going to be at a venue by the beach."

"That is an absolute shock to both of us. We would never have guessed that you two would get married by the ocean with how much time you both spend it in," Jet said sarcastically, causing me to enter into a fit of giggles. I tried not to, knowing that something they were about to say must actually be serious, but Jet had a point—we both knew their wedding would involve the ocean somehow. It was inevitable.