"We didn't plan for this to...happen." Sadie is saying to me as Boyd presses his lips to the back of her hand

I don't know if I'll ever regain my balance from the shock, nothing will ever balance me again, I will always be falling over, slipping, falling, can't get up all because I was actually a side character in a telenovela. I was a background actor in this Sadie-Hervé-Lucas-and now Boyd soap opera. My own cousin/brother had snagged a top spot in the la mujer de mi vida-tinseltown crossover while I sat here as shocked girl in the crowd to pan to for reaction memes! I was struggling bruv, it probably showed on my face, on the one hand meeting Sadie was not at all disappointing and made Hervé's undying love for her perfectly sensible. Reconciling that with the way Boyd had spoken about her, about how his eyes even now were shining in ways I had never seen them do and all the romantic moist ways he told me about her was what made it difficult.

"I already spoke to Hervé about it." Boyd says, his gaze finally leaving her and turning to me

Of all the people he could've caught feelings for in this big United States, this is where he decided to shine his eyes?! I sigh, slightly relieved that I won't have to lie to Hervé about this, about what I was seeing with my own eyes

"Aren't you supposed to be asleep?" Hervé asks waltzing into the hospital room as if he knew where to find me

"I'm leaving tomorrow, and this is the only way I can look at him while still being angry at him and you for the lies." I shrug, turning from Lucas' adorable sleeping face to Hervé's

"Have you come to lie to me about more gaelic words?" I wonder, seeing clearly that he was looking for me

He smiles sheepishly, because my trust in him was jokes

"I wanted to see you before you left. I know you'll do great with your meetings and I was hoping you'd pass a message on to someone for me." he says, something shy and soft about it

Enhe, so he has brought himself here to make me a little errand girl for him! Why are white people like this?

"Who?" I wonder, curious about his shyness

"You'll know. If you meet her, tell her that I'm happy for her and she's chosen the best man I know." he says a sad smile on his face, a gravity to his statement I couldn't quite place.

I end up promising him that I will.

He knew that I would inevitably meet her. He'd been a proper shite to her if we're being honest. Sadie deserved to be happy, and she seemed very happy sitting next to Boyd trying to explain to his jet-lagged baby cousin that Boyd hadn't seduced her, that their feelings for each other had caught them both unawares, that they hadn't come to the decision to be together lightly.

"You know what, you're two grown entire adults who are both single...it's not like you're married or anything so like... let's just eat." I mumble shaking my head

It was like the waiter had heard me because she heads over with the food almost immediately after my declaration. Sadie was free to do whatever she wants, they were broken up, she had left him and Hervé had made peace with it, who was I to now come and die here? And look at Boyd, so moist and...

"Well technically... I'm married." Sadie speaks up

I gasp so loudly the waiter turns back to us

"Ah ok I see. So you didn't have time to Skype me into the wedding! Your phone can't text me, your mouth was injured by American coffee so you couldn't call me and tell me. Ok, Fine. Enhe. I see. " I'm now saying to Boyd, glaring at him

Did they elope to Vegas or something, did they get drunk and wake up married, was it by accident? Where they signing up for a pottery class and by surprise the sign up sheet was a marriage certificate?

"What is ailing you? It can't be the visa, is it worms? You have decided to marry in secret?" I demand as Boyd chuckles because apparently this was funny to him

Our entire siblinghood shattered before my face and he is laughing! It is crack! It must be crack! Heeeeeey lawd how will I explain this to mum so that she can explain it to her sister without killing her?

"Oh no no not to him..." Sadie clarifies just as I decide I will have to beat Boyd with these crepes

"yet." Boyd has the audacity to softly chuckle

Naturally I'm taken aback by the news. She's not married to Boyd... wait... Had Hervé skipped something? Had she married someone just after leaving Hervé? Was there something else because the math was not mathing! So now Boyd was moist for a married woman?

"What is it that you are saying please?!" I demand, confused, scammed, hustled, bamboozled, hoodwinked, led astray,

"They're getting a divorce. Hervé just agreed to it, it was part of what I went to talk to him about." Boyd reveals

Ah right, she was married to Hervé. Ok, makes sense... except for the one thing

"Hervé's married?" I quietly scream, recalling that he'd called Sadie his fiancée not wife, trying desperately to remember when exactly if ever he'd mentioned the wedding

Lucas would've mentioned it surely, Hervé would've mentioned it, would've had a ring or something. I'd listened to Hervé talk about Sadie a lot... A LOT... and he had never mentioned that they were married...and even if his amnesia was to blame surely Lucas would've said something... It's not that I was trying to marry Hervé or anything, it's that I... I thought we were maybe close enough that if he'd gotten married he would've mentioned it..

"It was a secret." Boyd says

A secret marriage... I mean his mother did try to kill Sadie...but she was in jail now...ah, and Lucas had said once that he was in California to help Hervé's ex-wife... So was she his ex-wife or fiancée? Like Beyoncé, I didn't know much about algebra

"So secret in fact the only person who knew about it was Hervé." Sadie says with a soft smile on her lips

Oh...

"Balance me." I plead with the duo, or what was it that Americans say? Don't leave me hanging!

Sadie nods her head as if realizing that she'd have to start from much further back than there being a secret marriage that even she didn't know about.

"When I first met Hervé's parents they gave me a blank cheque and told me to leave him. I didn't...not until he told me he loved me and I realized that if I didn't leave him they would punish him. He had no discernible skill set other than being catered to as he waits to be the next duke of Angelford. I decided to leave him and he decided to kidnap me so we could have some time to work it out; we did. We had a little traditional Scottish commitment ceremony where we swore to stick by each other's side, that's what he told me it was. I found out a few weeks ago it was actually a legal marriage." she explains

She was calm, almost resigned in her explanation, as if being tricked into marriage was something she'd come to expect from Hervé McClure

I honestly hadn't known this side of Hervé, I remember that he had been the one to lie to me about mochridhe, and so marrying someone without letting them know wasn't such a stretch. It was difficult of course, to reconcile the Hervé who rescued me from Marie-Frances and was an absolute legend to this...trickster god Sadie seemed to know too well. When he'd told me stories of her it had sounded so compelling and romantic but he clearly hadn't known how to love her. Keeping your marriage secret from your wife was no way to be married!

"I'd be perfectly fine if we just sat here and ate our food." I admit, having a lot to think about as far as Hervé, Sadie, Boyd, Lucas

Lucas had known about Hervé's marriage, he'd know about the divorce, had he known about Boyd and Sadie too? And Hervé was right in one thing, Boyd was the best man I knew too. I couldn't imagine all that Sadie had been through, sure Hervé had it rough right now but it was Sadie who'd almost died, who'd had her life threatened and her child's life taken, who'd had to deal with trickster Hervé and his parents. She deserved to be happy, and if Boyd loved you he'd chew bleach-soaked denim before he deceived you, let alone tricked you into marrying him.

The ride to Boyd's place was quiet on my part, hours later I was still deep in my rethinking of Hervé and Sadie and Boyd as I settled into my room. I'd thought about it in the shower, hoping the jet lag would clear and my mind would better absorb the information. I thought about it in bed as I tried to nap some sense into everything. I was thinking about it now as I unpacked my outfits. A door knock revealed Sadie, beautiful as ever, a soft almost apologetic smile on her face.

"We kind of dumped everything on you there didn't we?" She sighs, stepping into the room

I smile back, unsure there was much I could say. I almost wanted to show her a photo of Hervé and ask her if she was sure we were talking about the same person. People were complicated obviously, and Hervé wasn't an exception to that. It was possible that he was the wonderful burdened man I knew and Sadie's torturer. And Boyd... From what I'd seen of the two Boyd was close with Hervé, surely that must be confusing for everyone!

"It's a bit much, I won't lie." I shrug, still unsure if this meant I'd have to choose between my cousin and Hervé

And Luc was close with Sadie, Hervé's soon-to-be ex-wife! So maybe everyone was just super mature and I was the one scattered by all of this

"If only you'd made it to the coronation I would've met you earlier this year... maybe it would've been less complicated then." She sighs beautifully, confusing me

This was late October, and not that I was keeping track or anything but Lucas and I's project was eight months old, started in February, we first slept together in late March and didn't even become a thing until this month's wrap-up of the project. Sadie had already left Hervé by the time I met him; there was no way we would've met earlier this year. Apparently she sees the question in my eyes

"Hervé's coronation?" She prods as if to jog my memory

I...

"You were Luc's plus one..." She says, stopping herself before she reveals something

Aht aht! Open your mouth! Is there another Funke that Lucas Roland was taking with him to his best friend's coronation?

"I wasn't invited...didn't even know Hervé by then." I point out, putting the timeline back in order

"He said you'd had a little bit too much to drink at a meeting and he'd had to carry you home because you'd fallen asleep." She reveals, shattering my timeline and reputation all at once

"I... please ehn, I don't even know alcohol, I only drink the blood of Jesus!" I defend myself, trying to recall what would push Luca into these lies

Me???? Me!!! Drinking alcohol?? At a meeting?!

Can you believe Sadie laughs at this, as if she believes this propaganda spread by my enemies! When had I ever gotten drunk at a meeting or been invited to a coronation by Lucas Roland? Heh the devil is a li...

Ok so there was that meeting with the saffron infused whisky and the situation that followed at the office...and me waking up in my bed and not knowing how I got there...

"You wouldn't have enjoyed it anyway... we were locked out and when we were actually allowed into the estate I barely escaped with my life, hanging from a ledge, expecting Leisel to save me. The entire thing was overrated. I should've never went. I clowned myself." She says, the smile dying on her lips even though her voice was steady

I was rolling in my own discoveries, that that first day, when Lucas and I had gotten carried away in the office, had been the eve of Hervé's coronation, and that it was at Hervé's coronation that his mother had attempted to kill his fiancée/ wife. I had imagined many things about Lucas Roland when I woke up in my own bed with no recollection of getting there, when I had remembered what we'd done in the office, when he'd gone missing for weeks after that, but never this, never the tragedy that was filling the blank space.

"I'm...sorry." I say, unsure if it was her or Lucas I was apologizing to

She seems to wake from her reverie, smiling and shaking her head magnificently

"No, I'm sorry... I keep dumping things on you..." She sighs apologetically

Her smile widens, her shrugged shoulders lifting like some kind of flower.

"I'd love for us to be friends Funke. I know it's complicated, and I'll give you all the space you need to think through it. If it's easier on you I can avoid you while you're here and give you all the time you need with Boyd... I understand that it's a lot." She announces with a solid nod

I find myself smiling back at her; this must be why Boyd loves her. I nod subtly at that.

"Enjoy your dinner, kick ass at your meetings." She says, making her way out of my room

"Hey!" I call out, deciding on something myself

"He's happy for you. He said to tell you you've chosen the best man he knows." I deliver Hervé's message, wanting it out of the way

She nods rather stiffly with a dismissive smile on her face, leaving me to my settling in.