Days Like This (12 page)

WHEN I GOT home, Mom was
already asleep. Her meds made her tired, and I was grateful I didn’t have to
explain my evening. I didn’t want to be reminded—again—of all my mistakes. Mom
didn’t understand it, not really. How did I explain everything without making
her feel bad? It was her bipolar disorder that made me afraid, her mistakes. In
being so scared of them, they became mine. I was destined to be like her, if
for no other reason than I made myself like her.

I put on some
pajamas and debated calling back June. She called again during dinner, but I
didn’t answer. To call her meant I had to tell her everything. Starting at the
beginning of Graham and me would take hours, and I wasn’t in the mood.

I went to a
blank page in my notebook and let the pencil slide across it until more of my
own notes appeared. In Indianapolis, I kept myself busy so I didn’t have to
think. But here there was nothing else. I tapped into that part of me and let
the notes pour on to the page.

You show up
at my door // The first thing you say // is I’m beautiful and you miss me // I push
you away and say you shouldn’t be here // it’s a lie and all I want is you near
// you beg me to tell you // what can you do to make me come back to you // You
say you didn’t even know how much I wanted to go // And if I love you all I
have to do is say so…

Sometimes love
is not enough // when it means losing // I can’t watch you walk away // love
doesn’t always build a dam // sometimes it’s not enough // cause love means you
stay // and I can’t let you hurt that way

I threw the
pencil down. That is not forgetting, it’s remembering. It was exactly like
they’d said: Graham came to me at school and I made him leave. I did this to
us, and that wasn’t something I wanted to deal with either. Had it really been
that bad for him? No wonder they all hated me. I hated myself for it.

Instead, I
went to the record player and combed through other people’s music. I had no
idea what I wanted to listen to. Soft crooning? Loud metal? Jazz? The options
were limitless. I scanned the collection and put on Bob Dylan.
Blood on the Tracks
seemed fitting. The record popped as it
started to play, and I turned it up enough to hear it through the house, but
low enough that it didn’t wake Mom.

The doorbell
rang, and I saw the top of Graham’s head through the little window on the door.
I pressed my head against the wood of the door. I didn’t want to answer because
I was weak and afraid of what he’d say to me, or worse, what the words would do
to me. We’d come so far in the last few weeks.

Graham knocked
on the door, and it echoed in my ears. I sighed before answering.

“Hey, ” I said.
Graham stood on the porch, hands in his pockets. His eyes were glassy, like
he’d drank too much. I squeezed my fingers into a fist at my side in order to
keep them from reaching out.

“Got a
minute?” he asked. His voice was lower and rougher than usual.

I stepped out
onto the porch. The May air was warm, but not too hot yet. He stepped back and
leaned against the railing of the front porch. I bit down on my lip. We both
stood there in silence. This was becoming a thing between us—silence—and I
wanted to fill it. Words didn’t seem to work, though. There were only so many
ways to apologize and so many ways to pretend. Only so many ways to hold myself
back from what I really wanted.

“I’m sorry
about that,” Graham said. “I didn’t think it would be like that.”

I shook my
head. I only wanted to forget all about the night out with my old friends. Trying
to forget was my theme song. “I don’t blame you—or them. I knew they hated me.”

“They don’t
hate you,” he said.

I crossed my
arms. “Really, Graham. Come on.”

He smiled and
leaned into me. It was one of those incomplete, sloppy smiles; he’d definitely had
a lot to drink. “Okay, they aren’t your biggest fans but—I think they’re
wrong.”

“It’s fine.
You should hate me, too, really. I don’t know how you don’t.”

I didn’t want
him to hate me, but how could he not? I’d destroyed him.

Graham grew
quiet and ran a hand through his hair. “I did. For a while.”

“What
changed?” I whispered.

He shrugged.
Wrong question, I guess. “
You’re
Gonna Make Me When You Go
” seeped
outside through the cracks. I could only hear the irony. Did he hear it too?
Graham looked at me as the song played and neither of us moved, stuck in that
moment between so much to say and no clue how to say it. Between wanting to touch
him and wanting to run away.

Graham’s
fingers grazed my cheek, and my stomach folded in on itself. At least that’s
how it felt. Like I was falling. He pulled his hand away quickly. “Anyway,
sorry for tonight. I really don’t hate you, Cassie. They just don’t want me to
get hurt.”

They think
I will hurt him, like before. Maybe they’re right to think that.

I nodded.
“Goodnight, Graham.”

He surprised
me by hugging me. Graham squeezed me tight, and the full length of my body was
pressed against him. His arms held me closer, and every cell tingled. I wanted
to stay there close to him. I wanted so much more, and he was right there. It
wouldn’t take much to have it again, to lean in and close the space between us.

He pulled
away. It was probably best since he’d been drinking and I was obviously out of
my mind.

Graham went
the rest of the way down the steps, and then turned to me again. His eyes were
dark. “Tell me one thing: were you happy? After you left, were you happy?”

 “No,” I said,
not even stopping to think about what that meant for him. But I thought I could
be. I wanted to be. When I found out about my dad, I thought if I left and
started over then I could ignore it all. All it did was make it worse.

He
nodded slowly, and looked away from me. I could tell it wasn’t the answer he
wanted by the way his whole body tensed. I wished I had been happy after I
left. Part of me knew he wished the same because even though I hurt him, he’d
always wanted me to be happy. It was all he’d ever wanted, except he’d always
thought it would be him to make me happy. Maybe it could be, someday.

“I think I
could be, though. Someday,” I said. It was low, but he heard me because he
looked at me again. The music played around us and I knew that I meant it.
Whatever I went to Indiana searching for, I hadn’t found. Maybe it had always
been missing. Or maybe it had always been right here and I hadn’t seen it.

“What will it
take for you to get there?” Graham asked.

What would it
take? I wanted to say it was him. That before I left, he had made me happy. He
was the only bright spot in my life, and that was terrifying. I wanted to say
that he was right, that my mom was right, and I had come home a little for him.
Probably more so than I even knew, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t do that to him
when he was someone else’s. Someone who wouldn’t break him.

“I don’t
know,” I said.

Graham nodded.
“I hope you find it.”

I PUT THE key in the
ignition. I had twenty-five minutes to pick up Molly and get us to Hixton’s
Corner for brunch with her aunt. I’d never even met her aunt, and that wasn’t
how I wanted to spend my Saturday morning. My head was pounding; I guessed I
drank more than I realized. If not for the three texts from Molly, I probably
would’ve forgotten all about brunch. I barely remembered it, but when I thought
really hard it was in the back of my head, vaguely—right next to the vibrant
image of Cass in that green dress last night. The way she looked with her hair
like that and her jacket and her eyes sparkling.

I shook my
head and rolled down the window so the sun could hit my skin and wake me up. It
was bright outside. We had a hot summer ahead. I started to back out of the
spot when Cassie’s voice floated to my ears. I froze there for a second,
glancing at my mirror while she sat outside on the porch. I waited to see what
she would do, but she was still and silent, staring over the horizon. I don’t
know if she saw me, but she didn’t look my way.

I kept seeing
her like she was last night. Not before dinner when she looked beautiful or
during when she looked uncomfortable. But after. When I stood on her porch and
asked her if she was happy.

There was
something in her eyes, something written on her face, that seemed hopeful.
Something that seemed like she knew there could be something to make her happy,
but she didn’t know how to say it. Or if she wanted to. Like breathing its name
would burst the dream. I felt it between us in the air, that hope.

Music started
and Mrs. H yelled, “I love this song!” I was too far away to make out the
lyrics, but I strained my ear to listen. I wanted to hear it, to be part of a
moment with them like I used to be. Even for a second.

What are
you doing? Go get Molly.

I put the
truck in drive and started down the street, but even when I turned the corner,
I still felt that hope. It was the last thing I expected to feel last night,
the last thing I understood, but I knew it was mine as much as it was hers.

MOLLY KISSED ME as she got
into my truck and she smelled like vanilla. It was making my hangover worse.
Don’t
vomit.
That was all I could think about.

“Aunt Kat’s
really excited to meet you,” Molly said, her fingers on my shoulder as we
drove.

I nodded. “I’m
sure it will be great.”

“How was last
night?”

In my mind, I
see Cass’s face when she saw me in the parking lot. The way her hand bumped
mine while we walked. She never smelled like vanilla that made my head spin.

“Fine,” I
said. It wasn’t really fine. Not at the end. That conversation with her had me
so confused. She left to be happy and she wasn’t, so why did she stay away?

Stop
thinking about Cassie.

Stop caring. I
needed to stop caring. To stop worrying about her family, to stop listening to
her music. To stop wanting to be in her moments because I wasn’t in her life.
I’d been down that road and I knew where it ended. I needed to clear my head.

I took a deep
breath and cringed at the overwhelming scent of vanilla.

“Are you even
listening to me?” Molly asked, poking my shoulder.

I parked the
car. “What?”

She huffed and
crossed her arms. “You weren’t even listening. Where is your head today? The
whole way here you’ve been somewhere else.”

My head was in
places it shouldn’t have been. I knew that, but I couldn’t keep it grounded. I
couldn’t focus on Molly when I kept hearing Cass’s laugh, and seeing her smile,
and listening to her pronounce every word like it was the most important thing
I had ever heard.

What was
happening to me?

I knew what
was happening. This was the same way it felt when I was fifteen and I wanted to
kiss her for the first time. This was how it was before I fell the first time.

Molly stared
at me, arms across her chest.

“What?” I
asked.

“Seriously?”
she yelled. Molly jerked the door open and stormed around the front of the
truck. Her blonde head bobbed in front of me and I jumped out too.

“Sorry,” I
said, pulling at her arm until she stopped walking. “I’m tired. I drank too
much last night.”

Even saying
that made me feel like an ass. Maybe
all
of this was because I drank too
much. I didn’t have any feelings for Cass. Last night was an illusion, a haze
of alcohol. Cassie was a friend, kind of, and that was all. Molly was my girlfriend.
Cass was my past; Molly was now.

“I’m really
sorry,” I said.

“Is something
else going on that we need—”

I shook my
head. “I’m really looking forward to meeting your aunt.”

Molly raised
an eyebrow. “You’re sure? You don’t have to do this.”

“I’m sure,” I
said, taking her hand.

She smiled,
and I knew this was where I needed to be. Molly was solid and real. I never had
to wonder what she was thinking because she told me. We were still getting to
know each other, instead of hiding pieces. She knew how to surprise me, how to
live life unafraid. She’d spent the last few months showing me what I really
wanted and helping me reach out to grab it. That was the truth, and truth was
stronger than hope.