You and Everything After (11 page)

“I’m fine,” she says, opening her eyes to look at me, her mouth curving into that smile that had me dead to rights the first time I saw it. This girl is mine. And I am hers whether she wants me or not. This is my girlfriend. I have a girlfriend!

“Oh, good. Glad. I’m just okay. I mean, that was…like, all right, I guess,” I tease, and she pushes herself up hard against my chest, slightly knocking the wind from me.

“Just okay? You guess?” she says, her face suspicious, and maybe a little pissed.

“Well, you said
fine
! I mean, all of this and you’re…fine?” Now she’s embarrassed, and she buries her head in my chest again.

“Oh my god, I did say
fine.
I’m so sorry,” she says, lifting her head just enough to look into my eyes. I’m smiling, so I hope she knows I’m not serious. Her lip quickly finds its way back to her teeth, and she shrugs one more apology.

“I was teasing you. Cross my heart,” I say, thinking how strange those words sound right now.

My heart. Huh. She kind of owns that too.

Cass is quiet for several more minutes, but lets her hand stroke along my chest, and I can tell she’s thinking. I wonder if she’s uncomfortable? Does she want to get dressed, or is she going to sleep like that? God, I hope she sleeps like that. I’ll keep her covered if Paige comes home. I’m about to offer to let her sleep in my shirt when she speaks.

“Please don’t leave,” she says, her voice soft—a far cry from the confident goddess who was taking control of my body minutes ago.

“Uh…where would I go?” I chuckle, but I stop quickly. I kind of want to be funny, but I also feel a sharp sting in my chest because I think Cass is being serious. And the way she asks—the way she won’t look at me right now—damn it, she actually thought I would leave.

“Look at me,” I say, my hand gentle, but strong along her face, lifting her enough so she can see my eyes, my mouth, my expression. “Where would I go?” I ask again, this time my tone a little different—softer, and heartbroken for her.

“I thought—” she starts to speak, but stops, letting her eyes fall to my chest. I pick her chin up with my finger and run my thumb softly over her lip.

“Guys that do that are dicks,” I say, without a hint of humor.

“But isn’t that…kind of…your reputation?” She’s embarrassed to ask, and I know it’s because she doesn’t want to hurt my feelings. But my rep is my fault, and the fact that she is worried about offending me with my own actions makes her maybe the sweetest girl on the planet.

“Yeah, well, I was a dick. Now I’m not,” I say, testing out a small smile. When she mirrors me, I let out a sigh and cradle her head, pulling her forehead to mine and pressing my lips to it softly. “Sometimes, we meet people that set our shit right. And you were like a bullet. You pierced straight…right about here.” I hold her hand over my chest, and I panic that she can feel how hard my heart’s beating.

She’s quiet at first, but slowly she comes back to me. “That…is the cheesiest line I have ever heard,” she says, unable to stop the grin from spreading into a full smile and soon a laugh.

“You love it,” I say.

“I do,” she responds quickly, pausing to look into my eyes for several long seconds, her lips making those tiny twitches that look like she wants to say something more. But she doesn’t, and instead leaves a kiss on my lips as she steps away from the bed and heads to her closet.

“You can wear my shirt.” I don’t know why, but I want to see her in something of mine. When she picks it up and pulls it over her head, as she disappears behind her closet door, I feel instantly satisfied.

My mouth is dry from saying the word
love
, and my heart is running about a million times faster than it was just seconds before. I know I didn’t really
say
that I love her. But my god it sounded like I maybe meant that. I don’t love her. I don’t love her—because that’s something you spend years looking for. And I have known this girl for a few weeks. I’ve only loved one girl…and she left me a fucked up cryptic voicemail that I haven’t thought about until right this second. I haven’t thought about it because Cass…she stops all time for me. When I’m with her, it’s only her—she’s all I see, and all I want. She consumes me.

But I don’t love her.
I can’t
. Not that fast. And what would Kelly think, if I fell for someone else after telling her I wanted to spare her from having to live a life with me.

What would Kelly think…if I fell in love? With someone else?

If I fell in love with Cass?

Chapter 11

Cass

I woke up for the first time around six in the morning. The sunlight was barely peeking into my room through the thin curtains, so I knew it was still early. I fell back asleep, but not until after watching Ty for almost an entire hour—every breath, every rise and fall of his chest, the way his arm twitched slightly from the weight of my head—I was building a mental scrapbook of all of these tiny little things. This is what a boyfriend is supposed to feel like.

My eyelids finally conceded again, and for several more hours, I fell into the comfort of safe arms and nonsensical dreams. But now that I feel the tiny tickle of fingertips up and down my back and arms, I’m fairly confident Ty has been watching me—locking away memories of his own. The thought makes me smile.

“There’s my ninja,” he whispers in my ear, nuzzling at my cheek and leaving soft kisses down my neck and shoulder.

“I sleep with one eye open. Ninja stuff. You wouldn’t understand,” I say.

“Or would I?” he says, one brow arched.

“You look like one of those cartoon superheroes when you make that face,” I tease.

“I know. Captain Gorgeous,” he winks, and I can’t help but laugh. He gives me the stink eye when I do, pretending to have hurt feelings. “You think I’m kidding, but you can’t detect my superhero-ness, because I haven’t unleashed my super powers on
you
yet. You weren’t ready—ready to withstand the blast of my full gorgeousness.”

“Oh my god, you are literally full of crap this morning, aren’t you?” I say through heavier laughter.

“Mere mortal. You may be ninja, but you could never compete with my secret weapon,” he says, lifting himself with his massive forearms until he’s above me, forcing my head and body to fall deep into the mattress and pillow.

“And what weapon is that?” I ask, suddenly feeling a little out of breath.

“This,” he says, closing the small gap left between us and kissing my lips with a rawness that he didn’t show last night. His mouth possesses mine wildly—as I lie, practically helpless and caged between both of his arms—his forehead finally comes to rest against mine when he pulls away from our kiss to breathe.

“Totally unaffected,” I whisper, wanting to tease, but unable to execute my joke because holy hell…
that
quite honestly might really be a super power.

“Liar,” he says, the corner of his lip pulling up at the side just enough to produce that perfect dimple—going in for the final kill.

When he pushes away from me completely, to sit along the end of the bed, I feel cold, and there’s a part of me that wants to pull him back down to lie next to me. But that would be
needy
. I know that needy isn’t good. Needy doesn’t get you a boyfriend. Needy doesn’t keep a boyfriend. So I just look at him and smile as I watch him pull his jeans up his legs and bend forward to reach his shoes.

“What’s on your agenda today?” I ask, immediately worried that even
that
sounds needy.

“I have some things to take care of, and I think I have one client at two. But then…” he leans forward one final time to reach me for a soft kiss, “then I’m all yours. Don’t forget—dinner with my parents tonight.”

“I’ll be ready,” I smile, trying to keep the covers over my body, which is now full of nervous energy, knowing I won’t have the distraction of a football game to keep conversation—the one-on-one kind—to a minimum with Ty’s parents.

Ty moves to his chair and he pauses, looking at me with a strange expression, and then I realize why. I’m still in his shirt.

“Oh! You probably need this, huh?” I say, sitting up and pulling one arm through the shirt before Ty stops me.

“You keep it. I’ve got a whole closetful down the hall. I think I can make it safely a few feet to the east,” he says, his eyes moving down to the exposed skin on my stomach and my black underwear. He’s practically undressing me, and I let him. I actually move the blanket a few extra inches away for a better view. My move makes him smile. “Damn.”

“Damn what?” I ask, knowing, but wanting to hear it anyway. I’m insecure, and I admit it. I like hearing him talk about me like I’m sexy.

“Damn…I should have waited until you got the shirt off completely before I stopped you,” he smirks. I want him to stay, but he’s backing away. So I let him go, and simply blow him a kiss as he disappears out my door.

Play it cool, Cass.

I bury my head in my pillow when I hear the door shut, then I replay everything I did and said over the last twenty-four hours—hoping it was enough, but never too much.

After a fast shower, I head back to our room and slip into my cotton shorts and T-shirt. My body is tired today. It’s been tired all week. The few hours I have before my dinner—the one where I have to sit down and talk with Ty’s parents—are necessary, unless I want to spend the entire night worrying about tingling legs or strange eye pain. I haven’t had any symptoms since the leg tingles a day or two ago, but I’m on this constant look out, questioning everything I feel.

Rowe walks in only minutes after me. She’s smiling—like
big time
smiling. And that makes me smile too.

I don’t like that we fought. I know it wasn’t a
real
fight, but still…I was pushy. I was pushy because I really wanted my way, just this once. I wanted the night, last night, with Ty. But before I fell asleep, I did think of Rowe, worried that she wasn’t as okay as I was. The smile is still there, though, even as she slides a small, opened cereal box onto her desk shelf.

“Saving up to win the prize?” I ask, kind of wanting to test the waters, seeing if she’s still angry with me.

“Something like that,” she says, and the smile remains, maybe even grows bigger.

“So…how was
your
night?” Please let it
have
been as good as that smile on your face is making me believe it was. Please, oh please, oh please. “Does that smile on your face mean what I think it means?”

“Nooooooo,” she says, but her cheeks are darn near
fire-engine
red. She looks like a thermometer in the ER during flu season. “We just…
slept
. But it was really, really,
really
nice.”

She’s still smiling. This is good. I think this might be
very
good, and I didn’t blow this friend thing with my selfishness. And Rowe looks happy.

“Hmmmmmmm, sounds really, really,
really
boring,” I tease her, feeling good that I can. “Wanna hear about my night?” I am dying to tell someone about my night! And it can’t be Paige.

“Oh god, no!” she says, her face immediately shifting back to a bright shade of red. I’m about to force her to listen anyhow, because
oh my god I have to tell someone,
but suddenly, Rowe is changing her clothes in front of me, and she freezes.

I freeze too.

I saw them earlier. The scars. But she’s not hiding them now, not even attempting. Her eyes are locked on mine, and she’s waiting to see how I’m going to react. I can see her terror. I’ve been that terrified. I’ve lived that terror.
Oh, Rowe, your scars, they’re your story.

But the second that thought passes through my mind, I realize that the moment the welts, from years of shots, finally disappeared from my body, so did my story—by choice. The proof of MS was gone, and I was going to leave it erased.

Rowe doesn’t have that option.

“They’ve gotten better,” she says, turning slowly. She’s letting me see everything, and I can also see her body shivering with nerves as she does. This is scary to her.

“What happened?” I’m looking at her, because I think that’s what she wants. I am in awe of her bravery.

“Two years ago, there was a shooting at my school. You ever hear of Hallman High?” she asks.
Hallman
? I don’t even know if the name truly sounds familiar, and my mind has already raced ahead and filled in the blanks. Rowe has been through hell—actual living hell. And sadly, I can’t tell her hell apart from the dozens of other
hells
I’ve seen on the news lately.

“This sounds awful, but there are just so many school shootings—” I’m embarrassed saying this aloud, but Rowe is shaking her head in understanding. I watch her walk to her dresser and pull out a small stack of photos. I saw her hide those the other day, and my stomach is sinking even lower into the depths of grief for my friend.

She shows me a photo of Josh, her boyfriend, and I immediately think about Nate. A few days ago, Ty asked me about Rowe having a boyfriend, and he mentioned that she seemed strange about the topic. We haven’t talked about it in a while. But I have a feeling the picture is about to become crystal clear.

“Josh…he saved my life,” she says. “He was hit. It wasn’t fatal. But…”

She can’t finish her words, and I can tell her eyes are starting to overflow with tears, so I just nod and offer a silent smile. Josh was hurt—and he’ll never be the same.

She shows me photos of her best friend who died. Betsy. I love that name. I bet I would have loved her friend too. I flip through the pictures she hands me, and I soak each one in, my heart breaking for my friend with every face I see in those pictures. What gets me most, though, is Rowe’s face in those photos. She was so happy, so free. I look at her now, and I realize she’s a ghost.

She’s waiting for my reaction. And I bet she’s rehearsed this—the telling of her tale. And I know what it’s like to get the fake hugs and
I’m so sorry
utterances
. I hate when people apologize because I have MS—like they bumped into me accidentally, and because of that I got MS. It’s ridiculous. I have a mental collection of all of the pep talks after my diagnosis:

“You can beat this, Cass.”

No, actually, I can’t. I can live with it, but I can’t
beat
it.

“It’s just a little adjustment.”

Right…to my
life
!

Oh, and my all-time favorite
—“You have MS, but MS doesn’t have you!”

 
What the fuck does that even mean?

I’m looking at Rowe, and I want to tell her that I understand. I want to tell her why I understand. But Jesus…a school shooting? My problems are not even in the same ballpark. I understand, but I feel like I’d be comparing her bowling ball to my marble, and it would just be insulting. So instead, I give her a break from the pep talks and the pats on the hand and the
understanding
bullshit that no doubt she’s heard a dozen times.

“Wow,” I say. “That’s…sucky. That’s just sucky.”

It is sucky. My MS is sucky. The crap deck life deals out randomly is motherfucking sucky!

“Oooooooh my god, it is soooooooo sucky!” Rowe says, her lips cracking a smile, and a hard laugh follows. She’s breaking a little, trying to hold on—taking my life raft, my free pass to go ahead and laugh at her situation, and how fucked up it is. And I want to laugh, too. Not at Rowe’s experience, but at my own. I want to laugh at it because it takes away its power, and it feels good. And I’ve never done this.

“Riiiiight?” I say back to her, mimicking her Valley-Girl tone. I start to giggle when I do. It’s that crazy, emotional track-wreck kind of laugh that could veer off into a cry at any moment for both of us. But I won’t let it. I’m driving this train, and tonight, we mock our shitty circumstances.

We give them the finger!

We laugh. We laugh hard. And when my sister walks in, we keep it going. We tell Paige everything, about Rowe’s boyfriend—who is practically in a coma—about her friend who died, and about how shitty it all is. Then, for a small second, my sister catches my gaze, and she looks at me hard. “Tell her,” she’s saying. I nod
no.
I don’t want to; I may never want to. And tonight, I’m going to give her laughter instead of sympathy. Paige can play the role of
serious
.

After a few minutes, our laughing starts to fade, and I can tell Rowe feels the sadness of it all sitting on her shoulders again. I feel it too.

She sits next to my sister and shares the same story with Paige that she shared with me, and as Paige always does, she listens—she listens well. And she sympathizes. And she says those positive little things that I know are probably making Rowe cringe.

She means well. But I’m fairly certain Rowe would rather go back to laughing—as insane as it was. It feels better. And I want to go back to laughing too.

Paige’s sympathy is earnest, but it’s also short-lived. Before long, she finds a way to bring the spotlight back where it belongs—on her. She’s moving out; I knew this was coming, and as predicted, I’m excited at the prospect of living
without
my sister. Surprisingly, though, there’s a small pang deep inside. I love my sister, but I never really thought I’d miss her—until now.

“I’m going to need some help moving,” she says, always slipping right into her natural supervisory role, doling out orders.
 

“I’m sure Nate will help—” Rowe offers, cutting her speech short when she realizes what she said. There’s a brief awkward silence, but it passes quickly, and Paige thanks her for asking him. Rowe smiles and busies herself in her book bag, I think partly trying to end her conversation with my sister on this high note.

“Cass, perhaps you can help me with my clothes and things?” my sister asks. I’m half-listening, still a little lost in the realization that I will be without Paige soon, so I nod in her direction. “And we’re going to need to shave your head.”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever you need,” I say.

“Seriously, what’s with you? Did you even hear me?” Paige asks. I feel her weight suddenly next to me on my bed and finally allow myself to bring her face into focus. Rowe is reading her textbook, her ear buds deep in her ears. She listens to her music loudly; I know she’s missing all of this.

“I’m trying out for the soccer team.”
Where the fuck did that come from?
My urge to suddenly bring my sister into my scheme was instant and overwhelming. Maybe I’m scared to be without her. Maybe I’m scared of trying out. Maybe I’m afraid of failing. I think, maybe, all of those statements hit the mark. And I think the fact that I have a
boyfriend
is making me act out, too. But I’d rather talk to Paige about soccer than talk to her about Ty. So, that’s what came vomiting out of my mouth.