Catching Cassidy

by Melissa Foster

  “I don’t know. Your parents might not be too thrilled to have me around for three months.” She leans across my lap and hands the bottle to Delilah.

  Delilah takes a quick drink. She’s not much of a drinker. I think she likes to feel in control, and it’s probably all wrapped up in not wanting to come out. I’ve never asked about this, but I’ve wondered if she’s afraid that if she drinks too much she won’t be able to keep from acting on her impulses. I push that thought away and focus on Cassidy.

  “It’ll be fun, Cass. We’ll hang out. Just the three of us.”

  I reach for the bottle. “Or even better, I know you can’t turn down a summer at Harborside.”

  After I take a drink, Cassidy grabs the bottle again. “I do love the beach.”

  I put my arm over her shoulder and pull her close. “Don’t fool yourself. You love me and Dee, too. So it’s set. We have a plan.”

  They both roll their eyes.

  “What?”

  “You? Plan?” Cassidy laughs and leans forward again. “He’s got a plan, Delilah. He doesn’t even know how to spell plan.”

  I tickle her ribs, and she falls across my lap, laughing. It’s good to hear her laugh. I reach for Delilah next and they’re both in stitches when Delilah’s phone rings.

  “Wait, wait, wait.” Delilah reaches into her back pocket and tries to stop laughing.

  “It’s Uncle Tim’s number.” Delilah answers the call, half laughing, half talking.

  I can’t imagine why he’d call Delilah so late.

  Cassidy turns onto her back across my lap, still laughing. She reaches up and touches the scruff on my chin.

  “When you get a real job, you’ll have to shave more than once a week.”

  She’s smiling, but I can feel the sadness behind it, like the minute she’s alone she’s going to cry again. That bastard really hurt her. I’ve been in a handful of fights, but I’ve never felt rage like I did tonight. The minute I saw Kyle lying naked on top of that bitch, all I could think about was how Cassidy was going to be crushed. I can’t imagine anything worse than the ache I had when I turned around and saw the look in her eyes. It’s seared into my memory. I know I’ll see it when I close my eyes to go to sleep. That’s the one thing I don’t like about knowing Cassidy so well and being so close to her. Like with Delilah, I feel Cassidy’s pain as if it were my own.

  I touch my scruffy jaw, thinking about what she said. “We’ll see about that. I can’t see myself behind a desk. But I’m a kick-ass bartender.” We’ve owned the bar at Harborside since I was a kid, and I basically hung out there and learned how to make every drink under the sun. I can still hear my father’s voice telling me that if I learned to respect alcohol, I wouldn’t abuse it later. That’s one lesson Dad screwed up with, but it made me popular at parties.

  I hear Delilah’s breath catch and turn as she grips my hand. She’s trembling, and tears are streaming down her cheeks. I rip the phone from her hands.

  “Uncle Tim?”

  “Wyatt.” He sounds like he’s being strangled.

  Delilah stares straight ahead, her jaw hanging open, tears flooding down her cheeks, and she’s barely breathing.

  Cassidy sits up and crawls over me. “What happened?” She hugs Delilah, while sitting across mine and Delilah’s laps. “Delilah? What is it?”

  “What happened?” I yell into the phone.

  “Your parents. We…They…There’s been an accident.”

  His voice sounds a million miles away. A cold sensation pulses through my body. My hands clench into fists, and my throat closes. I can’t focus, can catch only some of what he’s saying. Eighteen-wheeler. Crossed double line. I feel like I’m in a time warp, and he’s getting farther and farther away. Four-car accident. I pull Delilah into my arms. She’s shaking so badly I hear her teeth chattering—and I know I can’t fix this. Cassidy says something, but I can’t hear past the rush of blood in my ears. Uncle Tim’s voice pierces through.

  They didn’t make it.

  Chapter Three

  ~Wyatt~

  THE LAST FEW days have been a blur. Uncle Tim’s been making arrangements for Mom and Dad’s funerals, dealing with insurance companies and my parents’ attorney, while Delilah has been vacillating between bawling her eyes out and shutting everyone out of her life, and me…Well, I feel like a robot on steroids half the time, trying to make sure Delilah and Cassidy are okay, and the other half of the time I feel like I want to kill someone. I’m worried about Delilah. She’s shutting me out entirely. She’s already hidden so much of herself for so long that I worry she’ll shut herself away forever. She’s been so afraid of our parents finding out about her sexuality that she’s even hidden it from our friends. Now that our parents are gone, I worry she’s going to be lost, or maybe she’s relieved. That’s a fucked-up thought—but maybe? Could I blame her? She’s lived forever under a veil of secrecy. Now she’s free to live her own life. I want so badly to talk this through with her, but everything makes her cry, and I want to fix it all, and I can’t.

  After the funeral everyone came to our house to pay their respects. Aunt Lara is a mess, because she was in the car with my parents on the way back to Connecticut when they were killed. She was in the backseat, and she has cuts and bruises and a few broken ribs, but I can tell she feels guilty for surviving. I guess when the police asked her who to call, she gave them Uncle Tim’s number, which is why he was the one to call us. Uncle Tim said she was barely coherent for several days after the accident, and I believe it, because it’s like she’s still in shock. She’s either crying or walking around like a zombie. Uncle Tim’s been great, taking care of things around the house, answering the never-ending stream of phone calls, and trying to buffer me and Delilah from the onslaught of people who want to help us but in reality just magnify the loss of our parents. There are still a handful of people inside, and I swear if I have to see a look of pity on one more person’s face, I’m going to lose it. That’s why I escaped outside to the back deck.

  Cassidy is running back and forth between me and Dee, doing all she can to be there for us. She didn’t ask to be thrown into this mess when she’s dealing with her own heartbreak. She’s known my parents forever…She knew…Fuck. Thinking of my parents in past tense makes me feel like all the air has been sucked from my lungs. Cass knew my parents since she was five, when she moved around the corner from us. She was like their other daughter, coming and going without knocking on the door. That’s why she was so worried about staying for three months. She’s like that. She worries that she’s taking advantage because she is so comfortable around my family. Was. She was so comfortable around them. But the truth is, my parents loved Cass. They wouldn’t have cared.

  Tears burn my eyes every time I think of my parents, which is just about every second. I press my thumb and index fingers to my closed lids, trying to stop the tears from falling, but it just makes my chest burn even worse, and the goddamn tears fall anyway. I swipe at them with my palm and look around our fenced backyard. Dad taught me how to play football here. He never cared if it was raining or cold or almost dark. Every time I asked him to toss the pigskin, he did. Now that I think of it, it’s weird that he did, since he’s Mr. Shirt-and-Tie conservative.

  I mean, he was. Fuck.

  My brain stops functioning for a minute, like someone turned it off, and I just sit there staring out at the grass. When the glass door slides open behind me, I close my eyes for a second, hoping it’s not someone checking on me. If one more person asks if I’m okay, I swear I’ll punch them.

  I feel her hand on my back and intuitively know it’s Cassidy before I see her. She sits beside me and puts her hand on my thigh. I’m so thankful it’s her that I want to hug her. She’s wearing a black dress that looks strange on her. She almost never wears black. She’s one of those girls who looks like she belongs in California, not Connecticut. Her olive skin makes her look like she’s always tan, and she wears colorful clothing that’s loose and trend
y, not conservative or dull. Delilah says she has a sunny personality. She’s right. Cassidy pretty much lights up every room she walks into.

  “This sucks.” She squeezes my leg and rests her head on my shoulder.

  I drape my arm around her because it’s what I always do, and hell if I don’t feel like a needy bitch right now. I need her comfort more than I need to breathe. She smells like flowers—familiar and safe—and...Goddamn it. I feel like I’m gonna cry again.

  “Yeah, it sucks.” I clear my throat to get rid of the gravelly, sad sound of my voice and look away. I don’t want her to see my eyes all wet. The tears stopped, but I know they’re not gone for long. “Where’s Dee?”

  “She’s in her room. She doesn’t want to see anyone. I think after today it’ll be easier, but right now she’s overwhelmed.”

  I nod, knowing the feeling.

  “Your uncle said he’s going back home tonight and that he’ll take care of anything else you guys need him to.”

  I nod. He told me that, too. Aunt Lara is also leaving. She has two dogs, a cat, and two birds that her neighbor was watching, but her dogs are like kids—the oldest dog misses her when she goes away and stops eating. She lives less than an hour away, which is close enough for her to come back if we need her. I wonder if Uncle Tim or Aunt Lara told Cassidy that my parents left everything to us. The bar, the house…their money. None of it feels real. I mean, I know kids who can’t wait to inherit their parents’ money, and I feel like I want to tell them how much it sucks to have things handed to me instead of having my parents around. I’d trade everything to have them back in our lives. They might have been tight asses, but I love them.

  Loved them.

  Damn it.

  I can’t even think about all that stuff right now, and since Cassidy isn’t saying anything more, I doubt they told her. Uncle Tim has been really great, taking care of everything and making sure we have whatever we need. Unfortunately, what we need is buried six feet under the ground.

  “I heard Uncle Tim break down last night,” I say to get my mind on something other than my parents. “It’s gotta suck for him, too, having lost his best friend.”

  “Yeah, I know. He’s been so strong. He said he told you and Delilah that you can go stay with him for as long as you want, and I guess your aunt offered, too, although she doesn’t seem in any shape to take care of her pets—much less anyone else.”

  They both offered, but seeing everyone this week was enough. I feel like I’m boxed in and need space to breathe.

  Cassidy reaches up and pulls my chin toward her so I have no choice but to look at her. “You’re allowed to fall apart, you know.”

  I half smile.

  “I don’t mean like crawl into a fetal position and sob your eyes out, although if you want to do that, I’ll be right there with you. I mean like get really trashed so you can’t feel a thing, or break something.”

  I nod again, because she knows me so well. “Right now I gotta be mentally present for Dee, but when I’m ready to break something, it’s good to know you’ll be there.” She squeezes my thigh again, and I hold her compassionate gaze, unable to look away. She brushes my hair out of my eyes and shifts her gaze away.

  Her brows draw together. I never really noticed before, but when she does that, the edges of her lips curve up. It’s cute.

  “I hope when you get a real job, they don’t make you cut your hair. I love your hair long.”

  I shake my head to the side, and my bangs fall away from my eyes. My hair isn’t super long, but it touches my collar and hangs pretty straight to my eyes. Every time I ever went to a barber, they hacked my hair, so it was easier for Mom to just take a little off the ends. I wonder for a minute who’s going to cut it now. I hate barbers. I drop my eyes, feeling stupid for worrying about something so lame when Mom’s dead. Dead. I can’t wrap my head around it. I expect her and Dad to walk out the door and tell me that I shouldn’t leave my shit all over my room or something.

  “I guess you’ll be at the mercy of me and Delilah to cut your hair from now on.”

  I pull her closer, thankful she’s here. “Trust you guys wielding scissors? Not on your life.”

  “Come on. You can trust us. Why would we want to make your hair look bad?” She’s smiling, and I start to feel shitty again. Selfish. My brain is jumping from my parents to Cassidy, to Delilah, to that asshole I hit the other night.

  “Cass, about the fight…”

  She swats the air like it’s no big deal. “I’m over it, Wy.”

  “No, you’re not.” I hold her gaze and have to pull her into a hug. I feel tears threatening again, and it pisses me off. I know she’ll understand, but still. I’m not this fucking weak, and I need to be strong for her and Dee.

  “I’m sorry he hurt you so badly, and I’m sorry all of this overshadowed it.” I wish I could fix everything. For her, for me, for Dee. Actually, if I could fix one freaking thing, I’d be happy, but my father was the fixer. I just showed up and did shit.

  It dawns on me that I thought was and did and somehow, with Cassidy in my arms, it didn’t feel as bad. I ease my grip, but she squeezes me tighter.

  “Aw, Cass.” I feel her body shaking and hear her sniffle, and I know she’s crying again.

  “He’s an asshole, and I’m glad you hit him. Does that make me a bad person?”

  “No. It makes you normal.”

  She pulls back, and I reach over and wipe her tears with my thumb. I hate to see her sad. It does strange things to me and makes me want to beat the shit out of Kyle again, but it also tugs at me and makes me sad for her and want to take care of her and protect her from other assholes like him.

  She reaches for my hand and rubs her thumb over the scabs on my knuckles. Then she brings my hand to her lips and kisses my knuckles while she’s looking into my eyes. Cassidy has held my hand thousands of times, but she’s never kissed me like this before. Or looked at me like she wanted more of me, like she is now. It’s not a look of just wanting to get laid, but I’m definitely sensing a desire for something more. If she were any other girl, I’d pay attention to the heat searing through my body, breaking through the sadness, which I would never have believed was possible. But Cass is my best friend. I know I shouldn’t feel like I want her incredible lips on mine, especially now, when our lives are such a mess, but I can’t stop myself.

  I force myself to look away, and even as I do that, I feel the heat of her stare, and it’s confusing the shit out of me.

  ~Cassidy~

  WELL, THAT WAS about the most awful day ever, following the shittiest week ever. I wonder what life could possibly have in store for me and my friends next. A plague? I spoke to my parents earlier, and while they seemed shocked and saddened by the death of Wyatt’s parents, they never offered to come home. Even though they know how close I was with his parents. And when I told them that Kyle and I broke up, they never even asked why. My father said something about more fish in the sea and finding a real catch when I work in New York, which I’ve heard a million times before, so I didn’t try to discuss it any further. My mom said she was sorry about Kyle but that it just meant he wasn’t the right guy for me, and that it’s probably for the best, because New York will offer all sorts of opportunities. She followed that up with a ten-minute lecture about not wallowing in sadness because it makes women weak and pathetic to cry over men. She said I’m strong and bright and that I’ve got too big of a future waiting for me in New York to be held back by some guy. Then, as if she remembered that she’s supposed to say something at least a little sweet and supportive, she said that when the right guy comes along, I’ll feel like I can’t breathe without him.

  Whatever.

  I’ve never felt that and can’t even begin to imagine what it feels like. Sometimes I wish I had different parents, but then something happens—like knowing Wyatt and Delilah are left with no parents—and I realize I’m lucky to have any parents at all.

  Wyatt’s aunt and uncle left a fe
w hours ago, and Delilah and I are sitting on the couch while Wyatt stalks around the house like he’s looking for something. I’ve asked him a dozen times what he’s looking for, but he just shakes his head and goes from room to room. He’s just agitated and upset, and I’m sure at any moment he’s going to break out the alcohol and bury his sadness in liquor. I’m surprised twenty minutes later when he returns to the living room and he’s still not drinking.

  My phone vibrates with a text, and I snag it quickly to delete the text before Wyatt sees it. I feel like I’ve honed stealth ninja skills over the past few days, trying to keep Kyle’s texts from Wyatt. Kyle has texted me so many times that I want to change my number, but that would mean contacting my parents again and it’s not worth the hassle. My emotions are all over the place. I know if Wyatt finds out Kyle’s trying to reach me, he’ll go ballistic, so I keep deleting his texts. I have this fantasy of seeing Kyle somewhere and popping him one in the nose, but I really don’t want to see him again. Not even to hit him. I don’t want to give him any of my thoughts, either, but every night when darkness hits and Delilah and Wyatt go into their rooms, I can’t stop myself from crying. Two years is a long time, and when I’m alone in the guest room, I feel hollow and swamped with sadness. My best friends in the world just lost their parents, my boyfriend cheated on me, and my parents are in Europe. It’s no wonder my head goes to this strange place. I start comparing Kyle to Wyatt. It’s not a fair comparison, considering Wyatt’s known me my whole life and Kyle hasn’t, but still, I can’t help it. Kyle even forgot my birthday this year, and Wyatt left me three hidden cards. It should be my boyfriend doing that, not my best friend. Or maybe as well as my best friend, because Wyatt’s cards made me happier than Kyle’s ever did.

  The first night we were back, after we found out that Wyatt and Delilah’s parents had been killed…Oh my God, that hurts to think about. I swallow against the lump in my throat. They were like parents to me. I miss them so much it hurts like an ever-present toothache, and when it’s combined with the hurt of breaking up with Kyle, it’s all I can do to make it through each day, let alone the nights. But I know it’s so much worse for Wy and Delilah.