by Lara Swann
What’s he been saying to the kids?
“Is it a secret you can tell me?” I prod a little more.
She considers this for a long time, but I don’t ask again.
Ellie is very big on secrets at the moment, and if she thinks someone is trying to get her to tell one, she’ll close up faster than you can blink.
“He said I could tell people when he was gone.” She says after a while. “But only people I want to tell.”
I nod again.
“Do you want to tell me?” I ask slowly, as if this isn’t burning me up with interest.
She thinks about this again, making a loud hmmmm to emphasize it.
Then she giggles and nods. “I think he would want me to tell you.”
Thank god for that.
She comes close to me, her mouth hovering over my ear as she starts whispering. It tickles, but I don’t stop her.
“Josheses secret is…he’s actually nice, Auntie Cass. He said he was pretending to be a monster. But that I’m right, and monsters don’t exist, so he’s actually nice.”
She looks back at me proudly, and I can’t help it any longer.
It’s enough to break through the bleak, confused emptiness I’ve been caught in, and a sob rips out of me, even as I try to hold it back. For my niece, who doesn’t understand at all.
“Auntie Cass? Auntie Cass!” Her face scrunches up. “I’m sorry! It was a good secret, it was a good one!”
“Hush, hush, hush…” I cuddle her close to me, breathing in the sweet scent of her hair and trying to make her believe I’m rocking her instead of myself. “It was a good secret, honey. Very good.”
Tears are running down my cheeks, and I’m shaking with the effort of not bursting into large, wracking sobs.
“Then why are you sad now?” She asks, almost accusingly, and I don’t have an answer for her.
Not one that I can explain.
“I don’t know.” I say instead, still struggling for breath. “But…maybe…a cuddle might fix it.”
She nods again, and throws her arms around me, and my stupid, shattered heart squeezes up tight again.
We rock back and forth for a long moment, and she takes up shushing me as I don’t know whether I want to laugh, or sob, or anything.
That’s how Maria finds us, a few minutes later, and she stops in her tracks.
“Ellie! What are you doing there?” She comes to sit beside us, rubbing Ellie’s back and shooting me a worried look. “I told you not to bother Auntie Cass at the moment, sweetie.”
I give a shaky breath as Ellie complains that she wasn’t bothering me, then I agree with my niece.
“She wasn’t, Maria. She’s been more helpful than everyone else combined, I promise.” I try to smile, but that’s too much for me right now, and I squeeze my eyes shut against fresh tears.
“Okay, okay.” She murmurs, then slowly extracts Ellie from my grip. “Why don’t you go play now, sweetheart? I think Lucas is playing cowboys outside.”
“What about Auntie Cass?” She asks with wide eyes.
“I’ll look after her now, okay?” Maria says, as if I’m not even here. But it’s sweet enough of her that I don’t care.
Ellie glances between us and I give her an encouraging nod, before she reluctantly slides off the sofa.
“Okaaay…” She still looks over her shoulder at us as she walks away though, nearly bumping into the door post.
Maria shouts at her to watch out and I wince, but she recovers from it with a jump, before darting away from us.
I sigh heavily, and before I can say anything, Maria is pulling me into her arms.
I look up at her, feeling silly, but the moment they close around me, I suddenly can’t hold back the sobs anymore.
I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t even be crying over this, but I am.
And I can’t help it.
She holds me, and rubs my back, as I finally let it all out.
Release every stupid emotion this fucked up thing has left me with.
She murmurs soft sounds, and I don’t remember the last time I felt so much like a stupid child, but I go with it anyway.
I sob, and moan, and by the end of it I’m hiccuping and she’s passing me constant tissues.
“Ohh Cassie, I’m so sorry.” Maria says, gentle as ever.
“I’ve…lost…my best friend…” I moan, gasping as I try to get my breathing back under control.
“Shhh, it’s okay.” She kisses my forehead. “It’ll be okay, Cassie. I know it feels that way now…but he was never really your best friend.”
I start crying again, this time for how I’ve fucked everything else up too. For the way she’s comforting me for something that didn’t even happen.
“No…I…he…he was…” I say, taking deep breaths and trying to steady myself out again.
I can’t keep pretending anymore. I need to say it. To tell someone what the fuck is going on with me right now.
“Maria…can I…I want to tell you something.” I finally get out, wiping at my eyes and looking up at her.
“You can tell me whatever you want, sweetie. It’s okay.” She murmurs, but I know she isn’t paying attention.
“No, really. I…it’s fucked up, Maria. And…and you and Mark will fucking kill me.” I admit.
I don’t care about what anyone else thinks. But I feel genuinely bad for them, for how much they’ve tried to support me this week.
That does get through to her, and she frowns. “What is it?”
“Josh…I…he’s…he’s not my boyfriend, Maria. We’re not—we weren’t—he was just pretending. He’s a good—a good guy. We’re—we were just friends.”
I have no idea what we are now. Whether we’re anything at all.
She blinks, frowning at me.
“But, you, ah…” Her eyes flick down and I realize she’s glancing at the fading love bite still obvious on my neck. “You were…umm…”
I cough and glance away, suddenly awkward.
“Er…yes…that—that’s part of the…the problem.” Another sob hits me, and I try to steady myself again. “It was…that wasn’t meant to happen. But we weren’t—we’re not together. It was just…an act.”
She doesn’t seem angry with me, at least. Just completely confused.
“But…why, Cassie?”
“Because I couldn’t deal with any more set-ups, or Mom going on and on at me. I thought if—if I had a boyfriend, she’d leave me alone. And then, we could break up, and—and I could tell everyone I was done with men for—for a while.”
She’s staring at me now, as if I’ve just grown another head or something.
“Really, Cassie?” She gives me a look as if I’m being ridiculous - the same one I’ve always gotten for complaining about our mother. “That’s…pretty extreme. Do you really think it’s as bad as all that? Worth…lying to us all, dragging your friend into it, just to get out of a few blind dates?”
“She told the last psycho she set me up with that I’d had a secret crush on him all through school. Enough that he thought he was entitled to act on it now.” I say bitterly. “It seemed fucking worth it at the time. Now…fuck knows.”
“Wait…what?!” Her expression changes to horror in an instant. “When was this? What happened, Cassie?”
I shrug. I don’t even care about that anymore. This thing with Josh is far worse.
“You know the guy - the esteemed Matthew. I ran into him on Monday, in Yuma. It’s fine, nothing happened, but damn it—if Josh hadn’t been there—” Then a fresh wave of sobs runs through me, as I think about Josh.
About everything he’s done to support me.
Supporting you…helping you…don’t you know I have my own fucking life to worry about…
“Why didn’t you say, Cassie?” She says, angry, but very obviously not at me. “I’ll talk to John, we’ll get him strung up and—”
“Don’t. Don’t bother.” I say. “Nothing happened. I just didn’t want t
o think about it, or any of that drama with Mom. And Josh left him in a pretty bad way.”
“Good.” She says grimly, and I’m not entirely sure she will leave it at that, but she at least drops it for the moment. “And…I’m sorry, Cassie. I never realized it was as bad as all that.”
I shrug. “It’s just Mom. You know what she’s like. And I’m just sick of that shit. I should’ve told her to fuck off, instead of—instead of all this. And now—fuck, what a mess.”
She squeezes my shoulder. “It’ll be okay. I’ll talk to them, and by the time you next see us all again, I’m sure they’ll have gotten over it.
I nod miserably, appreciating the support, but not able to care too much about what they think right now.
“So…do you want to tell me what’s really wrong then, Cassie?” She finally asks. “If you were always going to break up…”
I sob again, and shake my head. “I know, it was—it was meant to be…to just be part of the plan. But—but then, when it happened—”
“It sure seemed real from where I was watching.” She says softly.
I nod.
“And now—now I don’t know—don’t know…Now he’s gone, and—and I—I think I fucked it up, Maria.” I try to breathe, but as the truth comes out, it gets harder and harder.
She rocks me again, hushing me and telling me it’s all okay.
“I think I lost my best—my best friiieeennndd.” I moan, biting down on my fist to try and keep quiet. “Why—why—whyy did it…did it get so…real?!”
I can’t believe how much it’s suddenly hurting. To be faced with the reality of it all.
I feel like we’ve ruined everything.
And I don’t even know what everything is, or was, or could have been anymore.
“Sweetie…it didn’t look like you were just friends. Not even just friends with benefits.” She says after a moment, still in that soft voice that could almost convince me those words might not shatter my whole world.
I moan again, dissolving into sobs as I finally hear out loud the thing that neither Josh nor I could bring ourselves to say.
The idea that maybe, somewhere along the way, we stopped being just friends.
In a way that we could never have gone back from.
“But—but—” I say, struggling with it. “I don’t know…don’t know that…it wasn’t real, Maria. He was just pretending, and—and I don’t even—and what if I don’t want to risk…to risk that? I don’t—I don’t know what I want, and—and he doesn’t want it either—and—”
I collapse in her arms, unable to talk anymore, and she just holds me for a long time.
Can’t take a risk without a three-hour conversation, a spreadsheet and a timetable to consult…
“And—and what if—what if he meant what he said?” I continue, pouring out all the poisonous thoughts that I haven’t been able to get out of my head.
Maria just lets me, murmuring nonsense comfort and stroking my back as I cry on the sofa with her for what feels like forever.
When I finally feel like I have nothing left - it’s all wrung out and done and I’m nothing but an empty husk inside - I take a deep gasping breath and look back at her.
Wanting her to tell me how to make it all better again.
But she doesn’t have an answer for me.
“I don’t know, sweetie.” She says, seeming to read the bleak hope in my expression. “I can’t work any of that out for you. But…it sounds like you want to.”
She leans forward kissing my forehead and hugging me close. “And you’ve always gone after everything you’ve wanted, Cassie. But I don’t think I’m the person you need to talk to.”
I shudder in her grip, holding her as tightly as she is me, and we don’t say anything for a long time.
I know she’s right. But the idea of talking to Josh…terrifies me right now. And there’s too much to think about.
I don’t want to throw away whatever we have left between us. I’m afraid I don’t know what I want. I’m afraid to get it wrong. And afraid that, whatever I say, it’ll end with me missing out on something I need vitally.
His friendship. His touch. His kiss.
When we finally break apart, I say my goodbyes to the rest of my family.
And then I drive home.
Alone.
Chapter Sixteen
Josh
“I might have fucked this up.”
I knock back my beer, swallowing a third of it as I try to take the edge off.
“Sounds like it.” Jason agrees.
“You have a habit of doing that.” Dan nods.
“I mean, let’s not forget that it was a completely crazy idea to start with. Pretend to be her boyfriend, then break up, so that you end up…as her boyfriend?” Jack-O says.
He shakes his head and I look round at them all, scowling.
Jason, Jack-O and Dan.
Of course, Jack-O isn’t his real name. But we haven’t used Ollie since we burst into his dorm one night to find him…well, jacking off.
He never was able to shake the nickname. And Jason wanted to call us the 3Js or J3 or something. That one didn’t stick - and when Dan joined the group it died completely.
My used-to-be college acting group, and nowadays drinking buddies.
The only guys I can rely on to give me the time of day in this city.
But even so, I don’t usually go to them for this sort of thing. It’s always been Cassie that I talk to for girl stuff. Or even life stuff.
Anything where I’m looking for actual help.
She gives me shit, but there’s usually some good advice in there too.
With these guys, it’s just the shit.
But I can’t exactly talk to Cassie right now, so I don’t have much choice.
“Thanks.” I mutter. “Super helpful, guys.”
“Anytime.” Jack-O slaps me on the shoulder.
We go back to the drinking - something these guys actually are good for. Unlike Cassie.
God-damn it, why does every thought have to lead to her?!
“Okay, let’s help you out then, mate.” Jason says, and I cautiously get my hopes up.
Maybe they will take something seriously for once.
“Yeah, okay, so what have we got to work with?” Jack-O gives me a slow look up and down. “Hmm, maybe not much, but I’m sure we can think of something.”
Those hopes die.
“He’s pretty.” Dan joins in. “Girls seem to go for that—”
“I’m not pretty.” I mutter, but they ignore me.
“And she already fucked him.” Jason says. “So I’m guessing she likes his D—”
“Hey! Don’t talk about Cassie like that.” I hit him round the head.
I’m used to their insults, they’re part of the game, but that’s too far.
“Ooohh, you really do like her.” Dan crows.
“Pity she doesn’t like him.” Jason laughs, flipping me off.
“Or she did - but only as a friend.” Dan laughs. “That old problem.”
I start regretting ever getting them together.
Or telling them any of this shit. It’s not priming me for talking to Cassie at all.
“Nah, she fucked him, so it can’t be that.” Jack-O interrupts.
“Maybe it’s the whole ‘he’s an asshole who doesn’t know how to treat a woman, with a string of failed relationships’ thing then.” Jason suggests.
“I still can’t believe she said that.” I mutter.
I keep replaying it in my mind. The whole fucking argument.
Whatever the plan had been, that part was real.
“She has a point though.” Dan says, unhelpfully.
I glare at him and take another swig of beer. This is actually starting to piss me off now.
“Well maybe that’s because they weren’t Cassie - they weren’t right for me.”
“So why haven’t you told her that, dude?” Dan retorts, the first sensible thing any of the
m have said.
But it immediately puts me on the defensive.
“Because she’s got exams at the moment.”
I flip my phone over and over in my hand, a gesture I seem to have developed every time I think about texting her.
It’s been two weeks, and we haven’t talked. No message. No call. Nothing.
She does have exams, but it’s still just an excuse.
There’s too much shit between us now. Too much hanging over from that ugly scene at the end of our ‘vacation’.
I can’t just drop her a casual message and act like nothing ever happened, and I can’t tell her I want to give us a chance for real - not in the middle of her exams. Not when she’s never had a chance to think about us like that.
But those exams finish tomorrow. I know that even though we haven’t been talking. Which means that my excuse runs out right about…now.
It’s why I got the guys together. I’m done with giving her time.
I want the fucked up mess we left sorted out already.
“I still can’t believe you fucked her.” Jack-O says. “After four years. That, like, never happens.”
“Yeah, and after swearing up and down you weren’t interested, mate.” Jason adds. “Should’ve known you were having us on.”
I sigh. They’ve been ribbing me about this since I told them.
Apparently I’ve confirmed every theory they ever had that a guy can’t just be friends with a girl. But we were, once. Maybe not quite as long as they think, but still…
“It just…sort of happened. We were always more interested in being friends, before.”
“And now?”
That’s the big question.
“And now…that’s not enough. Not anymore.”
I know that much. I can’t do innocent friendship with Cassie anymore.
There’s no way I could spend another minute around her without kissing her, running my hand through her hair, making her gasp and moan and sigh.
I love our friendship. It’s one of the best things that ever happened to me.
But I’ve known since the moment I first fucked her that I’ll risk it all to have Cassie.
All of her.
“Sounds like you have your answer then, mate.” Jason says, raising his glass to me.
I do. I knew that before I even came out with these guys.
