Days Like This

by Danielle Ellison

  5.

  Cassie

  JUNE PLOPPED DOWN next to me and sighed dramatically. I didn’t give her attention because that would mean the end of studying. The first time we met she’d made the exact same entrance, told me to smile, said I looked boy-sick, and then called me badass for being named after a rock legend when I told her my name.

  “I’m June. Country legend. So we’re obviously meant to be friends,” she’d said, reaching her hand out for mine.

  “Do you have a Johnny?” I’d asked.

  June crossed her arms. “I am the Johnny. Legends don’t need a counterpart.”

  We’d been friends ever since.

  June threw an eraser at me and sighed again. I looked up at her over my sunglasses.

  “Wait, you’re studying, too?” she asked.

  I pointed down at my textbook. “This isn’t for fun, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “What is that, anyway?” June leaned across the metal table, tilted her head sideways. “‘The French Revolution ended the age of absolute monarchy in France, but was...’ Why am I already bored?”

  “I don’t know. It’s going to start talking about the Reign of Terror and you’re an expert on those,” I said.

  June stuck out her tongue and leaned back in her chair. “Let’s get out of here.”

  I shook my head. “I have a test tomorrow.”

  June frowned and crossed her arms. She was like a kid, except she was rough around the edges, dropped f-bombs like breadcrumbs, and had more hair colors than days of the week.

  “Screw tests! Finals are in a month. They shouldn’t do that to us. We need to have lives,” she said. Then she rose to her feet and yelled, “We get to have lives!”

  A few people around us clapped. She smiled and slightly bowed. June was like that. She was bright and loud, so everyone paid attention to her. She was like Mom on a pretty day, but nothing like her at the same time. This was all June and not a sickness.

  “You going to eat those?” she asked, pointing to the cheese fries on my left.

  “They’ve been sitting here for an hour,” I said. “They’re cold.”

  She shrugged and I shoved them toward her. Only June would eat nasty cold cheese fries.

  “When are you going to be done?” she asked.

  “Where’s Jason?”

  June tapped my pencil on the tabletop. “Class. Loser.”

  I smirked. “Class is sort of why we’re all here. Why aren’t you in class?”

  “It’s speech. I’ll wear a low-cut top and get an A. Everyone knows that.” It was true. But even if it wasn’t, she would still get an A. Put June in the front of a room and I dare someone not to watch her or listen to her talk about string cheese. It wasn’t possible. She was smart, too. I’d always thought she was one of those secret geniuses, because it was the only way to explain how a girl who never studied and barely went to class got As. That and the low-cut tops.

  She shoved a fry into her mouth and scowled. “These are cold.”

  I shook my head and refocused on my book, even though I knew I was done. There was no focusing when June was around and needed attention.

  “I’ll go get them warmed. Who’s working?” Then, she was gone. I turned my head toward the student center and watched June lean over the counter. José was working today, so she’d probably be back with a whole new container of fries.

  “Never Going Back Again” started playing from my phone as it vibrated across the table. I picked it up; my heart pounded a little too much, and I pushed the button.

  “Mom?”

  There was a soft noise, the sound of someone breathing on the other end. I pressed my fingers between the crisscross patterns on the table. Mom rarely called me, and if she was calling now it meant something was wrong.

  “No, Cass.”

  It was a whisper on the line, but I felt it as if it was a scream injected straight into my brain. I stood up from my seat, looking out over the soccer field. My heart raced along with the ball. I forced my eyes closed, and I saw him there. Like he was standing right in front of me with those deep grey eyes that saw through me, and that wavy light brown hair I used to run my hands through. He was so real, even in a whisper, that I could almost touch him through the phone.

  “Graham?” My voice cracked as I said his name. My hands were sweating, heart racing, and I was sure I wouldn’t be able to hold onto my phone. I hadn’t spoken to Graham in almost a year. Not since he came here for me after I left North Carolina and broke his heart. Since I gave him back his ring. And now he was calling me.

  “I don’t mean to call like this, but—”

  “Wait, you’re on my mom’s phone.”

  The only reason he would be on Mom’s phone would be to get my new number. He shouldn’t need that. My heart raced because I knew. I felt it as my world tilted from balanced to out of control. Graham sighed on the line, and I could almost see it, too. He had this way of responding that showed in his whole body. Every emotion—the sighing, the laughing, the anger—encompassed all of him.

  “You need to come home, Cass.”

  Come home. See him. Really see him. The thought made my stomach jump.

  “Woo! Cassie, I got fries and ice cream!” June yelled as she busted through the door. I turned my back to her. Thousands of scenarios blew through my mind. Mom was hurt or worse. All because I wasn’t there. Did I call her this week? I couldn’t remember.

  “What—why?”

  But I knew the answer. Graham Tucker and I made a pact a long time ago, long before we were ever anything more than friends. If something happened, he would be the one who called me, not some doctor. He would be there. But I needed him to say it, because I didn’t want whatever it was to be true.

  “She’s in the hospital, Cass. You’re the only one who can make decisions. You have to come. She needs you.”

  I swallowed. “What happened?”

  Graham grew quiet and around him I could hear the familiar sounds of the psychiatric wing at St. John’s. The hum of the radiator from the fifties that still hadn’t been replaced because the residents were crazy, why did they care? And I could hear the nurses moving around because they talked louder there instead of in hushed voices like most places. Especially Sheila. And he was probably standing in the blue waiting room, the one that had a puzzle of a yellow cat with the missing piece in the tail. It was hundreds of miles away yet it was still in my head, still with me no matter how far away I was.

  “She almost burned the house down,” he said. I sucked in some air; let it fill my lungs because it was the only way I wasn’t going to lose it. Graham paused, and I wondered what he was thinking. I didn’t know what I was thinking. I couldn’t think. He started talking faster. “Mrs. Pearson went by to check on her and saw the flames from the window. She was sitting on the couch while the fire burned in the living room, and she lost it when they saved her.”

  I closed my eyes, inhaled, exhaled. I tried not to think about the fact that I was talking to him after eleven months. That my mom was in trouble. I don’t think I called this week; I should’ve. My chest was caving in. My head was spinning. What was I going to do? I couldn’t drop everything. Finals and projects and—

  “She needs you,” Graham said. His voice was low, and I could tell that he didn’t want to have this conversation with me. But he would because he had to, and because even though there were states stretched between us, he was right next to me. He was part of me.

  “You promised,” he added, his voice husky.

  Those little words and then nothing else mattered. If anyone had said them to me, anyone, I could’ve not given in. I could’ve stalled and figured out another solution. But not him. It almost wasn’t fair that he could still have this effect on me.

  “I’ll need a couple days.” It felt like I was holding my breath underwater. Like I was waiting for someone to rescue me, or to tell me to come out now because the storm had passed. But no one would say it. No one could stop
it or change it, not when I was this far under. “I’ll be there,” I said.

  “Okay, Cass,” he said. He said my old nickname, and I froze. I could remember the last time he called me that, when he proposed and we spent the weekend locked away in some cabin in the mountains before I went home and everything changed. He would whisper my name as he kissed my lips, my cheeks, my neck, my breasts, and tell me that he was the luckiest person in the world. I’d say I was luckier, and it was true. That was always true.

  Graham lingered on the line, and I thought—hoped—that he’d say something else, but he didn’t. I didn’t blame him. Not even goodbye. We just sat there, neither of us speaking, breathing into the receiver, and listening, waiting.

  Behind me June called my name, but I didn’t answer. Graham’s breathing disappeared. I kept the phone pressed against my ear even though he’d hung up, and told myself it would be okay. My head didn’t believe me. My heart didn’t either. They both knew. They knew that this moment, this feeling, was what happened right before we drowned—and that the only person who I wanted to save me could barely talk to me.

  6.

  Cassie

  I’M LEAVING ON SATURDAY. Just say it, Cassie.

  “Water?” Rohan asked, handing me a bottle over my shoulder. I took the water from his hand, and he leaned in to kiss me before he let go. This conversation wasn’t one I wanted to have, but he had to know. I had to tell him. I couldn’t be in another situation like I had with Graham, or carry the guilt from sending him away. I had enough of that to carry me through forever.

  Rohan pressed his lips against my neck—once, twice, three times. I could only think of Graham. I hadn’t been able to get his voice out of my head since his phone call, so I pulled away from Rohan and curled my legs into his couch. He slumped down by me, hand resting on my knee.

  “Are you still mad about the RV? That was days ago. I told you it’s fine now.”

  “I’m not mad,” I said. I was never mad; I was uncomfortable. It was a big commitment and he didn’t even know me. That’s all I could think: he didn’t know me.

  “The guys are pitching in and we’re fixing it up for the band.”

  “For a tour?”

  Rohan smiled. “Yeah, Stan set it up. We’re recording the demo in two days and Stan has a meeting with The Pitheads manager next week.”

  He was glowing, bouncing all over the couch. I had to smile at his smile. “You remember them, right? That ‘Girl with a Tattoo’ song. We saw them with Levi?”

  “Right.” I remembered an underground concert with sticky floors and drunk girls and something considered music that was a blend of bad techno and screaming noise. It was horrible.

  “If the meeting goes well?” I asked.

  “Vinyl Drive would open. Fifteen cities, three weeks. Stan thinks he can get the new stuff in front of labels in a few weeks because of the online fan base. He already has a meeting set up.” They’d had a buddy shoot a video for YouTube. It went viral in less than twenty-four hours. That was how Stan found them two months ago, and that was how all this was moving so quickly. A label was huge. “Then who knows? Your boyfriend could make it.”

  In the six months I’d known him, I’d never heard Rohan talk like this. He was usually wrapped up in what was expected of him from his family, his professors, and himself. He’d had a five-year plan, and then the band happened, and now he was talking like this.

  “Does he want to?” I asked.

  He ran his fingers across the tips of my hair, and his knuckles grazed my neck. “He thinks so.”

  “And his parents?” I’d never met his parents, but he talked about them enough. He and his brothers were second generations in this country from Bangladesh. His grandparents started with nothing, and worked hard to build a life for their families. Rohan and his siblings were expected to make it count, to do something that mattered, and music would definitely not fit into that category. Rohan had said that much to me enough times to commit it to memory.

  Rohan laughed awkwardly. “They will probably disown him. But maybe not? I don’t really know yet. One step at a time.”

  I smiled, feeling a little relieved. If this happened for him then it would be okay. He would have something else to make him happy, something real and not me. All I had to do was tell him. All I had to do was say two words.

  “Close your eyes.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Last time I did that there was an RV.”

  “I couldn’t fit an RV in here,” he said.

  “I’m sure you understand my apprehension.” Surprises and eyes being closed didn’t really work out for me. Not last time, not eleven months ago. Even June knew I hated surprises. This was more evidence that Rohan didn’t really know me.

  Rohan put a finger on my lips. “Trust me. Eyes closed.”

  With my eyes closed, everything yelled at me to tell him that I was leaving. I couldn’t tune out the voices, or the longing. It couldn’t be that hard to say the words to a boy I didn’t love, not like I still loved Graham. I fluttered my eyes open, but Rohan pressed his mouth against mine and his hands ran down my back. I wanted to tell him, but I didn’t. Instead I tried to forget. I kissed him back, and eased his shirt over his head as he took off mine. He ran his fingers across my breasts before taking off my bra, and then all my thoughts were gone.

  Three seconds. Then I lost control of my own brain and my body operated on autopilot.

  Five seconds. The amount of time before my back was flush with his leather couch and it gently tugged at my skin, but I didn’t let it stop us.

  Seven seconds. Then I didn’t feel guilty; I didn’t feel anything except him on top of me. I turned to dust and nerves and no words survived.

  “Cass…” he whispered, his lips trailing down my stomach.

  My body tensed up at the name, but Rohan didn’t notice. The weight of Graham’s name for me, of his voice saying it when we made love, of him on the phone before, the memory of it all came crashing back over me. It made me kiss Rohan harder.

  IT WAS 2 A.M. when I woke up. “Cass” echoed off Rohan’s walls, a refrain from my dreams. The name didn’t belong in his room. Over and over it played, but it wasn’t Rohan’s voice. It was Graham’s.

  Rohan was asleep next to me, his long lanky body spread across the bed and through the sheets. I looked at him and expected, hoped, to feel something. Something that made me want to stay. Something more powerful than my fear of going home again to face Graham, and my mom, and my past. But there was nothing. I wanted to talk to Graham, to tell him I left because of what I found in Mom’s room, that my dad was alive and he abandoned us, and how much it scared me to ruin his life the way Mom’s disorder ruined mine. It was a lot of words, and part of going home meant getting to tell him, and maybe, starting over.

  So I grabbed a paper off the floor and scribbled: I’m sorry to leave like this. I wanted to tell you I was leaving, but I didn’t know how. I don’t think you’ll miss me and you deserve someone better. Someone who has a heart to give completely and only to you.

  I read and re-read it. He deserved more, but it was good enough—my goodbye on the back of a chemistry test. It was something. I put it on my pillow, grabbed my clothes, and ran away from the name. If I could have, I would’ve left all the voices there in that room. I tried before to move on, but they were a haunting refrain that seemed to follow me. Hopefully, this one would stay where it belonged.

  I CRAMMED THE last box into my car and forced the back door to shut. That was everything. It was 4 a.m. and I was leaving like a thief in the night, but it was better this way. No goodbyes, no awkward emotions, no questions or half-truth explanations. They would all wake up and I would be gone. Eventually, the semester would end and they would forget about me. I was doing them all a favor. I’d spent my whole life trying to keep my mom’s mess a secret, and I didn’t want to drag anyone else into the pit with me. I didn’t want to make them carry around my burdens.

  I used to think Indiana would
make everything better, that I could move on and start a new life, but everything reminded me of what I left behind. I wondered about Graham, and deep down I had this twinge of a dream for us where we were at least friends. Maybe that was impossible now, maybe me leaving made it impossible, but maybe it wasn’t. I knew he was angry, but I could explain. If there was an excuse good enough to forgive a fiancée leaving in the middle of the night.

  I lowered myself into the driver’s seat and turned on the headlights. The engine purred along with the end of a Pink Floyd song, and June’s silhouette appeared in front of my car. Her arms were crossed over her chest and her hair was a mess. She looked tired. And pissed.

  I could have driven away, but leaving her like that would make leaving worse. It would be the end, and I wasn’t ready to let go of that yet. She was still my friend, no matter what I was hiding, so I opened the door.

  “Do you realize how fucking pissed I was to call your room and have your roommate answer and tell me all your shit was gone? That you were leaving?”

  “June.”

  She put up a hand and I recoiled. I knew better than to mess with her when she was like this. “Do you know that I—your fucking best friend—looked like an idiot in front of dumb roommate Suzie Sunshine—whom you told you were leaving before me, and I know that was a mistake because we hate her. And I had to ramble about how I ‘forgot that was today’? For someone who hates surprises, you sure aren’t opposed to leaving other people shocked!”

  I pressed my fingers into my palm. She had a right to be upset, but I couldn’t explain this to her. Suzie asked why I was packing boxes, and she lived with me so I had to tell her. I didn’t think June would be this upset. “June, it’s complicated.”

  She exhaled. “Is this because of that call the other day? You’ve been weird as hell since then.”

  I shifted, but didn’t answer. Before Graham called, I was surviving. But the last few days have been me doing some kind of recon on something that I didn’t know how to protect or save. I didn’t even really want it.