The doorbell rang and all three of us shared a glance.
“I want the green piece!” I called, and went to the door to get the pizza. We ordered Graham’s favorite to celebrate his big news. Mom even made him a cake. When I opened the door, there was no pizza.
There was a girl. With a mess of short brown and purple curls, a cigarette resting in the corner of her mouth and standing with a closed, dripping yellow umbrella. She had a suitcase beside her.
“June,” I said. What the hell was June doing on my porch? I didn’t know she was coming. She was pissed. I was happy to see her, but not. Inside, they were laughing again. How would I explain them to her? I stepped onto the porch. “What are you doing here?”
“I told you not to disappear,” she said.
“I didn’t.”
She huffed, took a long drag of her cigarette, and crossed her arms. “It’s been a month since we talked. You haven’t answered my emails or called me back. Friends don’t disappear like that without a word—so I came for a visit.”
I hadn’t been sure what to say to her, so I’d ignored her. It was wrong, but I didn’t think she’d come here. “How did you even get this address?”
“Pete Langley snuck me into admissions during finals—just in case. I would’ve called, but I didn’t think you’d answer. So I thought, ‘I’ll go down there and see what’s keeping her so busy she can’t talk to her best friend.’ And here I am.”
“Cass? Everything okay with the pizza?” Graham asked. I reached for the door, but he was quicker and he opened it. June’s eyes widened with the door, and she took another drag off her cigarette. This was awkward. Graham looked at her suitcase, and then at me. “Hi,” he said.
“June, this is Graham. Graham, June.”
“Pleasure,” June said.
“Same,” he said with a pause. “Cassie didn’t mention you were coming?”
“It was a surprise,” she said. I tossed her an annoyed look when she emphasized the last word. She was smiling, though, like she’d done it intentionally.
Graham smirked, and I could tell he was gloating too. Great. They were already teaming up. “I’ll leave you two alone.”
He went back inside, and June threw her cigarette to the ground. I watched as it soaked up the rain and went out. “Wow, he’s hot. No wonder you haven’t called me back! I bet he keeps you busy, big boy like that.” I blushed; I could feel it on my cheeks. “Is he yours?”
“No,” I said.
“I’ll take him,” she said, looking over my shoulder through the little crack in the door.
“He’s taken,” I said.
June raised her eyebrows only for a second before nodding. “He’s the one from before?” I didn’t answer. June didn’t know about Graham, but she’d known about a boy I left behind. The one who made me boy-sick. “That’s a story I’m going to hear later, right?”
I shrugged and glanced at her suitcase. She was definitely planning to stay, then.
“Are we going to go inside now or do I need to light another cigarette to keep myself warm?
I reached out for her bag. “We’re about to play Life.”
“Can I be yellow?”
“Sure,” I said. June hugged me before we went inside.
29.
Graham
CASSIE SMILED A lot when June was around. It was almost as if she brought out this part of Cass that was hidden. I couldn’t stop staring at her. That smile was too perfect. God, I was an idiot. I should’ve left too, run away. Fast and far, like she had. I thought I could do this, but being around her made it harder.
I wasn’t as strong as I thought. I already felt myself slipping into her grasp. Into that same web that I lived in for ten years where Cassie was everything. Where I was content as long as I was with her. I told myself I could get out at any time, but part of me knew better than believing it.
“How long will you be staying with us, June?” Mrs. H asked.
June smiled and grabbed a slice of pizza. “As long as I’m welcome. I hadn’t really planned this trip. I’m more of a play-it-by-ear kind of girl.”
“Me too,” Mrs. H said in reply. “You’re welcome here as long as you want to stay. Any friend of Cassie’s.”
Cassie shifted awkwardly and I wondered what she was thinking. And then I wondered if I would ever be able to stop wondering that.
“How long have you known Cassie?” June asked me before she took a bite of her pizza.
I met Cassie’s gaze across the living room. I hadn’t realized she’d been looking at me, but now that our eyes were locked on each other, I could almost feel that she was. She was still smiling, and the memory of the first time I saw her replayed in my head. It’s crazy how something that happened forever ago felt just like yesterday. “She stormed into my life when I was nine.”
“I think you stormed into mine. I lived here first.”
“I was never the storm,” I said. Cassie’s smile fell, but her eyes didn’t leave mine. Staring at her like that made my head feel like it was floating, and like she was the only thing I could see clearly. And she was mesmerizing. The curves of her face were my anchor, and the light freckles on her nose were my sun, and her lips were the key to every secret in the universe. I wanted everything. To know it all again like I had before she left, but to explore it all with the Cassie that sat across from me.
Cassie looked away from me. Her eyes darted toward the ground, and I shook away the feeling. I refocused. I couldn’t stare at her like that. Couldn’t think about her that way. What was I doing here? This was stupid. I was stupid.
“Childhood sweethearts?” June asked. Cassie sent her dagger eyes, but June didn’t seem like the type to be swayed by Cassie’s looks. That was a rare thing.
Childhood everything.
“Something like that,” I said. I had to change this conversation. Talking about what we were before wasn’t going to help anything. “How did you meet Cassie?”
June leaned back on the couch. “Ah, she was hiding in the corner at early admission orientation. I was drawn to her.”
“She does that,” I said.
Both of those things, hiding and drawing people toward her. I looked at her, and Cassie was already staring at me again. With her eyes on me, I had the sudden urge to kiss her. To move across the room and pull her up and surprise her with a kiss that held everything I felt. To hell with who was watching us. Would that kiss be the same as it used to be? Would it, like us, still fit so perfectly as it did a year ago? Would it be more? Tornadoes and hurricanes that had been held at bay for a year? Or had that changed as much as we both had?
My eyes drifted to her lips, and I saw her breath hitch too. I wanted it. Her. I wanted Cass. I wanted her so much that it was hard to think, hard to breathe, like all the air had been sucked out of the room.
I had to get out of there. I stood up quickly, knocking a glass of water to the floor. Mrs. H yelled that she had it, and disappeared into the kitchen. I couldn’t be thinking about kissing Cassie. I had to run.
“Sorry—I remembered I have a thing. I should go,” I said.
I slammed the door on my way out.
30.
Cassie
JUNE AND I pulled up outside of Dr. Lambert’s office. It was a bright morning. Perfect for playing tourist of our little town for a couple hours.
“Where are you going?” Mom asked as she got out of the car.
“I’m giving her the whole Lumberton experience.”
“Start with ice cream,” she said, closing the door. Even though she couldn’t see me, I nodded.
“Bye, Mrs. H!” June yelled as Mom crossed the street. June already liked Mom. She spent all day yesterday telling stories from her time in the music business. When Mom told June she once met June Carter Cash, I knew she was hooked forever. My mother could do that to people.
I tapped the steering wheel. “So, what caused your impromptu visit? Aside from my crappiness as a friend.”
“I n
eed a reason?” June asked, gathering her hair up into a ponytail.
I shook my head. “No, but I think there is one. It’s been three days and you haven’t mentioned Jason at all.”
She groaned. “Jason and I broke up. He’s in Florida; I’m wherever. It was too complicated. He was too clingy. I don’t screw clingy boys.”
“June, you are a treasure. I don’t know how anyone let you go.”
“I don’t either!” she yelled with a smile. “Where are we going?”
“Only the best ice cream parlor in North Carolina.”
“At 10 in the morning?”
“Are you objecting?” I asked.
“To ice cream? Never. I was clarifying.”
Having June here was nice. We hadn’t talked about any of the other stuff, the real stuff, but with her, it was easy. It was fun. She made me feel like it was possible to be more than where you came from. I knew her story. I knew about her alcoholic mother and her drug-dealing father. I knew about her life in Los Angeles and her time in and out of foster care, and I knew that she had overcome that. June was her own person; she was strong, and being around her made me feel like I could be the same. She was probably the best thing that happened to me at Butler, even though having her at my house was a little weird.
June reached out and changed the radio station. Some poppy country song thing played in my speakers. I groaned.
“I don’t listen to that stuff,” I said, reaching out to turn it off.
“Harlen, chill. Don’t be a music snob.”
“But I am a music snob.”
“Branch out a little. Take a breath. I promise, it won’t kill you to listen to something from this decade. Or the last one. I seriously don’t know how you grew up without boy bands and pop princesses,” she said.
I shuddered. “You don’t know that it couldn’t kill me. Bad music could very well kill me.”
She chuckled. “Don’t be a diva.”
“I’m not a diva.”
“You totally are a diva.”
I rolled my eyes. “Driver picks the music.”
“Not this time, Harlen. Not this time.” She stuck her tongue out at me. We were almost there anyway, so it didn’t matter. I could block out this crap for a few minutes.
The poppy-country song ended and the radio station transitioned into something darker. A smooth melody with a sharp edge started, and I perked up. There was something about this that sounded raw already.
“Oh my God, this song,” June started, reaching for the radio. “I’ll turn it off.”
I swatted her hand away. “Why would you turn it off? It might not suck like everything else.”
“You don’t know this song?” June asked, her voice getting higher.
“Know it? Why would I know it?”
She released this laugh-squeal thing. “Wait—you don’t know? You really don’t know? Is North Carolina a black hole?”
She was acting so strange. Even for June. I looked at her; her jaw dropped and her eyes were wide. “Know what?”
The opening lyrics started and my skin tingled. I knew that voice. That rough, deep, scratchy voice. As soon as the line started, this pit formed in my stomach. I listened closer, because there was no way.
I woke up and you were gone // I should’ve known it all along // From that far-off look in your eyes // And the smile that never stretched to the sides // Your mouth was mine, but your heart was stone // And I tried to reach it, to break it down // No matter what I did you couldn’t be found
I glanced over at June, and the way her brow furrowed told me it was true. That was Rohan.
But now you’re gone, gone, gone // Every memory I had is wrong, wrong, wrong // You left without a word // You’re gone, gone, gone // You didn’t have the nerve to say // Goodbye / But I should’ve known from the look in your eye // You’re gone, gone, gone.
I closed my eyes. This wasn’t happening. This could be about anyone.
The only thing I have left of you // Is a memory of your head on my chest // And the goodbye you wrote on the back of my chemistry test
Or it’s totally me. June flipped off the radio before the song ended, and my hands were frozen on the steering wheel in the parking lot of the ice cream shop, and my brain was reeling. Rohan was on the radio. He wrote a song about me. I broke his heart.
June cleared her throat. “Surprise?” What was that? I didn’t even know what had just happened. “It came out last week.”
“How?” Rohan was on the radio.
“I told you they had a label interested, and when they played this song the label had to have them.”
“It doesn’t happen that fast!”
“Apparently it can,” she said. “They’re going on tour for the whole summer.”
“Wow,” I said. Rohan did it. He was on his way to getting his dreams.
“Yeah,” she said. “Intense. Was that how it happened? On the back of his chemistry test?”
I nodded. June didn’t say anything about it, but she didn’t need to. I knew I was horrible. I knew it was.
“Let’s get that ice cream,” June said, jumping out of the car. I followed her out even though the last thing I wanted was ice cream.
WE TURNED LEFT on the sidewalk a few feet from the ice cream parlor, but my mind was still on Rohan’s song. I had no idea he felt anything serious for me. How much of those lyrics were really his feelings? We’d only been together six months, and only seriously for three of them. The first three were that exploration of the new and exciting. It was never serious, at least I never thought. Then, I went to see his band play and he introduced me as his girlfriend. Then, we were that. Girlfriend, boyfriend—at least something to that extent. There was never a discussion. There were never any “L” words exchanged or conversations about feelings or expectations. I didn’t know leaving would break his heart, too.
“It’s okay,” June said, staring at me as we walked. I glanced over to meet her gaze. “It’s going to be okay, Cassie.”
“I know,” I said, but I didn’t. My mind flickered back to Dr. Lambert’s office last week. Was I so scared of being abandoned that I left everyone else? That I didn’t let anyone in? Even June didn’t know what I didn’t want her to see.
June elbowed me, and when I glanced up we were face-to-face with Graham.
I inhaled sharply. Perfect. This was perfect. My heart was already falling to pieces, so now, the universe was going to crush them.
“Hey,” Graham said. He looked between the two of us, and I stopped moving. His whole presence set me on edge, and his eyes focused in on me. I didn’t want him to look, because I knew he would see that I was upset.
“Hey,” I said back. Wordlessly, he used his free hand to fix that piece of hair in my face, and his finger lingered on my cheek. I felt myself on the brink of losing it when he pulled his hand away.
“We were getting ice cream,” June said suddenly. She pointed to the store and bumped me on the shoulder. She gave me a weird look. “Cassie said this was the best place in the state.”
“It is; you’ll love it.” Graham said without looking away from me. His expression went from happy to concerned. “You okay?” he asked.
I nodded, even though I was far from it. I didn’t want him to ask me anything, because if he didn’t ask then I didn’t have to lie or worse, tell him the truth. But then I wanted him to ask. I wanted to tell him and let him hold me and forgive me and tell me it was going to be all right. I needed him, and I wanted him, and I wished I didn’t feel either.
We stared at each other and he knew I was lying. I could see it in the way his eyes narrowed in on me, and the way he nodded slowly. I couldn’t tell him about this; it would not end in a good way for us.
“How’s your visit been?” Graham asked June, finally looking away from me.
“Great. Cassie always knows how to provide the best entertainment.”
I raised my eyebrows at June, but she flashed a big smile. I tried not to look back at G
raham. Not to be unnerved by him because I was close to losing it. I couldn’t lose it in front of Graham.
“You want to join us for ice cream?” June asked, her eyes wide as she looked between us.
Graham shifted on his feet, and I looked at him again. Say yes. The air between us felt frozen, waiting for something to happen. He was a magnet and my eyes were stuck there on his face. On the sharp cut of his jaw, and the piercing grey of his eyes, and the concern edging on his cheeks. I knew if he stayed he’d get the truth out of me, and part of me felt like that was a good thing. I could tell him and he would get it. Or he’d hate me.
My mind swayed between that song and Rohan and Graham and how stupid I was all the time. Especially about him. I left him to keep my mom’s mistakes from repeating in my life. But it wasn’t my mom’s history I should’ve been worried about repeating—it was my own. I was doing a fantastic job at fucking things up.
I reached out and placed my hand on Graham’s arm. “I’m—” I started. I’m what? What am I?
Graham waited, June waited, I waited for my brain to function. There was nothing.
“I should go,” he said, pointing to the bag in his hand. “Groceries. But get the peach ice cream. It’s homemade and it’s probably the best.”
June smiled. “Noted.”
Graham cleared his throat. “See you later, Cass.”
“See ya,” I said. He lingered there for a second, eyes on me, as if he was asking me to finish my sentence, and then he left. Wordlessly, June led us inside.
31.
Graham
SOMETHING WAS WRONG with Cassie. I knew it because I knew her. I knew from the way she bit the side of her lip, from the way she barely said anything. Her eyes gave away everything. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t good.
Days Like This Page 12
