Rohan was quiet again except the noise around him. I expected him to yell, to say something, to call me a name, but he didn’t. He let out this sort of short, stifled laugh. “You know what, Cassie? I think it was the best thing that’s ever happened.”
Okay, I did not expect that.
“Don’t get me wrong, I was pissed. So pissed. You didn’t answer and June said you called her once and I felt like I never mattered, but you made me.”
“Made you?”
“The song I wrote about you? I’m doing what I love because of you. You left and I was thinking, ‘What the hell am I doing? I don’t want to be an engineer.’ You leaving pushed me into music. You helped me in a weird, messed-up kind of way.”
I smiled. “I take it back then.”
“What?” he asked.
“I’m not sorry.”
Rohan chuckled, and then he grew silent. “Take care, Cassie.”
“You too, Rohan.”
“I hope you find your happiness.”
Then he hung up, and that was it. There was no yelling. No anger. We were extinguished, properly. I could let it all go.
I turned to go inside when I saw Molly headed back from Graham’s place. She looked exhausted. I glanced back at my phone, but I knew she saw me watching her and she beelined toward the porch and me.
“Cassie,” she called. This wasn’t good.
“Molly,” I said back.
“Can we talk?” she asked. Yeah, because that was what I’d wanted to do. Talk to Graham’s girlfriend. I pointed to the chairs and she took a seat. “I don’t really want to beat around the bush here. You still have feelings for him, don’t you?”
I swallowed. “Graham and I have a histo—”
“That’s not what I mean,” she said. She looked as uncomfortable as I felt. “I know about him fixing things at your house, and bowling, and coming over to hang out with you. I don’t really like games. Life is too short for that. So can we be honest with each other for a minute?”
I nodded.
“I like Michael—Graham, whatever you call him. Really like him. We’ve been together for seven months now, and when I met him, he was a mess,” she said with a pause and I tried not imagine Graham as a mess. Or how leaving me at school changed him. That had been hard for me. I’d barely survived giving back his ring, and it was my choice. I couldn’t imagine what it’d done to him...
“He was angry and confused. He didn’t know which way was up. He told me once that he was broken by some girl he loved, and that was you. I was there when he put himself back together,” Molly said. “But I’m not you, and you’re back. He doesn’t look at me the way he looks at you. I didn’t want to admit it, but now—”
“There’s nothing between us.” I said. I did it with a straight face, and if I didn’t know myself, I would’ve believed it. We were nothing, but we were everything.
“Don’t tell me that. He didn’t spend weeks fixing my house. He didn’t take care of my family when I left for college. He didn’t save my mom from a burning building.”
“He what?” I asked. We stared at each other for a second, and Graham’s voice played in my ear. The one from that first call when he said Mrs. Pearson saved her, and firemen and the hospital. How he was there. He’d always been there.
“You didn’t know?”
I shook my head. Graham saved my mom. He…?
Of course, Graham saved my mom.
Molly exhaled. “I’m not saying I want to give him up, because I like him. But I think you confuse him. Ever since you came back, he’s been different. So please, let him go.”
“What?”
“Let him go,” she said, and then she left me and walked to her car.
I stared after her, squeezing my phone in my hand until she was out of sight. My knuckles started to ache. I wasn’t anything to Graham. Was I? There had been some things before. No. It didn’t matter.
Let him go.
What the hell? Was that what Graham wanted? That he wanted me to let him go? Fuck that. If he wanted that he could tell me himself.
44.
Graham
I COULDN’T SLEEP, again. I couldn’t remember the last time I slept all night, but this time for a different reason. How did I feel about Cass? What was Molly going to do? I had to roam. I didn’t know where I was going to go just after dawn, but when I opened my door, Cass was standing there. It was too early for this. Or late. This day sucked.
“You leaving?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Nowhere important.”
“We need to talk.”
The dreaded words. Great.
I opened the screen door for her and we went upstairs. I barely closed the living room door when she turned to me. She looked a little angry, but I hadn’t done anything. I hadn’t even spoken to her since the ice cream parlor.
“Your girlfriend came to see me earlier,” she said. She picked up this little glass ball thing from the table and put it back down. Molly went to see her? That wasn’t good. I watched her walk around my apartment. “She told me that I needed to let you go.”
“What?”
Cass flipped around to me. Her blue eyes were bright and wild. “Is that what you want?”
“Since when did what I want matter to you?” I asked. Cass never cared about what I had to say or think. If she had then we wouldn’t be how we were right now.
“It’s always mattered to me,” she said.
I laughed. “It’s never mattered.”
Cass pushed me and I stumbled. She had a fire burning in her eyes. One that I hadn’t seen since she got back. “What the hell, Graham? I thought we were going to be friends. You agreed to that. If you want me to let you go just say the word!”
I turned away from her. “I can’t talk about this right now.”
“Don’t walk away.”
“I’m not the one who walks away! That’s you, Cass!” I yelled. I didn’t like yelling, but she was so infuriating. She looked at me as if I’d slapped her. “Oh, sorry. I don’t mean walk—I mean run away in the middle of the fucking night.”
“You don’t know what that was like for me,” she said. Her voice was soft, and if I wasn’t so pissed and tired, I would’ve cared.
She was right: I didn’t know. That was because of her. “You’re right—because you disappeared and wouldn’t tell me a damn thing. God, you’re so selfish.”
“I’m selfish?” she squealed.
“Yes! You only think about yourself. About what you want and to hell with the rest of us.”
Cass crossed her arms. “What about you? You made decisions and never even stopped to think about what I wanted!”
“I never had to think. You never had a problem telling me what you wanted before. You never had a problem pretending you wanted the same thing!” I had to get control. I’d never told Cass how I felt about all this, but it was sort of nice not holding the shit back anymore. I didn’t care if I hurt her feelings. Not when she’d burned all mine without an apology or an explanation.
Cass took a step closer to me. “That’s why you proposed to me when you knew I was trying to figure out the future.”
“Our future. Ours. I thought it was ours. I stayed here for you. I did everything for you, so excuse me if I thought proposing to the woman I loved was the best solution for our future. You’re the one who said yes—no one held a gun to your head!”
“You’re just as selfish as me, Graham!”
I shook my head. “You’re right. Silly me. I must not know what selfish means, because I thought it was you who left, not me. You who moved across the country and abandoned her mother. That’s selfish, Cassie. And that was you, not me.”
“Don’t,” she said. “That’s not fair.”
“Fair? You know what’s not fair? I drove all the way to fucking Indiana to get you back. To ask you why you left, and you gave me back that ring without a second thought. You told me nothing. That’s selfish.”
Cass shook her head;
her eyes watered and she took a step back. “Stop it.”
I didn’t stop. I couldn’t once I’d started. Not after a year of not saying anything to her about it. “I’ve done everything for you. I’m selfish? Fine, I’m selfish because I waited for you—”
“I never asked you to—”
“—And I proposed to the girl I loved because nothing made me as happy as when she smiled or when she said my name. Because there was no one who would ever compare to her in my head and she had this sad amazing little life, but she never let it stop her. She kept dreaming and that inspired me. And a woman like that? Yes, I had to spend my life with her.”
She didn’t say anything, but I had her attention. Good. I stepped closer to her. So close I could hear her breathing. I could feel it, and see her chest rise and fall. I could see the green in her eyes, and the way they looked glassy.
“If that makes me selfish, then yes, Cass. Yes, I’m as selfish as they come. I won’t apologize for that.”
45.
Cassie
GRAHAM TUCKER STOOD in front of me and gave this speech and somewhere in the middle, I knew he still felt that way. I did, too.
“If that makes me selfish, then yes, Cass. Yes, I’m as selfish as they come. I won’t apologize for that.”
I hurled myself into his arms, filling the inch that separated us, and pressed my lips against his. Graham seemed surprised at first, frozen, and it took him a moment to respond. Like his body was remembering me, but mine had never forgotten. I’d never let it. I’d never wanted to.
I pressed against him, feeling reckless and out of control. Then, he was ready. I felt the shift as his fingers dug into my hips and he pressed himself against me, his erection hard. Heat flowed between us, and his lips were hungry. He pushed me backward against the wall until there was no space between us and deepened the kiss. My hand trailed under the waist of his jeans. He moaned into my mouth, and his slightly calloused hands were all over my body. Rough when they trailed across my stomach as he kissed my neck, and my whole body exploded.
In this moment, there was no past or future. No trespasses, no arguments, and nothing to forgive. There was me and him and this. This was what I’d been missing. Graham and I had this electricity, this instant heat. He felt it, too. Whatever else we felt or knew, there was nothing like this. He brought me in closer to him. My hand tugged at the waist of jeans, because I wanted him, and he wanted me, and we’d waited long enough.
46.
Graham
I WAS KISSING Cassie and it was everything I remembered it being. More, even. It was like no way we’d kissed before, and no way we’d kiss again. I wanted her. I focused on that part of myself, the part that wanted this more than air. That wanted her skin on mine, and her breath in my ear.
We stumbled backward toward the bed, never parting even to breathe. I pinned her against the wall, and her fingers trailed up my shirt. Each touch was an electric shock. I was with Cass. This was what I wanted, really wanted, but something lingered at the back of my mind. I tried to shut it out. I tried to keep kissing her and focus on her hands and her body…I couldn’t ignore the call in my head that this was wrong. I could let it happen, but it shouldn’t be this way. We had all these unspoken feelings and secrets between us. All this uncertainty. I had a girlfriend.
Cass pulled at my pants, and my body responded under her touch. I groaned at the pressure, but then I jumped away from Cass because she was fire and wind and lightning. She looked at me, face red and confused. We were both panting. I was confused, too. I’d been nothing but confused since I called her after that fire. She was here, disheveled and beautiful and I—God, what a mess—I was the dumbest man alive for what I was about to say.
“We can’t,” I said. Even saying it hurt, because lies always hurt the most. We could’ve, but we shouldn’t.
“Graham.”
I had to look away. I couldn’t say this and see her. Not when she was looking like that and we were about to have sex and everything inside me still wanted her. “I have a girlfriend, Cassie. I can’t do this.”
We didn’t say anything for a long time. I tried to focus on a normal thought. All of my thoughts were Cassie. Her hands, her lips, her voice, her hips, the soft skin on her upper thigh, her—
“I didn’t come over here to—”
“I know,” I said. “This was a lapse, a wrong one.”
She looked away from me. “I should go.”
“Probably best for now,” I said. I had to get her out of this room before my mind lost this battle to my body.
She slid on her shoes—I hadn’t even realized she’d taken them off—and walked back toward the door. When she was almost there, she returned to me and stood right under me until I was forced to meet her gaze. Man, I loved those eyes.
“This wasn’t wrong, Graham.”
“I have to figure it out,” I said. That part wasn’t a lie. I didn’t know what was right here, what was worth it.
“I know. I get it. But whatever you think about, this wasn’t wrong. This was us, and we are never wrong.”
I didn’t respond, and Cass left me standing in the living room. I had to talk to Molly. I had a girlfriend, but I knew without a doubt that she wasn’t the one I wanted. I’ve never felt that way for Molly, even if I tried. And I had tried.
I loved Cassie Harlen. I had never really stopped.
47.
Cassie
IT TOOK ME the rest of the morning to fall asleep, because all I could think about was Graham’s lips on mine, his fingers sliding across my skin, the feel of him pressed against me. It was better than I remembered; I hadn’t wanted it to end. I didn’t go over there to kiss him. I made a mess of this. He called us wrong. He must hate me.
“Harlen?” June called, knocking on the door. I groaned in response. “At least you’re alive. I’m coming in.”
Her eyebrows furrowed when she saw me. “What happened?”
I looked her over. June had on her shoes, a jean jacket, and a purse. “You’re leaving today!”
“Today’s the day. Taxi should be here any minute.”
“I can take you,” I said, throwing off the covers. I was so busy moping that I almost missed her leaving.
“Nah, don’t worry. The bus doesn’t wait for goodbyes.” She smiled, but I could see that she didn’t want to leave either.
She sat next to me. I really didn’t want her to leave. She was starting to make all the other shit make sense. Neither of us said anything at first.
“You’re taking a bus all the way to California?” I asked.
June replied quickly, the words out in a rush. “Nah, back to school so I can grab things. Then, I’ll fly to my sister.”
I wanted her to stay. No getting clingy. When did she become so important to me?
“Why haven’t you told me about your sister?” I said.
June smiled back at me. “I didn’t know your mom was bipolar. Or that you had a fiancé.” Whatever it was, she wasn’t talking, but she’d talk when she was ready.
“Touché,” I said. She was trying to be funny, but I could tell she was as hurt that I hadn’t thought she was important enough to know the truth. Hopefully she knew it wasn’t her, that it was me. Because I didn’t want to face it.
“Now you know about her. There are just some things in my past that are complicated.”
“I get it,” I said.
She put her hand on my mine. “What happened last night?”
Everything happened. “I called Rohan, that was good. Molly came over.”
“Uh-oh.”
That didn’t even begin to explain it.
What did I do now?
June stared at me, obviously wanting details. Maybe talking about it would be good. Would help it make sense. “She told me to let him go. How does she have the right to say that to me? So, I went over to Graham’s and told him what happened. We fought, and then somehow, we kissed.”
“You kissed?”
; I shifted on the bed, and felt my body warm at the memory. “Made out.”
Her eyes were wide, and she smiled a little. “Made out?”
Tears burned behind my eyes. Mostly because I was embarrassed, but even more because he did the right thing. I shouldn’t have gone over there. I shouldn’t have kissed him. What did I expect to happen?
“He stopped it,” I said. That was the worst part. That he said it was wrong. We were never wrong, no matter what the circumstances. We were “Cass and Graham,” and it was as natural as breathing.
“He did?”
I threw a pillow at her. “Stop repeating everything I’m saying! It’s annoying.”
June threw the pillow back at me. “So, you guys made out, and now what?”
That was the million-dollar question. I didn’t know the answer. I didn’t know if I wanted the answer. There were only two ways for this to end, and neither of them were good because in my head, they both ended in us not being together. “Now, he still has a girlfriend.”
June gave me a thumbs-down. “How did you end things?”
“He said it was a mistake. I said it wasn’t. I’m here. Now I don’t know. I wait?”
“Yes, wait.”
I started pacing. What was I waiting for? “I hate waiting.”
“You know what you can do while you wait?”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Research.”
“For what?” I asked, confused. How to ruin a life? How to heal a broken heart? How to not kiss your ex-fiancé even though you want to? Too late on all those.
June shook her head in a “poor Cassie” sort of way. “You still need to pick a major, or a path, or whatever the shrink suggested.”
I deflated. “Right.” That wasn’t the answer I wanted either. Fill the questions in with more questions.
Days Like This Page 16
