But Cassie pulled her hand from mine, and kissed my cheek quickly. “Thank you for saving my mom.”
51.
Cassie
I WOKE UP the next afternoon and my head felt like a weight. Crying did that. I’d played last night in my head a million times, but it never ended that way. With me walking away. In my scenarios, it was Graham kissing me. It was never just over. I guess I’d gotten my wish for Graham to be free of me. That was for the best, anyway. We weren’t the same people we used to be. There was no sense in telling myself we could rebuild that and go back.
There was no going back in life. Only forward.
I was ready for that.
I curled up on the porch with some coffee and my notebook. Even though an internship felt like an impossibility since someone had to help my mom, I still had music in some way. There were a lot of songs in my head, and I started writing them down. Lyric after lyric. Maybe this could be my future.
It’s your life // it’s your call // you can’t be afraid/ of the fall // If you want to fly // you’ve gotta try // close your eyes // let it go // Hold on tight
Or the start of one.
I WENT DOWNSTAIRS for lunch, and the kitchen table was covered in papers. I called out for Mom, but there was no reply. I picked one of the pages and there was a picture of a woman with a smile.
Qualifications: Graduated 1978 from Duke. Twenty years of Nursing Experience in general medicine. Ten years in North Carolina State Psychiatric Medicine. Daughter with Down syndrome.
Looking for: Low-key patients who need daily assistance at their homes. Will live in.
“Cassie! You’re up! Coffee?” Mom said, bouncing into the room.
“What’s this?” I asked, waving the sheet in the air.
She took a sip from her mug. “A resume.”
I knew that. “For what?”
She went into the kitchen and poured me a cup of coffee. “I’m hiring a nurse.”
“A nurse?”
“A companion, maybe. I like that term better. Someone who can be here to make sure I’m making good choices and to be part of things.” Mom handed me the mug, a smile on her face.
“You don’t need a nurse. I’m here.”
Mom reached her hand out and rubbed it on my back. “You have things to do, Cassie. You can’t stay here.”
“What? Don’t be silly.” I was here. I was staying. It was already done. Mom needed me, and I’d already decided to give her that.
She lowered herself into a chair, turning through a few of the resumes. “I heard you on the phone with June.” She smiled when she glanced up at me. “I want you to go and do whatever you want to do.”
“Mom,” I started.
Mom shook her head. “Music is exciting! I knew that was where you’d end up. You have such an ear for it—have since you were a baby. We used to sing to you and you’d dance along in our laps. You loved when Richard would play Bruce Springsteen.”
I took a seat next to her. “I’m here, Mom. I don’t want to go back to Butler.”
“Then don’t. Go wherever you want!” She took my hand. “The point is that we both know you don’t need to be here. Follow your dreams, Cassie. I’ve already had mine, and I can take care of myself. I know you think I can’t, which is why I’ll have someone else move in. Maybe not forever, but for as long as I feel like I need it.”
She was serious. My mom was going to have a stranger come live in her house so I didn’t have to. I never expected that. I was so resigned to stay here after the other day. “I don’t know what to say.”
“My life doesn’t have to be yours, and I don’t want it to be,” she said. “Having someone here will be nice. This house is too lonely anyway.”
I hugged her. She rubbed my back and held me close. It was hard to believe this was my mom. She was so grown up. “Can I help?” I asked.
“Only for an hour. Then you have to apply to more internships or schools or whatever you want.”
“Deal.” My mom had her moments of being the best. This was definitely one of them. I reached for a stack of resumes. “So the most important question—favorite Stevie Nicks song?”
“Of course,” Mom laughed.
TWO HOURS LATER, we’d narrowed it down to four nurses for an interview next week and I’d applied to a couple more internships. It felt good, for the first time, like it could actually happen.
Like somehow I could really find something to make me happy.
50.
Graham
“WHAT ARE YOU doing, son?” Dad asked me. He’d been away on business for seven weeks, flying back and forth between home and New York and Hong Kong. I didn’t realize he was back. He was still dressed in his suit, rolling his suitcase right behind him.
“You home for good?”
Dad smiled, but he looked tired. “I had to spend some time with my boy before he went to school.”
“James helped me load up my truck with this. I have something to fix,” I said, answering his other question.
Dad eyed the wood on the back of the truck. “Looks familiar,” he paused, but I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to. He knew this project. “Where you taking it?”
“Garage.”
“Let me help you,” Dad said. He threw his jacket on the ground next to his suitcase and climbed up into the bed of the truck. “Glad it’s going to be fixed.”
Dad took one end of the wooden beams, and I took the other. I was glad, too. Cassie wasn’t the only one who’d made mistakes. I couldn’t let her think she was.
MY ALARM WENT off at 1 a.m. I grabbed a bottle of water, put on my shoes, and started unloading my tools. Each trip back and forth, I glanced up at Cassie’s room. The light was off. It will work out. But I wasn’t fully convinced. This could be the dumbest plan in history. I didn’t have a Plan B yet.
I took a long swig of my water, and started moving the pieces of wood I’d cut earlier in the day. I had to do the short ones first. I moved toward the broken fence, and measured a foot on my tape measure. When I found the right place, I put a marker in the ground. I went all the way around and marked until I ran out of room. I hoped this was the right decision, but there was no turning back now.
An hour later, I was ready.
I dug at that marker with my shovel, digging up bits of the ground, and when it was big enough, I shoved the first wooden beam into the ground, hammered until it was solid, and then re-positioned the dirt. After the second beam, I started on the first long side of the fence.
Cassie hated surprises, but I was thinking of this more as a grand gesture.
I got one side done before Cassie’s light came on and I smiled.
51.
Cassie
I FOLLOWED THE pounding outside. Immediately, I noticed that every light in Graham’s apartment was on, and he was in the space between our yards, re-building the fence.
“What are you doing?” I asked, moving closer toward him.
He pushed his foot down on the shovel, and glanced up at me. He was quiet for a moment, staring at me, and then he said, “Fixing what I broke.”
“The fence?”
He shrugged. “To start.”
My nerves tingled. There was a hidden meaning in his words. I started to say something but Graham went back to work, and I debated what to do. I couldn’t sleep now, not when I knew he was out here working. So, I went toward the old part, a few feet off where he was, and sat on the top. I tightened my robe around myself, and tried to cover up my thighs.
Graham raised an eyebrow at me. “You’re staying?”
“Do you mind me staying?”
“No,” he said with a smile.
I sat, and watched him work. Sat and debated what was supposed to happen next. I’d cleared the air, and moving forward was next, but what were we moving toward?
“There wasn’t a storm,” Graham said as he moved some logs around. “Well, maybe Hurricane Tucker.”
I smiled. “I figured.”
His lip twitched and he turned back to work before I could see his face, but I knew he was smiling. I twisted the tie on my robe around my wrist. “Why are you doing this in the middle of the night?”
“I haven’t slept well lately,” he said.
“It’s been hard for me since I got back, too.”
“It’s been hard for me since you left,” Graham said. His eyes locked on mine.
Way to say stupid things, Cassie. “Sorry.” I should’ve stopped bringing it up if I ever wanted to move on.
“You can stop apologizing,” he said.
“I can?”
Graham nodded. “We all do stupid shit that we think is right, Cassie.”
“Is that forgiveness?” I fought back the smile I felt forming. This was what I wanted, his forgiveness.
“I think it is,” he said. He doesn’t look back at me, but I don’t need him to. I believe him.
A weight lifted off me in that moment, and even though it was good and wonderful, I wondered if I deserved it. At the end of the day, I’d still made my decisions. If he could forgive me, really forgive me, then I could let him go. It wasn’t what I wanted, but it was right and the most fair to him.
“Graham,” I said. Even just saying his name made my heart hurt. Fairness sucked.
“Cass?”
I took a breath. “I’m happy for you. Really, I am.”
“Happy about what?” he asked, unloading a little dirt to the side. He looked at me again.
It was harder to say with him staring at me.
“You were the only good thing about this place for me, and I’m glad you’re getting out. You have a good girlfriend and a future at the school of your dreams. I’m happy that you have what you want.” After I said it, I realized how much I really meant it. All I wanted was him happy.
He froze for a moment, and I was nervous. Then, Graham threw the shovel and he lowered a beam into the hole he’d dug. “We broke up.”
“What?”
“Molly and I—we broke up.” His eyes were intense on me.
“Oh…” I started. “I’d apologize, but you told me to stop.”
I swear he smiled.
“It’s okay. It was a good thing,” he said.
Such a little phrase, but for some reason, it took my breath away.
52.
Graham
SHE WAS RIGHT next to me, but she was so quiet. It was almost like she was afraid to breathe. I could feel the tension around her, and I wondered if she could hear my heart pounding in the silence. I did all this to get her out here—and now here she was.
“You’re wrong about one thing,” I said, pounding the next post into the ground.
“What’s that?”
“I’m not happy.” I hit the beam again. “And I don’t have everything that I want.” One more swing and then my eyes were on her. “I don’t have you.”
I threw the hammer to the ground, and it was an instant. She leapt from the fence into my arms, and wrapped her legs around my waist. I couldn’t think about anything else except how much I wanted to taste every inch of her.
I lowered Cass to her feet, and she broke our kiss, inhaling a half-laugh, half-breath. I smiled. This was our moment. Everything was out there and now we could be whatever we wanted. I kissed her again, and her body pressed against mine like it belonged there. Cass guided me toward the door of my apartment, and opened it. Then, I remembered the one thing. I pulled her to a stop. “Wait—I need to tell you something.”
She shook her head and kissed me. I leaned into it and welcomed her tongue into my mouth. This girl couldn’t get close enough. She caught my lip with her teeth playfully. “No more talking.”
Okay.
53.
Cassie
BY THE TIME we were up the stairs, my lips were already in that swollen, numb, but this-was-so-good-don’t-stop phase. Graham closed the door behind us, and for a moment, it was hard to believe this was happening. Everything wasn’t totally lost. He turned back to me and my heart was pounding as he slipped the robe off my shoulders, and placed a kiss under my ear, on my neck, on my collarbone. He feathered kisses down my jaw to my ripe lips, and opened them with his tongue. I practically purred as our mouths clung in a heated kiss.
My hands slid up his shirt, pulling it over his head, not wanting to separate. I ran my hands down his chest and his abs, and his lips moved to my neck. His hand slid under my shirt and over my skin, leaving chills. He eased my shirt over my head and his fingers trailed over my breasts. His hands were like ice as he touched me and made every nerve inside me shiver. I never wanted that to stop.
His lips and tongue flitted over my nipples; I braced my arms around him so I didn’t fall over. I moaned as he moved his lips up my breasts, back to my waiting mouth. His tongue explored, and his hands continued to caress my breasts. My body was feeling everything, everywhere, a thousand pins and needles. I let him lead me, let his tongue and his hands and his breath take me away.
My fingers fumbled to unbutton his pants without stopping the kissing, and his pants fell to the floor. My hand went downward into his boxers, and as I took the full length of him in my hand he parted from my mouth with a gasp. I smiled at the reaction. Graham kissed me again quickly before flashing a devilish smile. He pulled off my shorts, kissing my thighs as he lowered the fabric. He did the same with my underwear and his fingers slide inside me. My breath hitched at the sudden entry, and got more ragged as he moved inside me. I whispered his name and gripped his shoulders. I was going to come undone. I moaned as his fingers found my clit and pressed myself against him. He kissed me as he moved deeper and harder inside me while I groaned into his mouth.
I couldn’t think anymore. My legs felt weak as I leaned my whole body against him. He ran his tongue along my neck, and I moaned his name, pressing my mouth into his shoulder as my fingers dug in for something to steady me. He was the only thing keeping me standing,
“Come for me,” he said breathlessly in my ear. I whispered his name while my body uncoiled around him, and then, he kissed me again and lowered me to the floor.
He was on top of me, the pressure of his erection pressing into my hip, while my hands explored him and our mouths breathed in each other. I was safe under him, like nothing could ever harm me. I was always that way when I was with him. There was nothing and no one who would ever be able to complete me like he could.
Graham looked down at me. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.” He pressed a kiss to my collarbone. “I will never stop wanting you.”
“I need you,” I said, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling him in for another kiss. “Now.”
I felt him enter me slowly, and I bit his bottom lip. He was the same as I remembered, filling me perfectly, impossibly full, but my body felt different around him. As if I had a few million extra nerve endings and he knew how to trigger each one of them. Maybe I was new or different, or maybe it was him. Maybe it was us. Whatever it was, the feeling of him inside me was almost too much.
He moved inside me and my fingers ran down his back. I felt myself already building and we’d barely gotten started. My body craved him too much. “God, Graham.”
He moved harder. I lifted my hips into his movements, and we both moaned together. The sounds grew louder between us, and I focused on him moving inside me. It was all I’d wanted for months, and I’d never thought I could actually have it again. I moaned loudly in tune with him as coherent thought deserted me and I floated on pure sensation. For a brief moment, time stopped, and we were caught in the middle, frozen together as one.
Graham
I kissed down Cass’s throat to the full rise of her breasts, as she snuggled up beside me and intertwined her legs with mine. My whole body was exhausted, and alive, and hungry for her, and my hands couldn’t leave her alone. I kissed every inch of her that I could find and enjoyed the sounds she made under me. The sounds I’d missed and couldn’t get enough of. I didn’t want her to ever stop ma
king them.
Then she laughed. I really loved her laugh.
“You shouldn’t laugh after sex, Cass. You’ll give a guy a complex.”
That only made her laugh more. I gave her my best stern face, but I couldn’t be mad at her. Not after that. After this.
“We didn’t even make it to the bed,” she said with a smile. “I can literally touch it.”
She reached out her hand over her head, and sure enough, it was right there.
“And that’s funny?”
“I didn’t really imagine this on the floor. Like we’re animals.”
“I imagined it everywhere,” I said.
She smiled. “Everywhere?”
I nodded and kissed her neck. “The floor.” Another kiss. “Your car.” Another kiss. “The bed of my truck—”
“Why have we never done that?”
“The beach, the yard, against that stupid fence, a road somewhere.” I kissed a new part of her body between each word, and then looked at her and couldn’t stop smiling. “With you is all that matters to me.”
“I don’t deserve you,” she said. I kissed her again, and she ran her hand down my face. “I really don’t.”
“No, you really don’t,” I said.
She hit me playfully on the arm. “I love you, Graham Tucker.”
“I love you, too. Always.”
I kissed her again, and her body burnt this path against mine. My body groaned in response to her hand, which was suspiciously drifting downward. “You want to be an animal again?” I whispered in her ear.
“You could convince me,” she said. I gasped as her hand moved against me, and her eyes widened with laughter. I was so hard under her touch, even after what we’d just done. I couldn’t get enough of her. I inhaled some air, exhaled her name, as Cass took control of my body.
54.
Graham
SHE SEEMED SO happy next to me in the morning sunlight—I hadn’t seen her that way in a very long time. I folded my hands behind my head and looked at her. I wanted to capture that moment and keep it forever. To imprint it on my memory as a reminder that these rare times of pure bliss—those were the moments, the days, we existed for. Those were the ones that kept us moving forward, kept us fighting and forgiving, and loving. Every mistake, every stupid decision, every lie found hope in this. We’d found our way back to each other, and I never wanted to forget.
Days Like This Page 18
