by Unknown
“These months haven’t been easy for me, either,” I admitted, the words coming up like acid. “In fact, they’ve been pretty fucking hard.”
“Good,” he said. “I’m glad.” He tossed his cigarette in the snow and crossed his arms. “You deserve it.”
I swallowed. He was right. I did. Not that I wanted to hear it from him. Holding hands was great and all, but Ben needed a lot more from me for what I’d put him through, what I’d put myself through.
“Now that you’re fucking finished smoking, you can leave.” I lit another cigarette quickly.
He shook his head, stretched. “I look out for my brother too, you know. It’s not just a one-way street.”
I sucked in hard, the smoke almost choking me. I guess he wasn’t finished. With his cigarette, sure, but with me, he was just getting started.
He puffed out his chest. “So stop dicking him around.”
His words hit right in the center of my chest, cracking against the tough exterior he brought out.
“I’m not,” I said, not looking at him, concentrating only on the cherry of my cigarette. It was blurry from the tears starting to form in my eyes. I couldn’t help them from forming, but I was not about to fucking let them fall, not in front of Drew. I wanted the snow to come down in a torrent again, to cry my tears for me.
“Then just admit you want to be together.”
I looked away from him. Fresh tears hit my eyes; they burned in the cold. “What does he say?”
“I’m talking to you right now,” he said, strengthening his stance.
“Fine, I admit it,” I said. My words were like smoke, gone as quickly as they were there. But my time with Ben, realizing that I’d never see Rawe again; that if I didn’t do something drastic I might never see Ben again after tomorrow, had brought me to the admission already, had etched deep in my bones.
“Tell Ben,” Drew replied, staring at me.
I nodded slightly.
“I fucking mean it, Cassie,” he said.
“I fucking hear you, Drew,” I said, trying to slow my breath. I didn’t need him to tell me what I already knew.
He rubbed his hands together. “Good. Now that that’s settled, I’m going to go find Laura and christen that hearse over there.” He indicated the long black car with his chin.
“You’re seriously disgusting,” I said, wiping my nose.
“You know what they say.” He shrugged. “When the hearse is a rocking, there’s probably a zombie inside.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. I stopped myself, covered it up like it was a cough.
“So that’s what my brother sees in you,” he said, a light flicking on behind his eyes.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Your smile.” He nodded in my direction. “The rarity of it. I see now.”
“Fuck off, Drew.”
“Don’t hurt him again,” he said, squinting. His eyelids were as close together as he wanted him and Laura to be in the back of that car. “I don’t care if you’re a girl. I’ll kick the ever-loving shit out of you. You break his heart, you’ll be in that hearse instead of Laura and me.”
“Back at ya, Saint Drew,” I said, matching his eyes, his posture. “I don’t care if you’re a guy. You hurt Laura, I’ll rip your fucking dick off.”
“I think I have to be a guy for you to rip my dick off.” He smirked.
“You won’t be one anymore when I’m done.” I smirked back.
“I like Laura,” he said, holding his position.
“Well, I like Ben,” I said, becoming a mirror image of him again—his straight back, his legs spread apart, his hands in fists.
“Then I guess we both know what the fuck we need to do now,” he said, pulling the door open hard as he walked back inside.
Fucking Drew.
Chapter Twenty
Ben
Laura stood in front of the table of prepackaged trays of sandwiches, veggies and dip in the hall adjoining the funeral parlor like she wasn’t sure what to do. I guess I wasn’t surprised Rawe’s parents hadn’t invited anyone back to their house. They knew what people who had been sent to Turning Pines were capable of, even if we weren’t there anymore.
“You want me to get you something?” I asked, looking down at her. Laura was the kind of girl Drew would have said was at the perfect size to climb under the table and give him head, but he hadn’t said that about her. He hadn’t said anything resembling it.
“I can get my own food, Ben,” she said, crossing her tiny arms over her chest.
“Then why are you just standing here?”
“I don’t know,” she said, curving her lips. “I’m a little confused about things.” Her eyes looked tired.
“You mean with Drew?”
She nodded. “I hate that I’m even thinking about it here. I feel like a jerk.”
“Laura,” I said, tilting my head to look at her, “you could never be a jerk.”
She smiled. “I didn’t say I was a jerk, I said I felt like one.”
“Drew seems to be into you,” I said. The fact that he’d given me zero details about what had happened with them last night proved it. He might have started whatever he started with her to piss off Cassie and me, but that wasn’t what it was now.
“I think we both know that doesn’t really mean anything when you have your own lives to go back to.” She sighed, blowing air out of her mouth so hard little pieces of hair flopped up.
“You go to University of Rochester, right? That’s only, like, ten hours from where we live.”
“Oh, only,” she said, her eyes big.
“You haven’t met anyone there you like yet?” I asked, shifting back and forth on the balls of my feet.
She looked down. “Not anyone who likes me, too.”
“Guys are assholes,” I said, touching her shoulder lightly.
She shrugged. “Some are, some aren’t. Just like girls.”
“Do you mean Cassie?”
“Wow, thanks for listening, Ben,” Laura said, rolling her eyes and shaking my hand away.
Laura and I rarely talked about anything but Cassie, and she’d definitely paid attention to her share of my heartache even when I didn’t want to share it. I could spend a minute listening to her. I willed myself still.
“Sorry,” I said. “Drew can be an asshole, but I will never let him be one to you.”
“He hasn’t been one to me yet,” she said. “So, so far you’re doing your job.”
“I mean it, Laura,” I said, my eyes on hers. “I will not let him screw you over.”
“Hopefully he won’t be able to do too much damage in one more day.”
“You guys could have a long-distance relationship,” I said, my voice rising. “I mean, you’ve already got the talking-on-the-phone part down.”
“You’re joking, right?” she asked. “’Cause if you really thought that, you would have had one.”
“I thought you wanted to talk about Drew.”
“I did,” Laura said, “and now we’re talking about Cassie.”
“She didn’t want one.” That was what I said, but I’d never asked. I’d never insisted. I’d never driven the eight hours to see her.
But she’d never done any of that, either.
“Would your brother?”
“We were stupid,” I said, shaking my head. “You and Drew aren’t.”
“You guys were”—she paused—“are stupid, but what makes you think we aren’t?”
“Because you were smart enough to try and bring Cassie back to me.”
“Is she?” Laura asked, touching my arm. “Back to you?”
“I think so,” I said. “I know there are things she’s not telling me, though.” I thought of her, how inflexible she could be, and how it always made me want her even more.
“You mean about what happened with Aaron?” Laura asked, closing her mouth quickly like she wished she hadn’t ever opened it.
“I told her she co
uld tell me,” I breathed. “She still hasn’t.”
“Maybe you should tell her again.”
“Maybe she should just feel safe enough to finally tell me,” I said, thinking of what I’d shared with her just that morning. I guess I really had no right to. I hadn’t been keeping my father’s death from her, but I also never brought it up.
“Cassie feeling safe,” Laura started. She bit her bottom lip to keep herself from laughing. “You know her a lot better than that.”
“What more can I do? If I tell her that I want to move in with her, to only be with her, she might freak out,” I said, the only thing I’d been thinking since we touched again suddenly spilling out.
“She also might agree,” Laura said, her voice rising excitedly.
“Maybe.” I considered it. “I just know I want her in my life forever. So how do I say that? How do I ask for that without scaring the crap out of her?”
“Exactly like you just said it to me.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Cassie
I took a walk in the snow after my cigarette instead of going back inside. I wanted to see Ben to say things to him, but I wanted it to be perfect, and talking to him in a funeral parlor was not.
Considering what Ben had done to keep me from getting on my plane just after Turning Pines so we could spend two months together in California, it had to be more than perfect. It had to be huge.
I wasn’t going to call in a bomb threat to the hotel or anything, like he’d had his brother do at the airport the day we were supposed to fly out of each other’s lives forever—fuck me, I guess he had always been looking out for Ben—but it had to be something that proved how committed I was ready to be. Something he could see.
Something more than just words.
Now it was my turn to show him how much I needed him. To show him I could hold on. That I wouldn’t let the fragility of life be our downfall anymore. I wouldn’t let me be our downfall anymore.
Without Ben, I’d been the one to put myself in a self-imposed coffin, to wield a life sentence of death. It was time to buck the fuck up. Rawe would never know it, but she was still sharing her wisdom with me even now.
I had to get back to the hotel so I could get to work.
I texted Laura to meet me at her truck; she walked across the parking lot slowly, and I watched as she got in and started the ignition. She didn’t seem like she’d just had sex. If she’d really been with Drew, he’d finished faster than a virgin on prom night. Which, considering his swagger, was entirely possible.
“Did you guys seriously just do it in a hearse?” I asked as Laura pulled out of the parking lot, the sound of her turn signal clicking as insistently as the snow was falling.
“What?” she exclaimed.
“Drew said he was going to take advantage of you in a hearse.”
“Back there?” She laughed.
“Yeah, like the same one they will probably use for Rawe,” I said, sticking my tongue out.
She looked in the rearview mirror like she was considering turning around and joining Drew to take care of unfinished business.
“So, no, then?” I asked.
“Definitely no,” she said, a smile creeping across her lips. “He really said that?”
“Are you seriously surprised?” I huffed. “He’s disgusting.”
“Maybe to you,” she said.
“Maybe?” I replied. The thing was, after talking to Drew, I understood what Laura saw in him, just like he said he now understood what Ben saw in me. She liked his directness, and why shouldn’t she? I knew what hiding from your problems could do. I knew what shielding yourself from your solutions could cost you.
Her face seemed to glow. “He asked me to have a drink later.”
“Oh, great.” I sighed heavily. “Does that mean you guys are taking over our room again tonight?”
“I didn’t think you’d care,” she said, not taking her eyes off the road.
“I don’t, actually,” I said, hiding a smile, the one Drew had seen—the rare, real, I am actually happy smile.
“You sure you guys didn’t just do it in a hearse?”
“No.” I laughed.
“But that means you and Ben did something, right?”
“Such as?” I asked, playing with her. Considering what she’d put me through this weekend, she deserved a little bit of shit.
“He just said…”
“Said what?” I asked quickly, her words rousing me. Obviously they had been talking. What had he said to her?
She closed her mouth tight, staying silent, looking like she used to at Turning Pines.
“Ben said what, Laura?” I asked more forcefully.
Maybe he had plans for me too. I had to know what they were. I needed to do what I wanted to do first. For once, I needed to be his knight in shining armor.
“I promised him I wouldn’t tell you,” she said, eyeing me sideways.
“Fuck off, Laura.”
“What?” she asked. “I need to keep your secrets and no one else’s?”
“If you don’t tell me what he said, I’m not telling you what I’m going to do.” I closed my mouth, mimicking her.
“You’d better spill,” she said, taking one hand off the wheel and smacking me lightly.
I sealed my mouth tight, shook my head hard. I liked being the one keeping her in the dark for a change.
“I guess I deserve that,” she bargained. “At least you’re finally doing something. It’s been tiring taking care of myself and you for the last three months.”
I sat back and looked at her, really looked at her—her hair up in a tight bun, her understated makeup, her living her life, her all along just trying to help me live mine.
“You really have.” I looked down at my lap. “Rawe would be proud of you.”
She nodded. “You can still make her proud, too, Cassie.”
“That’s my plan,” I said, holding my breath. “I have one more day.”
“No,” she insisted. “You have your whole life. One more day can just be the start.”
“You’re right,” I replied, nodding. This was the beginning, my new beginning, and if Ben agreed, ours. “How’d you get to be so smart?”
“I did a lot of listening while I was mute. You’d be amazed what shutting the hell up does for a person.”
“Maybe I should try it.” I laughed.
“Maybe?” She laughed back.
I flicked her arm.
“So what are you going to do?” she asked.
I took a deep breath. “Take care of myself, starting with Ben.”
She smiled, her teeth as white as the snow outside. “I won’t wait up.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ben
Drew and I sat down in the bar when we got back to the hotel in the late afternoon. It was empty except for an older couple eating potato skins and drinking Cokes. They looked so content—not talking, not fighting. Just sitting together and being in the same space was all they needed.
I envied their easy way with each other. I wondered if they were always so comfortable, or if it was something they had learned over time.
It finally felt that way again with Cassie, but things were always easy when we didn’t have to make the hard decisions.
“You want a drink?” Drew asked, looking for the bartender.
“I’m cool,” I said. I wanted to see Cassie later. And when I did, I didn’t want to have any alcohol in my system—for me as much as for her. I wanted to be clear-headed so I could say the words I needed to say, do the things I needed to do.
I still had no idea what, but I knew I needed to be sober.
“Suit yourself.” Drew shrugged, ordering a beer.
I took out my phone and looked at it. I don’t know why. Cassie had never contacted me that way before, but I thought she might now. Things had changed between us—switched back to the way they were before we’d left each other, flipped like a coin. But had they changed enough?
“You seem nervous,” Drew said.
“Nah,” I said, putting my phone down and sitting up straighter to try and prove it.
“You’re not being fucking stupid, are you, brother?”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“The way you were stupid before?” he asked, looking at me, his eyes pointed.
“No,” I said quickly.
“’Cause it seems to me like you are,” he pressed.
“I’m still just upset from the funeral,” I lied.
“You don’t look upset,” he said, his eyes lingering, “you look horny.”
I laughed. Drew knew me too well, just like a brother should. “I guess I kind of am,” I admitted. I mean, being so near Cassie, how could I not be? But it was more than just that. My body also craved her in a way not at all sexual.
Though, who was I kidding? I wanted that, too.
“Does that mean things are good between you guys?” he asked, his lips turning up.
“I thought you just said I shouldn’t be stupid.”
“Well, I wish you wouldn’t be, but I also know you don’t give two shits what I think. So, if you’re going to be stupid, at least I hope things are going well.” Drew’s beer arrived at the table and he picked it up.
“So far,” I said, glancing down at my phone, “she seems into me again.”
“Is that why you’re staring at your phone like it’s a big-titted stripper?”
“Fuck you,” I said, my face hot.
“Ha!” He laughed. “You have been spending actual time together. You sound just like her.”
“How would you know that?” I asked, laying my hands on the table in front of me and eyeing him. “Did you talk to her or something?”
“More special.” He smiled. “I had a whole cigarette with her.”
“Shit.” I shook my head. “What did she say?” I asked, smacking his hand for emphasis.
