by Amy Marie
We leave his family so the next person can express their sympathy, walking past the casket to the adjacent room. I spot Alexia and Aaron. Even though I just saw her last week when I had lunch with Trinity and the both of them at Ian’s party, it seems like that was forever ago. Now, her pregnant belly is more obvious to me and I smile at the new life being formed. Her hands are cradling it as though it is now outside the womb and her husband has his arm around her shoulders. Their faces are forlorn and somber. I didn’t know Aaron in high school but Alexia and I were in classes together. I have a feeling she may have recognized me, and I don’t even think if, at this point, she asked I would deny it. My body feels almost relieved that my secret is out, despite losing Casen.
We are halfway to the refreshments when Trinity missteps. “Maybe this was a bad idea,” she whispers.
I raise my head, looking through the throngs of people when I zero in on Casen walking through the double doors. He doesn’t see me yet but I see him, and it rattles me. I feel like at any moment my stomach will reject the small snack I ate on the way here. I haven’t seen him since he left me on the bathroom floor. The light filters in from behind him giving him an angelic look but also a very lost look. I want to bring him into my embrace and comfort him because I can see he is hurting. His unshaven face has produced a short beard, and it frames it nicely. He’s wearing a white dress shirt and textured black tie underneath a dark suit.
Reece is by his side, seemingly holding Casen up. From my view, it looks like he may have had a few drinks before they arrived.
Reece’s frustrated eyes scan the room, coming to Trinity through the crowd before they zero in on me. His eyebrows morph into a scowl as he shakes his head in disbelief. Casen detaches from him, without spotting us, and walks toward the room where Ian lies. Reece takes the opportunity to stride toward us.
He looks at me but I know he is speaking to Trin. “Hey. Thanks for coming.” He checks his watch. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
She wraps her arms around his body and squeezes him. “It’s fine. We’re okay.”
His gaze never leaves mine as he kisses her gently on the forehead. The last time I had a conversation with Reece he owned up to releasing the video accidentally. I feel like he was remorseful when we spoke. Casen had said both Reece and Ian later became ashamed of what they had done. I want to forgive them all. That is something I have come to terms with over the past couple days. I can’t live my life feeling like I have a tight grip around my neck that won’t allow me to breathe. If I forgive them, and I get Casen to forgive me then I know my lungs will be able to hold enough air to thrive. Right now I am just surviving. I miss Casen. I miss his touch. I miss his aggressiveness. I miss him bringing me to the brink. I miss us.
My eyes scan the room, trying to give Trin and Reece a moment of privacy, hoping I can avoid Casen at all costs. I spot Alexia and Aaron, again, in the corner whispering to one another. I’m not scared of being found out anymore. I’m more nervous about the confrontation I’ll face when they find out I’ve lied to them about who I was. Imagine if Patrick or Wesley knew. I clutch my stomach at that thought. It’s terrifying.
Reece releases Trinity, releasing their clasped hands. “I should go pay my respects. I’ll be right back.”
Trin turns to me, her eyes widening. “Are you okay? You look pale.”
I shake my head to rid the dark thoughts of a Patrick retaliation infiltrating my mind. “Yeah. I mean, no. I shouldn’t have come here. Would it be okay if I left? I’m sorry. I know you want me here but it’s just too much for me.”
“Okay.” She squeezes my right hand, comforting. “Let me see if Reece can take me home later.”
She disappears to follow Reece into the other room. I feel horrible leaving her but I can’t stay any longer. As if being here wasn’t torture enough, it’s what Casen is doing that solidifies my decision to get the fuck out of here. His arms are wrapped around Kate in an embrace. She seems to be soothing him as much as he is consoling her. Just seeing him touching another woman feels like a knife is being twisted into my heart. I’m supposed to be the one by Casen’s side. I’m the one who should have him in my arms, telling him that everything will be okay.
I look away, grabbing my arms tightly. Everyone is with someone and I’m standing here alone, with no one. The room starts to tilt and goose bumps prickle my skin. I feel as though eyes are on now me, and the walls are closing in. My heart begins to beat harder and faster, and I’m sure at any moment it will burst through my ribs and out of my skin. A panic attack is creeping up my body from my toes to my lungs. I have to get out of here.
Making a mad dash for the doors, I push past the crowd of people who are attempting to get inside. I hear grumblings about how rude I’m being but I don’t care. If I don’t breathe in some fresh air I might have this attack inside the walls of this funeral home. No one wants to see that, especially me.
Once outside, I find the clouds have dissipated slightly and the vitamin D of the sun hits my face. I relish in the heat for a moment before I inhale a lung full of fresh air and fall back against the bricks of the building.
Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Deep breath in. Deep breath out.
My eyes shut, and my head drops to my chest when I finally start to calm. My inhales and exhales have returned to normal but it doesn’t last long.
“Embyr.” He calls.
Casen.
The sound of his voice is like lightning to my body. All my senses switch to high alert. I can hear the muttering of those around us and the birds chirping. I can see the rapid rising and falling of his chest, and his clenched fists. I can smell the rain that fell earlier, dampening the ground. The brick wall feels harsh against my arms, and I can only speak his name like a breathless whisper. “Casen.”
He hesitates before shortening the distance between us with purpose. He traps me against the wall, his face growing ever closer until its mere inches from my own. He still owns my body. That much I know from its draw to his. His breath caresses my cheek, one, two, three times until his soft voice finds my ears. “What are you doing here?”
My voice comes out small and timid. “I wanted to pay my respects to Ian.”
His nose travels down the side of my neck, and he inhales when it meets my shoulder. “I could sense you were here. You make me weak, Embyr. I want to be strong.”
My eyes flutter shut. “Casen. I’m so sorry.”
He pushes off the bricks, giving himself a good three feet between the two of us now. The veins in his neck are popping out. My body is still in overload from the small tease of contact he just gave me. A switch flips and he’s gone from desperate to angry.
“No!” he harshly whispers, pointing a finger at me. “I can’t have you here.”
“Casen.” I step closer to him, begging. “Please.”
“You don’t get to be here while I mourn my friend.” His voice rises. “Leave!” The forlorn look is replaced by disgust. When I don’t budge his command gets louder. “LEAVE!”
In an instant, Trinity is by my side and Reece has Casen’s bicep. “You okay?” she asks checking my face for who knows what.
“Annie is just fine, Trin.” He sneers. “Or are you in on this too? Is your name even Trinity?”
Reece pulls Casen back. “Don’t, Casen. Not here, not now.”
Casen shrugs him off and Trinity takes a protective stance in front of me.
“Go.” Casen growls, just before he falls to the ground.
Without a word, Trinity hands me her keys, and I waste no time running to the car, but not before I hear Casen tell Reece, “I love her, man. How could she do this to me?”
THREE
CASEN
Four days. That’s how long it has been since I’ve seen her face. I thought I could deal with it if she came here today but if the wet grass dampening my pants is any indication of how well I am handling it, then I was way fucking wrong.
I feel so many mixed emotions. I want to pull
her body into me and tell her how much I love her, which surprises the shit out of me. I thought I had the mindset now to just let her go, but then she spoke. Just hearing her say “please” sparked the memory of her in her apartment begging me to understand why she was doing the things that she was doing.
“Casen, man.” Reece tugs on my arm. “Get up.”
Unwillingly, I rise to my feet and straighten myself out, noticing a dozen or so people watching me. They heard me profess my love for someone deceitful. They don’t know the things she has done, so I just look like a goddamn fool.
Reece pats me on the shoulder. “Let’s go next door and get a drink.”
I nod because I can’t get myself together inside of a funeral home. “Okay, but I need to let Ian’s parents know.”
He follows me in, and I spot Kate sitting between her parents silently praying so I give them a moment before I interrupt.
“Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” I quietly say to them. “I’m going to head out.”
Mrs. Smith stands up and pulls me into her. She is warm and thankfully her tears have stopped flowing, for now. I doubt there will be a day that she doesn’t cry for the loss of her son. I hug her tighter with that thought. She lessens her hold and looks up to me. “I got to meet your girlfriend Embyr.” She smiles. The first smile I have seen from her in the past couple days.
“Oh, she’s not…”
She squeezes me firmly again. “I am so happy for you, Casen. You deserve to be happy and she is beautiful. Bring her to dinner sometime.”
I can’t tell her Embyr isn’t mine. I don’t want to have that discussion. I just nod and turn to Mr. Smith, shaking his hand.
“Am I okay to stay at your house tonight again, Casen?” Kate asks after a quick side hug.
I kiss the top of her forehead. “Of course. You shouldn’t have a problem getting in.”
I gave Kate the key to my place the other day. She’s been staying at my house since she arrived from Lake Forest. Though she could stay at her parents, she wanted to have somewhere to go to mourn in her own way without having to go back to her empty apartment. I offered to let her stay at my place for the duration of her stay.
Reece says his goodbyes as well and I take one more look at the closed casket, tapping a hand on it before we leave.
The restaurant next door has an adjacent parking lot to the funeral home so we walk over, leaving our cars where they are. I was able to time my arrival with Reece so I didn’t have to walk into the wake alone. I didn’t think for even a moment that Embyr would be there.
“I don’t understand why you said that to Trinity,” Reece says as we walk through the crowded restaurant.
I shrug noncommittally. “I’d say I’m sorry but right now I don’t even know what’s real anymore.”
We pull out stools at the bar in the back of the restaurant. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on with Embyr? You haven’t said a word about it all week.”
The bartender takes our drink orders before I answer. “I don’t even know how to tell you this, Reece.”
His face is stone. Unmoving. He is just waiting for an explanation. I haven’t told him about Embyr’s and my break up.
“You know how I called Embyr ‘Annie’?”
He nods, looking down into his glass.
“Embyr is really Annie Barnes.”
Nothing. No intake of breath. No gasp. No wide eyes. Reece is like a statue, not bothering to look me in the face. I’m confused. I would think that Reece would have some sort of response to finding out that Embyr is really Annie. THE Annie.
Then it clicks. “You knew!” I yell, pushing myself up and away from the bar. “You fucking knew the whole time.”
Reece stands up too. “Wait, wait, wait. No, man. I didn’t know the whole time. Sit back down.”
When I don’t he continues. “Ian told me last week when he came into the firehouse.”
I rack my brain to recall when he was there and I remember him pulling Reece into another room. I shake my head. “Why didn’t you all tell me then?”
He sighs as I sit back down. “He wanted me to talk to Embyr and tell her that she needed to be the one to tell you. I spoke to her the night we all met at the bar. The night before Ian…that night. I told her I knew and that she needed to confess to you as soon as possible. Otherwise, you would find out when Ian sent you the information.
I look down at my intertwined fingers. “Why are you so calm about this, Reece? You know she was trying to get back at us. You were right. You were right the other day when you said it was weird that members of the PITCREW were having these life altering things happening to them. She was behind it all. She admitted to it! You don’t even know what she was going to do to you. How can you be so calm?”
When he doesn’t answer right away I look over, finding him staring off. “I released that tape, Casen. It was an accident but I released it and even though what she was doing was wrong, I probably would have deserved whatever it was that she had planned.”
That doesn’t need a response. I have always known that Reece may have been the one behind the tape getting out. It was his study group that had been forwarding it to everyone they knew. It was at his home. It was on his computer. Of course he was somehow responsible. This is the first time he’s ever admitted to it.
“When Ian told me he found out who Embyr really was, I knew I needed to get her to admit everything to you. I thought it would hurt more if you found out from Ian. I guess it didn’t matter. You broke up with her anyway.”
“I didn’t find out from Embyr,” I tell him. “I got Ian’s mail the morning he passed away, and before I went to her condo. All I wanted that morning was to be near her but then I opened that envelope and my entire world changed.”
“That sucks, Casen. I’m sorry.”
We finish our beers and order another round.
“Do you think she loves you? Like, really loves you and not just a game?”
My mind reels at his question. Does she love me? I’ve had a lot of time to think about it over the past couple days. Even with Kate in my house, it’s been very lonely. Quiet. I can do nothing else but think. When I left her at her condo, I was sure she wasn’t in love with me but the more I thought about it and dissected every single moment in our so-called relationship, I started to think maybe, just maybe she was. At the beginning, she seemed stand-offish. Like she couldn’t tolerate being near me but always seemingly attracted to me, and then something shifted. It was like a light bulb went off and our relationship started to just be easy. She was letting go and letting me in. I was all hers. She had me wrapped from the moment I saw her in Jedi’s. Maybe it was because subconsciously I knew. It’s quite a mind fuck to realize that you fell in love with two women, without realizing they were one in the same.
“I’m fucking sure she does.”
“Okay.” He turns his body toward me. “Then why are you pushing her away? You love her?”
“Because she betrayed us all, Reece!” I yell, slamming my hand down onto the bar. “I love her but I don’t want to.”
“Casen, look at me man.” He commands and I listen. “Yes, she was trying to fuck over us all and in the process, she fell for you. Just like back in high school. Annie, or Embyr, or whatever her name is always had such a strong connection with you. I saw it. Everyone could see it. Everyone but you. What we did?” He shakes his head. “It was so wrong and excuse me for being blunt here but you stood by and watched it happen! For her to still fall in love with you all these years later, in the middle of some diabolical plan to get back at us should tell you something.”
“What? What could that tell me, Reece? That she’s weak?”
He shakes his head. “No. She isn’t weak. If she loves you, even after you stood by and watched us do terrible things to her, then she forgives you. Why can’t you do the same?”
Everything is hazy. Reece is right. If she can forgive me, why can’t I let this go? Shouldn’t love conquer all? “She willingly s
et out to ruin all our lives! I just can’t get over that. Not yet. I need time. I keep thinking about the past couple weeks and she had more than a few opportunities to tell me what was going on. I even told her the story about what happened back in high school! She saw Ian’s text about Annie for Christ’s sake. So many missed opportunities.”
“I’m mad too. I wish that things went differently. We just have to deal with the cards we are dealt and right now you’ve been dealt a shitty hand. We’ve just lost a best friend and on top of that, you’ve lost a girlfriend. I can’t imagine. I’m just so sorry...” he trails off before adding, “for everything.”
***
It’s close to nine p.m. when I stumble into my home. Reece and I had our fair share of beers and a couple Ubers were called. I needed to get home and get rest before the funeral tomorrow. I find Kate eating a sandwich on the couch.
“You looked tanked.” She half-heartedly giggles before moving to the far end of the couch, giving me ample room.
“I’m sorry I left the wake,” I slur, slouching into the back of the couch.
She shrugs. “It’s okay. It all seemed like an endless line of people wanting to express their condolences. After a dozen or so, they all start to blend in with one another.”
I nod but don’t answer.
“Do you want me to make you a sandwich?” she asks. I look over and take her in. She’s wearing an oversized sweatshirt and shorts that barely cover anything.
“I’m okay. I should be taking care of you. You just lost your brother.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m so tired of people trying to take care of me. I can’t tell you how many times people offered to get me food.”
I shrug. “They are just trying to make things easy for you. Help where they can.”
“I know. I just wish for once people wouldn’t treat me like I’m fragile.” She stands and deposits her plate in the sink before walking over to my bar. “Want a shot? I could really use a shot.”
