The next morning, I wake up early (fine, to be honest, it's just before noon—but even this is earlier than I want to get up) to a pounding at the front door. I tiptoe through the living room to peek through the peephole, terrified it's Jared. Or Vera, whom I'm suddenly very much not ready to see.
But it isn't either of them.
It's Gage.
CHAPTER FIFTY
The sight of Gage at my door jars me so completely that the fog I've been living in clears substantially, and I put a hand to my hair, my greasy, disgusting hair, and moan in embarrassment.
"Just a second," I call through the door, and then dash to the bathroom. I throw on my robe and wrap my hair in a towel. I'd rather him see me like this than in clothing with my hair visible. I answer the door to him standing there with his hands in his pockets, his hair its usual disheveled state (read: sexy), and I could kick myself for not brushing my teeth while I was in the bathroom. I turn my face a little away from his. "Hey."
"Hey. Can I come in?" He's having trouble meeting my gaze, his eyes darting over my shoulder—to the complete disaster of the apartment. Shit.
"Uh…" I step aside, waving him in. "It's kind of a mess, sorry."
Once he's stepped through, I scamper ahead of him, grabbing anything within my reach. Beer bottles. Takeout boxes. Two bras randomly tossed on furniture. By the heat in my cheeks I'd say my face is about the shade of a tomato when I turn toward him again. "Can I get you a drink?"
He shakes his head. "Sorry if I interrupted your shower."
"It's okay—I hadn't taken it yet."
"Why's your hair in a towel?'
"What?"
"If you haven't showered yet, why's your hair in a towel?" His mouth, that gorgeous mouth, quirks in amusement.
Oh. God.
"Uh…" It's like my brain's forgotten how to think. Which may actually be the case after the past week and a half.
He lets me off the hook. "Go take your shower. I want to take you somewhere—if you'll come."
"Where?"
"You'll have to trust me." His face doesn't give anything away, but it doesn't actually matter.
"I trust you," I say, the truth flowing effortlessly from my mouth.
Except after my shower, dressed and in his car miles away from the apartment, I realize where he's taking me, and I panic. "What are you doing, Gage? I don't want to come here."
But he doesn't turn his car around. "I don't know what's been going on with you these past weeks, but I do know you're hurting. And I know that at the root of everything is what happened to Jason. Maybe it's not my place to push you into visiting him, but I'm doing it anyway because I don't think you'll let anyone else get close enough to do it. Something has to give, Cassidy. You're a mess."
And then we're here. At the cemetery where my brother is buried.
Jason is here.
No.
Jason is not here, not really.
I am afraid to get out of Gage's car. I'm afraid to even blink, the moment feels so fragile. Or maybe it's me. Maybe I'm fragile. Maybe if I blink, I'll break.
I stare out the windshield, at the empty parking lot and at the depressingly plain funeral home across from it. I can recall every detail of its awful, floral-print and musty-scented interior, though I'm trying my hardest not to. I refuse to look any lower than that. Not to the black, rusting gate around the property and not to the graves spread along the ground beyond it. "How did you know where to come?"
He hesitates before answering. From my peripheral, I see him turn his face toward me, but I can't meet his gaze. "I looked up his obituary."
"Oh."
He grabs my hand. "It read like he lived a really full life right up until the end. Also like he was loved, deeply, by his family."
"That's what I was going for." My mom couldn't write it, she was a zombie. My dad, too angry. It came down to me and after writing the two short paragraphs, the brief, brief lines meant to describe who my brother was, I felt like I'd run a marathon. With a sword in my gut.
"You have a way with words."
"Thanks." But I can't drum any warmth into my tone. I'm too nervous, suddenly, to see my brother's headstone. Not like I haven't seen it before. But it's been more than half a year. I don't want to do this, I almost say. Instead I slip out of the door, leaving Gage in his car, and walk, step-by-shaking-step, to where my brother's body lies.
The air is sticky with humidity and I'm sweating before I've made it twenty steps. Something about the weather feels appropriate. Like I should come on a day like today—or in the dead of freezing cold winter. But then spring would be nice, too, I guess, with everything in bloom. And fall, with the changing colors of the season.
Guess there's always a good time to visit a graveyard.
Or, perhaps, every season is equally bad.
His headstone is square and granite and comes up to my hip. It's just as shocking to see as it was the first time, though by now, grass has grown over what was once a rectangular mound of fresh dirt at its base.
Almost as shocking is the arrangement of flowers resting beside the grave. Daisies and tulips. My mom's favorites. And next to them is a picture sealed in a plastic frame. One of my family last Thanksgiving; I recognize the photograph from our house, where it used to sit in a wooden frame.
It's the last picture we took as a family.
My parents have been here, or, at least my mom has.
Recently.
I think…I think maybe I had it easier than my parents after Jason died. I was away at school for the first six months. I threw myself into classes and had the eternal distraction of a college town. But my parents have been here. Home. Surrounded by him wherever they look…
The realization shifts a few things inside of me, but I tuck it away for now, and return my focus to Jason.
"Hey." I expect to feel silly talking to a headstone, but oddly, I don't. Still, I have trouble coming up with what to say next.
"I miss you."
And then, because he'd get a kick out of it: "I ran off on tour with a rock star," I whisper. "Luca James. You're probably gagging up in Heaven right now."
I laugh thinking about it; a crazy snort shoots up from my stomach with the force of a bullet.
It's followed by a hiccup clearing the way for a moan, just as quick and unstoppable, and I sink to my knees.
"Jason." His name is a whisper filling the shape of my mouth. The tears come next, welling out of the pain in my belly. Softly at first, then harsh and stinging, until I can't see the writing on Jason's headstone anymore. It doesn't matter; I know it by heart. His name, the date of his birth, the date of his death. That he was a son, and a brother. That he was loved. This is what he's been reduced to.
"What is wrong with you, Jason? Why? Why did you do it? You weren't a druggie—what changed? What changed?" It's not until I feel the sting of broken skin on my palms that I realize I'm hitting his headstone. I don't stop, though. I can't.
"I can't even be happy about being happy," I say, my voice breaking over and over and over, my words coming out between hiccuping gasps for air. "Because from this point forward, every path toward happiness stems from a place where you've died. And I'd give it all away if you'd come back. All of it."
My hands are smearing blood on his grave. Rage is funneling out from the center of my chest, blasting through my fingers. Something is shattering in me, something I didn't know I'd been holding in. I'm angry with Jason. Furious. I want to break down the entire fucking headstone.
But a second later, Gage is here. He wraps his arms around my shoulders and pulls me up from my knees, holding me against his chest. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have made you come."
No, I want to tell him, not sure if I mean no, you're wrong, or no, you shouldn't have. But I can't speak. I can't even breathe.
So I let him hold me instead. Until I'm finished sobbing. Spent. Energy drains from me, soaking into the ground where my brother's buried.
"I kept t
elling myself that I spent six months grieving for him," I say, shakily. "That I was better. That it was okay."
"I don't think that's how grief works," he says. "It doesn't just take six months—or eight months, now—and then everything's okay again. You have to feel your way through it."
He kisses my forehead and for a moment it strikes me that this feels right. That him being here with me in this moment is how it should be.
I wonder if Jason would've liked him.
Probably not.
He never liked anyone I dated. Another laugh escapes, but when Gage steps away, looking puzzled, I just shake my head. "Can I have another minute? I'll meet you at your car."
He glances at my hands, clutched together now in front of my stomach.
"I promise I won't try to kick his grave's ass again." I'm pretty sure I can keep the promise. Probably.
Gage must see it in my expression, because he nods and turns back toward the parking lot, leaving as silently as he came.
I stare at my brother's grave for a few more minutes. I think maybe the hardest part of this, other than the loss of him, is that I will never truly understand what happened—or why. The way Jason died makes him a person I didn't know as well as I thought I did. I'm not sure my heart will ever fully heal from that.
And it makes grieving harder, because I have so many questions and so much…anger.
But maybe time will heal that, too.
"Goodbye," I say to the stone over my brother's body. "I'll be back. More often. I'm not done with you yet. By a long shot. We have some serious shit to discuss."
And, a moment later, softly, "I'm sorry it took me so long to come."
By running away this summer, running from hurting people, running from my own pain…I've denied myself a brother. I've denied him the remembrance he deserves.
Being here, visiting him… A freeness blooms in my chest. A weightlessness I haven't felt since the day he died.
Maybe sadness peels away like onion skins, a layer at a time.
Gage is sitting on the hood of his car, and he hops off when he sees me, striding across the lot to meet me halfway.
"Why did you do this?" I ask, a little more in control of the shaking in my voice than before.
"I thought it might help… And I thought you could use a friend." He holds out his hand to me.
I don't want you to be my friend, I almost say. I want so much more. I want everything, and I can't believe it took me so long to figure it out.
Instead, I accept his hand—loving how thoughtful he is not to touch my scraped up palm—and take the friendship he's offering.
"Thank you," I say. "I think… I think this may have been exactly what I needed."
"I'm glad." He looks at me, a warmth in his eyes I haven't seen for ages.
The rest of the drive back to my apartment is quiet, but unlike last time, this is a simple silence. The anger between us is gone, the last bit destroyed over my brother's grave. Everything that can be said for the moment has been said, and when he drops me off, I smile easily and thank him for what he's given me. I'm rewarded with a matching smile across his lips.
I contemplate inviting him into the apartment, but I need some time to decompress on my own. So I send him off and make my way up to Vera's.
But alone time will have to wait, because Vera's back. And as soon as I step through the door, she's there, thrusting something at my face. Her voice is low, furious. "What is this?"
It's paper she's shoving toward me, I realize a second too late. My eyes take a moment to make sense of what they're seeing.
And when they do, all I want is to unsee what she's shown me.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
One of the pictures I sent to Luca. One of the naked pictures.
My bare breasts are the first things I see.
My bare breasts are on display.
In a picture in my roommate's hands.
My finger is in my mouth. My hair is falling in my face.
I am on my parted knees, on Luca's bed.
Wearing nothing.
In a picture in my roommate's hands.
Bile burns the base of my throat.
"Where did you—" I can't finish the sentence because I'm shoving past Vera and flinging myself into the bathroom to throw up. A lot. Leaning on the toilet kills my hands, so raw from the graveyard. But I'd take this pain over the shock of that picture any day.
Vera doesn't follow me in, so I rinse my mouth out and hurry back to her. "Where did you get that?"
"From the same person you gave it to."
I start to say, "Luca?" but at the same time she says, "Jared."
And just like that, I can't breathe. There is no oxygen in this apartment and I think I might suffocate from it. "How?"
"God, what is it with you?" she demands, completely unaware that I'm dying in front of her. "You wait for me to leave town to move in on Jared? Taking Gage from Teagan wasn't bad enough? Running off with Luca even though I was into him? Is this your thing? How could you do this?"
I open my mouth but nothing comes out. The look in her eyes is pure devastation and I want to tell her the truth but I fear it's too late, even if I could speak right now. I can't make the connection, I'm missing something.
How did Jared get that picture?
Oh, God. I'm going to be sick again.
"You told me you'd been making bad decisions lately. But wow. This? This?"
"How?" is all I can manage.
"He told me." She shakes her head, so angry, so angry. "You texted him naked pictures? What is wrong with you?" Her face is so red I worry she might pass out. Or hit me. And then she starts to cry and even though I didn't do it, even though I'm mortified that Jared somehow has my picture, I will do anything, anything to dry her tears, to clear the devastation from her expression. Finally, I find enough breath to speak.
"I swear to you I didn't send him that picture. I swear." Unless… "Luca's the only one who had it. Maybe he…" But it doesn't make sense. He wouldn't send it to Jared. However we left things, he wouldn't share that picture. Or, if he did, it wouldn't be with Jared of all people. "Wait. Did you say 'pictures,' plural?"
"He showed me the texts from you. Don't act like you don't know how many you sent."
Oh-God-Oh-God-Oh-God.
"How many?" I demand, stepping toward her.
She steps back, her eyes widening at whatever she sees on my face. Blind rage, perhaps. "A few. I don't know."
"He's lying about how he got them," I say, my hands clenching into fists, tearing further into the already broken skin of my palms. "I have no idea how he got those pictures, but I never texted him. Here, look." I grab my phone and skim through sent messages. The last time I texted Jared was telling him I'd take the job.
But when I find our text conversation, the pictures I took for Luca are in my outgoing messages.
I feel the blood drain from my face, and I look up, my entire body beginning to shake. "I don't know how this happened, Vera. You have to believe me. I would never… I mean. I just… "
"Are you about to faint?" Her brows dip as she studies my face. I'm sure there's an irony here that she's wondering the same thing about me that I was thinking about her—but I can't focus on that. I can't really focus on anything. Except the fury that's building under my skin.
Because I know how he got the pictures.
"I left my bag in his office," I say, my words coming out in a hiss. "He came on to me and…and I stormed out—because otherwise I was going to kick his stupid ass—and I didn't realize until later… He must've searched through my phone for something to get back at me with."
"God, Cassidy. I can see the wheels of your lies spinning as you come up with them."
"You're not seeing wheels spinning," I spit at her. "You're seeing the memory flash through my brain of the first time he went through my phone. Right here. In this apartment. After the Demi Jade concert."
She blinks, remembering, and then shaking her head. "No.
There's a difference between putting his number in your phone and what you're saying now. I don't believe… He wouldn't."
Why didn't I put a password on my phone after the last time he went through it?
But fuck that. He's the one who did this. Password or not. I'm not taking the blame for something he did.
I hate that Vera doesn't trust me, but I'm not surprised. Who would want to believe something like this about a person they care for? And I haven't been the most…credible person in the couple of months she's known me. I take a few deep breaths while considering how to convince her—but I'm too mad to figure it out at the moment. First, Jared needs his ass kicked.
"I'm going to fucking kill him." The words come out in perfect sync from both our mouths, and surprise unhinges my jaw.
"You believe me?" I ask.
"Look at you, Cassidy. You're shaking. You're drained of color. And of course he would freaking do this. I don't know why I'm looking for reasons not to believe you." She walks unsteadily over to the couch and perches on the edge. "When did he hit on you?"
I don't want to answer her. But I do. "The day before you left."
She's still for a moment—but she pales when the realization hits her. "But that night we—oh my God. He was mad at you. That's why he…why we… It was so rough, he was so needy, and I thought…" She's crying harder now. "After the week I had with my mom and now finding out Jared was mad at… He was im-imagining you… Why didn't you tell me the second it happened? How could you let me just go on without knowing? God, Cassidy. I believe you, but it doesn't mean you're off the hook. I thought you were my friend."
"I am your friend, Vera—I swear. I'm really sorry. I couldn't find the words."
"Vera, your boyfriend hit on me," she says, counting off each word with a finger. "Wow. Six words and the only one that's even out of everyday vernacular is my name. You're full of shit."
I open my mouth to plead my case, but…she's speaking the truth. Instead, I nod. "You're right. I should have told you immediately. He stunned me and… I came the next day to tell you, but you were leaving and you were already so upset. I couldn't. I swore I'd tell you when you got back."
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