The Cora Carmack Box Set

by Cora Carmack

  “Take me where?”

  I said, “I’m going to the humane society to get a cat.”

  “Oh. Cool,” he said, nodding. “I wish I weren’t living in the dorms. I’d love to have a dog.”

  I was aware of the careful space he kept between us, and the near continuous bobbing of his head, like the nodding had given him something to do, and he didn’t want to give it up.

  Kelsey pulled her sunglasses down off her head and over her eyes even though we were still indoors. “Well, as fun as this is . . . I’ve got to jet. You two have fun at the pound. Don’t come home a cat lady, Bliss.” Kelsey was oblivious to the panicked look I’d shot at her. Cade and I hadn’t really been alone since the whole maybe conversation. He switched his messenger bag to his other shoulder, fidgeting like he always did when he was nervous.

  “If you want to go alone—it’s cool.”

  “No, no. You should come.” We had to get over this. And I only saw two ways—we got together or we didn’t. The waiting was going to kill our relationship (it was already pretty maimed). If we had to have this conversation, around cute animals was probably the best place.

  “Ok. Cool,” he said.

  Cool . . . yeah.

  I was glad to be the one driving. It gave me a way to occupy my body and my mind. And it was my car, so I could turn the music up as loud as I wanted. What I hadn’t counted on was Cade being at home enough in my car to turn it down.

  “So, what made you decide to get a cat?”

  Oh, you know. I nearly had a one-night stand with our professor, but ran away using my imaginary cat as an excuse, and now he might want us to be together together even though it’s the worst idea ever, but I kind of don’t care either, because my body and probably my heart are telling me it’s the best idea ever. So now I need a cat so he won’t realize I was lying about the cat because I’m a virgin and chickened out of having sex with him.

  “Just wanted one,” was what I actually answered.

  “Oh. Cool.”

  If he said, “cool” one more time I was going to scream.

  I pulled into the humane society parking lot, wishing I had told Cade I wanted to go alone after all.

  I needed something fuzzy and adorable in my hands, stat.

  We stepped inside to that distinct medicated smell that’s reserved for pounds and veterinarians. The lady at the front desk even looked vaguely feline, like working here was in her DNA. Her face was slightly pointed, her eyes tilted, and her hair short and fuzzy.

  “Hello there! How can I help you?”

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m interested in adopting a cat.”

  She clapped tiny hands that I envisioned as paws. “That’s fantastic. We have plenty of great candidates. Why don’t I take you back to the cat room, and I’ll give you two a chance to look around.”

  We followed her down the hall, that antiseptic smell growing stronger, no doubt covering the odor of a multitude of animals housed in one place.

  “Here we are.”

  The room was stacked with cages, and I don’t know if the chorus of meows began at our entrance or if it was constant, but we were surrounded by sound.

  “I’ll leave you two alone. All we ask is that you only have one animal out at a time.” With a wide, Cheshire smile and a wave, she left.

  In silence, I peeked into cages, feeling lost.

  I liked cats, but I wasn’t sure I actually wanted one. What would I do with it when I graduated? Was it worth it for a boy? Was it worth it just to have sex? I mean, it’s not like there weren’t other options for losing my virginity.

  I looked at Cade, who had his fingers slipped inside a nearby cage, petting a midnight black cat.

  If I was honest, this wasn’t just about having sex, even if it had started that way. As much as I wanted Garrick, I’m pretty sure if I tried to sleep with him again, it would turn into a repeat of my first awkward performance.

  “You know what?” I said out loud. “Maybe I’m not ready for a cat.”

  I turned to leave, but Cade stepped in my way.

  “Whoa. Wishy-washy, much? You haven’t even held one. Give it a chance.”

  He opened the cage with the black cat and pulled it into his arms. He brought it toward me, rubbing at the cat’s jaw. I was eye level with the furball, and I could hear the engine roar of his purrs from here.

  I took a step back, and tried to explain without really explaining. “It’s not that I don’t like cats. And really, I think I would enjoy having . . . a cat. But what if I get a cat before I’m ready? What if I choose the wrong cat? Or what if I’m bad at it . . . being a cat owner, I mean?”

  God, how much easier would this be if I could say what I was really thinking?

  Cade rolled his eyes, and pushed the animal into my arms. “Bliss, you couldn’t be bad at this if you tried.”

  I could be bad at sex though. Knowing my over-active, neurotic brain—I could be completely awful at it.

  The cat reached up and rubbed the top of its head against my chin. It was pretty adorable. Cade was beaming at me, and I thought . . . maybe Cade would be the better choice. Would I be so terrified of sex if I were having it with Cade?

  The thought made me feel shaky, unsteady.

  I passed the cat back into his arms, still unsure, but feeling a little calmer. I came to the line of cages, and searched for a gray one that could pass for a Hamlet. When I found her, Fate must have been laughing at me. She was hunkered down in the back of her cage, her large green eyes wary. I pulled the cage door open, and she replied with a guttural growl.

  Of course . . . I would get the scary cat.

  Over my shoulder, Cade said, “You’re not serious.”

  If only I weren’t. But I’d told Garrick that Hamlet was gray.

  “Sometimes, it’s the scary things in life that are the most worthwhile.” I told him. I’m pretty sure I’d read that in a fortune cookie once upon a time. That made it wise, right?

  I reached my hands into the cage, prepped for a bite or a scratch or full on massacre, but as my hands circled around the middle of the beast, she reacted only with a low groan.

  Cade shook his head, confused. “Why wouldn’t you want this one?” He pulled the black cat up close to his face. “He’s so sweet!”

  In contrast, the cat in my arms was on full alert—her legs straight, eyes wide. I had a feeling if I tried to hold her any closer, she would maul me. I sat her down on the ground and she took off, hiding beneath a nearby bench.

  I knew he was only asking about the cat, but I heard another question. One he hadn’t asked, not today anyway. And Cade was sweet, and the thought of being with him didn’t leave me immobilized with fear. The thought of being with him didn’t leave me with any overpowering emotion, actually.

  That’s when I knew—

  “Cade . . . I need to take back my maybe.”

  I swear even the cats stopped their meowing. I could imagine their stunned silence. I wondered what cat-speak was for Oh, no she didn’t.

  “Oh.”

  I wished he would react—scream, argue, anything. I waited for him to lock up like that cat, claws out, teeth bared. Instead, he walked calmly away and placed the black cat carefully in his cage, probably so we wouldn’t have more than one cat out at once like the lady said. That was Cade, always thinking about the rules. That’s how I’d always been, too, but I was starting to think it wasn’t how I wanted to be now.

  His movement was mechanical, simple, precise. He pulled the cage door closed and turned the latch with a sharp snap. He kept his back to me as he spoke.

  “Am I allowed to ask why?”

  I breathed out. I owed him that much, but how could I tell him this? He couldn’t know. If I was going to do this thing with Garrick (which who was I kidding? I probably was), then no one could know. Not even my best friends.

  “I . . . there might be someone else.”

  “Might be?”

  This was stick-your-hand-into-a-blender-terr
ible. He wouldn’t look at me, and the heart in my chest felt paper thin, like tissue paper, which meant I was pretty damn close to heartless, doing this to my best friend.

  “Things are still a little . . . complex. But I like him, a lot. I was going to wait it out, see if the feelings went away, so that maybe you and I could . . .” I trailed off, not wanting to put into words what I’d been thinking. There was no point. “But Cade, I can’t handle how things have been. It’s been less than a week, and I feel like I’m dying. I hate questioning everything I do around you, wondering if it’s okay, wondering if it crosses a line, wondering if I’m hurting you. I miss my best friend, even when I’m standing right beside you. So . . . I had to make a choice. And I need you in my life too much to screw us up. If I’d told you yes, and then my feelings for him didn’t go away . . . I couldn’t do that. Please tell me I haven’t screwed this up already. Please, please.”

  He turned then, and I was startled by the hurt I saw in him. Cade’s face looked foreign with a frown. “I want to say we’re okay, Bliss. I need you, too. But I can’t pretend I wasn’t hoping this would go somewhere. I don’t know if I can do it. The truth is . . . you are hurting me. Not on purpose, I know that. But I love you and every second that you don’t love me back . . . it hurts.”

  “Cade—“ I reached for him.

  “Don’t, please. I can’t.”

  The medicated smell of the shelter was suddenly overpowering, nauseating.

  I asked, “Can’t what? Can’t be my friend?”

  “I don’t know, Bliss. I just don’t know. Maybe.” The hint of bitterness in his tone was small, but it struck me like a slap across the face anyway. He walked out the door, and I sunk down on the bench, feeling frayed and burnt and bruised. My tissue paper heart was shredded.

  I sat there, trying to puzzle out a way that I could have done this better. Was there any possible path I could have taken that wouldn’t have fucked this up so completely? Would telling him no straight out have been better? Should I have waited until the year was over and Garrick had left, and then tried to have something with Cade?

  My mother had told me once when I was little and had a friendship fall apart that some relationships just end. Like a star, they burn bright and brilliant, and then nothing in particular goes wrong, they just reach their end. They burn out.

  I couldn’t fathom my friendship with Cade being over.

  Something nudged at my calf, and then the gray cat’s head poked between my legs. She pulled her whole body through the space between my limbs, rubbing against me as she went. She circled back and pressed her head against my shin. I reached a hand down, and she froze, flattening against the floor in fear. Slower, I moved until my hand pressed against her back, sliding along her fur in one smooth stroke. Her body relaxed, and I petted her again.

  I eased myself down on the floor beside her. She locked up again, but she didn’t run. When I was certain she was comfortable with me, I picked her up in my arms. I pressed my face against her fur, absorbing the comfort she didn’t realize she was giving.

  “Let’s make a deal, Hamlet. I’ll help you be less afraid, if you help me, too.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  BY THE TIME I had filled out the necessary paperwork, and had Hamlet housed inside a cheap cardboard cat carrier, nearly thirty minutes had passed since Cade had walked out to my car. Standing in the parking lot, I couldn’t find him anywhere.

  I pulled out my phone, no text.

  I looked on my windshield, no note.

  I called his phone, no answer.

  I called his phone again, straight to voicemail.

  By the beep, I was crying.

  “Cade, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to make this better. I Just want us to be how we’ve always been. God, that’s stupid. I know we can’t be. I know things can’t be how they were before, but . . . I don’t know. Nevermind. Just . . . let me know you’re okay. You’re not at my car, and I don’t know how you got home, if you got home. Just call me. Please. Let’s talk about this.”

  A few minutes later, I was sitting beside my car in the gravel, my jeans smeared with dust, and I got a text.

  I’m fine.

  I tried to call again, straight to voicemail again.

  And as hard as I tried to feel otherwise, as hard as I tried to hope that we’d get past this . . . I already felt it. I felt burnt out.

  Maybe it was the grief. Maybe I’d just finally gone crazy. Maybe I just didn’t have anywhere else to go. But when I got back to my apartment complex, I didn’t go to my apartment.

  Hamlet in hand, I went to Garrick’s.

  I don’t know what I looked like when he opened the door. I don’t really want to know. But he opened the door wider almost instantly, gesturing me in with no questions asked.

  I’d never been in his apartment. I should have taken it all in or asked him to show me around. I should have said something, but the only thing on the tip of my tongue was a sob, and it took all of my energy, all of my concentration to hold that inside.

  But even that wasn’t enough when his fingers tilted my chin up. He spoke my name, and I saw the worried look in those eyes. The tears streamed out of me like a cup overflowing, and I couldn’t control it, couldn’t breathe right, couldn’t explain.

  He took Hamlet’s box out of my hands and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. He led me down a hallway almost identical to mine into a living room that was vastly different. It was filled with books, some in shelves, some in stacks on the floor. The furniture was simple, slightly modern, but not so modern that I hesitated to sink into the cushions of the black couch, snatching up a white pillow to hug to my chest. Then Garrick was beside me, pulling the soft pillow out of my hands, and replacing its comfort with himself. He pulled me into his lap, cradling me like a child, wiping away tears, brushing back my hair, rubbing at my back.

  “He hates me,” I finally managed. He hadn’t asked, but his concern tugged at me anyway, tugged the words right from my mouth.

  “Who does, love?”

  Quick, short breaths puttered from my lips, little whimpers that I couldn’t seem to control.

  “C-Cade.”

  “Cade could never hate you,” he said.

  “He does. He left. He won’t even talk to me.” I dissolved into another fit of tears, and he just pulled me in close, tucking my head underneath his chin, against his chest.

  He let me cry, murmuring things all the while. You’ll be okay, love. Things will work out. Calm down. Breathe, Bliss. I’m here. It will be okay. Whatever it is we’ll take care of it. It’s okay, love.

  He must have whispered a thousand variations. But he never stopped trying, no matter how much I wasn’t hearing him. When I was finished crying, I was too tired to do anything else. I lay limply against him, doing nothing but breathing in and breathing out. And he held me still. Finally, a noise broke through the fog. A low, annoyed groan.

  Hamlet. I’d left Hamlet trapped in that box this whole time.

  Filled with purpose, I sat up, clear headed again for the moment.

  “I’m sorry, I need to take her home.” I was standing and reaching for her crate, when Garrick took me by the elbows.

  “Stay, love. You’re upset. I’ll take care of the cat.”

  No. I couldn’t let him do that. Because then he’d see that all the cat stuff I’d bought the night before was still brand new and unused.

  “No, it’s okay. I really should go. I’m okay, now. Thanks.”

  “Bliss, please, talk to me.”

  My body was leaning toward him against my will, aching for his comfort again, but I hadn’t made a decision yet.

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “How about this—you go home and take care of the cat, and in a little while, I’ll bring dinner. We can talk or just watch a movie or whatever you need to do. I just . . . if you leave like this, I’ll go crazy worrying about you.”

  After a moment, I nodded.

  �
�Okay.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, just give me an hour, okay?”

  He smiled, and I knew . . . I was in trouble.

  I WAS PRETTY sure my new cat hated me.

  Not that I blamed her, after I left her in that box for so long.

  No matter what I did, she let out that closed mouth growl every time I took a step anywhere near her. I set up food for her in the kitchen, which she ignored. I made a litter box and put it in a storage closet. I picked her up, and carried her to the box, placing her inside so she’d know where it was. She hissed once, and then ran, kicking up litter in her wake. She disappeared under my couch, only her glowing, evil eyes visible in the darkness.

  Why hadn’t I told Garrick I had a cat named Lady Macbeth? That would have been so much more fitting.

  For the rest of the time, I was left alone with my thoughts, which were about as pleasant as the Ebola virus. I straightened up the living room, then thought about running away. I straightened up my bedroom, then rushed to the bathroom, certain I was going to vomit. I didn’t. I almost wished I had. I could have said I was sick.

  Before I really got the chance to talk my self into or out of this . . . there was a knock at the door.

  My heart felt like someone was using it as a trampoline. I took a deep breath. I hadn’t promised him anything. He’d said we could talk. Or watch a movie. Or do whatever I wanted. This didn’t have to be a big deal.

  When I opened the door, Garrick looked so cheerful that it was hard to keep dreading his presence.

  “I forgot to ask what you wanted, so I got pizza, a burger, and a salad.” He was balancing all three in his hands, and I was all at once overwhelmed with how much I liked him. Not just in a romantic way. In general. He was kind of amazing.

  I smiled, “Pizza is good.”

  I moved back, and he stepped inside my apartment. As much as I was freaking out earlier, it felt natural to have him here. Not that I wasn’t still nervous, it was just . . . he felt like he belonged.

  We made our way into my kitchen/living room, and he set the food on the small circular island that jutted out from my kitchen counter. I busied myself getting us both drinks and plates, and when there was nothing else I could distract myself with, I pulled out one of the barstools tucked underneath the island counter, and took a seat beside him. I pulled a slice of pizza on my plate, and he opened the salad.