by Laura Legend
“Cassandra Jones,” he rasped.
“I’m sorry, Richard,” she said, kissing him again. “So sorry.” And it was true. She was sorry. She knew she was. She was, perhaps, more sorry than she’d ever been about anything—even if she couldn’t quite feel it.
Just then, the remaining crush of the roof collapsed, coming to bury them . . . and Cass woke up with a start, back on her couch. She felt like someone had just used a defibrillator on her. Her face was wet with beads of cold sweat and streams of hot tears. She wiped them both away with the back of her hand and sat up on the couch.
She tried to gather herself. She pulled her straight black hair back into a ponytail. She leaned forward, her head in her hands. Her eyes were ringed by deep black circles.
That was different this time, she thought. At least it was different. For once, we were together at the end.
Cass shivered, goosebumps running up and down her thin, strong arms. She was only wearing shorts and a camisole. She stood up and looked around the room for something warmer to put on. She usually kept a blanket on the back of the couch.
Looking back at the couch, she didn’t find a blanket. But she did see a piece of black fabric poking out from the corner of a couch cushion. She leaned in, studying it, and pulled it free.
A silky pair of men’s underwear. She’d never seen them before in her life. But they did look really expensive. She couldn’t help but think of Richard. She couldn’t help but imagine that he had a whole drawer full of bespoke underwear just like this, each of them monogrammed with his initials.
That wasn’t helpful. She needed to stop this. She needed to let him go.
She neatly folded the boxers into a small square and tucked them back into the cushions of the couch. She strongly suspected that she’d never see them again. As she did, the sun peeked over the eastern horizon and slanted weakly through her bay of windows.
She stared at the cushions on her couch for a long time in the morning light. She stared for so long that she started to feel like she was falling again.
That couch was weird. There was no denying it. And it always had been.
She shivered again and tried to assess the situation. Part of her wanted to check. Was there anything under those cushions? Was there just a vast emptiness waiting beneath their cracked leather, waiting to swallow her up? But the other part of her just wanted to toss the thing onto the street and buy a Barcalounger instead.
She held her hand out over the couch and swore she could feel a draft of cold air coming from beneath the cushions.
Cass bit her lip and steeled herself. She took hold of one corner of one cushion and lifted it up just enough to steal a look underneath. An impossibly black abyss seemed to yawn open beneath the cushion. She dropped the cushion and backed away.
Shit. Have some guts, Jones, she taunted herself.
She steeled herself again, took two steps forward, and was about to reach for the cushion a second time when a heavy hand pounded on her apartment door, rattling the whole door in its frame.
Chapter Three
Cass silently slipped past the many wooden arms of her wing chun practice dummy and into position next to the door, snagging the modified version of her mother’s katana from the kitchen counter as she did. She calmed her nerves and settled into a fighting stance, sword raised.
The pounding came again.
She waited without answering.
Whoever was in the hall turned the knob back and forth, rattling the door, testing it, but the door was dead-bolted in three places.
Cass took a deep breath and held it.
“Cass, I know you’re in there,” Zach called. “You’ve barely gone out in weeks. Open the door already!”
Cass deflated like a balloon, releasing the air she’d held in her lungs. She’d have cut him in half if he’d come through the door. She was relieved. And, then, embarrassed. She had been keeping to herself and she had been avoiding Zach. She wasn’t sure if, even today, she could handle seeing him.
“Cass,” Zach called again, his voice muffled by the door.
She still didn’t respond.
“I brought bagels and coffee,” Zach baited her, his voice much softer, as he rattled the paper bag in his hand.
Cass hesitated. Then her stomach rumbled, loud enough to be heard on the other side of the wall—when was the last time that she’d eaten? She slid back all three deadbolts in one motion and swung the door open.
“That’s my girl,” Zach started to say, still standing in the door, but stopped mid-sentence when he saw her standing there, barely dressed, sword in hand, with deep black circles under eyes.
“Cass—”
Zach gently shut the door and put the bagels and coffee on the counter. Cass kept herself at an angle to him so that she wouldn’t have to meet the concern in his eyes. How could she explain any of this to him? How could she explain any of this to herself?
Zach sat on a barstool and took her hand, gently pulling her toward him. He reached to take the sword out of her hand but, without meaning to, she recoiled, and almost nicked him with the blade.
She backed up a couple of steps.
“Alright,” Zach said. “Why don’t you hang on to that thing for a minute while we settle in.”
Zach circled the island of counter space that separated the living room from the kitchen and opened a bunch of cupboard drawers looking for clean plates. Nothing. The sink, though, was full of used plates. He pulled two small plates from the pile, let the tap water warm for a moment, wiped them clean, and set them out with bagels.
“Sorry,” Cass said, pulling up a barstool. She ventured a smile.
Zach beamed back, his smile as wide and crooked as ever. He ran a hand through his black hair. The morning light flattered his dark complexion. He slipped off his leather jacket and, in a t-shirt and jeans, pulled up his own barstool.
Zach took a small bite and then watched Cass, in two quick bites, devour half of hers.
“I brought coffee, too,” Zach said, “to remind you that we both have jobs. At the same place. At a coffee shop. And Java’s Palace isn’t the same without you.” He paused. “And from what I can tell, it will definitely be without you from now on if you call in sick again. Today is a non-optional workday.”
Cass hung her head and stuffed the rest of the bagel into her mouth. She chewed slowly, her cheeks full of bagel.
Zach took another bite of his own, his bicep flexing in the tight t-shirt.
Cass raised an eyebrow. “Have you been working out, Zachary Riviera?”
Zach blushed. “No,” he said. “Maybe a little.”
She waited.
“Fine,” he confessed, “I’ve had a lot of time to myself while you’ve been locked up in here. Time to train and reflect. And repeatedly lift very heavy things with my arms. Over and over. Not thinking about you. At all. What was I supposed to be doing?”
Cass smiled and punched him in the arm. He started to protest but saw an opening and switched gears.
“Now you owe me,” he said, grimacing and rubbing the sore spot on his arm. “And you’re going to have to leave the apartment to make it up to me.” He looked her in the eye. She lasted for a couple of seconds and then looked away.
“I don’t know how to do it, Zach,” Cass said, tossing her plate into the sink with a crash. “I don’t know how to go back to living a normal life. I barely knew how to be normal before I learned that the world was filled with vampires and that I’m . . . whatever it is that I am.” She could feel the crush of hopelessness constrict her breathing, bringing her up short. She rested her hand on the pommel of her sword, reassured by the weight and balance of it.
Zach put his hand on top of hers.
“You weren’t meant for normal, Cass,” he started. “You were never meant to live a normal life.” He squeezed her hand. “But that doesn’t mean that you weren’t meant to live. You still get to have a life. It will just have to be . . . an abnormal one.”
His tone was dead
serious but his eyes sparkled with mischief.
Cass tried hard not to smile.
“Believe it or not, my life hasn’t been especially normal either. You’ve seen enough to know that I’m not exactly the feckless barista you may have thought I was. I’ve seen things, Cass. Like you, I’ve done things that I can hardly believe myself. But at the end of the day, we’re still just people. We still have to sleep at night and shower and use the crapper. We still have to eat bagels.”
He pulled her reluctant fingers free from the hilt of the sword and then set the sword aside on the counter. Cass’s eyes followed it there. Zach took her chin and pointed her face at him. He looked straight into her weak, wandering eye.
“Come back to us, Cass,” Zach said. “Come back.”
That direct appeal was more than Cass could handle. She fell forward into him, squeezed back tears, and hugged him fiercely.
I need this, she thought. I need someone here. Alive. Human. As much as she believed her own words, she still couldn’t help but wonder what it would have been like to have Richard here giving her this talk, this hug. Come on Jones, she told herself. Zach’s the one who always shows up. Let him. Cass tightened her squeeze.
Zach, unaware of her internal conflict, held her for a long time, drinking in the scent of her and not kissing the nape of neck, until she whispered in his ear: “Okay.”
“Excellent!” Zach exclaimed, holding her at arm’s length and tugging the strap of her camisole back into place. “Now, the first order of business,” he continued, pinching his nose shut, “is to get you into the shower.”
He spun her around and marched her in the direction of the bathroom. She playfully complied.
“Fine,” she said, taunting him. “A shower it is.”
And with that, Cass stepped into bathroom, turned her back to him, pulled off her camisole, set the hot water running and the steam rising, and, with the back of her foot, only partially shut the bathroom door.
Chapter Four
It might have just been the lighting in Java’s Palace, but Cass could have sworn that, for the rest of the day, Zach blushed whenever they bumped into each other behind the counter.
She felt a little guilty about it—while she showered and dressed, she could hear Zach reading the newspaper in the other room with an extraordinary level of intensity and focused attention, sometimes clearing his throat, sometimes slightly repositioning himself on the couch to emphasize that he was not looking in the direction of the half open bathroom door—but she didn’t feel so bad that she wouldn’t do it again. She liked to see him squirm.
They were busy in the café all day. It felt good to settle into the easy rhythm of taking orders and making espressos. A couple of times, Cass even caught herself laughing and smiling. Zach was right. She did need to get out of the apartment. She needed to just live, even if she didn’t know where that living was headed. If she could manage to show up for her life, the business of living might take care of itself.
Before Cass knew it, it was late in the afternoon. The sun was already low in the winter sky when, in a dramatic swirl of gusting wind and dead leaves, Miranda pushed through the door and into the café. Her eyes flashed green and crackled with life. She looked stunning in her slim pantsuit and heels. Every face in the café turned and watched her walk to the counter.
“Finally,” Miranda said, taking Cass’s measure, noting how the circles under Cass’s eyes were balanced, for the moment, by the lingering hint of a smile. She reached out and took Cass’s hand, holding it in both of hers. She turned it over, palm up, and studied it for a moment as if she were going to tell her fortune. She traced Cass’s lifeline with the tip of her finger. “Just what I thought,” she mumbled to herself. Then, abruptly, she kissed Cass’s palm, winked at her, and, nodding toward the door, said: “Let’s go.”
The clock chimed five. Cass’s shift was officially over. Cass hung up her apron. She smoothed her frayed t-shirt and tightened her ponytail.
Zach, pretending not to watch the two of them preparing to leave, made a comically sad face.
“Fine. You, too, Riviera,” Miranda said. “Meet us out front. Pronto.” And then she swept back out the door in as dramatic a fashion as her entrance.
Zach smiled his crooked smile, hung up his apron, and vaulted over the countertop to catch up with Cass. But before they got to the door, he took Cass by the arm and pulled her to a stop. A look of horror passed over his face. “Wait,” he said, “does this mean that Miranda is going to be driving us?”
Miranda, they both knew, was a terrible driver. Her sudden stops and starts, skids and turns, were enough to test even the strongest bonds of friendship-maybe-turning-into-something-more.
Cass gave him a blank and innocent stare, like he was a kid refusing his turn on the merry-go-round.
“Right. Maybe I’ll meet you there?” Zach ventured.
“Come on, you chicken,” Cass said. “You can’t just ‘meet us there’ because you don’t even know where we’re going.” This time she took him by the arm and they shuffled out the café door.
Miranda was waiting, double-parked and already revving the engine.
Zach looked at Cass with pleading eyes.
“Shotgun,” Cass said, adding salt to Zach’s wound.
After Zach had finally finished folding himself into the tiny backseat of Miranda’s red Audi TT, Cass slipped into the front. Before her door was even shut Miranda had floored the accelerator, burning rubber. The car snapped into action before, almost immediately, Miranda slammed on the brakes. Zach’s feet ended up in the air as they stopped for a red light on that same block.
Zach scrambled to get his seatbelt on. He closed his eyes for the rest of the trip, occasionally peeking out between his fingers when the car drifted around a corner and Cass squealed.
They parked crooked in front of a karate “dojo” in a nondescript strip mall on the edge of town. Cass knew the place. She glanced at Miranda and smiled. Miranda slipped a hand behind Cass’s neck and pulled her forward until their foreheads bumped together. “I know what you need,” Miranda said, squeezing Cass’s neck. “I’m here for you.”
The dojo was worn, battered, and quiet. A Tongan fellow sat at the counter in the back. He nodded his head in their direction when they entered, then went back to whatever he’d been doing on his phone. Miranda lead them past the man, through a door into the back that said “Do Not Enter,” and then down a flight of stairs into the basement.
Something inside of Cass did cartwheels when, at the bottom of the stairs, the smell of sweat, leather, and month-old gym socks hit her. It was like she’d come home.
The basement was disproportionately large to the strip mall above. It was filled with mats, training equipment, and sparring rings. The space was lit by strong fluorescent lights that buzzed and, occasionally, flickered. Nearly a dozen fighters and trainers were working, scattered around the space. Nearby, a pair of fighters were sparring. Mixed marital arts.
Miranda claimed a bench, unzipped a gym bag, and handed both Cass and Zach some gear to change into. This was not the kind of place that had private locker rooms. And it was also not the kind of place where anyone cared. They slipped into their gear right at the bench.
“Go warm up,” Miranda said, dismissing Zach. “I’ll call for you in a few minutes.” Zach gave her a mock salute and padded off in the direction of free mat.
Miranda ran Cass through a preliminary array of Tai Chi poses. Cass could feel her body waking up as her muscles remembered what to do. It felt good to be back. Cass had trained here for years, often participating in the (literally) “underground,” invitation only MMA tournaments that were frequently held down here.