“Did you tell Rohan?”
My eyes shot up to see June lighting a cigarette. She shook her head at me like she didn’t know me and took a long drag. “You’re sneaking away? Just like that?”
“I thought it would be easier,” I said.
“For us or for you?”
I didn’t answer because she was right. She knew that though, or she wouldn’t have said it.
“Where are you going?” Her voice was low, and she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Home,” I said. “The dean approved my leave.”
“I thought you loved it here? You said that over and over.”
“It’s my mom,” I said. It wasn’t a lie, not like the loving it part. The only part I loved was June, but that wasn’t the same.
June exhaled smoke. “Look. We all have family shit that we don’t want to air out. Trust me. I get it. But you’re my best friend, and you can’t disappear on me.”
“It’s what I do,” I said with a half smile, but she didn’t laugh. It wasn’t a joke; it’s what I did to my mom, to Graham, to the whole state of North Carolina. I flipped them off and drove away in the middle of the night.
“Not this time,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me anything, but when I call you better answer the phone or I will come down to North Carolina and pound your ass, Harlen.”
“Got it,” I said, but it would be hard. Balancing old and new wasn’t something I did well. June hugged me. Neither of us were the hugging type. My arms were hard at my side, surprised at her motion. I guess I could try to balance it all for her. “I should go.”
June nodded as I got in the car. “What about Rohan?” She called over the engine.
“He’ll be fine. I left a note.”
“Classy,” she snapped, taking another drag of her cigarette. June didn’t act like she believed me. She didn’t move from her spot as I backed out. Part of me wished she would so I could ignore the feeling in my gut that always came with leaving. June saluted the air toward me. “Be safe.”
I watched her stance from the rearview mirror until she was only the speck of red from the glow of her cigarette. I slammed on the breaks so some drunk girls coming back from a party could cross in front of me. Normal college freshmen did not go home to take care of their mothers, or to face the fiancé they left behind. Normal nineteen-year-olds didn’t have an ex-fiancé, but Graham and I weren’t normal. We were in love. We’d always been in love.
Before I turned away from my dorm, I glanced out the mirror for June. But I was too far away, and she was already nothing but darkness and a memory.
It wasn’t as sad as I imagined; I was leaving her behind, but I was also going home. To Mom and to Graham. Even though I left him once, there was still the chance that he would understand why I left. I needed that so I could move on. Whatever that meant.
7.
Graham
I HATED THE psych wing. The first time I ever came here was four years ago, after Mrs. H was officially diagnosed and Cass missed school for a week. I would bring homework and burgers from Chevy’s and we would sit in the kids’ bright blue waiting room and pretend all of this was normal. It still smelled the same, like nothing and lemon. I’d never been into a place that smelled so bland before.
Mrs. H looked the same as ever, and that was what I always found strange with this. She seemed so unscathed by all of it. We never knew when it was coming; I could tell she’d had a bad day after it’d happened; Cass was usually more on edge, more cautious, careful, and tired, she would be so tired. When I thought back to childhood, there were little signs I could see in Mrs. H that I didn’t know to look for. A strange sparkle in her eye, an adventure with Cass, a day or two or three where Cass didn’t go to school.
But for me, Mrs. H was always the same. Joyce Harlen was eccentric. With her music, her records, and her clothes from the seventies. She was the fun mom who gave all the teens in the neighborhood alcohol when they came over. She had the stories about bands, had traveled, and had a way of doing things that was all her own. She was “eccentric” the way Cassie was contagious.
Cass was full of energy and passion and everyone else had to run to catch up to her walk. Even my mom would say, “That girl is contagious.” I didn’t know what she meant back then, but when Cassie laughed, the whole room laughed. When Cassie was sad, everyone felt it. When she got an idea in her head, no one doubted her ability to do it. Everyone believed her. Believed her stories, her smile, believed that she had a chance to do something different.
Different. Eccentric. Contagious. Maybe they were the same thing, the normal thing, and I was the stable one who never made sense in her life. Why would she want dependable when she could have adventure?
“I can’t wait for Cassie,” Mrs. H said. “Can you get her some snacks? You remember her favorites?”
I nodded. Snacks. Cheetos, Oreos, peanut butter. “Sure thing.” I had no intention of buying Cassie snacks.
She patted my hand. “You’re a good boy, Graham. Good for my girl. You’ll be together forever. I know it.”
I swallowed back the emotions, fought off the words tangled in my throat. None of them could come out, not here and not now. Mrs. H wouldn’t be able to handle the things I had to say. “I should go,” I said, and bolted out of the room as quick as I could.
Nurse Sheila called my name while I waited for the elevator. “Here again, Mr. Tucker?” Sheila asked, putting a hand on her hip. She was a nice woman. I met her that first time when she came in and started harping on Cassie to eat food that wasn’t from a vending machine. She was a staple around here. Weird to say, but her grey-streaked hair was always something familiar and comforting.
“Any word on when our girl will be here?” she asked.
I braced myself. “Tomorrow, if all goes well.”
Our girl.
“You best get our girl to school before she forgets what it looks like.”
“Our girl needs to get home.”
“All our girl needs is someone to hold her hand through this.”
Those are all things Sheila used to tell me about Cass. Our girl. As if we were the ones holding her up. I never told her either that “our girl” felt we were only holding her back.
I stared at Sheila as the radiator kicked on. It sounded like a car backfiring, so loud and unexpected when it rattled through all the halls and rooms. “Sorry, what?”
Sheila shook her head and waved me off. “I said I bet you and Mrs. Harlen are thrilled.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Thrilled.” The elevator dinged and the doors opened, and I left without another thought.
8.
Cassie
I parked outside my house and expected it to be different, but it wasn’t. It was just my home, one that I didn’t know how much I missed. My eyes drifted to Graham’s house. The white flowers his mom loved lined the front yard. I helped her plant those the first month they moved in, and she explained what they were and the best way to make them grow.
Removing my notebook in my glove box, I wrote down some lyrics as they popped into my head.
The first time I saw you // in that old Beatles shirt // you were smiling at me // like you knew the secrets of the world // I was nine, sitting on my fence // in some old red boots // that didn’t really fit // I said, why you here? // You said it was all new // I said it was boring // you said, that’s cause you don’t know you // And I-I-I knew it would be me and you // we would take on the world together // make it something new // and I-I-I saw my whole future laid out // and it was you
I’ve been home three minutes and Graham Tucker was already a song. I guess he always had been. Maybe he’d been the chorus in every song.
I threw the notebook back in the glove box and stepped out of my car. Home. Or whatever was left of it. Why would Mom try to burn it down? Something burrowed in my throat—nerves maybe?—and it felt like a moment before. Before I learned Mom was sick, there was always a moment at the end of a pretty day w
hen I realized tomorrow would be different. I recognized it immediately. Fear was an old friend and it waited in the shadows, ready to grab me.
I pushed away the feeling and walked toward the door. My key fit in the door, as if nothing had changed in the last eleven months. I could smell the lingering charred scent in the breeze of the doorway. Four days later it still smelled like disaster. I had a feeling it would be a reoccurring theme.
Inside, the foyer was covered in coats and half-empty boxes of junk. Dining room with a card table and wilted flowers. Two foldout metal chairs. We only used this table to eat on, and if there were more people over other than the two of us, we’d gather chairs from all over the house or sit on the floor like Mom said they did in other cultures. There was plenty of space in the room, but the rest of the dining room was for music.
Three walls of bookcases, ceiling to floor, held our records and two record players. One was my grandma’s, and her mom’s before that. The other was one of the newer ones they released in high school, when the world decided vinyl was “in” again. Records filled the room, all these powerful music and lyrics from generations were crammed here together. Knowing that some things could live on had been the only thing to comfort me as a kid.
I had to put one on. I knew right where to go since we kept them all in alphabetical order. We’d spent a whole week organizing them the summer I left. Sometimes, Mom and I would get into moods and change them around by best song title, or album title, or year, or genre. But usually, knowing where to go was always the best decision. The record scratched as I turned on Billie Holiday and let “Moaning Low” play through the house. I waited until she started singing before going to face the living room.
The fireplace wasn’t white brick anymore. Now, it was black. The wall around it was charred, beams and insulation showing through the burnt drywall. I stepped closer to examine it. What was she doing? This would cost a fortune to fix.
“It’s probably not safe for you to touch that,” a voice said behind me. I jumped, but I knew it was Graham. My heart was already pounding, and I willed it to calm down. It was early morning, but there he was. I felt him behind me, attached to me, and that was terrifying. I stepped away from the wall, but couldn’t turn around. I was frozen. Hearing his voice reminded me how much I missed it, missed him, and I couldn’t see him. If I did, that would be it. I would be face-to-face with the boy I loved for years, the boy I walked away from.
Graham groaned behind me, like he was stretching. He never could stand still.
“You just get here?” he asked.
“Yeah, long day,” I said. It came out a whisper.
I didn’t move my gaze from the wall while all the words pierced through my head. I’m sorry. I still love you. I hope you can forgive me. I want to be friends. I pressed my eyes shut, quickly, and inhaled.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said. The wall, he meant. “No structural damage since they caught it in time. It’s all surface level.” His voice was oddly calm. Maybe that was because I didn’t know I would be able to catch mine.
“Cass,” he said. It felt right hearing my name from his mouth. Then his hand was on my arm. It was a gentle touch, but it set me on fire. My whole body responded to it, chills covered me and my heart jumped around in my chest. After all this time I still felt this way with him, he could still, with a touch, make my body want him. I turned around, our eyes locked, and he stopped moving. I barely breathed.
I knew he sensed our connection, too. He felt everything more than me. I always thought it was because he wanted it more, wanted me and us more than I had. I thought it was why he proposed, and it was definitely part of why I said yes. I knew at seventeen that I wanted to be with him—but some of that was influenced by how much he’d wanted me.
Graham moved his hand from my arm, but the chills didn’t go away as I took him in. He was the same in all the ways that mattered. Same deep hazel eyes, but they looked at me differently. Like I was a stranger. Short light brown hair tussled, as if he’d just woken up, and this scruffy beard that made him look older, rougher, and hotter. He was in grey sweats, white t-shirt, black flip-flops. The shirt fit him a little tight around the arms; he was buffer now, like he’d been working out. He’d always wanted muscles like that, and I’m glad he did it.
He looked better without me. He looked damn good, in fact.
Graham cleared his throat, pulling his gaze from mine. “If you want it, my mom made up the guest room for you. She thought you might be more comfortable.”
“She did? Why?” It came out sharper than I meant for it to. The walls were closing in around me. It was all him. Him being here, him touching me, me staying at his house. I didn’t know where to put it all. It didn’t fit into a category, just as we hadn’t.
“I didn’t tell her anything. She knows you went to school and that’s all,” he said. His voice was a low grumble.
“Why would you do that?”
Graham shifted on his feet and scrubbed a hand down his neck. He was nervous. I was nervous too, because I wanted to be here as much as I didn’t. I wanted to stand closer to him and have him touch me again. Even something as simple as his hand on my arm, or my hand in his, or our hips pressed against each other. I wanted to feel him next to me, close as skin, and kiss him like I’d never left. I wanted to touch him.
But I couldn’t. He didn’t want that, or he’d be doing it now. He was over me, and that was what I told him to do. I couldn’t touch him, even if I wanted to. He deserved more than that. More than a half-life with me, and a happiness I’d never give him, even if I wanted to.
“It’s not something I like to advertise, Cassie,” Graham said. “I told her you moved on without me and that was the end.”
I shifted my gaze to my feet. That was what I told him, almost exactly that way. I said I wasn’t good for him and he should move on. “Let’s both just move on.” But I didn’t think I ever knew how. Not really.
“You coming over, then?” he asked.
“You still live in the back?”
He nodded. “I won’t even see you. I go to work in a couple hours anyway.”
I inhaled when he said that. He definitely didn’t want me around. It felt like he poured cold water down my back. Reality sucked.
“Sure,” I said. I’d stay there. If he didn’t care then I shouldn’t either. He turned back toward the front door and I took one last look around the living room. The music stopped around me, the floor creaked in that one spot between the dining room and the foyer.
“Don’t worry—I put it back in the sleeve and in the right order. I know how it works,” he said, opening the door.
“You remembered,” I said. If he remembered that, maybe he remembered us. The good us. Before. Memories were frozen and all I had to do to repair us was unfreeze them.
“I was never the one who forgot,” he said. I stepped aside in the doorway to let him exit first.
9.
Graham
I KNEW CASS WAS coming. Hell, I was the one who called her, but until she was standing there refusing to make eye contact—it was hard to believe it was true. We’d barely said two words to each other since we left her house. I didn’t really know what to say to her. Well, I knew what to say to her, but I also knew I couldn’t. It wasn’t the time, and I wasn’t an ass. She made herself pretty clear last time I saw her. God, I wished she didn’t look so damn good. If she looked bad all this would be easier.
And maybe I wouldn’t want to kiss her so much.
God, I wanted to kiss her.
I had to shake that off. I had a girlfriend, and Cassie was here, but it didn’t change anything. I opened the door to the guest room, and turned the light on for her. In the light of the room, she was radiant. She’d always been beautiful, but today, there was something else, a sadness that rarely defined her, but now it seemed so engrained.
I knew right then what I really wanted for her: I hoped that when she left she found the thing that made her happy.
That the sadness in her eyes was only the situation, and not what she had become. I cared too much about her to see her swallowed in sadness.
“This looks nice,” Cassie said. “Very different.”
When I met her gaze, I recognized a glimmer of the girl I used to love. What did she see in this room? The brown and blue paint that used to cover it? The pictures of her and me that used to plaster the walls? The Clash poster that hung on the closet door? The basketball trophies? The first time we fumbled our way through sex when we were sixteen on that very bed? We’d improved a lot since that first time. The last time I made her yell my name over and over, and it always felt awesome to be the one to make her come. I had everything I could ever want, and all of it was her, especially in that last moment we had together. I felt like a king as she called my name as I moved inside her, and I caught a glint of my diamond on her finger. I’d thought in that moment that she’d be mine forever in every way possible. That’d we have this for the rest of our lives. The memory was as vivid as if it had been yesterday, even though it’d been months.
I cleared my throat. Stop thinking about that. “A lot has changed.”
Cassie nodded, and bit down on the side of her cheek. That used to bug me so much, because it always meant she was uncomfortable. I didn’t like being the one she was uncomfortable around. “Want some water or something?” I asked.
“No, thanks.”
I couldn’t stop staring at her. Her hair was short now, shorter than ever, and darker too. So dark it made her eyes a bright blue. She’d always worn it long, past her shoulders, and I used to love the way it’d be a tangled mess after sex, and how we’d lie in bed after and she’d twist it around her finger like she was nervous to look at me.
Stop staring at her, Tucker. Leave.
“I guess you’re good then. Night.”
Days Like This Page 4