Or I could call Jared. Yeah, right.
“I forgot how good you were at drinking,” Hale commented, coming up beside me as I set my empty beer bottle on the kitchen island that was littered with other empties.
I smiled at him. “How else do you expect me to get through this party?” I questioned, forgetting that he didn’t know that this wasn’t my scene anymore.
“You don’t want to be here?”
I touched my nose with my index finger as I reached for another beer. “Exactly.”
“Then why did you come?” he asked as he looked up, his gaze fixed on where Kyle was leaned close to Marley, whispering something that was making her smile.
Hale shook his head as if in annoyance, and I wondered if he was interested in Marley. They certainly flirted enough, and now that they were both single, I wondered if something might happen.
“I came because Marley wanted to,” I told Hale. “And I needed to get some distance from Jared.”
Okay, so maybe I was being more loose-lipped than I wanted to be. I blamed the alcohol.
“Are you and Jared dating or something?”
“No, we’re not, but it hasn’t been from a lack of trying on my part.”
Hale gave me a funny look. “Really?”
I shrugged. “Whatever.”
Not my most stellar retort, but it beat what I really wanted to say which would have been mean, and it wasn’t truly reflective of how I felt. Besides, Hale didn’t need to know my intimate business anyway. We weren’t that close anymore.
Just then I saw Andre go into the bathroom, and an idea sparked in my mind. I marched determinedly over to him, leaving Hale standing in the kitchen, no doubt wondering where I’d gone.
“Hey!” I said as Andre started to close the door. I shoved it open, pushing him back in the process.
“Dude, what’s the big idea, Cass?”
I glared at him and shoved him, so he stumbled back, nearly missing the toilet as he did. Then I slammed the door behind me.
“Uh, so I’m guessing you didn’t come in here to make out with me?” he questioned as he righted himself.
I deepened my glare, my eyes narrowing to near slits.
“What the hell did I do to you?” he asked, because a few hours ago we’d been getting along fine. “I know you can’t be mad at me for not calling you after we hooked up senior year.”
“You’re such an asshole, Andre,” I spat at him. Then I stepped forward so I was right in his face. I poked my finger into his chest. “First off, I didn’t hook up with you senior year. And second, had I known you treated people the way you did, I never would have even been friends with you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Tell me you never shoved anyone’s head in a toilet.”
He chucked, and it just pissed me off. “I didn’t . . . but Brock did, and I was there, so yeah, I guess I sort of did it too.”
“That’s not fucking funny,” I growled at him.
He shrugged, an amused smirk on his face. “Yeah, it really was. That kid was practically crying, and his little bitch of a friend was trying to protect him, but that scrawny punk couldn’t even get close. Kyle was able to hold onto him with one arm.”
As soon as he said that, I lost it and my hand went around to the back of his neck. I tried all I could to shove his head down, ready to give him a taste of his own medicine, but he outweighed me by close to a hundred pounds. He jerked away from me, anger flashing in his eyes.
“Don’t touch me again, Cassie,” he warned. “I’m serious!”
“I just wanted you to see what it was like,” I growled. “How could you do that to someone?”
“It was funny. I don’t know. The kid was weird. He was a freak. He deserved it.”
“No, he didn’t,” I defended. “No one ever deserves something like that. He’s a good guy, and you treated him like shit.”
He held up his finger to clarify what I’d said. “No, we stuck his head in shit. We didn’t treat him like it.”
I saw red in that moment. “Tell me you didn’t,” I said, my breath coming in rapid bursts. I couldn’t even imagine how humiliating that must have been for Jared or Scott. I wasn’t sure which one had been their victim, but I wasn’t sure it even mattered.
“No, even I’m not that big of an asshole,” Andre defended. “But Brock did take a piss in the toilet before we dunked his head. It was so fucking gross.”
My hand flew out and struck him across the face then, and he looked ready to throttle me, his eyes flashing, his mouth twisting into a nasty sneer, so I decided it was time to go.
“You guys are such dicks. I hope one day you all get what you deserve,” I spat at him before I turned and stormed out of the bathroom.
“Yeah, you better leave, you bitch,” Andre called after me.
I wasn’t sure I could blame him if he came after me, but I also couldn’t be held responsible for what I’d do to him either. He was such a dick.
I found Marley in the living room talking to Nicole.
“Cass, look who I found,” she said, her arm slung around Nicole’s shoulder.
They were both plastered, and even though I was probably drunk, my encounter with Andre had me feeling completely sober. And after Nicole heard what I did to the guy she was sleeping with, she probably wouldn’t be too happy with me either.
“We need to go,” I told Marley.
“Why?” she whined. Now that she was drunk, she wanted to be at the party. It figured.
“Because we do,” I said, not wanting to get into it with her. I was so pissed off in that moment.
“Boo,” she said.
Nicole echoed her sentiments and added, “Cassie’s no fun anymore.”
I could care less what Nicole thought of me. I just pulled out my phone, called a cab and headed outside, hoping Marley would follow me. The sooner I got away from those assholes, the better off I’d be.
* * *
Marley slept late the next morning, but I couldn’t sleep with everything from the past two nights swirling around in my head, so I got up and asked my dad to take me to get my car on his way to work. Thankfully he didn’t question why I’d had to leave my car at Brock’s house, but I was fairly certain he knew.
When I got back home, Marley was drinking coffee at the kitchen table.
“How are you feeling?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “Like shit.”
“Shots will do that to you.”
“And I never learn, do I?” she said, cracking a smile.
“No, you never do.”
“So what’s on the agenda for today? Do you have to work?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m off, but I have class.”
She looked at me pensively for a few seconds as she bit her lip. “Any chance you might be able to skip today?”
I didn’t think that was the best idea, especially if she wanted me to go shopping or something equally unimportant. But skipping would allow me to avoid seeing Jared. That wouldn’t suck.
“I don’t know. Why?”
She sighed. “I want to go see Aiden. I want to visit his grave. I haven’t been since I left Wisconsin, and I feel like I need to see him.”
Okay, so that wasn’t what I’d been expecting to hear. “You want me to go with you?”
She nodded. “And if you want, we can drive over to see Will. They’re buried thirty minutes apart, so I figured it might be something you’d want to do.”
It felt like all the air had been sucked out of my lungs. I’d never been to Will’s gravesite. Could I do that?
“I don’t know, Mar.”
“Please,” she said, looking at me in earnest. “I need to go.”
“Why?”
It was a dumb question that I already knew the answer to.
“I just do, okay? Will you come with me?”
“Yes,” I said, because I knew it was the right thing to do.
“Thank you,” she said,
her whole face lighting up.
Within the hour we had set out for the small town outside Madison where Reese and Aiden had grown up. I’d been there once the year before when we’d all gone to their house for the weekend. Their parents had been nice, and their house was on several acres of farmland. We’d been able to have a bonfire at the back of their property near a lake. It was cool.
I doubted this trip would be like that one. A somber mood had descended over us as we drove north.
“Reese is going to meet us for lunch,” Marley said quietly as she looked out at the passing scenery.
“Oh, okay. Good.”
I hadn’t seen Reese in months, and it had been a while since I’d talked to him. I wondered how weird it would be. What would we talk about?
My phone beeped, cutting through the silence as we were nearing the end of our trip. I looked down to see that it was Jared.
You coming to chem?
A glance at the clock told me that class had started ten minutes ago.
I took a deep breath and texted him back. Not today.
Oh. Everything okay?
Yes.
I thought about telling him where I was headed, but how did you put that in a text? ‘Hi, I’m going to visit my dead boyfriend.’ I couldn’t even type that. I figured short and sweet and elusive was best, since who the hell knew where we stood anyway.
Jared didn’t respond, and before I knew it the GPS was directing us to the cemetery where Aiden was buried.
“Turn here,” Marley instructed me as I drove to the back of the cemetery past rows and rows of headstones.
The whole place gave me a creepy feeling, and to think that one of my friends was buried there made my stomach turn. The feeling only got worse after we parked and started to trudge across the cemetery. The day was bright and warm and sunny, a complete contradiction to the way I was feeling as Marley held my hand tightly and we walked in silence.
Finally she stopped and let out a breath of air as her gaze fell on a headstone just off the path we’d been walking.
Aiden Matthew Keller
It was so surreal to see his name in block letters on a headstone. Although I knew he was dead, it wasn’t truly real for me until that moment.
“Hey baby,” Marley said beside me, and it took me a minute to realize that she wasn’t talking to me. I started to take a step back, wanting to give her some privacy.
She gripped my hand tighter and looked up at me. “Stay with me?”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded. “Yes. Please.”
I nodded in response, and she let go of my hand as she knelt to lay the flowers we’d brought with us at the base of the headstone. Then she sank to her knees and talked to Aiden, just like she would have if he was alive, telling him all about what she’d been up to, how she’d decided to stay with me for the summer and how she’d gotten a job as a hostess. She even made jokes. I didn’t know how it was so easy for her, but I realized it wasn’t when I saw her reach up and wipe under her eyes.
When she finished talking, she sat there for another ten minutes just staring at his name, silently crying. I went and stood next to her, my hand on her shoulder. She rested her hand on top of mine.
“Do you think he’s in Heaven?” she asked me.
“Aiden was a good guy. What do you think?”
She laughed. “I think he did some not so good things while he was alive.”
“Yeah, I don’t think they keep you out of Heaven for smoking weed and having sex before marriage.”
“Well, I should hope not,” she said, the delight evident in her voice. “He was a good guy. I hope he’s doing okay. I hope he’s with Will.”
I squeezed her hand. “I would say they’re probably together, hosting some party for angels that all look like Victoria’s Secret models.”
That made her laugh. “Yeah, they probably are. That would be so them.”
“Does it bother you to think that?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “No. I mean, if I had my choice, Aiden would be here with me, but that’s not an option, so I’d rather him be happy – whatever that means.”
Neither of us had any way of knowing what happened after you died, if there was a Heaven and if Aiden and Will were there, but it felt better thinking of them in a tangible way where we knew they were happy. Their lives had ended too soon, and there was comfort in thinking that they got to have new lives in a new place, even if it wasn’t necessarily the truth.
And I think it gave Marley the ability to feel okay about moving forward with her life, with someone else whenever the time came. It was what I kept telling myself. Will would have wanted me to be happy. It was the only thing that made my feelings for Jared justifiable.
Marley rose then and dusted the grass off of her shorts. I put my arm around her and we walked together back to the car. Then she pulled out the address for where Will was buried, and we put it into my navigation system. Our mood that had been light and airy shifted again as we set off to see the last resting place of another one of our friends. Nothing could make you feel good about that.
We had to ask directions from the groundskeeper to figure out where Will’s headstone was, and when it came into view, my breath hitched. There was his name, and underneath, it said, ‘Beloved brother, son and friend.’
My heart started to hurt, and as we walked closer, memories of Will flooded me – things I’d forgotten about, drunken nights, funny things he’d said – they all came back in a rush that made me remember what an awesome guy he was. I stopped short a few feet from his headstone and couldn’t go any further.
“Do you want to lay the flowers down?” Marley asked, and suddenly flowers seemed so wrong. I should have brought a flask or a solo cup or a soccer ball. Those were the things that reminded me of Will, not a bunch of Gerber daisies.
I shook my head, so Marley took them from me as I stood rooted to the spot. She laid them at the base of the headstone and then came back to stand next to me.
“Do you want me to stay with you?” she asked, and I shook my head.
“No. I need to do this alone,” I said, realizing how true that was.
So she left me alone. And I stood there, not sure what to say. No way could I just talk to him like he was there. He wasn’t there. I couldn’t talk to thin air, going on and on about what I’d been doing and how my summer had been. I couldn’t say any of that, so I said nothing.
After fifteen minutes of silence, my heart heavier than it had ever been, I whispered to anyone who might be listening, “I’m so sorry this happened to you, Will. Thank you for saving my life. You’ll always be in my heart.”
It wasn’t enough. But then again, what could I possibly say that would be enough to tell him what a bright spot he’d been in my life, to let him know how grateful I was to have met him, to tell him how unfair it was that his life had been taken from him too soon. I couldn’t say anything that would even justify what I felt. Words weren’t enough.
I was alive because of him. I was standing there, breathing air, because he’d taken a bullet for me. There were no words. So I said nothing more. I didn’t even realize I’d been crying until a tear dripped from my chin onto my collarbone, but once I knew, I didn’t hold back. I cried for the boy I’d known, the life he’d miss out on and all the people who’d never get to know Will Stephens. I cried because it felt good to let go of some of the pain I’d been feeling, and I cried because I missed him. Above all else, I missed him – my friend and the boy I easily could have fallen in love with.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever been sadder in my life than in that moment.
Finally, I took a deep breath, wiped the tears from my eyes and said goodbye to Will. I didn’t think I’d have the heart to come back, but I was glad I’d come. I pictured him smiling down on me, laughing at me for being emotional and winking at me, because he knew everything would be okay. Will had been like that. He didn’t let things get to him. He kept them light to keep his own
sanity, and I figured it might do me good to take a page from his book. It’s what he would want me to do. There was no doubt in my mind.
I walked back to Marley with a heavy heart. She was on the phone, making plans with Reese to meet for lunch. So I handed her my keys and let her drive. I needed a time out.
By the time we arrived at the diner Reese had picked, I felt marginally better. There was a good possibility that visiting Will’s grave might have set me back emotionally, but it would probably make me stronger in the long run. I’d needed to do it.
“Cassie,” Reese said, smiling as we approached the booth he was sitting in. He rose to hug us. “Long time no see. How are you?”
“I’m okay,” I told him. It was the truth.
Then he hugged Marley, longer and tighter than he’d held me, but she hugged him right back. “How’s my brother?” he asked her.
She smiled as she pulled out of the hug. “I think he’s good.”
Reese smiled. “That’s what I tell myself too.”
I knew then that what had happened to us the day of the shooting changed all of us for good. Reese was different, so was Marley, and so was I. We’d all had our worlds turned upside down, and there was nothing we could do about it. The only option we had was to live day in and day out and try to heal. And that wasn’t going to be easy. It would take time, but when you were around people who knew what you’d gone through, somehow it just made it easier.
As talking with old friends eased some of the sadness I was feeling, I thought of Jared. He didn’t have anyone but me who knew what he’d gone through. I was the only person who’d experienced the life and death horror that he had, but even I couldn’t completely remember the day. I wondered if it wouldn’t be such a bad thing for him and Marley to get to know each other. It might be good for them to talk. It might help.
But more than that, I knew I couldn’t push him away. My feelings for him aside, he needed me, and if all he wanted was to be friends, well I’d have to do that. I couldn’t let him go. I didn’t want to. I wanted him in my life. He’d become one of my best friends in a short amount of time, and that had to come first. I’d already lost too many friends this year, I couldn’t lose one more.
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