by Unknown
I had no idea what the fuck I would do if he were. It had been almost three months of radio-silence and I wasn’t looking forward to figuring out how to keep it up in person if he did decide to show.
I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window as I continued clicking the lock. My face looked thin, my brown eyes numb. I’d seemingly aged years in the snow globe I’d made of my brother’s apartment that winter. I’d trapped myself securely inside. It was just like Laura to come along and shake the shit out of it.
It was just like me to let her.
“Seriously, Cassie, keep doing that and we’ll be going to a different funeral.”
“Whose?” I smirked. “Yours?”
“Only if I don’t kill you first.”
I sighed. “I’m not allowed to smoke in here. What else am I supposed to do?”
“I can’t believe you still smoke,” Laura scoffed.
“I can’t believe you still give a shit.”
Laura didn’t have to be friends with me anymore. She had survived Turning Pines and started college. She had a whole new life she was living two hours away at the University of Rochester, but I understood she felt responsible for me, like I felt responsible for her.
“We can stop in Springfield,” Laura acquiesced.
“Only three hours to go,” I replied sarcastically. “I guess even your fancy school hasn’t taught you the definition of chain-smoker.” I stopped clicking the lock, but I hugged myself tight. It was what I did now instead of punching myself in the stomach. The thing I’d done to punish myself for my real issue.
Even Rawe would have to admit that was progress, even if what had happened with Ben, what was still happening with Ben, was probably its own brand of self-harm.
Laura looked at me; her white-blue eyes were the color of ice. “Are you seriously okay?”
“I’m on my way to a funeral with my best friend,” I said, staring out the window. “Why wouldn’t I be fucking okay?”
Chapter Two
Ben
My brother Drew’s usual crazy rock-star-spiked hair was matted down in a red winter hat. He had insisted on driving my car. It was the only way I could get him to agree to come with me.
Plus, he owed me, even though I tried as much as possible not to think about that.
“You sure you don’t just want to go to Boston for the weekend or something instead? I have a box’s worth of condoms burning a hole in my pocket,” he said, smiling his Drew smile: a combo of burned-out skater and I could kick your ass.
I glared at him. My eyes seared, eyes I knew were the same exact shade of brown as his. I didn’t need to tell him no. He understood he owed me, too, even though he tried his hardest not to think about that, either. I’d taken the rap for his whole car-stealing thing, because I was younger.
The only reason Drew wasn’t in a jail cell right now was me. The only reason I even ended up at Turning Pines was him.
The only reason we were going to this funeral at all was because I’d been to Turning Pines.
We had to take care of each other. When our father died ten years ago, my mother had said we each needed to “be there for the other one.” Drew did his best, but I was usually the one looking out for him. My maturity was my blessing and my curse.
“You brought condoms to a funeral?” I asked. I couldn’t help but smile. Drew might have been a pervert, but he was nothing if not hilariously consistent.
“I bring them with me everywhere, but if we’re still going to a funeral, then yes, I did.”
“We’re still going,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Fine, we’ll head to Auburn, Massachusetts, to watch some woman get buried. Who’s ever even heard of that place?” he huffed.
“Who’s ever even heard of where we’re from?”
“Well, when some dude I don’t know drives four hours to attend my funeral, I guess that guy finally will.”
Drew wasn’t usually such an asshole, but he really didn’t like paying back my favor. Mostly because I think he knew he’d be paying it back for the rest of his life.
“I’ll be sure to tell everyone about your funeral,” I said, stifling a laugh, “don’t worry about that.”
“You sure know how to show a guy a good time, Ben.” He shook his head and shifted my Camaro into the next gear. I bought it with the money my father had left in his will for when I graduated high school. It was the only thing I owned in the world.
“A woman died.”
“Yeah, but we’re still alive.” He jutted his chin out toward the windshield. “Until we die of boredom in Auburn.”
I guess I was still alive physically, but mentally I wasn’t so sure. Most days it didn’t feel like I was anything at all. When the person you care about is out of reach, it makes it hard to give a shit about anything. Makes it impossible to think that who you want to be matters when there’s no one around you matter to.
I reclined the leather seat back and closed my eyes, focusing on the thunder of the engine, the whop, whop, whop of the wipers flinging snowflakes off the windshield.
Don’t say no, the first text had said. It was from Laura, the best friend of the girl who left me flat—though Cassie would probably tell a different story.
Laura had been trying to get us back together for months now. I always said no, mostly because Cassie was never the one sending the texts. If she really wanted to see me, she would have texted me herself.
Not that I had made an effort to contact her. I’d wanted to plenty of times, but I guess I wanted Cassie to be the one to break down first. I’d been the one to climb over her barbed-wire walls when we first got together at Turning Pines. The least she could do was send me a stupid text and say she was sorry for being stupid.
Let me respond that I was, too.
But I guess we really hadn’t ever been together. That was the whole problem. Neither of us could make the commitment to go with the other one.
I guess even thirty days at Turning Pines hadn’t cured us of our trust issues.
Living in limbo together for the two months afterward had been a sort of fragile perfection—sleeping on the beach in California, scraping together enough for a motel room before that. But when the money ran out and we had to decide what to do next, it made it too real.
It killed us. We had been like a smoldering fire, but we’d tried to add too much wood too quickly. That was the only thing I learned at Turning Pines: don’t play with fire.
Not that I’d been sent there to learn anything. Maybe I’d needed to. Maybe if I would have actually listened, as we suffered through wilderness boot camp training, to the crap they spewed out at us day after day about accepting our faults, being brave enough to find our place in the world, strong enough to live our lives healthfully, I might have been with Cassie right now.
Today is different how? I’d texted back, because today wasn’t different. I was living with my brother, playing drums in a wedding band, and drinking a beer at noon. That was how all my days were after Cassie. That was how they would stay without her.
Rawe died, Laura wrote.
I didn’t reply at first, my thumb hovering over the keyboard on my phone.
How do you respond to something like that?
Why do I have to?
Why do I ever answer Laura’s texts?
Because I’d met this motley crew six months ago, and we were now somehow forever connected? Even though Cassie and I were further apart than ever, the fire we had been now cracked black coals. I took a long slug off my beer.
That’s too bad, I always liked Rawe, I texted. It was true. I had. She was always fair, and she actually seemed like she cared about other people. That meant something to me, because there were so many people in the world who it was clear did not.
So come and pay your respects, Laura wrote.
I know what you’re trying to do, and it won’t work, I texted back quickly.
Cassie’s going to the funeral and so are you, she wro
te. Put on your big-boy pants and deal with it.
That was Laura; she didn’t take any bullshit. I understood it was part of the reason Cassie liked her so much. Cassie could dish out her share. She could dish out seconds and thirds and still have leftovers. Her favorite word was “fuck” and she knew how to use it.
I also understood Laura was right. If Cassie could put aside what had happened between us to go to Rawe’s funeral, I could, too. I guess I was just surprised that Cassie was actually able to.
“I can’t believe we had to cancel working the Schickler wedding for a funeral for someone I don’t even know. You’re damn lucky we found someone to cover for us,” Drew said, reminding me I was in the car with him and not on my couch with a beer. It really made me want to be on my couch with a beer.
“You know me,” I said, scratching my forehead under my gray knit cap, “and I know her, so that should be enough.”
“It is, Ben,” he said. “It’s just you’ve never even mentioned this person, and now we’re driving four hours through the snow to go to her funeral. I can’t help but think there’s another reason.”
“Like what?”
“Seriously?” he asked, cocking his head.
“So Cassie’s going to be there. So what? It’s not why I’m going,” I said fast, fast enough I almost believed it.
“I’m not putting your heart back together again this time, Romeo,” Drew said, his mouth tight.
Drew was a pervert and an asshole, but he was also my brother and he had the same speech in his head my mother had given me ten years ago. He’d been my shoulder-to-not-cry-on after I got back to Maine, after Cassie. He kept me upright when all I wanted to do was fall.
Of course, Cassie didn’t know about our unspoken pact or about my father. I never explained why I felt like I had to go back to Maine. I wondered if it would have mattered.
“That’s fine,” I replied, breathing out hard enough to fog up the windshield. “There’s no heart left to put back together anyway.”
“Exactly,” he said, his voice rising, “that’s exactly what I mean. You better inoculate yourself from whatever vagina-voodoo this chick has over you, because I’m not dealing with it.”
I understood not wanting to have to deal with that again. I didn’t want to, either.
“You know, we never even slept together.” I turned to him.
We hadn’t. I’d wanted to. I mean, I’d really wanted to, especially when I was next to her in that motel room bed. Her brown hair wild and unwieldy as tree roots against the pillow in the moonlit room, but she’d said no. She wasn’t ready. I should have seen that as the warning sign it was. Not that her pushing me away for the whole thirty days we were at Turning Pines wasn’t enough of one.
I’d also never told her I loved her. I wondered if that was what she’d been waiting for, if secretly maybe I had been waiting for the same thing from her.
“That means her vagina has even more control over you,” he said with certainty.
“Can we please stop talking about her vagina?” I mumbled, tapping my fingers on my jeaned legs, hearing the sound of nothing but snare drum in my head.
“If you can stop thinking about it,” he retorted.
“You’re the one with a value pack of condoms in your suitcase.”
“Hey, I admit my shortcomings. I celebrate them.” He smiled.
“I’m not thinking about it,” I said.
“But you are thinking about her?” He flicked his eyes off the road for a moment so they met mine. “Right?”
“No,” I lied.
“That would be a first, brother,” he said, turning up the radio.
I never really talked about Cassie anymore, but I guess not talking about any other girls let my brother know all he needed to. Truthfully, I had no idea what would happen when I saw her, if I would even feel the same.
That scared me more than anything.
Chapter Three
Cassie
We’d driven six hours, past thousands of snowbanks and through millions of snowflakes when we finally reached the hotel. I smoked a quick cigarette and found Laura at the front desk checking in to our room for the next two nights.
I stood next to her, waiting for our keys, when I heard the automatic doors leading into the hotel slide open. Laura turned, looked behind me, and whispered, “Don’t be mad.” Her voice had fear in it, her eyes darting around like she was watching a tennis match on fast-forward.
“Why? Do we have to share a bed?” I replied, the only reason I considered I might be. I couldn’t believe she would have the balls to pull anything else.
I should have known better. Laura’s balls had grown exponentially since Turning Pines.
She shook her head, her mouth shut tight, like she was doing an impression of the scared, mute girl she’d been at camp. The girl she’d been when she used to be afraid of me, before we were friends.
“Why the fuck would I be mad?” I asked, suddenly understanding absolutely why I would be.
But she wouldn’t dare have told him to come. She would have let me know he’d be here so I could have prepared myself. But could I really have prepared myself?
“Just try not to be,” she said. “And remember I did this to help you,” she added, her eyes finally stopping their mad dance to focus on something behind me.
Though I knew it had to be on someone behind me.
Before I could turn around, before I could run, I heard a much-too-familiar voice say, “Hey there, Cassie.”
Ben.
Fucking Ben.
A voice I’d wanted so badly to hear and never to hear again. A voice whose timbre I felt right in the lower part of my stomach.
“No fucking way,” I said, keeping my back to him and giving Laura death-eyes.
He wanted to come, she mouthed.
I knew that really meant once she pushed him to, the way she’d pushed me. What choice had he had?
Does that mean he wanted to see me? Why do I even still care?
Because I can’t help but care. Because as bad as wanting him is for me, I always will.
“Cassie?” Ben repeated.
With him here, now, our breakup and months-long silent treatment seemed silly, but when you’re in the moment and you just want your way, you sometimes don’t even remember why. You just don’t want to be the one to flinch first, the one to sacrifice.
I’d already done more than my share of sacrificing before I’d ever met Ben, not that he knew about that.
But if he had, would he have come with me all those month ago?
“Ben,” I said, keeping my eyes on Laura. I wondered if he thought he could actually come here and win me back.
He stood there waiting for me to say something else, but I still didn’t turn around. I needed him to know that I would not give in to him. I had to avoid his deep brown eyes because once they hit mine, I was done.
“Really sucks about Rawe,” he said.
I tried to ignore my disappointment with his chosen first words. Maybe he was actually here for her. I suddenly felt like an asshole. Of course, it wasn’t like I gave him a welcome parade when I saw him, either.
I could feel the heat of him behind me, the way he made me want to be taken care of. I put my hands on the front desk, steadying myself.
“Hey Ben,” I said, forcing myself to turn—my body as tight as I could make it, a fake smile sliced onto my face. “Long time no talk.” On the outside, I was working hard to prove I was fine, but inside my heart was churning, and I was falling head-first right into those eyes—those brown eyes that could break me, could soothe me. Just looking at him again, I had the same sensation of falling off a cliff: the adrenaline rush, the fear, the inevitable realization I would have to land.
That landing would hurt. That landing might kill me.
I ripped myself away and noticed there was another guy there with him. He looked a lot like Ben, just a little older. He had the same cavernous brown eyes, the same heft to his sho
ulders, the same sturdy hands and stance, but instead of Ben’s wavy brown hair, his was straight
I knew who it was instantly.
Drew. His fucking brother.
My hands turned to fists, my pulse ticked up like water coming to a boil. Not that I’d ever met him, but I knew what he’d done to Ben. What he’d made Ben do that had forced him to be at Turning Pines. If I felt this uncomfortable around Ben, I definitely didn’t want to spend time with his asshole brother.
“Hey Laura,” Drew said, looking past me and waving at her, “nice to finally meet in person.”
“You know him?” I asked, my words filled with acid.
“We’ve talked on the phone a few times,” she admitted.
I tried to let that settle, but the thoughts darted around me like birds of prey. Laura had spoken to Drew, which meant she had spoken to Ben, which meant for months she’d been lying to me.
Why was I surprised, considering Ben was standing right in front of me?
“You must be Cassie,” Drew said, holding out his hand. I stared at it like it was made of maggots. I stared at it because I knew what he had made Ben do.
“You must be a fucking genius,” I replied.
“You must be a fucking—” Drew started, but Ben elbowed him before he could finish. I knew what the next word was going to be.
“You must be fucking right,” I said.
“That’s a whole lot of fucking for having just met me, Cassie,” Drew said, winking.
“Leave her alone,” Ben said, pushing past him.
“Nice of you to start giving a shit about me now,” I said, before I could stop myself.
“It’s not like you called me, either,” Ben said, throwing it right back in my face, making it clear things were different now.
It wasn’t before. As much as we both might want it to be, it would never be before again.
“I must have lost your number,” I replied, steadying my voice. I was saying that, acting like I couldn’t care less, like I didn’t feel anything about his absence either way, but it wasn’t true. It was just when it came to Ben, there couldn’t be feeling anymore. If he’d left me after two months, he would leave me after two days.