"Could be better, could be worse." His voice is coarse, more whiskey than honey this morning. "She's back living with our parents, so that's something."
"Has she been staying here?" I sit gingerly on the edge of his couch, my nerves buzzing when he sits beside me instead of across the room in an oversized armchair. Well, there's a couch cushion between us, so he's not exactly beside me, but still. Maybe it means something.
Or maybe I should stop trying to read the signs in every little thing.
"The past few weeks. She said it was easier. She had trouble being around my mom at first."
"Are they close?"
He nods.
"It must be hard to love another woman like a mother when her own passed away so recently," I say. "So tragically."
"Yeah." He sips the coffee, watching me over the rim of the cup. His eyes are still a little swollen with sleep and he looks so adorable, I want to jump in his lap and kiss him until he's wide awake.
But…baby steps.
"You're leaving for school today?" he asks.
"Straight from here. Are you…uh…how's the hangover?" It's hard to make small talk with an already-spoken I love you sitting between us.
"Not the best. The coffee helps. Thanks."
"Figured it was the least I could do, waking you up this early." And after everything else. My mouth is so freaking dry right now. Wish I hadn't already downed my own coffee in the car already. "Gage…"
"Cassidy…"
Jesus. Just do it already. What's the point if I don't do what I came to do?
"I'll never be able to express the depth of how sorry I am. You're amazing and I haven't deserved any of the things you've done for me. But I want to. I want to deserve you. You've given me so many chances—and I'm just asking for one more. That's all it'll take."
"You're just asking for one more?" A muscle works in his jaw. "I forgave you for kissing him. I forgave you for leaving with him and…everything that entailed." He looks away, the corners of his mouth tucked down, while he works through an internal struggle. "Hell, I came to North Carolina to beg you to leave with me—and you stood there and chose him. Again."
You walked away, I almost say. But I'm done making excuses for myself. "I should have followed you out the door that night. I was scared and stubborn and couldn't see that the guy I was half in love with was the one I needed to leave with… Which, in case it's not clear, was you. Always you."
"It was clear," he admits, "before you left town. I knew how you felt about me—and I knew you were fighting it. So I fought for you. And then you left. There's only so much I'm willing to take. I hit my limit when you told me I didn't really know you. You told me we'd had a few nights together and that I needed to get over it."
Those words—my own words—twist like barbed wire around my heart. I hate myself right now. "I'm an idiot. I—"
"You were right," he says, talking through me. "I thought I knew you, I thought every night we spent together was building to something more—but I was holding onto an idea instead of paying attention to every sign you gave me otherwise."
"You do know me," I plead. "Better than I know myself sometimes, I think."
"It didn't do me much good, did it? You still shut me out. You still left with Luca."
Luca. The name sits heavy in the air and I can't help cringing.
"It didn't mean anything," I say, knowing as soon as the words are out of my mouth they're the wrong ones to use.
"It did to me."
"He didn't mean anything, is what I meant to say. You, though, Gage, you've always mattered. It's just…I thought I needed something meaningless for a little while. I thought I needed not to feel anything." I glance down at my hands, strangling each other in my lap, and wonder if regret will ever not live in my belly, like heavy bricks with lacerating edges. "I was wrong. I only ever needed you. And my friends. And my family… And common sense."
"Cassidy, I appreciate you coming here," he says, though his expression is shuttered. "But no matter how heartfelt your apology is, it's too late."
"I know." And I do. "But…I was thinking. You've done all these amazing things. Dealing with my neuroticism earlier in the summer. Showing up in North Carolina. Taking me to my brother's grave. Punching Jared. And…I wanted to make a gesture of my own. Because I should've been the one doing things for you this entire time, not the other way around. And even if it amounts to nothing in the end, I need you to know how much you mean to me." I reach into my purse. "It's why I have these."
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Popsicle sticks.
I melted off the popsicles this morning, running them under hot water, after discovering the box in Vera's freezer. I dried them off the best I could with paper towels, but they're still a little damp against the pads of my fingers. I hold a handful of them out to Gage, like a bouquet, and notice a few, unsurprising purple smudges on the side of my hand.
"What are those?"
"Popsicle sticks."
"I can see that—why do you have them?"
"Look." I turn my hand so he can see the opposite sides with words written on them in purple Sharpie. "These are the popsicle sticks of my life." I try not to cringe because I know how cheesy it sounds. And when he raises his brows: "Just bear with me for a second, okay? See…each one of these represents something about me I've been too closed off to share with you—or anyone, really. Pick one and I'll tell you everything about it."
He opens his mouth, but his expression says that, just like my apologies, this gesture's coming too late, so I ramble on before he can. "This way," I say, my voice shaky, "when I ask you to give me another chance, you'll really know the girl sitting before you."
There's a lump in my throat. Not the kind that signals crying, the kind that means I'm so nervous I may be about to lose the ability to speak at all. I swallow against it, a few times. But Gage isn't saying anything and his expression isn't wavering and so the lump just gets bigger and bigger.
Finally, finally, he sighs. "Okay. I'll play."
I mix the sticks together and hold them out, blank sides toward him, and I clear my throat. "Pick one."
He does. He pulls the stick I wrote "FEARS" on.
Great. Let's just do the easy ones first.
But okay. This is my shot. My gesture.
He deserves to know me. I owe him this much. And so I say, "Here we go. Things that scare me."
"Are you sure you want to do this?" He's giving me a way out, but I don't know if it's because of how hard this could be for me—or because his mind's already made up and he doesn't want me to waste my time. I hope with everything I have it's the former.
"I'm sure. And, for starters, being here right now scares the hell out of me." I laugh, but it comes out around the blockage of nerves in my throat and sounds forced. But his mouth twists into half a smile, and I continue before I lose the rest of my courage. "Heights. Trusting people—though that never used to scare me. Spiders. Parking lots at night. Disappointing my parents. How much I feel for you. Though that's actually a good kind of scary, a thrilling kind, because I'm finally admitting it to myself and it's raw and it's real and…I love you. Also, telling you that is really, really scary." My heart is sprinting and my breathing shows it.
He shifts in his seat, his eyes not leaving mine, but otherwise says nothing.
God, this is harder than I thought it'd be. I'd hoped because I was finally honest with myself about how deeply my feelings for him run, that maybe it'd be at least a little easier to let him see the parts I've kept hidden. Instead, they seem way heavier to unload.
"I'm scared of dying—but I'm even more scared of losing anyone else to death. I'm scared I'll forget the sound of Jason's voice. I'm scared I'll come home from college and find my parents regressing in their grief. But I'm also scared to go to school because I'm dreading my classes. I don't know what I want to do with my life anymore, but business has zero appeal. And I'm especially scared I've ruined everything with you…" I pause,
begging him, begging him in my mind to tell me I haven't.
"What's on the other sticks?" he asks, instead.
I hold them out, still flipped so the words are hidden. "Take your pick."
He chooses sadness, and when he reads the word, something like worry flickers through his eyes.
"It's okay," I tell him. "I can face it."
He waits for me to go on. I wish he'd give some indication of whether or not this is working…but, at the same time, I think this is good for me. Regardless of the outcome. Saying these things aloud is helping to seal the crack in my foundation.
So I take a deep breath, carefully laying the sticks on the coffee table in front of us, and then I dive in. "Animal deaths, real or fictionalized. I can't handle them and I shut down for days. Jason, though he's an obvious answer. I'm sad he's gone, but I'm also sad because I think I might be furious with him forever for taking the drugs that killed him." Another deep breath. "I'm sad because I think a small part of my dad would rather it have been me who died. Not that he'd ever really mean it, of course, but Jason was his golden child. And he was my mom's baby." Huh. Maybe that lump in my throat was signaling the onslaught of tears after all. I blink a few times to clear them, but not before one falls over.
Gage slides it away with his thumb. "Grief makes people act in ways they shouldn't."
"I know," I say. "I know they haven't been fair in their grief. Neither have I, though… I'm sad they lost their son, and I'm sad we couldn't grieve together as a family…" It's as though my ribs have turned to knives, slaying me from the inside out. If I keep talking about this, I'm really going to lose it. So, for now, I press onto things that make me unhappy, but not so much that I'll turn into a lump of tears. "I'm sad for Katy. I'm sad for Vera. I'm sad you went through what you did, thinking Katy was in that accident, and then having to tell her about her mom…"
"I don't like this stick," he says, suddenly. He grabs another at random from the table, turning it over and handing it to me. "Here. Secrets."
"Okay." Secrets. After everything I've already admitted, I feel like I barely have any left. But… "I don't have very many friends at school. Even before Jason died. Being a business major is kind of cutthroat in my program and I keep my classmates at an arm's length—but plenty of them are friends, so part of it is all me. I think it's because of my father, who taught me that people are in constant competition, even when they don't think it. I don't want to be that way anymore."
"You never seemed competitive to me," Gage says. "If that counts for anything."
"Anything you say counts for everything."
Another half smile flitters across his mouth.
I'm dying to ask what he's thinking, what he's feeling. But it's not time for that yet. I have more to confess. "One time, in fifth grade, I stole a hundred dollars from my dad's wallet, and never told him. I didn't even know what money really meant then, and I didn't want to get caught, so I buried it in the backyard. It's still there. Or maybe it decomposed, I don't really know how that works… But, see, I've been burying things I don't want to face my entire life." I speak the next words with as much sincerity as I can muster. I need him to know how true they are. "Not any more, though. You make me want to be better."
Again, it looks like he might say something, but instead he drops his gaze to the table and scoops up the rest of the popsicle sticks, reading everything written across them.
"That's cheating," I say.
He shrugs, holding a stick out to me. "I always wanted to know this one."
I take it, dropping my gaze from his to the selection in my hand. Happiness.
He chose happiness.
He wants to know what makes me happy.
Finally, I feel like smiling. "The sound of the ocean. The scent of fresh-cut grass. Chocolate ice cream with real maple syrup… My parents moving forward. Vera moving forward. Teagan moving forward. Kind of, at least. And you, Gage. You're at the very, very top of my list. And if you give me one more chance, I'll spend every day climbing my way to the top of yours."
For a moment, time stands still. I watch his face; his eyes widen, and then narrow. For a split second, he looks away. Then he puts a hand on my knee, and my heart lurches up toward my throat, sticking just behind the ball of nerves already swelling there.
"No more popsicle sticks," he says.
I nod. "I know four sticks don't contain everything there is inside of me. But for the rest of forever if you want to know something, all you have to do is ask. You can even keep the sticks. Pick one at random whenever you feel like it."
"I appreciate that, Cassidy." His tone, though, his tone is making me nervous. He sounds apologetic. But maybe it's just because he knows some hard things about me, now. Maybe it's just because it's the morning and he's hungover.
"I love you." I have to say it once more, have to put the truth in the air between us even if it quivers as it passes my lips. "Do you believe me? Can you give me a chance?"
He takes my hands and hope flares brighter than the glaring sun streaming through the windows into the room.
I am luminous with hope.
"Thank you," he says, "for sharing yourself with me."
"Thank you for letting me."
"I want to say yes." His grip tightens—I go very, very still—right before he drops my hands. "But I'm not going to. This gesture is—was—really great, Cassidy. But I don't have another try in me, even just one. I'm sorry."
"No." The word drops from my mouth in a whisper. "Don't apologize." My stomach. My heart. My limbs. They're all empty. I'm empty. All I had was hope, stupid, stupid hope, and now it's smothered. "I messed it up. I get it. I'm the one who's sorry. I—" I break off, finally able to quit speaking. "I should go."
And somehow, even with empty limbs, I stand up, and I flee.
He calls after me, but I keep going, dashing right out the door and into my car and out of his neighborhood. I know I'm being melodramatic, but Gage's apology…it slices through the empty spot where my heart used to be, and I just can't face it. Or him.
So I'm making a liar of myself already.
I'm running away again.
It's what I do best.
But there's a difference between running from the things you should face and running from the boy who's broken your heart. Even if it's all your fault to begin with.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
I make it back to school.
Back to my apartment.
Back to a reality that doesn't include Gage at all anymore.
"Was that Professor Daniels in the hall?" I ask Quinn, my roommate, as I head through the door, stumbling with the weight of the bags I'm lugging. (Mostly the ones full of alcohol I picked up at the liquor store in town.)
She stares at me.
"Hi, by the way," I remember to greet her a little late.
"Here." She reaches for my suitcase, helping me toss it in my room, and then laughs at all of the bottles I pull out and put on our kitchen counter.
"It's so weird he'd be in our building," I say, kind of not caring but also not ready to have the whole how was your summer talk. We aren't very close—and…there's too much about the summer I don't want to share. If I so much as say Gage's name, I might never stop saying it. And I have to get over him. I will get over him.
Someday.
Maybe.
If I can find the will to actually work on it.
Which doesn't seem likely.
Quinn shrugs, oblivious to my thoughts, pulling her long chestnut hair into a messy bun. "I ran into him at the library earlier. He noticed I left my phone charger and dropped it off."
For a second I think she's talking about Gage, but obviously it's Professor Daniels. Our English Lit professor from last year, the one class we signed up for together.
"That was nice," I say absentmindedly, looking around our apartment, taking it all in with fresh eyes. Posters of my favorite bands in frames on the walls—including a black and white print of Franklin Charles'
s first album, which makes me smile—and Quinn's pressed flowers in all different sized metal frames sprinkled throughout the posters. It's such a weird combination, but somehow it works. Same ratty old couch. Same tiny corner TV.
Same pictures of Jason—of my whole family, Teagan included—scattered on shelves and side tables.
Same gorgeous but kinda aloof roommate, disappearing into her bedroom.
Nothing's changed, but somehow it all feels different.
Maybe it's not the apartment, though. Maybe it's me.
I can't believe I'm a college senior.
A week later, though, it turns out I'm actually a second-year junior.
This is what happens when you decide to change your major three years into the game.
"Communications," I tell my assigned college counselor. She squeezed me in at the end of her day, the last day to make schedule changes before school starts, and I will be forever grateful. "With a journalism concentration."
"Are you sure?" she asks one last time, smoothing wisps of salt and peppered hair back from her forehead. "It means at least one more year of school—and one you'll have to fill to the brim with hours if you don't want them to spill into another year after that."
"I'm sure," I say, and it's the truth. I'm done with business. "I think…I think I want to be a travel writer."
One thing I might not regret about touring with Luca—finding out how much I enjoy discovering places, and people, and things. I'm already itching to take another trip somewhere else. I don't really care where. I just want to get out there. I just want to live.
"It's a big switch."
"An exciting one," I say. Another truth.
"Travel writing is a hard career to break into."
"Life's hard sometimes." I shrug, and offer one final truth. "It doesn't scare me anymore."
I leave the building with a new schedule and a huge smile. This is it. Me doing what I want.
And when I turn the corner, to head back to the parking lot, I run into Gage.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
I blink, like an idiot, at least a thousand times before my mind makes sense of what I'm seeing. Before I shake the dreamlike sensation of déjà vu.
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