All Unquiet Things

by Anna Jarzab

  I could tell Adam liked Carly, and I liked the idea of them dating. If she was with Cass’s best friend, we’d hang out more. It was a selfish thing to do, but one morning before school I saw her arguing with Neily in the parking lot, and sensing a moment of weakness, I pulled her aside at lunch to float the possibility.

  “Fighting with Neily?” I asked, putting a cup of yogurt on my tray as we moved through the cafeteria line.

  “Yes,” she sighed, grabbing an apple. “I didn’t hang out with him on Saturday night like I said I would and of course he’s upset with me about it. But what was I going to do, take him to Stephanie’s party?”

  “Did you even invite him?”

  “Have you met Neily? He’d hate it. And it’s not even the alcohol! If he was morally opposed to underage drinking I could understand, but it’s, like, the principle of the thing. He just assumes that everyone who goes to those parties is a self-involved, spoiled rich prick and he refuses to hang out with them.”

  “I was at that party. Uh, thanks, Neily,” I said.

  “Exactly!” she cried. “That’s what I said. ‘I went to that party with Audrey, Neily, so what does that say about me?’ But, you know, he has no response to that and goes into concern mode—‘I’m worried about you, Carly, I just want you to be happy,’ blah blah blah. It’s like, ‘If you want me to be happy, then don’t try to guilt-trip me every time I do something I want to do just because you don’t like it.’”

  “Makes sense to me,” I said. “You want to hear something funny?”

  “No. I hate humor,” she deadpanned. Then she smiled. “Of course I want to hear something funny.”

  “Well, it’s not ha-ha funny, more like interesting funny. Adam asked if you and Neily were still together because he was thinking of asking you out.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Adam Murray?”

  “Yep. The one and only.”

  She grinned. “I think I’m sitting with you guys at lunch today.”

  “Slow down, Speed Racer. What about Neily?”

  “He’s my boyfriend, not my warden,” she said. “He doesn’t get to say who I can and can’t be friends with.”

  “Wow, Carly. That’s very girl power of you.”

  “Damn right it is,” she said, taking my arm and tugging me in the direction of my usual lunch table. “Let’s go.”

  Adam Murray was full of problems, and the drugs were only the beginning. He and Cass’s brother, Jerod, were superclose, and Adam took over his connections when Jerod left for Los Angeles, bolstering the business with his obscene allowance and unpredictable temper. Cass, to my relief, showed no interest in picking up where Jerod left off—he had basketball to worry about. Funnily, Adam never seemed very interested in doing hard drugs himself, though he liked to get drunk and smoke out whenever possible, but greed is undeniable and drug dealing is a path to power. I was always amazed that he never got caught, but he was smarter than he looked and his boys were loyal to a fault. Nobody would’ve dared turn on Adam.

  After Cass and I started dating, Carly and Adam got closer. She began to disappear with him for hours, spending time at his house when his parents were away, inviting him to her house when her dad was at the hospital, taking long drives with him down the coast to Carmel and up I-80 to Sacramento. I encouraged her to do this, even though she was still with Neily and I knew that she was hurting him. Neily must think that I don’t regret it, but I do. I’m not the sort of person who tells herself that regrets are futile. I think they’re necessary, to teach us how not to behave in the future. But I didn’t know Adam then, at least not as well as I did later; to me, he was just an old, close friend of Cass’s, and I was so enamored with my new boyfriend that I considered everything associated with him to be right and good. That’s how naïve I was. It wasn’t until later that I learned that even decent people can have awful friends.

  But I don’t flatter myself that my influence swayed Carly very much either way. She was intent on tearing herself down, on recklessly seeking out bad situations and exploiting them to facilitate her self-destruction. Miranda’s death had affected her deeply; she had depended upon her mom’s opinion for guidance and strength for so long that when Miranda died she lost sight of who she was, assumed that every bit of worth she had amassed in her short life had followed her mom to the grave. She should have stayed in counseling, she should have had someone to talk to and confide in, but she refused and so she had no one. Carly convinced herself that the only recourse was to destroy what she could not preserve.

  Adam and Cass held court at the largest table in the quad every day at lunch. Girls like Lucy hovered around them, laughing and tossing their hair in an effort to be noticed, to be singled out. I watched them play from the steps of the library, focusing on the interaction between Adam and Lucy, but they barely spoke, hardly came near each other. Obviously their relationship, whatever it amounted to, was a carefully guarded secret.

  I was so intent on observing Adam and Lucy that I didn’t notice that Cass was staring at me. Neily was the one who pointed it out. He came out of the library and sat down next to me, squinting into the sun.

  “Doesn’t that creep you out?” he asked.

  “You sitting here? I’m getting used to it.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I mean Cass. He’s been watching you for like five minutes.”

  I looked up and locked eyes with Cass. My heart sped up and my stomach jumped; I turned away. “Is he still looking?”

  “Yeah,” Neily said. “And he doesn’t seem very happy.”

  “Huh.”

  “So obviously his flame’s still burning.”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “He’s probably just trolling for hot freshman ass.”

  “Okay, fine. But I wouldn’t be surprised if sometime today I find my head under a faucet again.”

  “You think Cass is jealous? Of you?” I laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “What? We’ve been spending a lot of time together lately, and we haven’t exactly been keeping it a secret. We could be dating,” Neily said. “Are you saying you’re too good for me?”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “It’s just that—well, everybody knows you hate me.”

  “Oh my God, I don’t hate you,” he said, exasperated. “Would you stop saying that?”

  “Yeah, you do.” Now I was just teasing him. “You don’t do a good job of hiding it, either.”

  “If I hated you, would I be sitting here right now, risking permanent water damage?” he joked. I smiled. “What?”

  “Aw, Neily. I think we’re friends now, or something.”

  “Or something,” he said, leaning back against the step and lifting his face up to the sun. “Definitely ‘or something.’”

  Freshman Year—Spring Semester

  As much as I adored Cass, I had a hard time getting up the courage to tell him that I loved him. After watching my parents’ disastrous marriage crumble, I was wary of what caring about someone too much could do to you. Still, I thought about him every minute of every single day, and I wanted him to know that. It was just those three little words that were an obstacle; they had so much power, I was afraid of what unleashing them might bring.

  At least there was no pressure on Cass’s part. He was very affectionate and sweet, but it wasn’t as if he was rushing to say those words either. It was hard to tell exactly what he was feeling at any given time. In a lot of ways, he was just like me: not very good at sharing, which was probably why we got along so well. We were dating for six months and neither of us had met the other’s parents. Most of our time was spent on school property; we didn’t go to each other’s houses unless we would have them to ourselves. I wanted to meet his parents but was too ashamed of my dad to introduce Cass to him, so I didn’t press the issue. When I did finally meet the Irvings, it was by accident, and it was a disaster.

  It was the middle of the week and Cass and I had a study date. We were in a lot of the same classes and often got tog
ether to work on homework or projects, although we did more making out than studying. On Wednesdays we hung out at his house because his dad, a doctor with a private practice, always worked late and his mom had dinner and played bridge with a coven of other rich physicians’ wives.

  Later Cass swore up and down that he’d told me his parents would be home on that particular Wednesday night, but either he was mistaken or I had forgotten. I walked from Carly’s house, where I’d spent the afternoon with her and Neily, to Cass’s and rang the doorbell, expecting him to welcome me with a smile and a kiss like any other night.

  Instead, it was his mom who answered. Mrs. Irving was a petite blonde with round wide eyes and an expressionless face tightened by Botox injections. She clutched a glass of brown liquid on the rocks and squinted at me blankly. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m, uh, here to see Cass?” I said unsurely.

  She shrugged and stood aside to give me room to enter. “Upstairs,” she said, jerking her head slightly toward a long, wide staircase.

  “Thanks.”

  I went in the direction of Cass’s room until I heard muffled shouting coming from the opposite end of the hall. I walked carefully toward the door to his parents’ room, which was open a crack. Through it I could see Cass and his dad standing facing each other and arguing.

  “I’m sorry—” Cass was saying, but his dad cut him off.

  “These grades are bullshit, Cass!” Mr. Irving yelled. “Do you know what happens if you fail algebra? You don’t get to play ball this year, that’s what happens.”

  “I know that,” Cass said. “I’m trying.”

  “You’re not trying! You never try. You’re just another lazy, selfish kid who expects everything to be handed to him on a golden fucking platter.”

  “It’s not that,” Cass said, his voice wavering slightly. “Algebra is hard for me. I’ll get a tutor.”

  “Algebra is the easiest goddamn subject in the world,” Mr. Irving said. “You can’t do algebra? What are you, some kind of idiot? You’re telling me that I’m sending you to one of the most expensive private schools in the entire country and yet you still fail to grasp basic mathematics? ‘Algebra is hard.’ You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  “I know.”

  “You don’t know a goddamn thing. First it’s your brother, then you. You’re both morons. I was a Rhodes scholar and yet somehow I ended up with two losers for sons. The way you’re going you’ll never amount to anything, you’ll just be a washedup also-ran who can’t even do long division. You’re so worthless, sometimes I doubt that either of you are even mine.”

  I couldn’t stand to hear any more. Even though I was desperately trying to be quiet, I let out a little involuntary gasp.

  “Who’s there?” Mr. Irving bellowed, stalking toward the door. I stepped away from it and looked around for someplace to hide, but he flung it open before I could do anything and glared at me, enraged.

  “Who the hell are you?” he demanded. I was so paralyzed with fear I couldn’t respond.

  Cass came up behind his dad and stared at me in disbelief.

  “Shit,” I said quietly.

  Cass pushed past his dad and grabbed my arm roughly. “Come on, Audrey, let’s get out of here.” He ushered me down the stairs, out of the house, and down the driveway before I could even gather myself enough to ask where we were going.

  The Irvings had several cars, more than the number of people in the house who could legally drive, and Cass had made himself a spare set of keys a while back. He took them out of his pocket and unlocked the doors to his mother’s silver Lexus.

  “Get in,” he said abruptly.

  “Where are we going?” I asked. I wanted to get away from Cass’s parents as much as he did, but I didn’t think he should be driving as upset (not to mention underage) as he was.

  “Just get in,” he commanded through clenched teeth. “I’m taking you home.”

  “Are you okay to drive?” I bit my lower lip. “Won’t your mother be angry with you for taking her car?”

  “Fine, I’ll just leave you here, then.” He slid into the driver’s side and started the engine.

  “No, I’m coming.”

  He seemed furious and for several minutes we drove the foothill roads in silence as I waited for him to say something.

  When he didn’t, I finally said, “Cass, I’m so sorry.”

  He turned on me. “What were you doing there? I told you my parents were going to be home. I told you not to come!”

  “I don’t remember,” I said. “I’m sorry, so, so sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, sorry isn’t going to fix anything, is it?” he snapped.

  I looked off in the opposite direction, not really knowing what else to say or do. Tears welled up in my eyes and I tried to keep them back, afraid to cry in front of him, but I couldn’t; they slid down my face faster than I could wipe them away. I heard Cass sigh, but I couldn’t bear to look at him.

  “Audrey,” he said, deliberately affecting a calmer voice. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I’m sure you didn’t mean to make things difficult. It was an honest mistake.”

  “It was,” I choked out. I couldn’t believe what a mess I was, but meeting Mr. Irving, who scared the crap out of me, combined with the shock of being screamed at by Cass, had left me a bit wobbly.

  Cass put his hand on my shoulder. “I didn’t mean to lose it like that. It’s not even that big of a deal—he was already mad at me.”

  “Your dad is terrifying,” I said, drawing in a deep breath.

  Cass shrugged. “He is what he is. I’m sorry he upset you, but I’m pretty much used to it.”

  “Does he yell at you like that all the time?” I asked.

  “No,” Cass said. “Mostly he just ignores me. He only gets mad when I screw up. Personally I think he’s jealous of me. He’s always been a mean bastard who everybody hated, so he resents me for being the opposite. He takes every opportunity to let me know when I’ve failed or let him down. Why do you think Jerod beat it as soon as his trust fund kicked in?”

  “What about your mom?” I couldn’t imagine that blank, glassy-eyed woman standing up to Mr. Irving, but how could she do nothing while her son suffered?

  “The only way my mom can deal is if she pretends nothing is wrong with her life,” Cass said. “She’s no help, and anyway, I don’t need anyone to protect me. I can protect myself.”

  “Has he ever hit you?” I asked. This was the question I most feared someone would ask me, and I could tell that he didn’t want to answer it. Always keeping secrets, always burying the truth, that was how Cass got through life. I knew because I was just like him.

  “He used to, when I was a kid,” Cass told me after a long hesitation. “He was very careful about it, no bruises where anybody could see. But I’m big enough now that I can fight back and cause some damage myself. He’d never touch me today.”

  “Does anyone else know?”

  Cass shook his head incredulously, as if the answer should’ve been obvious. “Why would I tell anyone about my fucked-up family? What would be the point of that?”

  “I don’t know, to get some support, maybe.”

  “No need. As long as I do everything right and stay out of the old man’s way, I’m in the clear.” Cass glanced out at the horizon, where the sun was setting. He was deliberately avoiding looking at me because he didn’t want to see pity. What he didn’t get was that it wasn’t pity, it was empathy. I knew exactly what it was like and my heart broke for him.

  “But all that pressure to be perfect. Doesn’t it bother you?”

  “No,” he said without emotion. “I’m used to it.”

  “You keep saying that.” I took Cass’s hand and he put his right arm around my shoulders without taking his eyes off the road.

  “I understand what it’s like to have a horrible home life,” I reminded him. “You can talk to me about anything, I hope you know that.”

  “I do,” he said, but I wasn
’t quite sure he did.

  “Cass, I care about you so much,” I said. Then after a pause I added, “I love you, actually.” They were hard words to get out, but I meant them, and in the moment I didn’t even care if he said them back. All I wanted was for him to know that he was loved by someone who didn’t need him to be flawless.

  “I love you, too,” he said, hugging me closer.

  “Pull in here,” I whispered, pointing out my window. We were in the valley now, passing a playground with a parking lot that was well hidden from the road. Cass knew what I was proposing and he eagerly followed my lead. There were no other cars and the sun had almost entirely set. The place was so private, we were so alone, it was as if everyone else on earth had been deleted and we were the only two left.

  I kissed his cheek quickly and crawled into the backseat, tugging him along by the hand. He was so tall that he had a hard time squeezing through the front seats, so when he finally made it he came crashing into me.

  “That was very graceful.” I laughed, mostly to mask the nervousness that had set my heart thumping like the backbeat of a techno song.

  “Wasn’t it?” He kissed me, first a light peck, and then he came back for a long, lingering kiss. He stroked my jaw with his thumb and pressed me up against the seat, pulling lightly at my lips with his, and briefly kneading my shoulder before letting his hand wander down to my breasts.

  Overwhelmed by passion and fear, I went into hyperdrive, yanking his shirt over his head and kissing him hungrily. I was terrified that there wasn’t enough of me to satisfy him. Yes, there were the words: “I love you,” “I’m sorry,” “I’m here.” And there was this, this thrilling moment of intense desire. It all made me feel less empty, and I wanted Cass to feel that way too.