You and Everything After

by Ginger Scott

  The medical center is the next parking lot over, and I really wasn’t up for having the posse follow me to my next stop. “Mom, why don’t you and Paige head home? Dad can take Ty and me,” I suggest, hoping she gives me this. Please, just give me this.

  “Oh, there’s a really cute store that just opened up at the strip mall down the road. Great jewelry. Let’s go; we can meet them after for lunch,” Paige says, tugging on my mom’s sleeve. Her eyes meet mine for a brief second. I may be imagining it, but I think she’s doing me a favor.

  “Well…” my mom says, swinging her keys back and forth between my sister and me. I think she’s actually saying “eeny, meeny, miny, moe” in her head. “I guess you know what you’re doing, Cass. You’ve done these before. And we can all meet up after?”

  “Sounds good,” I say, tugging on my dad’s arm, dragging him to his car. I’m not giving her a chance to flop on this decision.

  “Subtle, Cassidy,” my dad says as he pushes the UNLOCK button and waits for Ty at the side of the vehicle to take his chair for him. I notice my father’s gaze fall to Ty as he lifts himself to the edge of the seat, his arms fully flexed as he swings his body inside. It’s a move that Ty somehow makes look effortless even though there are about a hundred moving parts in his body doing the work. My dad doesn’t stare, but he notices. And I notice that.

  My dad pulls up front and drops me off with Ty so we don’t have to travel far while he parks. I sign in and say hello to the nurse working at the station. Her name is Heather, and I remember her without having to check her tag.

  “Come on back, Cass. Dr. Peeples sent your files over. It’s a slow time, so might as well get this over with, huh?” I always liked Heather. She was newly engaged the last time I went through this therapy. I see now that she has a band next to the engagement ring, and her belly looks about seven months pregnant.

  “This is new,” I say, looking down, and she laughs lightly, rubbing her hand over her large belly.

  “Yeah, and I’m about ready to be done with this part,” she says, turning her focus back to my file. “I’ll have this ready to go in about ten minutes,” she says, giving my shoulder a squeeze before she leaves the room to get my dosage. It’s amazing how much of this I remember. It’s like riding a bike, though nothing at all like riding a bike, I muse to myself.

  “Wow, you’re like famous here. I bet they have a picture of you. No! A shrine,” Ty says, moving to face me and bumping me with his knees. He can’t feel our touch, but I can.

  “You must have missed the sign. We’re sitting in the Cassidy Owens wing,” I say.

  “No shit!” Ty says, reaching for my hands. His watch slides forward out of my sweatshirt when I reach to grip him, and he flips his eyes to mine when he notices. No words, just a tender smile, his eyes saying everything that needs to be said.

  “Okay, let’s get you hooked up,” Heather says as she comes back into the room with my drip bag ready to hang and a needle ready to pierce my vein.

  “Do you mind waiting for my dad in the hall, just so he knows what room I’m in?” I ask Ty while Heather connects the various tubes and begins prepping the IV for my arm.

  “You got it, babe,” he says, and I scowl at him for the babe part. “Too late, you’ve already given me babe permission. No going back.”

  “Uhm, I’m pretty sure I only okayed baby,” I say.

  “You missed the fine print, babe. I get Baby, and ALL derivatives. It’s locked in,” he says, his voice fading as the door closes behind him.

  “He’s new,” Heather says, a little gleam in her eye. She knows better than to tease me. She and I talked a lot when I went through this in high school. Teasing was always off the table, because well…boys were always off the table.

  “He is,” I say back, unable to help the grin that spreads the width of my face—teeth show and everything.

  “I like that boy. You did good, missy. Real good,” she says, nodding for me to turn and face the window. I’m a fainter. “Now this will only hurt for a second.”

  Usually, Heather is a liar, because I normally feel the pinch and the burn for much longer than a second. But today, I don’t feel a thing. Too much love in the way to let the pain through.

  Ty

  I don’t really like hospitals. They remind me of physical therapy, of waking up in a hazy fog to a beeping sound in the ICU. They remind me of my mom’s face when I finally opened my eyes long enough to recognize her. My mom’s tears. Nate’s crying. My…crying.

  I’m happier here in the hall. But I’ll go back in when I need to. When Cass’s father enters through the sliding doors, I hold a hand up to get his attention before he veers off to the nurse’s station. He came home late last night, and I snuck back to my own room early this morning before anyone was awake. He and I haven’t been alone once yet, and I haven’t really been looking forward to it. I was braver over the phone with him. Too brave, I fear. But I wouldn’t take any of it back.

  “She’s just getting set up,” I say.

  “Good, good,” he nods, looking through the small window-slot in the door, and then running his hand through his graying hair. He’s worried.

  “She kept this to herself. Otherwise…I would have made her talk to someone. I promise you,” I say, because I still feel like maybe Cass’s parents hold me responsible for this. Maybe I am.

  “You can’t make her do anything, Tyson,” he says, looking at his daughter through the door window and pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

  “Yeah,” I laugh once. “You’re probably right.”

  “You…you want a coffee or anything from the nurse’s station?” he asks me. “This usually takes about an hour.”

  “No thanks. I’m good. But go ahead,” I respond.

  He just shakes his head, letting his gaze drift off. “I’m good too,” he says. I move toward the door, but before I get too close, he halts me. “It’s nice to finally meet you…in person, by the way,” he says, extending his hand. His grip is firm, and maybe a little threatening—as a father’s should be.

  “Thank you for letting me stay with you all. It was really nice to be able to come here from my brother’s tournament. I know it was sort of a last-minute thing, so…anyhow,” I say, suddenly aware that I’m sweating. And rambling. Yeah, I’m definitely braver over the phone. I haven’t had to talk to many fathers. Just Kelly’s. And he was my Little League coach, so…

  “I wanted to tell you,” he says, his eyes on me at first, but then at his feet. He sucks in his lips to think, and his posture grows stronger. He’s a prosecutor, and from what Cass says, he’s damn good. I have the distinct feeling he’s about to deliver a closing argument meant just for me.

  “I appreciate what you said the other day…that you stood by Cass like that. It was…maybe a little surprising,” he says, his head cocked to the side as he looks at me with a knowing smile, one eyebrow raised.

  “Thank you…sir?” I’m a dead man. I feel like a dead man.

  “But I just wanted you to understand something, and please…don’t take this in a bad way, like I’m attacking. I…I just get the feeling that you and my daughter might be a whole hell of a lot more serious than her mother and I thought you were, so I thought this was important for me to say,” he says, and I can feel the sweat run down my back.

  “The choices I made for my daughter, with this Paul Cotterman guy…they aren’t the easy route. You insinuated I was taking the easy route, but let me be clear—nothing about what I’ve done concerning that man, my daughter, and this case has been easy. Every fiber in my being wants to drag that asshole through court—to spread his story through every front page I can get to print it, to have him become viral on social media and the punch line for late night television shows. I want to spend months digging through his list of old girlfriends, hiring private investigators to uncover dirt, to make a case so strong that there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that my daughter is right. I know she is. God, Tyson—I’ve known
it all along. But what would that do to her life? Dragging this story out, making it bigger, and bigger, and bigger, until it followed her forever? She’d have to live this. So as much as it kills me to let that asshole off the hook, as much as it killed me last year to appease the talking heads at her high school district, I struck a deal, and paid them all to keep their mouths shut. Forever. Because my daughter doesn’t deserve a media circus, and I have the means to make her nightmares go away.”

  He’s looking down the hallway again, his jaw flexing, his teeth gritting.

  “I think you should share that with her. I think she could really use hearing it,” I say.

  “No, she needs to be angry at someone, until she’s done feeling angry,” he says. “And I’ll take the hard way, Ty. I’ll be that person she’s angry with. As much as it breaks my heart, I’ll be it for as long as she needs.”

  His head hung low, he grips the handle to the door and takes a deep breath, trying to replenish his energy, his spirit—so that way when he walks into that room with his daughter, she has no clue how broken he is on the inside. I let him go in first, and I listen to his now-booming voice, confident and strong, and I move forward to watch him lean forward and kiss his daughter’s head. She shuts her eyes, wincing when he does. And I know that breaks him even more. But he sits down in the chair next to her and waits, all the while his jaw muscle clenching, biting his tongue, being that person.

  For as long as it takes.

  Chapter 29

  Cass

  The nausea was better this round, maybe because I was expecting it and didn’t eat anything that would make things worse. After five days, my flare-up seemed to be under control. My vision was back to normal, and steroids always leave me feeling strong and full of energy, so my wobbly legs were once again dying to run.

  Ty’s heading back to Louisiana today; I don’t want him to go. I’ve said all along that he’s magic. Since he’s been here, my family has never felt more like…well, mine. Ty was really interested in my car, so my dad and I took him for a spin out along highway 101 at sunset a couple of nights ago. The farther north you get, the less crowded the roadway is, and my dad gave me the nod—the one he saves for when my mom isn’t looking. I hit about one-ten before my dad put his hand on my arm, warning me to slow down.

  I was back to that innocent sixteen-year-old again, the one who learned how to change her own oil from her dad the day she got the keys to Uncle Lou’s Charger. Paige got a new Mazda, and she apologized to me over and over, feeling bad that I was slighted with the used car. My dad and I never laughed about it in front of her, but on our own, in the garage, we’d cut loose. I’d been eyeing this car since I was five.

  Ty being around somehow brought those feelings back. And I’m afraid as soon as he goes life at my house is going to go back to lectures about my health, orders to quit playing soccer, and…the Cotterman issue.

  “You know, I still haven’t seen the beach. I mean, up close,” Ty says, holding his coffee mug up to his lips, blowing the steam away. Even my mother is in his pocket now, as she runs over with two ice cubes to cool it for him. “Thank you, Mrs. Owens.”

  “Diana,” she practically sings.

  I shake my head at him, amazed at his skills.

  “What?” he shrugs.

  “You can charm the pants off anything, can’t you?” I say, regretting it immediately as I watch his smirk curl above the steam from his coffee. “Don’t even think about saying it.”

  “What, me? Cassidy! Always the pervert, you are,” he says, sipping and slurping loudly just to annoy me.

  “You wanna see the beach or not?” I ask, mostly to get out of his razzing.

  “Let’s do it,” he says, sliding his mug on the counter and pulling his McConnell baseball hat low on his head. I love that hat on him, the way it barely shades his eyes. He’s downright sinister looking, but in the sexiest way.

  “Oh, careful there, Cassidy…it looks like I might be charming the pants off—” I slap my hand over his mouth quickly, and I can feel him smile under my touch.

  “We’re going to the beach! Back in time to get Ty’s things and get him to the airport,” I say.

  Beaches are meant to be visited in the middle of the day on a workday. No tourists, no picnics—just the diehards. I envy the surfers, the way they seem to be able to get up early, stay up late, and live and die by the tide. There are a few still riding this morning, and I watch Ty look at them as I pull in to the parking lot.

  “I always wanted to try that,” he says, his eyes squinting a little as he focuses his attention on a single surfer. It’s like he’s memorizing his movements for later, studying him as a pupil would.

  “You should. It’s mostly upper body strength. I bet you’d be good,” I say, popping the trunk, and moving to the back to pull out his chair. Ty’s still watching the surfer when I pull his chair next to him, so I don’t interrupt. I lean on the side of my car and watch along with him as the stranger in the ocean zips through the water, back and forth, until a larger wave eventually pulls the board away from him.

  Ty nods when he’s done, then pulls himself into his chair.

  “There’s a path for most of the way,” I say, zipping my hoodie over my chest and pushing my hands deep into the pockets. The breeze is light, but there’s still a little chill in the air.

  We take the path down to the guardhouse, but stop at the sand.

  “You have beaches in Louisiana, right?” I ask.

  He looks out over the water, almost memorizing the patterns of the waves. “Yeah, but…not like this,” he says, his mouth settling into the most content smile. “Not like this.”

  We stay here, under the shade of the guardhouse for a while, people-watching and listening to the sound of the waves. I used to love taking naps here, falling asleep to the sound. I’ve paid for it with sunburns many times.

  “Hey, you think I can get you in the sand?” I ask, looking at the wheels of his chair, contrasting them with the softness of the sand ahead.

  “I don’t know. Maybe?” he says, looking at his wheels, and rocking them back and forth with his hands. “It’ll be tough. Are you…strong enough for that?”

  “Psssshaw,” I say, hand on my hip. “Have you met my trainer? He’s a hard-ass.” This makes him laugh.

  Ty pushes himself to the very edge, but before he rolls from the concrete into the sand, I stop him, holding up a finger. “I have an idea,” I say.

  I reach into my bag and pull out the two large beach towels I brought and unfurl them, stepping hard on the material to compact the sand underneath. “That should get us sixteen feet at a time,” I say. Ty’s lips tug at the corner as he looks at the brightly colored path ahead.

  When I grip the handles behind him, I pause. Ty doesn’t let others push him often, and it isn’t lost on me how special this is, how much trust he’s giving me. I lean forward and kiss his neck lightly, and he brings a hand up to caress my face.

  “Careful, babe. We might not make it very far if you keep doing that,” he says, and I smile against his skin.

  The first push comes easy, and momentum carries us a good ten feet before I feel the sand building around the tires and working against me. Ty holds up a hand and tilts the chair back slightly, nodding for me to push again; we make it the full sixteen feet. I grab the towels each time we make it to the next one—building our distance until we’re a good forty or fifty feet away from the guardhouse, almost to the smooth, wet sand.

  “This is good,” he says. “You won’t have the energy to get me back if we go any farther.”

  “What? I’ve got energy coming out of my ears. Haven’t you heard? This girl’s on steroids,” I say, and he smiles in response, but holds his hand over mine and pulls me to his lap to stop me anyway.

  “Yeah, about that,” he starts, and I suddenly feel trapped.

  “Ty, don’t. I don’t want to talk about it, not now,” I say, and he takes a deep breath.

  “I know. Just hear
me out, and then I promise we’ll move on to making out on that pile of sand right there.” His words make me blush. “You don’t have to do this. You’ve proven a lot, to yourself, to everyone. Just, your parents, they may have a point.”

  “Don’t, Ty. Don’t you dare give up on me,” I say, my stomach fluttering with anxiety. He can’t back out on me now. I need him. I want this, and I’m only strong enough with him.

  He purses his lips and breathes in long through his nose, his eyes washing over my face, my neck, down my arm…to the place where his hand grabs mine. He pulls it to his mouth and kisses my knuckles, then pushes the sleeve up on my hoodie until his watch shows. He twists it around so the face is on the inside of my wrist, and taps it twice, then lets the tip of his finger graze over the thin skin underneath.

  “Always. I’m always on your side. I just didn’t want you to think you had to prove anything to me,” he says, and I hug him tightly and kiss him hard. When I pull back and look at his face, my champion is back. The only thing I’ll ever need in my corner. “Think you can hold my weight just long enough to get me…down there?”

  I bite my lip and slide from his lap until I’m next to him, pulling his arm over my shoulder. “On the count of three,” I say, letting Ty count down when he’s ready.

  His body is heavier than I expected, and I can’t support him for long. But we make it to the flat sand right in front of us, and I lay back and let him hover above me, his strong arms caging me in while the waves cascade in and out a hundred feet away. The way he looks at me, the slowness at which he bends down, bringing his lips to mine, it’s all so perfect. The boys in high school, the mistakes I’ve made, my doubts and self-loathing—it all washes away with every kiss, every pass of his nose against my cheek, the sensation of his teeth along my neck, the whispers in my ear.