Days Like This Read online

  “Why are you staring at me?”

  “Because you’re beautiful.”

  Her face lit up, and I loved that I could still make her blush. She was the same Cass, the same and new and completely different at once. I patted the bed, and she lay back down next to me, resting her head in that spot on my chest. It was made for her.

  “I keep thinking about this thing,” Cassie said slowly.

  “You can think of something besides a whole year of make-up sex?”

  I couldn’t see her face, but I knew she was blushing again. “What thing?” I kissed her head.

  “You remember that thing you always say to me? You can’t live your life in fear or you’ll never live. This reminds me of that.”

  I took a deep breath. That thing.

  “How so?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I guess it just makes sense now. I was so afraid, and I wasted all this time.”

  “You don’t have to waste any more of it,” I said.

  She hmmed, and I knew that sound. It urged something up in the pit of my stomach. Cassie knew something, or she thought she did, and she may have been evolving, but she was still her. Any ideas she had would spiral. She would over-analyze them and they would make her doubt. I didn’t want to be the thing she doubted. Not ever.

  “I should tell you something about that.”

  “About what?” she asked.

  “That saying. I almost told you before, but then…” You pulled me upstairs. I sat up, and she faced me. I smiled at her one more time because I loved to see that glow on her face when I did. “This is a new start for us, so I don’t want to have any secrets.”

  I locked eyes with her. This was harder than I thought it would be. “I heard that from your father.”

  She frowned. “You didn’t know my father. I don’t even know my father.”

  I shook my head, and took a breath. “I met him once.”

  “Met who?”

  “Your father,” I said.

  Cassie blinked, confused, and then shook her head. “That’s not funny.”

  I gulped. This was it. My secret. The thing I tried to protect her from knowing, and it’s the cause of so many problems. “I’m not kidding. I met him. Richard Harlen. He had your eyes,” I said. She bunched the sheet over her chest. Her hair fell around her face when moved, and a lump formed in my throat. I rose next to her. “He showed up at the hospital after you found your mom in the bathtub. We’d been there all night and they finally let you in to see her.”

  That was hard for her, for us both. We hadn’t known what was happening or why. They wouldn’t really tell Cassie much. I’d waited outside the door, sitting in one of those hard, plastic chairs that existed only in emergency rooms—even though that’s where they should’ve been the most comfortable since people at hospitals had to almost live in them.

  “I heard someone talking at the nurse’s station, a man with a low voice, and he was standing fifty feet away. I’d only seen him in pictures, but I knew it was him.”

  Cassie stared at me in disbelief while I talked. I wanted to know what she was thinking. This was going to kill her. I didn’t want to lose her, but not telling her the whole truth again was going to make that happen anyway.

  “I didn’t know what to do. I only thought of you, Cass. I didn’t know how you’d handle him being there on top of everything. I didn’t even think, really.”

  “What’d you say to him?” she asked, her voice low.

  Richard Harlen looked me up and down when I’d introduced myself. “Well, I said, ‘With all due respect, sir, why are you here?’”

  “You what?” Cassie shook her head.

  “He said they’d called him because he was the emergency contact.”

  Cassie wasn’t looking at me, but I knew I had to tell her. I was wrong to have never told her anyway.

  “I told him I was with you,” I said. To his benefit, the man had looked a little taken aback by her name. He’d at least paused, and I had no clue what I was doing, but I knew she wouldn’t be able to see him. I couldn’t protect her from the stuff with her mom, but that, her father, I could. So I had. “I told him he had to leave.”

  “What do—”

  “I told him it wasn’t fair to you for him to be there.” Cassie shook her head at me. “I said he would make it all harder on you, and you didn’t deserve that. I said he couldn’t help, not now, and that you didn’t even know he was alive.”

  Her father hadn’t seemed surprised by the confession. He’d been silent, processing. I knew he’d bail. I knew it. I could sense it.

  “Then what?” Cassie asked, after a few minutes of silence.

  I nodded. “I asked why he was there. Why hadn’t he come on your birthday or one of the Christmases where you asked about him, or any of the times Mrs. H was sick. I asked him how he could leave you. He said I didn’t know what he’d been through with Mrs. H, or how hard it was to leave.” Cassie started to speak, but I didn’t let her. “I told him he was right, but I knew how easy it was to stay.” She looked at me, her eyes wide and sparkling with tears. “I said he could come back the next day, but that right then it was too much. I told him I was trying to protect you, and that you were dealing with enough.”

  “You love her?” he’d asked me.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is she happy?” he’d asked.

  “With Cassie, you never really know,” I’d said.

  He’d smiled, like it was a joke that I missed out on. “I reckon you’re right. It’s a lot to throw at a girl. Maybe tomorrow, you say?”

  I’d nodded. “Maybe tomorrow.” He didn’t come back the next day. I’d known he wouldn’t. He’d already proven he wasn’t the type to stay.

  I looked at Cassie. “He said he’d come back later, and he asked me to do him a favor.” Cassie didn’t speak, but she waited, her eyes wide. “‘Tell her not to live her life in fear or she’ll never really live.’ I told him that he could tell you that when he came back. But he didn’t come back.”

  The room was silent. Cassie wasn’t facing me anymore, and I reached out to touch her but she flinched away.

  “Say something, Cass.”

  “Four years you’ve known?” Her voice was strangely calm. She was trying, but I knew she was upset.

  “Yes,” I said.

  She spun around to face me. “Why wouldn’t you tell me that?” She shook her head, like she couldn’t believe I’d done it. She’d done the same thing, but in another way. We were more alike than we probably even knew. “He came for us, Graham.”

  I took her hand, even though she didn’t want me to. She had to see me, to hear me. “He left again, Cassie. He would’ve always left. He wouldn’t have been able to be what you needed.”

  “But maybe I would’ve!” she yelled, pushing away from me again and moving off the bed.

  She was crying and it threw me off. “If I hadn’t learned about my dad the way I did, maybe I would never have freaked out! Maybe I would’ve stayed and all of this last year wouldn’t have happened.”

  “You don’t know any of that is true, Cass,” I said, moving with her. I grabbed her waist and pulled her, but she didn’t budge. “What else would it have done to your life? You don’t know; I don’t know. Maybe you didn’t leave; maybe you did. It doesn’t matter now. We can’t change it.”

  I’d tried to look him up for her once before. I’d figured that the nurses got him so his number must be the same, but it was disconnected. It was like the man re-disappeared. She didn’t need to know all that, though. Not right now.

  “It does matter, Graham. It will always matter. You met him and I haven’t.”

  I knew then that it wasn’t my secret that hurt, it was his. It was that he was alive and stayed away. It was him not wanting to see his own daughter. I could see the pain on her face, the rejection. I could see it because I’d known it.

  Cassie moved around the living room in my small studio. She threw on her robe.

&n
bsp; “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I need some air,” she said.

  No, no, no. This wasn’t happening. I bolted from the bed and grabbed her arm. “Don’t walk away right now. Let’s talk about this.”

  Her eyes were full of tears. She couldn’t leave again. She couldn’t walk out on us. “Cass,” I said. I pressed my forehead against hers. She stayed there for a second next to me as tears fell from her eyes.

  “I need some air,” she said. “Just for a minute.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  And then she went toward the door. I let her go this time, because maybe that was the problem before. I’d held on too tight. I’d proposed too early. I was too scared to let her have space and find herself because if she did that then maybe she’d find herself away from me. I didn’t know who I was without Cassie, so I thought giving her that ring would mean she’d always stay, when really, it made her run.

  55.

  Cassie

  I DIDN’T MAKE it any farther than the steps of his apartment before I couldn’t stop crying. I wasn’t mad at Graham—I was mad at myself. I’d tried so hard not to be like my mom, not to let her illness or her way of living be my own, that I turned myself into my father. Into someone who couldn’t handle the bipolar, someone too afraid to live, someone who left. Mom was more consistent than him. Even when she was in a manic state or depressed, she was there. She’d never left me.

  Graham had always been my constant, too. He’d done the right thing with my dad that day. Even though it fucking sucked. He had a point that my dad couldn’t wait a day, let alone stay through all the ones that followed. I was wrong before to think Graham couldn’t handle me being sick. I was the one who couldn’t handle it.

  Being with him forever scared me. I’d said I’d marry him because I loved him, and I wanted to be that person he wanted me to be, but Cassie Before didn’t know herself at all. I was only just meeting myself. How could I have been what he wanted me to be when I didn’t know what I wanted?

  I wiped my eyes because that Cassie was gone.

  This Cassie was on her way to knowing what she wanted.

  After a few more minutes, I went back upstairs. Graham was sitting on his couch, staring at the door. When I came in, he crossed the small space in a couple steps.

  “I’m sorry,” we both said at the same time.

  “I want us to stop apologizing to each other. I don’t blame you for my dad,” I said. It wasn’t everything I had to say, but right now I couldn’t say it all to him. We could talk about it later. He reached out and wiped a tear off my cheek.

  “I love you,” he said. Then he kissed my cheek and closed the space between us. “I missed you.”

  My other cheek. “I want you.”

  My nose. “So much.”

  He pressed his lips against mine softly, and when he parted we were both smiling.

  “You know what I want?” he whispered against my lips.

  “What?”

  “Food. I’m freaking starving.”

  “COME ON,” GRAHAM said.

  “I’m in my pajamas. Let me go home first,” I said, but Graham lead me toward his house anyway and into the kitchen. No one was there.

  “I told you it would be fine,” he said with a cocky half-smile. He loved being right, and I rarely gave it to him. He could have this one.

  “Look,” he said, snatching a letter off the fridge. I moved toward him, and read it over.

  Dear Son, Glad you are alive! You didn’t come down for breakfast or lunch. Your father said he saw you last night for a few minutes; we went to dinner. Hopefully, we will see you in the morning? I whipped you up a little something and put it on the second shelf. See you later. Love, Mom and Dad.

  P.S. Hi, Cassie.

  “Oh my God, Graham!”

  He laughed. “What’s on the shelf I wonder?” He yanked the door open and started laughing some more. When he turned around, he held a huge stack of blackberry pancakes.

  The same thing we ate the first time his parents found us together.

  Mortifying.

  “You’re so cute when you blush,” Graham said, kissing me again.

  56.

  Cassie

  I STUMBLED HOME as the sun rose. The sky trailed with pinks and oranges, and it was the most beautiful morning. I stopped near the fence and took it in, and I could only smile. I was with Graham, and I was happy again. Whatever happened next with him going to school, I was happy. I walked toward my house and words played through my head.

  The sky is falling but I don’t care // Let it fall // I’m not scared at all // Nothing can hurt me when I’m with you // everything is brighter, life is renewed // you kiss me like there’s no tomorrow // and if there’s not then // I won’t care // outside us it all falls apart // the world is lost, but you have my heart // the sky is falling and I’m not scared // I know how it feels // I’m falling too

  Pieces of the world rain down // like snowflakes // like heartaches // it’s the end of days // and I’m wrapped in you // where lights are brighter // seas are bluer // clouds will catch me // when they fall // your lips on mine // until the end of time // the sky is falling but I’m not scared // the sky is falling // let it fall // let it fall

  I wrote it down as soon as I got into the house, and Mom greeted me, but I didn’t want to forget any of it. When I was done, I looked up at her and noticed the smooth sound of Sinatra. Mom had a smile face that reminded me of June. “Another night at Graham’s?”

  I shrugged, closing the notebook. “Yeah.”

  “I bet you’re tired.”

  “Mom!”

  Mom laughed and held up her hands in defense. “June called ten minutes ago. Those were her words!”

  June. I’d called her after the pancake incident two days ago, and before she’d even said “hello,” her first words were, “You finally nailed that, didn’t you?” The whole conversation was a downward slope of June-ness from there.

  I joined Mom at the bar. “Did she say what she wanted? It’s like 8 a.m. in LA. June isn’t a morning person.”

  Mom shrugged. “She said she’d email you.”

  “Sorry, I haven’t been here much.”

  Mom shook her head. “I was young and in love once,” she said, moving through the house. I hadn’t told her about Dad. I figured I’d ask Dr. Lambert first.

  I poured myself some coffee and logged into my email. Three emails. One from June, one from the dean at Butler, and one from Yellow Stripe Records. Was this one of my internships? I hadn’t applied to Yellow Stripe. I clicked on the email.

  After reviewing your resume and receiving some highly recommended referrals per your application for a production internship with our label, we would love to schedule a phone interview.

  I didn’t apply here or send referrals. “Weird.”

  “What’s wrong?” Mom asked.

  I scanned the email again. This had to be a mistake. “Yellow Stripe Records emailed me about an internship? I didn’t send them any information.”

  “I know. I did.”

  I shot around in my chair to look at her. She did? “What?”

  Mom lowered the page, and moved to stand next to me. “Well, June and I did. I spoke with her last week. That was fast! They must’ve liked you.”

  “Mom.”

  She reached over me and scrolled down on my laptop. “What?”

  “What’d you do? Catch me up here.”

  Mom smiled. “I knew you wanted this, so I called June. We did the paperwork, and she and I found you some references, and she called her friend Rohan.”

  Rohan. He did that for me?

  Mom continued, sitting next to me. “The current CEO is the daughter of an old client, so I made a call and mentioned that you applied. A bug in her ear, that’s all music is anyway. A really great bug.”

  “You and June did this?”

  “Catch up, Cassie. We did,” Mom said. Her smile was bright and large. “So, now you have an inter
view. You’re one step closer.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I did the only thing I could think of and hugged her.

  A FEW DAYS later, I was in Dr. Lambert’s office. I wasn’t the same girl I had been a few days before. It was impossible to change overnight, yet parts of me had. The prospect of an internship, of a direction, was exciting, and Graham was the best of all.

  “The interview went well?”

  I nodded. “It did! They want me to come up in person in a couple weeks.”

  “You think this is something you’d enjoy?” she asked.

  I smiled. Think wasn’t the right word. “No, I know I’d love it.”

  “And what does Graham say?”

  I shifted. “He’s okay with it.”

  “Supportive?”

  I didn’t want to leave him, but we’d talked about this. A little, anyway. “It would be hard, but yes. He’s very supportive.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  How did she know that? It must’ve been some sort of superpower. I’d been thinking a lot about my father since Graham told me what happened.

  “He met my father once,” I started. Dr. Lambert leaned forward and I retold her the story Graham told me. She nodded, and stared at me intently.

  “What’s your response to that?”

  “I was in shock, obviously.”

  “Were you angry?”

  “A little, but I can’t be mad at him for doing the exact same thing I did.”

  I could’ve sworn she smiled. “Which is?”

  “I tried to protect him. He tried to protect me. We both ended up miserable because of it. I keep wondering what would have happened if he told me, you know? How things could have gone different ways.”