Days Like This (8 page)

MOM HUGGED ME again before we
went inside the house and I patted her back. All this affection was different
for us. Words weaved together in my head:
Too many things // I can’t think
to say // can’t help but feel // can’t understand // like why and how and if //
and when // all of this will start to mend

 “Is that
Graham?” Mom asked, pushing past me. The sound of the saw echoed through the
house. I took a deep breath, and walked inside.

Graham had on
this white sleeveless undershirt and it lay across all the new muscles on his
body. I stopped to watch him, because I had to. Even though it hurt. I needed
the pain to remind myself that I let him go. Everything inside me wanted to
touch him again, to apologize about what happened eleven months ago. To explain.
But I didn’t want to ruin what he’d built. This was what I’d wanted for him all
along—a life without my baggage. Now he had it, and he was better off. I’d made
a mistake by hugging him yesterday—I wasn’t thinking—but it wouldn’t happen
again.

 “Hey,” Graham
said over his shoulder. His eyes peered into me and I froze. How could he do
that with only a look? Mom turned on the record player and blared some Elton
John through the house. Graham and I both looked back toward the foyer, and Mom
stood in the doorway with a smile.

“I’m so glad
you’re here, Cassie,” she said. Then, she disappeared up the stairs leaving me
standing with Graham. I couldn’t believe how unsure I was in front of this
Graham. He was a new Graham, just like I was a new Cassie. He was stronger and surer
of himself. He had a plan and dreams. The Graham I knew never had plans that
didn’t include me, that didn’t have a future with us.
Which was why you let him go.

Graham looked
up at me suddenly, as if he’d felt me looking. We held each other’s gaze across
the room, and I was afraid to breathe in case he broke our gazes. He didn’t
until my phone rang.

 “You haven’t
disappeared,” June said when I answered.

“Not yet. I’m
still intact. Mostly.”

I glanced back
at Graham, who was busy at work now, and walked upstairs as June rambled on. It
was better if I wasn’t near him.

“That’s good.
Three days in and it would be sucky to know you’d already dissolved,” she
exhaled. Probably smoking. “You aren’t missing shit here by the way. I wish I
could skip finals like you.”

“I still have
to take them,” I said.

June said hi
to someone she passed on the sidewalk, and I sat on my bed, tracing the outline
of the circles on my comforter.

“I ran into Rohan
yesterday. The band will be on tour all summer, and I guess a label made an
offer.”

Rohan’s life improved
when I left too. “It’s been three days.”

“They really
loved them.”

“Wow,” I said,
playing with the embroidery on my bedspread. “Good for him.”

“Has he called
you?” she asked, her voice low.

 “No,” I lied.
I hadn’t answered any of Rohan’s calls either. He’d left a lot of messages; his
last one made it clear that we were over, and that I shouldn’t call.

 “I’m glad
you’re alive. No disappearing, Harlen.”

“Promise,” I
said. But I wasn’t sure I could keep that. Talking to June reminded me of what
I wasted. Again.

“I have to go
to biology. I can’t wait for fucking summer.” Then she hung up, and I was left
standing around in my room, the sound of a saw humming between notes of “
Tiny Dancer.”

“Time for your meds,” I said
to Mom as I put lunch in the oven. Graham was still in the living room working
on the wall. Mom groaned.

“I hate this
stuff,” she said.

“You tried to
burn the house down,” I said.

“I didn’t do
that on purpose! Why does everyone keep saying that?” she yelled, and Graham
stop hammering. I didn’t want us to put on a show for him. Or for him to worry.
This wasn’t his problem.

“It’s what
happened; whatever your intentions. You have to take your meds, you know that.”

Mom reached
out and stroked my hair. “Remember when you were little, Cassie? We used to
drive to the beach and spend the whole day there, you and me. Remember?”

I clenched my
jaw. “I remember.”

“We should do
it again. Let’s go the beach, Cassie.”

I shook my
head. “Mom, take your medicine.”

She ignored
me, and looked past me into the distance. I could still see it all, and I knew
she could too. “There was a little shop we used to go to and we’d have ice
cream. I bet it’s still there—”

“Mom—” I
started to walk away, because I could feel a bunch of stuff flashing through my
head. All the moments I clung to from the pretty days, and all the ones I
didn’t want to remember on the ugly ones.

Mom held on to
my hand and kept me in place. “We should go again, Cassie, have one of those great
days.”

I snapped. “You
know what I remember about those days? I remember we’d come home and I’d wake
up in the morning because you were bawling or too depressed to get out of bed.
And I remember missing school for days because I had to take care of you.” Mom
didn’t move, but I couldn’t stop all the wounds from bleeding out now that I’d
opened them.

 
I was six when she’d lost me at the
circus; eight at my school play she didn’t come to; twelve at the movies where
she forgot me; fifteen when I found her in the middle of the night in the
bathtub, nearly drowning in her own bloody water and I called Graham at three
in the morning, barely able to form words. He’d held me while his dad drove us
to the hospital, and sat with me while we waited to see if she would live or
die. He waited all through the night, and into the next morning, and missed
school to be with me when we found out my mom was bipolar. He’d never let go of
my hand.

“
And all the times I didn’t know if you
were going to live. That’s what I remember about those days.” Mom looked
horrified and dropped my hand. I pushed the pills toward her again. “So, take
your pill.”

There were no
sounds from the living room. Which meant he was listening. He knew a lot of
this, he was here for it, but we’d never really talked about it. I’d never
wanted to. Mom took the pill and kissed my cheek, and when she walked away, I
glanced at Graham. He leaned against the beam he’d fixed and looked in my
direction. He seemed sad, and I wondered if he remembered it, too. I would’ve
never made it through those times without him.

THREE DAYS LATER and the wall
had new support beams. All that was left was insulation, dry wall, and paint.
Maybe two days of work and then I wouldn’t have to be in this house with them all
day. It wasn’t bad, but I was living a fantasy, and I knew it was only a matter
of time before all the walls came crashing down again. Walls that I didn’t want
to have to fix.

I hadn’t
really spoken to Cass much. I came in, did my work, and left. She had never
told me about all the episodes with her mom. I remembered things, too. Sometimes
she wouldn’t show up for class, and when I’d get home from school, I’d watch
her house from my window to make sure lights were on. The car would be gone,
and they’d come home in the middle of the night or the next day. She never
talked to me about any of it, but I’d known things were happening with her mom.
She hadn’t wanted me to tell, and I didn’t want to disappoint her. Or lose her.

My phone
dinged. A text from Molly about dinner tonight. I responded and glanced back up
when Joyce squealed. “I love this song!” She yelled as she turned up Dean
Martin.

Cass smiled
too from her place in the kitchen, and they both started singing along. I was
intruding. Then Mrs. H called my name and said, “You do the chorus.”

“I’m working,”
I said, but the smile was on my face anyway. Cass smiled, too. Probably the
first real smile that I’d seen in days. I’d missed her smile, that smile, the
one that lit up a room.

“Come on,
Graham Cracker—you know this one! I know you do,” Mrs. H said.

They were both
quiet as the notes before the chorus grew stronger. “Get ready!” Mrs. H yelled.

I shook my
head, but what the hell? I sang the chorus as loud as I could, like we used to
do when life with them was normal for me. Joyce clapped when I started, and by
the end we were all singing it as if nothing had changed. And maybe it was
wrong of me, but I pretended along with them.

The music
swept us away and I danced around the room with Joyce. I didn’t think, just
moved, and Joyce passed me off to Cass. Somewhere in the laughter and the
dancing and the beat, the song changed. No more swing, and instead the soft
swoon of Sinatra.

Cass didn’t
try to leave my arms, and her being there was so right, so perfect, that I
didn’t make her. I stayed. She stayed, and she was pressed against my chest so that
I could feel her heart beating next to mine. Her breath was on my neck as she
hummed the song close to my ear. It sent shivers down my spine, and I should’ve
stopped it, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I knew what would happen when Cass got
comfortable: she’d let her guard down.

There was
nothing I wanted more than that, especially while she was in my arms. I wanted
her there. I wanted to hold her close while she sang in my ear, because that
was where she belonged. With me. In my arms. Mouth next to my neck. Music
flowing from her lips right into my ear.

Her hum
changed into a soft singing, so low that it could have been missed had I not
been waiting. It’d been a long time since I’d heard her sing, since I had her
close, and it was wrong and selfish, but I didn’t want to let go. I wanted to
listen.

I’d always
thought Cass singing was something too personal for even me. She was like that.
She found something that she loved, something that she was too afraid to lose, then
she took it and held it close. Once we found a snail with a blue shell in the
woods, and she thought it was beautiful so she took it home and put it in a Mason
jar. It was something so precious to her that she didn’t know how to share it.
Sort of like I’d used to think I was to her. Always how she’d been to me.

Cass was
afraid to lose things, and that fear kept her from sharing them; but eventually
without room to breathe and space to move, she killed them. Just like that
snail in the jar. Just like us.

Cassie’s lips
barely grazed my neck, and I pulled away before the song was over. She seemed as
surprised as I was. I don’t know if she meant anything by it, but I felt
everything with that barely there touch. Things I wasn’t supposed to feel. Those
feelings lead to me being hurt. I couldn’t be selfish this time. That never
ended well with us. Not for me.

“I should get
back to it,” I said.

Cass nodded,
and went back into the kitchen. I couldn’t read her face, but that was probably
for the best. I started working on the wall again, more determined to separate
myself from the Harlen women than I was before. I stole one last glance at her
and realized I still didn’t know if Cassie was the snail or the jar, but I did
know I couldn’t stay around to find out.

GRAHAM STAYED ON his side of the room and
barely even looked in my direction after the dance. It was so awkward now. More
than before. I shouldn’t have danced with him, but the song changed to Sinatra,
and I’d thought to myself,
I
should step away.
I’d
hummed the words, because “You Go To My Head” was exactly how I’d felt. I don’t
even know what possessed my lips to get that close to his skin.

Graham had a
girlfriend; I had no right to want to dance with him anymore, or be that close
to him. But it was so normal to be in his arms again that I didn’t want to end
it. I didn’t want there to be distance between us. I’d rested my head on his
chest without thinking, and we’d moved with ease. I stole a glance up at his
face, and he’d seemed to be lost in thought, and it just happened.

God. I was an
idiot. I didn’t know what to say.

I looked up at
him from the kitchen. Music and lyrics rushed through my head, and I wrote them
down as quickly as I could in my notebook.

It’s crazy the way you go to my head //
after all this time of words unsaid // I want to tell you the reason why // I
had to leave, I had to lie // I hope we can repair the part // of me that
exists in your heart // because I still can’t figure out // how to move on from
all this doubt // not of you but of me // and the reason we can never be

If only it was
that easy. How could I tell him any of this without it making me selfish? Yes,
I still loved him, but he had
definitely
made changes in his life. It made me wonder if I had been holding him back
somehow. Was he happy now? Happier than he was with me? All I did was bring
drama into his life with my problems. He had to be better now without my
burdens. I didn’t even deserve to be his friend. Could I be his friend after
everything?

“I’m going to go now,” Graham said from
across the room. I looked at him from my notebook, and watched as he closed up
his toolbox. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Just say it, Cassie.

Just say something. Apologize. Do
something. Make it count.

“Thanks,” I said. Graham nodded and then
he left. So much for making it count.

If I wanted to
be in his life, I had to start somewhere else. I read over the lyrics I’d
written, I knew it had to be at the beginning. That was all I had wanted—to
make it right—and even though being around made me want something more, I
wouldn’t be able to have that.