You and Everything After (16 page)

I’ve slept on the floor before. I’ve slept here lots of times. No big. And I’m pretty sure I’ll be snoring in about two minutes, so I assemble my makeshift bed like a toddler camping out in his room for the night. Pulling myself from my chair to the floor, I tuck the excess pile of linens under my head. I’m awake enough that I hear the closet door creak open and see Cass’s feet stop just short of her bed while she stares at me.

“Goodnight, baby,” I say, unable to help myself.

“Don’t call me
baby
,” she says, and I smile and drift off to sleep, the door open and waiting for me in the morning.

Chapter 19

Cass

 
I’ve spent the last hour debating whether or not to wake him up. As drunk as he was last night, he was also incredibly sweet. I’m not sure what I’m going to get this morning.

I lay there and stared at the ceiling while he snored on my floor for hours. It was loud, but that’s not what kept me from sleeping. It was the watch—and that word.
Always.

This conversation is going to happen, and it’s going to begin the second I wake him up. So, I might as well quit putting off the inevitable. I pick up the small circle pillow from my bed and toss it on his face.

“Morning sunshine,” I say. His watch is tucked in my palm, behind my back, as I sit on the bed and stare down at him.

“Ohhhh wow, yeah,” he grumbles, rubbing his hand harshly over his face and the stubble that is slowly morphing into an almost-beard. “So, I
might
actually be a little hung over,” he says, stretching his mouth out and moving his tongue around like he’s discovering new things about it. “Dry, so damn dry. Water?”

I leave his watch on my bed and roll my eyes as I stand. After I fill a cup with sink water, I hand it to him, and our fingers touch in the exchange. It still gets to me. He still gets to me. Our eyes lock, and I know no matter what he says this morning, I’m going to feel it.

“I got your watch,” I say, reaching to the bed and tossing it on his chest. The thud it makes on impact is heavy, as it should be. “Told you I would get it.”

He looks at it where it lies, his neck craned enough to view it, and his eyes don’t blink for the longest time. The watch rises up and down with his slow, methodical breathing; his expression looks pained. Finally, he reaches for it with his hand and flips the band inside out, looking at the inscription, running his thumb over the word just like I did.

Then his eyes snap to mine. He’s still holding the watch, his knuckles almost white, he’s clutching it so hard, but his eyes are on me, a soft contrast from his straining fingers—as if he’s trying to communicate a million things at once with that look. I see how sorry he is, but I also see so much more—something too overwhelming for him to translate.

“Kelly was my high school girlfriend,” he starts, and I take a deep breath, sitting back down on the bed, my hands gripping the edge, but my eyes on his—I won’t leave his eyes.

“Before we were boyfriend and girlfriend, we were best friends. I met her in kindergarten. I put glue in her hair in first grade, ate glue to impress her in third, beat up Michael Watson in fifth because he was her boyfriend, stepped on her toes in seventh at the junior high dance, and kissed her when we were freshmen.”

Kelly was his girlfriend—his best friend. Kelly is the
Always.
I know it in my heart, and I’m broken immediately just knowing it.

“After my accident, I had to relearn how to do a lot of things in my life. I wasn’t always the guy I am now—the guy who can figure out how to make the bench press work for him, and who can handcycle for ten miles. I didn’t know how to lift myself up from the bed. I didn’t know how I was going to get to the bathroom, or if I would ever be able to drive. I watched my mom pretend she wasn’t crying when I wasn’t looking. Watched my dad do the same. And Nate…he couldn’t hide it, so I just watched him cry. That was the hardest part, because I didn’t want to make it worse for anyone by crying for myself…for all I’d lost. I lost a lot of things, things like baseball, which, while I know that sounds so very unimportant and trivial, it’s still a thing. It was
my
thing. And I had to let it go; I had to watch my brother take it over, love it, become it. I needed a new thing. And as much as my brother, my father, and even on some level my mom thought that I found other things to replace it quickly…I didn’t. I found darkness. And Kelly’s the only one I really told.”

His story hits me with a weight of a thousand bricks. He’s still lying on the ground in front of me, his watch slowly twisting between his fingers. He touches it with a fondness that I’m beginning to understand, with a fondness that scares me, because I don’t know if I can compete with it.

“My physical rehab was brutal. I’m a lot like you, in that respect,” he flashes his eyes from his watch to me, a small curve denting the corner of his lip. “I push myself too hard sometimes. I don’t like hitting walls, don’t like there to be things I can’t find a way through or around. But I was finding those things everywhere I turned.”

I slide from the bed to the floor, my back against my mattress, and my feet pushed in so I can fold my arms over my knees and lay my head to the side, truly listening to him.

“When Nate would visit, we’d play catch. If I missed a ball, he’d run and get it. Because it was faster that way, and I couldn’t run and get it myself. He’d ask me to show him the weights in the therapy room, ask me to lift things, show him how strong I was getting. And I
was
getting stronger, but only on the outside. Inside…I was dying.”

“Kelly would come every morning and night, on her way to and from school. She stayed longer into the evening than she should, and she failed biology our sophomore year because of it. But I couldn’t get her to go; she wouldn’t leave. She promised me she’d never leave, and I knew she meant it—she would stand by her promise. Then one night, I took advantage of her loyalty. I was so fucking depressed that I asked her to help me stop hurting.”

The impact his words have on my chest is massive. They strike the air from my lungs with one pass and push the tears from my eyes the next. I let them fall in front of him. I let them slide down my cheeks, and chin, and neck, until they fall to the floor. I watch him struggle through this, swallowing hard, breathing deeply, closing his eyes until he opens them to rest on the watch again.

The watch. I get it. The watch.

“She refused, as I probably knew she would,” he says, a painful smile coming and going. “And the next day, she didn’t come. I thought that was it. I thought I had pushed her away because of how deep and dark and afraid and hurt I had become. And I was okay with that, because in a way, I liked the idea of not dragging her down with me—of her getting to go do all of those things that we had planned, just with someone else. I was even okay with the someone else.”

“And then the day after that, she showed up on her way to school, and she put a box on my lap while I was getting ready for my morning rehab. It was this old beat-up cardboard box that looked like it had been through a fire, but somehow the sides still remained intact and the lid still fit snuggly on top. I opened it and found this watch inside,” he says, handing it back to me to take. I’ve seen it, memorized it in the twenty-four hours that I’ve had it in my possession, but out of respect, I take it from him anyway, turning the inscription over to say it aloud.

“Always,” my voice is hoarse and beaten down.

“Kelly’s mom bought this watch for Kel’s dad after he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Her dad was a blue-collar man who worked hard, with his hands, his entire life. But the cancer left him weak, unable to breathe without a tank at his side and unable to provide for his family the only way he knew how. Kel’s mom gave him this to remind him of the things that matter—to remind him that he doesn’t have to carry everything on his own, and to remind him that he’s loved—
always.
And that’s why she gave it to me.”

“You still love her. Why aren’t you with her?” I ask, not in a jealous way, but in an earnest one. I am jealous, deeply so—full of envy for all of the things Kelly has from Ty that I don’t. But his words have also opened my eyes to how deep his relationship is with this woman, this woman who I don’t even know,
who
I envy, but cannot possibly hate because of what he’s told me.

He laughs softly, a faint smile painted on his face as he pulls the watch over his hand and clasps it firmly to his wrist.

“Always,” he says, looking at it. “Yes, Cass, I will love Kelly…always. But
this,”
he turns his arm in front of me, flashing the silver band of the watch. “This was all so long ago. And my love for Kelly, it’s different now. It’s part of my past, and I honor it and am thankful for it. And for the last six years, I’ve had her friendship, and this watch. And I draw strength from that.”

My head is down when he sits up fully. Soon, his hand is on my chin, tilting my face so I can look at him, into his eyes.

“It’s just a watch. I know that now. I knew that then. And I’m sorry that I…I don’t know what to call it, went
apeshit
? I’m sorry I went apeshit on you over a watch. And I’m sorry I was a grumpy asshole. And I’m sorry that you had to run into some girl from my past like that—and that I didn’t go after you. I’m sorry I called you a tart for being a good lover—because damn, Cass, you are an amazingly passionate woman, and I am a spoiled man for having had the honor to have been with you in such an intimate way.”

I blush from his attention, and as much as I’m still stuck on the watch and Kelly and everything it means to him, his words melt right through me, and I believe them as he says them. I lean into his hand, and I love the way he holds the weight of my worries.

“I had a great love, and then I had a great tragedy,” he says. “That love, it put me right again, sent me on my way to where I am now. To you. And as far as I’m concerned, from now on, there is just you…and everything after.”

There’s nothing to say to this. His face, the way he’s looking at me, his eyes moving back and forth between each of mine, his hands cradling my face, not letting go until he knows I am okay—it’s not what I was expecting today. But it’s what I wanted. What I needed.

“I’m really glad I waited for you to sober up,” I smile. Ty shakes his head, laughing as he looks down, and then he brings my lips to his, kissing me softly and gently before pulling me to his chest to hold me close.

I touch the watch on his wrist, and he pulls it off and hands it to me to look at more closely. “Do you still talk to Kelly?” I ask.

“I do,” he says, stopping short. I know there’s more, and I wait, hoping he wants to share it. “I have a lot lately…and not because of anything with you. Kelly’s having some trouble, it’s been on my mind.”

“You should help her,” I say, handing the watch back.

“I will,” he says, and again I fill the little sting of jealousy for how quickly he reacts for her. It’s not a wanted emotion, but it’s there nonetheless. I can’t pretend it isn’t.

“She’d like you,” he says, and I don’t know how I feel about that either, but I smile up at him, and wish for everything after.

Chapter 20

Ty

“Dude. How much did you drop on this tux?” My brother is taking his girlfriend to prom. Well, not
really
prom, but a fake prom date that he has all planned out—he got a limo and everything. Rowe was homeschooled, because she wasn’t really keen on going back to her school after the shooting. Not sure I would be able to go back either.

“No comment,” he says, fussing with his tie—untying, retying, untying.

“No comment? Uh, I’m pretty sure the lavender cummerbund is a comment. Or is that making a statement? I’m not sure—I think maybe both.” I’m having fun with this. My brother looks like a Ken doll.

“Whatever, man. You wouldn’t understand,” he says, getting frustrated with the tie once again and moving to the mirror to obsess over it even more. I could help; I’m actually good at tying ties. But watching him struggle, for just a little bit longer? Yeah, I’m going to give myself this gift.

I’ve given Nate shit for days over this whole prom thing, but I actually think it’s kind of cute.
Cute.
That’s a word I’ve never used before when talking about Nate. Anyway, I’ve been giving him a ton of crap, but I’m borrowing his idea to use on Cass, of course, Tyson-ized.

My gym bag is stuffed with a bunch of lame CDs I got from the record exchange, some balloons, and a desktop disco ball from Target. The sentiment is there, and really—that’s what my prom was, not that I stayed through much of it.

Nate’s phone rings, and I watch him drop both ends of the tie with a defeatist attitude.

“Oh, good. You’re downstairs then? No, that’s fine. Just wait in the car. We’ll be there soon,” he says to someone on the other end. Curious, I head into the hall and the main study room to look at the parking lot below. Sure enough—fucker rented a limo. Damn, my brother might as well be a contestant on
The Bachelor
with this shit.

“Did you seriously get a limo?” I get ready for a new round of teasing as I come back into the room.

“I told you, I’m not messin’ around. Prom is serious shit, and when you throw a prom, you do it right. Now come fix my damn tie,” he says, holding both ends out for me. I take them because I don’t want him to look like a sloppy loser, and while I’m tying, I can’t help but snicker at the crappy dollar decorations and random things I’ve thrown together for my version of prom. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think you need a limo and suit to
do it right.
I’m pretty sure I can make tonight memorable all on my own—me and
Slow Dance Hits from the Eighties.

“How are you my brother? I mean…seriously, I’m starting to think we need to give up on all the Barbie shit in our room, because you’re making estrogen.” I’m pissing him off, and I love it. It’s like when we were kids and I used to make ghost shadows through his window with the flashlight to scare the crap out of him. I’m trying not to bust out laughing all together when I lift the leg of his pants—or dare I say,
trousers
—and check to see if he’s shaved.

“Dude, don’t touch my leg. What are you doing?” Nate yells kicking my hand away.

“Just checking to see if you’ve started shaving your legs. Your razors aren’t pink, are they?” I can barely finish the sentence without laughing. It’s that kind of laugh where I can’t breathe now, and I’m turning red and coughing. When he gives me the finger, it only makes me laugh harder.

“No, jackass. And this is important, so cut the crap,” he says, holding the loose ends of his tie again. He pulled it apart messing with it. Honestly, he should just wear a clip-on. That thought makes me chuckle.

“Important to whom? To Rowe? Because I was in that room an hour ago, and she was not a happy camper having Paige’s hands all over her face and head,” I tell him. Seeing Rowe get ready for tonight only made me like her more. She’s not fussy. I like that.

I pick on him for a few more minutes, just long enough to finally get his tie to stay in place, and I send him off, blowing him a kiss and reminding him to be home by curfew.

“Shithead!” he yells as the door closes behind him.

I pull my duffel bag into my lap and look through my prom package again—and for a second, I feel bad that it’s kind of pathetic. But Cass isn’t Rowe, and I’m not really trying to create some full-blown experience. I’m just trying to be sweet and romantic, and I kind of suck at that, so I feel pretty good about this attempt. Maybe, though…maybe the workout clothes should change.

Most of my nice things go with jeans, and jeans take me a while, so I send Cass a quick text and tell her I’ll be over in about twenty minutes. I wear the dark pullover shirt, gray and black stripes, because that’s the one I wore the night of the party when I first talked to Cass—the night she slayed every dude in the room at that video game and drank me under the table. How the hell did she end up with me?

Finally satisfied that I look good, but not like I’m trying too hard, I lock up our room and make my way to Cass’s. The door is open, so I knock lightly and move inside. Her back is to me, and she doesn’t see me at first. Before I can warn her that I’m coming, she runs her arm along her face and eyes.

Shit! She’s crying.

I freeze, then back pedal as quietly as I can, knocking at the door again, this time a little more loudly, and coughing on my entry just to be safe. She stands quickly, and she smiles. I know that move. I’ve fucking patented that move. And I can just tell her world isn’t right. Her eyes are still puffy for Christ’s sake. But she’s pretending. Fronting—yeah, I’ve done fronting.

“Baby,” I say, setting the bag down on her bed and moving closer so I can hug her waist and pull her close.

“Don’t call me baby,” she half giggles and half cries, pulling the end of her sleeve into her palm and wiping tears away before they have a chance to fall. She can’t keep up the façade—it must be bad, whatever it is.

“Wanna tell me about it?” I want her to tell me about it, so when she says it’s nothing at first, I’m actually sad. A girl is crying, and I want to help. I suck at this too, just like I suck at big romantic gestures—but I want to try.

“I’m good at listening,” I say, stopping short of begging her to open up about whatever made her upset.

“My parents,” she pauses, her lip slipping from its grip between her teeth and her breath heavy as she fights to stop her tears. “I’m sorry. I hate crying. It makes me mad. Makes me feel weak.”

“You’re not weak,” I say, pulling her hand away from her face to kiss it. “I cry.”

“You cry?” she asks.

“Well, no…not really…I mean,
hello
? Pathetic with a capital P!” She laughs, which was really my only goal.

“My parents…they don’t think I should play. Don’t think it’s good for me,” she says, and I can tell she’s heartbroken.

“Did you tell them to fuck off?” I’m only half kidding, but I let her laugh and think I’m joking.

“No,” she says. “I can’t do that. My dad…he’s
more
okay with it than my mom. And I can usually get my way if I win him over and get him on my side. But this time...my mom won.”

“Does she have some dirt on your dad or something?” I tease, trying to lighten the mood because I can tell Cass is lost in these sad thoughts. She flashes a short smile at my joke, but it fades quickly.

“Something like that,” she says, taking one more deep breath and slipping from my hold to stand in front of me. “Okay, enough of that. Enough of
them.
What’s the plan for tonight? What’s this
big idea
you said you had?”

“Well,” I start, unzipping my duffel and pulling out the desktop disco lamp, which is met with a praising nod and laugh. I follow it with a few cheesy decorations and some pink balloons that honestly look like condoms when I blow them up. Cass helps me toss them around the room, kicking them and volleying them in the air for a few minutes. It’s such a simple game—we’re like children playing, but whatever had her heartsick is gone now, so we keep batting the condom balloons around until she collapses on the bed and sighs, her mouth still stretched in a smile as she watches a balloon float down to her face.

“We’re having a party?” she finally asks, smacking the balloon into my face.

“Sort of,” I say, pulling out the cheap CD player last. “I didn’t think it was fair that Rowe got a prom tonight and you didn’t. So….”

I finally get the CD player plugged in and start the first song, which is mostly incredibly cheesy saxophone music. When I turn back to Cass, she’s shading her face like she’s embarrassed.

“Oh. My. God. This is…like…the corniest thing ever,” she says, and as if on cue, I tap the button on the light and the room illuminates with disco crystals. I move to the light switch, flip it off, and the effect is just as roller-rink-style as I thought it would be. I’m pretty pleased.

“No. No, wait. I lied.
Now
this is the corniest thing ever,” she giggles. There’s no trace of her frown left, no hint of a tear, and as ridiculous as this all is—she’s looking at me like I just gave her a dozen roses. Yeah, I did good.

“Shut up, beautiful, and get over here and dance,” I say, reaching for her hand while some song that I think was maybe from the movie
Footloose
starts.

Her fingertips graze against mine, and she’s timid as she inches closer to me, her eyes moving from her feet to my shoulders, to both sides—she’s unsure how this is done, of how to dance…
with me.

“Relax,” I nod, slowly. When she gets close enough, I put my hands on her waist, turn her to the side and sweep her up so she’s in my lap, her legs kicked off to the side. “Put your arms around me. This is dancing, and we’re allowed to be a ruler’s length away from each other.”

“Oh, really,” she says, her smile sly as she looks off to either side of us. She gets close to my face, close enough to whisper, “I don’t think the teachers are looking.”

She pulls herself tight against me, her arms around my neck and shoulders, and rests her head just below my chin. Everything about right now is perfect. With my right hand, I reach for my wheel and turn us in a slow circle, my other hand flat against her back, making sure she doesn’t go.

It isn’t perfect. The CD skips a few times, and the battery-powered disco lamp makes a buzzing sound—like a vibrator. But if I had to venture to guess, I would say that this moment—this
prom experience—
kicks every other prom experience’s ass.

“Thank you, Tyson,” she says, nuzzling deeper into the crook of my neck as I spin us for another song.

“You got it, baby,” I say, and she squeezes me a little tighter.

I like it when she calls me Tyson. And she just let me call her baby.

Cass

He’s like magic. That’s the only way to describe what Ty does when I’m feeling…
less.
He takes it all away. He doesn’t think he’s romantic, but my god. I don’t like grand gestures. I’m not the girl who wants the proposal in front of thousands at the hockey game one day—not that I don’t
love
watching that happen for someone else, because I do! I just don’t want
my
face on that Jumbotron, not for anything other than scoring a goal.

I like simple. There’s potency in simple. There’s…
magic
in simple. And these simple moments are just for me and Ty, and nobody else.

He’s held me close in his lap for three whole songs, and I marvel that his right arm isn’t tired from spinning us in a slow circle. He’s rocked me once or twice, too.

His left hand has slid around my shoulders, to my breast, finally coming to rest along the side of my face. It’s the most tender of touches, and his thumb glides along my cheek in a way that honestly makes me feel beautiful. The CD starts to skip badly now, and even that somehow just seems right.

Ty reaches over and smacks the top of the player, and it makes the music skip ahead to some sort of reggae song that isn’t remotely romantic, and it makes us both turn and look at the music player and laugh.

“Where did you even
get
this CD?” I ask.

“Record Exchange,” he says, smacking it once more, causing it to start back at the beginning. I like the beginning. I like the thought of staying here, like this all night, starting over and over.

“I hope you didn’t pay much for it,” I say.

“No, got it for free. Well…sort of,” he says, and I lean back, quirking an eyebrow up. “I traded in one of Nate’s movies.”

“He’s going to be pissed,” I say, laying my head down on his shoulder, my hand tucked under his shirt against his bare chest so I can feel the movement of his muscles, his heart, his skin.

“No, he won’t. I watched it a shitload more than he did anyway. Nate’s not really a porn kinda guy.”

“Oh,” I say, suddenly uncomfortable at the thought of Ty and porn and me. And Nate. And,
oh God!
He can feel the heat on my face, he must, because he’s trying to look me in the eye, and I’m trying to bury myself under his arm.

“Cass, what kind of movie did you
think
I’d trade in for a shitty CD?” he says, amused by my embarrassment.

“I don’t know. I just…
wow.
Do you, like…watch that stuff? I mean, with your brother?” I’m so uncomfortable. I don’t know why. I’ve seen porn. The guys in high school used to play them at parties just to make the girls blush. It never bothered me. But something about talking about it with Ty is…weird.

“First off, you don’t
watch
porn. You
use
it,” he says, and I hold up my hand and slide from his lap to my bed. As much as I want to stay in his arms all night, in our dance, right now the urge to bury my face in my pillow is stronger.

“Nope, that’s good. Don’t need to hear any more,” I say, and he pulls himself close to me, leaving his chair and lying flat alongside me. When I try to cover my face with my hands, he pulls them away.

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s actually a really amazing business concept with high levels of demand and never-ending supply,” he says, talking about it like a commodity. “We should watch one.”

“Oooohhhhh kay. I think we’re done talking about porn now,” I say, red again, only to find him getting closer, teasing me.