You and Everything After (19 page)

“So…I think I should probably start with Kyle Loftman,” I say, keeping my focus on his fingers, my pretend piano. I play
Mary Had a Little Lamb,
or at least, what I think is that song. He lets me play, tilting his head to one side and looking up at me, my glance shifts from his fingers to his eyes and back again.

“Is this story going to piss me off?” he asks.

That’s a loaded question. I pause and cup his hand in both of mine, then lean forward to kiss it and press it on the side of my face while I look at him.

“Yes. No. Maybe,” I say, through a truly pathetic smile.

“Okay, that sounds fair. Bases are covered,” he says, wiggling his fingers again to let me play. I like that he does this, let’s me have an outlet for my nerves. Or maybe he just likes it when I rub his hands. Either way.

“Kyle Loftman was a student teacher at my high school. He was about to graduate. Your age, really.” I can feel his fingers grow stiff, but they loosen again quickly. I keep going, keep playing my song. “I was sort of…I don’t know…one of those
easy
girls in high school.”

His hand grabs mine, and he tugs for my attention. “Hey, don’t do that. Don’t ever apologize for things in your past. Not to me,” he says. I nod, and my breath comes sharp and fast. I would cry if I weren’t so nervous. I hate crying. “Go on. I won’t judge you. Not ever.”

I spread his fingers, weaving mine in and out while I talk. “Kyle was helping out our soccer team, and one night, he found his way to one of our parties. He was young, just a little older. Liking him was dangerous, but a safe kind of dangerous. So I slipped into one of the rooms with him at the house we were at, and we made out. That was it. Nothing heavy. No sex. Some…
touching
,” I admit, my face feeling the burn of humiliation saying this to Ty—to anyone.

“Don’t,” he reminds me, and I swallow hard, trying to gain courage from him.

“The next day, there was a knock at my parent’s door. My dad answered, and it was a young woman—short, brunette…pregnant. She asked for me, so my dad called me downstairs. He stood behind me when I cracked open the door the rest of the way. He stood there while she told me to stop sleeping with her husband. She spit on the screen door, cried, and told me I should be ashamed of myself. She called me a slut…and then she walked away.”

Ty’s hands wrap around mine, and I look at him. His face is exactly as I hoped—he’s angry, but on my side. He’s angry that I was accused, that I was spit at, that my father just stood by and watched it all happen.

“What did your dad do?” he asks.

“He told me I was being careless, that she could make this an issue with the school—which she did,” I say, remembering the hell that was the end of my senior year. “He kept the details from my mom and from Paige. Or at least, I thought he did. My mom brought it up the other day, so somehow, the story got out. My dad’s law firm worked with the district, kept things hushed. Kyle wasn’t punished, because I never accused him of anything. He didn’t do anything wrong, other than
not
let me know he was married. That…
that
was wrong,” I say, letting out a huge breath, the weight of everything.

“That dick owes you an apology,” Ty says, and I laugh.

“Which one?” I say, not sure who he was referring to—Kyle or my dad.

“Exactly,” he says, and I kiss his hand and move to lie on his arm. “So, what does this have to do with Paul
whatshisname
? Whatever it was that Chandra chick said.”

This part of the story…
this confession
? This one is going to make him angry. Not at me…but angry for sure.

“First of all, I need you to promise me you’ll stay…calm,” I say, mentally crossing my fingers.

“Can’t do that,” he says back fast, and I sink into him, my stomach churning and trying to convince me to backtrack, to
not
tell this part of the story. “I’m sorry Cass, but I won’t make a promise I can’t keep. I have a feeling I’m going to want to punch someone, and it might even be that Chandra chick by the time you’re done.”

“I’m okay with that,” I laugh, cringing that I’m advocating for a man hitting a woman. I don’t think it counts in this case.

“The day of tryouts…I had that physics makeup test, remember?”

Ty nods, his jaw flexing, his teeth grinding underneath.

“I knew something was off. The teacher, that’s Paul Cotterman…he was…sort of flirty,” I say, testing the waters. Ty’s
face hardens
even more. Yeah, he’s going to react badly.

“Go on,” he says, his eyes focused on my lips, almost zoning out.

“He was that way with a few people in class, really. Not just me. But when I went in to take the makeup exam, the room was empty. It was just me,” I say, closing my eyes and remembering how dirty his hand felt on my thigh, how hot his breath was on my neck, how demonic his voice was at my ear.

“I don’t like this Cass. If that dude hurt you, I swear to god I will kill him. I. Will. Fucking. Kill. Him,” Ty says, a menacing calmness to his tone.

“You don’t have to. It’s okay. He…he…” I can’t say it, and Ty squeezes my hand to let me know it’s okay. “He touched me, first on my leg, and then he tried to grab my breast. He was holding me to him, and things could have been really bad. But, I hit him, Ty. I hit him hard—first with my elbow, then with my fist. His nose bled, like a fucking faucet. Then I kicked him in the balls to make sure he couldn’t follow me.”

His mouth is slightly open, and he’s still looking at me, just not at my eyes—like he’s taking me in, but not completely. He’s lost in his thoughts, no doubt reconstructing this scene in his own mind. I wait while he thinks, and then finally his eyes shift to me.

“I’ll kill him,” he says, his mouth open just enough to show the pressure of his teeth gnashing together. And I believe if Paul Cotterman were to stand in front of Tyson Preeter right now, he would die. And Ty would gladly take the punishment just to see the deed done. I lean forward and kiss his cheek, the tenseness in his muscles unrelenting.

“As much as I would love to see Paul Cotterman run into you in some dark alley, that wouldn’t even come close to solving my problems,” I say, and his mouth relaxes a small fraction with his breath, his eyes soft on mine.

“This is why your parents are upset, isn’t it?”

Ty is so smart.

“They’re referring to it as the
Paul Cotterman issue,”
I say, a breathy laugh punctuating the end. “I’m pretty sure they think it’s like what happened with Kyle. I don’t think they believe things happened as I say they did. There aren’t really any witnesses. My dad made sure he resigned.”

“That’s good,” Ty says, not waiting for the rest.

“Yeah, that
was
good. But it seems Cotterman is thinking of fighting it. And like I said…there really isn’t any proof. I could easily just be a student trying to get out of a bad grade.”

“Faking an assault is a pretty steep move just to avoid getting a bad grade,” Ty says.

“Yeah, but I hit him, Ty.
I’m
the assaulter!”

“No, you’re not,” he says, his hands quick to my face to force me to look at him. “No you’re not. You’re the victim. And you had every right to fuck that asshole’s face up.”

Without warning, my face grows weak, and the tears slide from my eyes. “Fuck,” I swear, stuffing my face into Ty’s chest, rubbing my puffy eyes against his shirt. “I hate crying.”

“Yeah, well, I hate snot on my T-shirts, but what are you going to do,” he says, and I laugh hard and long. He squeezes me and just lets me feel. He lets me feel bad, let’s me laugh at his stupid joke, and then let’s me just sit here and think about how angry I am at everyone and everything—everything, but him.

“That Chandra chick is a bitch,” I say, finally.

“Yep,” he says, his chin on my forehead.

I don’t say the next part. That’s what hurts me the most. That’s what made me cry. Someone told Chandra about Paul Cotterman—and I’m pretty sure it was Paige.

Chapter 23

Ty

“Dude, you need to spend more nights with Cass. You’re a pain in the ass to sleep in the same room with lately,” Nate says. It was another night of tossing and turning, and my pain has been spiking more than normal lately. Fucking up a spinal cord does a number on the nerves, and they let me know when they’re pissed off. Mine are
really
pissed off. But I don’t like taking meds. Meds can sometimes lead to dependence and depression, and that shit ain’t happening to me.

“Sorry man. Cass has had a busy couple of weeks, and finals are coming up. I’ve been putting in a lot of reading time,” I say. I’m pretty sure I just fed Nate a bunch of excuses.

Cass has been busy working her ass off with soccer. She hasn’t talked to her parents in weeks, and she’s not really speaking to Paige either. I talked her into filing a police report on Paul Cotterman, and it took me days to convince her it was the right thing to do. She kept saying that it would ruin her dad’s plans, but I told her that her dad’s plans sound like bullshit. If this dude ends up fighting to get his job back, then there needs to be a paper trail that lays out what a douche he is.

All of the drama has gotten in the way of
easy
though. I miss easy. I miss that moment—her on my lap at the Halloween party, before Chandra set off a row of dominoes that tipped over every ray of sunshine in Cass’s life, replacing it with a cloud. I don’t know how to make her sun shine through again. The power doesn’t rest with me, and the small places where it does, I just mess it up.

“Hey, thanks for inviting Rowe to Thanksgiving by the way. That didn’t hurt Cass’s feelings or anything,” I say, throwing my rolled up dirty socks at my brother.

“First of all, fuck you very much. Second of all, you like Rowe. She needed a place to go, and I want her with me. If it’s such a big deal, then suck it up and invite Cass,” he says, throwing my dirty laundry back in my lap.

I’d love to invite Cass. I almost did. But Kelly’s been calling me every night lately. Jared’s been disappearing more often. He told her he’s taking a class, something for his sales position. I promised Kelly I’d get to the bottom of it for her when I come home, and having Cass there…that complicates things.

I flop back on my bed and sigh, loudly enough for Nate to hear and chuckle at my helplessness. I’m helpless—utterly lost on the relationship roadmap; I’m off the grid.

“Is this why Tyson Preeter
doesn’t
do girlfriends
?” Nate jokes, absolutely loving every second of my stress. “What is it you always say? Relationships are full of…
fussy fuss?”

“Oh, ha ha ha. You just love throwing that saying back in my face. Yes, I didn’t do girlfriends. And now I do. And look—right smack dab in the middle of a pile of fussy fuss.
Fussy fuss
all over the goddamned place! It’s making me nuts!” I say, my arms stretched above my head, holding the invisible weight of everything.

“Yeah…but you love it,” Nate says, and I pause, not looking at him, not willing to answer aloud, but also unable to stop the smile that takes over my face because yeah, I love it. And I love her, too. I’m screwed.

Cass

It really hit me when I watched Rowe pack. She’s going home with Nate for the holiday. I’m going home to a house full of people I don’t want to talk to, and riding on the plane next to a sister I want to choke. I’ll be in California for almost a full week, but I’d so much rather stay here, in my dorm room, alone.

“How about I just put you in my suitcase,” Rowe jokes, zipping her small bag closed.

I pull my knees in close to my body, tucking my neck in, and trying to make myself small. “What do you think? Will I fit?” I ask, knowing I won’t. I don’t fit lots of places.

“Hmmmm, it might be a tight squeeze. I bet if I borrowed one of Paige’s bags I could get you in,” she says. I know it’s only a joke, but it still makes my stomach roll thinking about the plane ride I’m going to have to endure.

“Ugh, Paige,” I let out, surprising myself.

“Trouble in twinland lately, huh?” Rowe says, sitting next to me and pulling her knees in close. We both roll back like balls. I joked with her that this was my version of Pilates once, and ever since then, it’s become our thing.

“I’m sort of mad at Paige,” I admit, still holding my knees in to my chest, rolling to the side, knocking into Rowe. She nudges me upright with her leg, and we pull ourselves up to sitting, just to roll backward again.

“I noticed I haven’t seen her around. I thought it was maybe just because she has a new boyfriend,” Rowe says.

“That’s part of it. When she’s into a guy, everything else disappears. But honestly, I couldn’t care less right now. I kind of welcome the excuse not to have to talk to her,” I say, my eyes focusing on a small star sticker above my bed, left by the person who stayed in this room before me, or maybe it was left well before then. I plan on leaving it behind when I leave in the spring—someone else deserves to stare at it when they think too.

“I’m sorry,” Rowe says, rolling into me lightly. I grab her arm once and squeeze, pulling myself back up to sitting, and I let my legs dangle off the end of the bed.

“Thanks. It’ll work itself out. She just…she broke a promise. But it’ll work out,” I say, more to convince myself than Rowe.

I was alone for an hour after Rowe took off. Ty left his long-sleeved striped shirt with me, or rather, I took it from his closet, and he didn’t make me give it back. I put it on, deciding to use it to give me strength on my plane ride.

Paige calls and tells me to meet her at the curb, so we can share our cab. By the time I meet her out front with my bag, she’s already on the phone with someone else. She’s talking about the winter formal her sorority is throwing, and she keeps saying how much stress planning this all is going to be.

Stress. This is
stressful
for my sister.

The longer her conversation goes, the more I feel the need to laugh, until finally I give in and let a few chuckles out. She continues to talk while we get into the cab, snapping her fingers and pointing to the driver so he can take her bag. We’re only minutes away from the airport when she finally says goodbye, along with some stupid inside joke about rhinoceroses and hippos to whomever she’s talking to. She’s still laughing to herself, amused by the conversation, when I finally explode.

“You are so rude,” I say.

“Uhm, excuse me?
That
was rude,” she says, her compact already in her hand so she can check her lipstick.

“Your lips look fine. We’re getting on a plane, not having our portraits done,” I say. The seal is broken. The words from my mouth are only going to get worse.

“Wow. Someone woke up and put on her bitch costume today,” she says. She tucks her compact back in her purse, so at least I get the satisfaction of that.

I manage to keep my mouth shut for the rest of the ride, and I bite my tongue in line, through security, and for the forty minutes we sit and wait for our gate to open. When we finally board, I pull my phone out and text Ty and Rowe, letting them know I’m about to take off. Paige pulls her phone out to check her texts too, and something makes me glance in her lap. I see the picture of her and Chandra, arms around each other, cups in their hands, at some frat party.

“Where was this taken?” I ask, pulling the phone from her fingers.

“First off, don’t touch my phone. And second, at a party, duh,” she says, taking the phone back and shutting it off completely.

I stare at her, my stomach so sick with hate that I fear I may actually need the bag tucked in the seat-back pocket in front of me. I had this feeling all along that Paige was the one to tell Chandra, but I held out hope. I knew they knew each other, but I convinced myself that they didn’t know each other
well
. But my instincts…they are sharp. And as much as I wanted to ignore the arrows, they still pointed to Paige in the end.

“I can’t believe you told her,” I say, forcing myself to breathe in slowly, an effort to stave off the tears that want to ruin my face. I won’t cry. I won’t cry.

“Told who what?” Paige says, not looking at me. Her indifference infuriates me, so I grab her chin and pull her face to mine. Her first reaction is to pull back. But then she sees me. She
sees.

“You told Chandra about Paul Cotterman.”

She doesn’t deny it. She doesn’t blink. She stares right back at me, guilty as hell. The wheels of her mind are spinning, trying to find a version of history that doesn’t match up to what I’m saying. But there isn’t one. She told her. And Chandra probably told everybody on the team. And I am right back where I started—the girl in high school with the scarlet letter on her forehead.

“Cass,” she says, her voice quivering as she pieces it all together.

“I can’t trust you,” I say, unbuckling my belt and standing quickly to grab my bag from the overhead bin.

“Cass, don’t! What are you doing? Where are you going?” Her face honestly looks distressed. I can’t deal with it.

“I’m not going anywhere, Paige. I just can’t sit here, next to
you
, for four hours. I’m changing seats. That’s all,” I say, grabbing my bag and moving to the very last row. I can’t lean my seat back, and there’s less legroom here, but it’s better than the alternative.

Paige did it again. I’m going home for a holiday where I’m supposed to be thankful for family—what irony.