Casey
Sloane sleeps in and skips breakfast, so it’s only Dad and me at the table on Sunday morning. Quietly eating the eggs I’d overcooked and the bacon I’d nearly burned to a crisp because I’ve been unable to focus on anything since the second I woke up.
I went to bed last night with excitement still thrumming in my fingertips. I had a secret only one person in the universe knew about.
I woke up with an emotional hangover, the secret now a tight knot in the pit of my stomach.
Fortunately, Dad mistakes my mood for grief. He thinks I’m upset about Silver. I’m not. She was going to die anyway. Yes, I enjoyed taking care of her, but it’s about time I stopped getting overly attached to every critter that crosses my path. I need to learn to grow a thick skin. Harden my heart. Otherwise I’m going to keep drowning every time something bad happens. Every time I lose someone.
“I’m taking the dogs out,” I say once we’re cleaning up after breakfast. “I think we’ll walk to the lake.”
“Don’t let Bo swim,” Dad warns. “I know he doesn’t mind the cold water, but it’s almost winter now and it’ll take him forever to air-dry.”
“I’ll do my best,” I promise, but Bo has a mind of his own when it comes to that lake.
Thirty minutes later, Penny and Bo drag me through the forest, traveling their well-worn paths to sniff at their favorite trees and coax squirrels to scurry out from under shrubs. Now that I’m alone again, I fall victim to the myriad conflicting thoughts swarming my mind like bees.
Last night was…
God, I wish I could say it was awful.
It wasn’t. It was really great. And when it was happening, I never paused a moment to consider how I might feel later, only that it felt right at the time.
Now it’s later. Now the consequences begin to creep in, and I feel sick. Because no matter how I break it down, I can’t help this feeling I’ve done something wrong.
Betrayed Fenn.
Which is stupid, I chide myself, smacking down the thought as quickly as it emerges. We’re not dating. He broke us up.
Yet the feeling persists. Lawson’s his friend. The rules of civil society tell us that those boundaries are sacred. Crossing them so egregiously makes a clear statement: I hope this hurts.
But I never set out for revenge.
Despite everything, and against my better judgment, I still love Fenn. It’s easier said than done to separate what he did, the lying, from all the ways he helped put me back together after the accident. The months he was my only friend. My best friend. He saw me in a way no one else could.
Now I know it was because he’d been there. He was the blurry figure on the other side of the glass while water rushed up my legs. He was the one carrying me out of the lake and laying my limp body on the ground with my lips turning blue and blood dripping from my forehead. He knew how close I’d been to dying, and how far I’ve come since.
“I wish you were here,” I say out loud to my mother. “You would talk me through this if you were here. Or at least I hope you would.” I bite my lip. “I like to think you wouldn’t judge or lecture me. That you’d just listen.”
Ahead of me, Bo and Penny bark. I look up to see Fenn at the edge of the path, placating the excited traitors as they jump all over him and compete for attention.
Makes me wish I’d trained them to attack on command.
The nerves hit sideways. I’m half dizzy and ready to vomit. Like sudden onset heatstroke. Fenn approaches me, and I don’t have the first clue how to talk to him anymore.
“Hi,” he says tentatively, hands shoved in the center pocket of his gray hooded sweatshirt. His hair is messy, rumpled on the left side, as if he’d just rolled out of bed. “Your dad told me where you’d be.”
I snort. “I’m surprised he didn’t lead you on a wild goose chase.”
“Honestly, me too. Although he did make it clear he’s still not my biggest fan.” Fenn shrugs. “He caved after I told him I wanted to find you to apologize.”
Derision tickles my throat and comes out as a harsh laugh. “Well, I’m sorry you wasted your time.” I whistle for Bo and Penny, but they’re defiantly zipping around like a couple of caffeinated kids and couldn’t care less that I need to make a quick escape. “I don’t think we have anything left to say to each other.”
“I shouldn’t have ended it over text,” he says. Gruff and remorseful. “I sat in my room all day and night yesterday, mentally ripping myself a new one.” He shakes his head in disgust. Self-directed reproach. “Every time I’m given the choice between right and wrong, I always choose wrong. I’m a goddamn mess.”
“Whatever, Fenn.”
“Please,” he insists, moving with me when I try to walk away. “I came to apologize for being so callous.”
“I don’t care. It’s always something with you.” I stop. A lump of despair lodges in my throat. “I don’t want your apology for your crappy breakup text. I’m done with your apologies.”
“You know I’d do anything—” His voice cracks slightly, “—for things to have turned out different for us.”
My anger blooms out of the despair like a flower opening after a rainstorm. The quickest cure for depression is the rage Fenn induces in me when he so carelessly proves he’ll never understand what his lies of omission do to me.
“You’ll do anything? Do you not realize what bullshit that is? It’s been weeks and you still won’t admit what happened at prom. Because you’re selfish, Fenn. Covering your own ass even if it means hurting someone you claim to care about. So like I said, I don’t want an apology.”
Once again, he rushes to keep step with me while I round up the dogs and make it clear this is me walking away from him.
“Casey, stop.”
“No. I’m not falling for your traps anymore. You say you want to make things right. You’re ready to be honest. Then you dump me over text like an hour before we’re supposed to meet up and talk. You’re a coward. And I’m not going to be the butt of the joke anymore.”
“You’re not a joke,” he insists.
“Honesty isn’t that hard,” I say bitterly. “Just grit your teeth and bear it. It’s simple.” And then I sort of black out, or at least that’s the only explanation I can come up with for what happens next. My mouth goes on autopilot as if my brain decides I should sit this one out. “Like this: I hooked up with Lawson last night.”
For several seconds, he stands there staring at me. Unblinking. He’s an engine that won’t turn over. A dead battery. Stalled out and clicking. Empty.
My pulse shrieks in my ears as I watch his face for any sense of recognition. As I wait for a reaction. For anything.
Then his synapses start firing. Without a word or even the slightest flinch, he turns on his heel and walks away.
Any righteous fury I’d felt in coming clean is immediately doused by the weight of Fenn’s devastation.
I guess honesty isn’t always the best policy.