“I haven’t spoken to your parents, but for what it’s worth, they look happier,” I said, trying to make her feel better but not knowing if those words would actually do it.
Divorces happened all over the world on a daily basis, but when it happened to your own parents, even if you were an adult, it had to be emotional.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, terrified she’d say yes and worried she’d say no.
Cass shook her head against where she pushed off my neck and then sat back and wiped her eyes. “I don’t know if I’m happy, sad, or… relieved. I wished for them to split up as a kid. So wrong of me, right? Now that they have, I’m not sure how to feel. Everyone says we’re similar, but she’s always so angry.”
I didn’t understand because I’d never been in her shoes, but I made sense of struggling to process an emotion. I’d gold medal in the Olympic event of ignoring my emotions for too long. Look what I let it do to us.
I ran my hands up and down her arms. Her skin pebbled, like it was cold even though we were sitting in the blistering sun.
“Babe, you’re nothing like your mother.” I’d only met Cassandra’s mother a few times, but she was nothing like the real sunshine her daughter projected everywhere.
One of my greatest regrets in life included my inability to keep Cassandra protected from her parents. I did not know the way the turmoil of their relationship affected her. Regardless if my aunt meant to call her a slut or not—I wouldn’t put it past Katy to have faked that voice recording somehow—my family was still miles away from what Cassandra lived with daily.
She wiped her eyes again and used her free hand to make a little pile of sand next to us, but she didn’t leave my embrace. The things she ran from happened in the past, but I liked to pretend I could keep her safe from the monsters that scared her. All I had to do was hold her and never let go.
“I try hard not to be like her,” she finally answered minutes later. “But I never really know if I’m succeeding or not.”
I guided her face high to look me in the eye and see I spoke the truth with what I said next. “Cass, you were never like her, even when you aren’t trying.” She didn’t need to work at being a good person. It just radiated from her.
“I just can’t believe no one told me. Maybe I should be around more.”
I dropped my hand and let her attention fall back onto her sand pile. “Could you ever be happy in Pelican Bay?” I held my breath, waiting for her answer. She’d spent so many years away. I didn’t think Cassandra would ever find happiness in our tiny little seaside town. Even if her parents were no longer constantly fighting with one another, so many terrible memories were there, so much bad blood.
She considered my question for a moment. “I don’t know.” She paused and thought more. “What if I came back to Pelican Bay and my mother’s drama somehow seeped into me? I never want to become so unstable and angry. That’s what it is, you know? Anger. Bitterness. It’s eaten away at her.”
Did she think it was a proximity thing?
I laughed and hugged her tightly, the jerking motion messing up the pile of sand she created next to our towel. “Babe, enough people are around. Someone would warn you if you even put a foot past the dark side line.”
If she thought I’d let her become her mother, Cassandra didn’t know me well.
She looked up at me with an expression where she didn’t have to use words to tell me she thought I was crazy. “How do you think to manage that?”
My plan was foolproof. “I’d walk you into the ocean and dunk you.” It worked so well the day before. It was now the entire way I’d solve any problem for any relationship—a nice chilly dip in Maine’s waters.
I laughed, thinking of me throwing my brother Ridge over my shoulder and then tossing him into the sea. It might help that room-sized ego of his.
Cassandra didn’t seem to believe in the effectiveness of my new idea. She playfully tapped me on the shoulder and laughed, settling back and wrapping her arms around me in a hug. I allowed mine to fall, so they laid against her hips but squeezed her harder.
“I’m not so sure about this plan’s effectiveness,” she said, her words muffled against my shoulder. “Plus, you’d end up getting wet and cold too.”
“Then you could warm me up,” I whispered in her ear. We weren’t back together or dating, yet it felt like we fallen into our old patterns, and the words slipped out before I contemplated what I’d said. Everything with her came so naturally.
I almost apologized and took my words back, but spotting the bright shade of pink on Cassandra’s face and I stopped myself. I didn’t mean it sexually, but now we both thought it and that was okay with me. If we were both thinking of each other naked, we were headed in the right direction.
10
CASSANDRA
“Let me walk you inside,” Riley said as he helped me out of his truck.
The sun had been mid-set when the helicopter landed in the small airstrip outside of Pelican Bay. Watching the city lights through the window was spectacular. Still, we returned home later than I’d expected and now complete night blanketed the city.
I was still smiling, and my skin had a light pink from the Florida sun, but as I stared at my brother’s home, it looked a little ominous in the nightlight. But I was an adult. No way in hell would I admit to Riley of being afraid of the dark. Even at a house I wasn’t familiar with.
“No, it’s okay.”
