I thought about it.
“Come on!” she urged. “We need to let our hair down!” I flashed to the image of myself running my hair all over Luke’s naked body. Now I would never get the chance.
Maybe I did need to get out. How long had it been, months? Years? My whole life? “Ok. Let me get dressed, and I’ll meet you at your house in about an hour.”
“Perfect!” Annie hugged me again. “Pull out all the bells and whistles, ok? Let’s do it up!”
She called to Macdara, who beckoned conspiratorially to mewhen she came into the kitchen. “I talked to Charlie,” Mackie said in a low, serious voice. “I think he understands that he can’t be fighting. It could really derail his swim career. I don’t think he’ll do it again, ok?”
“Um, thanks, Macdara, I appreciate your help,” I told her.
“Anytime.He’s my cousin now, so I get to give him advice,” she said, and hugged me just like her mom always did.
After they left, I climbed the stairs and knocked on Charlie’s door. “Pal? Can we talk for a minute?”
He creaked the door open and shrugged.
“Can we take these signs down now?” I gestured at the hate speech directed at me taped to his door. “Because I don’t think you feel this way. I think, even when you’re really mad at me, you always love me. Just like I love you.”
And there it was. Charlie was so easy to love. He always had been. Charlie would never let me down, or leave, or screw me over.
Slowly he stood up from his bed, and walked over to rip the signs off his door.
“Do you want to sleep over at Macdara’s?” I asked him.
“Really? You would let me?”
“Yep. You guys can hang out together in her game room. Annie and I are going out to dinner.”
“Should I wear my tie?” Charlie asked. “Her house is so fancy.”
“I think this in an informal occasion. No tie required.” I slowlysidled up to him and hugged him. “You’re still my best sweet pea. You’re always my best sweet pea.”
He didn’t say it back, but he hugged me too, which was a good start.
While Charlie packed his overnight bag and got changed—he was still under the impression that he had to dress up for Annie’s house—I looked in my closet for some bells and whistles. But, shock of shocks, still no new clothes had grown in there. I thought about it. Then I went into Nana’s bedroom, Cassie’s bedroom.
I turned on all the lights. It was getting dusty in here. It didn’t take long in Nana’s old house for the dust to creep in. I ran my hand across the top of the bureau. It really would have looked nice in Luke’s big bedroom, under the window overlooking the lake.
I studied the bed, the side where Cassie had always lain. I sat down in her spot, feeling a little creeped out, but wondering. What had made her do it? Fear of her disease? The loss of Mike? I lay down and looked at the cracked white ceiling, then turned my head. I could see down into the moon garden, where every day more bulbs were coming up, more greenery was sprouting. In the summer, it would be beautiful. I closed my eyes, and remembered Cassie. The mean, witchy parts, and the sad, sick parts. But there were good memories too.
“Emmy?”
I levitated about a foot off the bed. “Good Lord, Charlie, you scared me to death!”
“What are you doing in here?” he asked, taking a step into the room.
“I was thinking about your mom. Nice things I remember about her.” I smiled at him. “Like when she was on the dance team in high school. I thought she was so cool. I wanted to be just like her.”
Charlie took another step in. “She was a good cook,” he said. The “unlike you” was thankfully left off.
“Yes, she was. Your Grandma Loretta was always showing her things in the kitchen. I never thought she had paid attention, but she fooled me, right?”
“She used to make me waffles.”
“I didn’t know that.”
He came and sat next to me on the bed. “I guess I miss her, some.”
