I clench my jaw against habitual panic. “After my outburst, are you sure you still want this mess of insecurity dressed up like a woman?”
He lifts my chin and searches my eyes. “Cassie, I can safely say I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want you. Even if you tell me no, that’s not going to change.”
I sigh. Trust him to say exactly the right thing to melt me. “Well, okay then, I guess we’ll give this thing one more try.”
His answering smile is so dazzling, it’s blinding.
“But,” I say, “I’m not going to lie and say it will be easy. I’ll need some time, so we need to go slow, okay?”
He exhales. “Okay. No problem.”
Then he kisses me in a way that’s in a different universe to slow.
I pull back, breathless. “Ethan…”
“Slow. Yeah, I know. Right after I do this.” He takes my face and kisses me, unashamedly desperate.
In a blur of mouths and desperate I-need-you noises, he walks me backward, guiding me through the doorway I was blocking a little while ago. Then the door is closing, and my back is against it, and his body is warm and hard as he presses into me.
“Ethan…”
I can’t catch my breath. He’s everywhere, pressing and tasting. Reclaiming what’s always been his.
“God, Cassie … Thank you for this. For you. Thank you.”
He stops kissing and wraps around me, and I bury myself in him, my face in his neck.
We just stand there for a while. Breathing each other in.
Being.
Still not fixed, but far less broken.
TEN
THIS TOO SHALL PASS
Six Years Earlier
Somewhere Over Middle America
For my whole life I’ve heard people throw around the term “heartache,” but I never truly understood what it meant until now. I mean, how is it possible that an emotion, something that has no mass or form except what we give it, is able to wrap around our hearts like a python and squeeze until every valve and chamber aches? Until the blood itself, which has no feeling at all, pulls barbed wire through our arteries with every broken beat? It shouldn’t be possible.
And yet, as I look out the window of the plane taking me home for Christmas, that’s exactly how I feel.
Everything’s wrong. I’m alone, and all the parts of me that shouldn’t hurt, do. The parts that thought love could conquer anything feel stupid. The parts that were firing with pleasure less than twenty-four hours ago feel tainted and cold.
I’m so angry, I want to rage and smash things, but the pain … the illogical heartache … keeps me curled in my window seat, fighting tears and trying to ignore the sick rolling in my stomach.
I hate what he did. I hate the reasons he did it.
The word resonates hot in my chest.
Hate.
Such a strong emotion. So easy to call upon. Loud enough to shout down all the pain.
It’s easy to hate him, so I do.
It distracts me from how much I love him.
When we land, I exit the plane in a fog of cultivated numbness.
“Sweetheart.” Mom hugs me before pulling back to give me her usual once-over. “That’s what you wore to travel? They’ll never upgrade you if you wear jeans, honey.”
I sigh and turn to Dad. He wraps his arms around me and squeezes, and when he whispers, “I’ve missed you, kiddo,” everything breaks loose.
Mom awwws and shhhhs as I sob into Dad’s shirt. She thinks this display is because I’ve missed them. She gets teary and says she’s missed me, too. Dad shuffles nervously as he pats my back. He never was good at dealing with emotion.
By the time we collect my luggage and get to the car, I’m beyond drained. The trip back to Aberdeen passes in a hazy blur.
When we get home, I go straight to my room and get ready for bed. As I brush my teeth, Christmas carols echo up the stairs, along with my mother’s out-of-tune voice.
She loves Christmas.
Usually I do, too, but not this year.
It’s only when I crawl into my childhood bed that I find relief in deep, desolate unconsciousness.
The next morning, I zombie-walk downstairs.
“Merry Christmas, sweetheart!”
I get hugs and a large box. The hugs make me feel claustrophobic. The box contains a leather-bound copy of the complete works of Shakespeare. It’s beautiful, but I have an immediate urge to tear out Romeo and Juliet and throw it in the fire. That play will forever remind me of my first lead role. And the first time Ethan kissed me. It was backstage on the second day of rehearsals. He told me he wasn’t capable of being my Romeo. That if he tried to play the romantic lead, he’d choke and take me down with him. I should have listened.
I put the book down and thank my parents. My smile feels sickeningly fake, but they don’t seem to notice.
I give Mom perfume. Dad gets a detective novel. They both hug me, happy with their daughter even if they’re not speaking to each other.
When I’ve had my fill of Tofurky and nutloaf, I claim I have a headache and go upstairs. My room is small, yet the space around me screams its emptiness. Like I’m too shriveled to fill it.
I unpack the rest of my bag, and when I find a small package at the bottom, the room gets a lot smaller.
I don’t know why I brought it with me. Maybe because I didn’t know what else to do. I peel off the too-bright paper and stare at the leather cover for a long time. I was going to give it to Ethan yesterday, but I got sidetracked by him breaking up with me. I was so excited when I bought it. My first gift for my first boyfriend. I was worried he’d think it was lame.