Chapter 13 #2
When I woke up it was still dark, and Lee was plastered against my side with one arm thrown over me.
I went to move and his arm tightened around me, and I relaxed back against him.
I hadn’t ever slept over with a boyfriend—hadn’t ever had a boyfriend—but if this was part of the deal, I wasn’t complaining. I lay there and let myself be spooned.
It must have been close to dawn because the room slowly brightened, revealing Lee’s bookshelf, his closet door, his desk, his chair with the hoodie thrown over the back.
I’d tried to snoop around last night while the light was still on as we got ready for bed, but this morning I could stare at his stuff for longer.
I felt like a movie detective, looking for the right clue that would tell me all Lee’s secrets.
But it was just a regular room filled with regular stuff that belonged to a regular guy.
And maybe that was Lee’s biggest secret.
He wasn’t hiding anything at all. When he said he liked me, he meant it.
Lee woke up by degrees. First, his breathing changed, then he tightened his arms around me again, and then mumbled something against the back of my neck. Then he pulled his arm out from under me, stretched, and pressed a kiss to my ear. “Morning.”
“Morning.”
“Breakfast?” he asked through a yawn.
“That had better be an offer, not a request.”
He snorted. “Of course it is. Come on.”
We went downstairs and Lee made scrambled eggs and toast. Lindsay wandered into the kitchen while we were eating.
“Morning, hon,” she said. “How’d you sleep?”
It took me a minute to figure out she was talking to me. I swallowed and said, “Um, fine I guess?”
“He snores,” Lee said.
I flipped him the bird and Lindsay laughed. Then she reached over, ruffled Lee's hair, and said, “Make your mother a coffee?”
Was this what moms were meant to be like?
When we were kids, Cash and I had watched all those sitcom moms and told ourselves they were too good to be true, even though we’d desperately wanted one just like them.
Lindsay wasn’t a sitcom mom, but she was nothing like our mom either.
She liked her kids—and they liked her back.
And nobody was watching what they said, reading the shifts in the air like animals sensing a storm building and checking the paths to the exits.
The love in this house didn’t come with screaming and yelling and things getting smashed.
It didn’t come like those sitcoms either, where there was a heartfelt lesson learned every half hour.
It was just here. Just here all the time, built into the foundations of the house where nothing could ever shake it.
Me and Cash, we had something like that with Danny and Wilder, but it didn’t feel exactly the same.
Like, there was a part of me that would always be waiting for the other shoe to drop—and that was on me, not on the guys.
I knew that. But I always had to have a plan, you know?
If it went to shit, what would we do? Where would we go?
How fast could we get the hell out? But this house here, this family, it didn’t seem like anyone would ever have to have that kind of plan.
This was the house you ran to, not from.
“So what do you boys have planned for your day off?” Lindsay asked. “Sam and I are going into Richmond later to do some shopping. You’re welcome to tag along.”
“Hell no,” Lee told her. Then he said to me, “Shopping with Mom and Sam is an ordeal, trust me.”
I think I do, I wanted to say. I really want to. But I snorted instead and said, “Okay.”
“Though we could go see a movie,” Lee suggested. “If you want.”
“Okay,” I said. “We can do that.”
Except when I went upstairs to get changed into yesterday’s clothes, I saw three missed calls and a text message on my phone from Miller.
Hey, are you on your way home? Cash isn’t good.
“He’s okay!” Wilder called out when I bolted out of Lee’s still-moving truck in the driveway at home. “I mean, he’s not hurt or anything. He’s just—I don’t know.”
I pushed past him into the house, my heart pounding. “Cash?”
Like he’d fucking answer.
“We’re in here!” Danny called from down the hall.
I followed the sound of his voice into our bedroom. Miller stepped aside to let me through, his expression grave, and I found Danny sitting cross-legged on the ground next to the closet with the door cracked open.
Shit. It had been a long time since Cash had been fucked up enough that he’d had to sit in the closet to feel safe. I crouched next to the door. “Cash?”
The door eased open a couple of inches and Cash’s face came into view. Even half-hidden, I could see the dark shadows under his eyes that told me all I needed to know.
His arms were wrapped around his knees and he was rocking back and forth, his eyes closed.
“Hey, Cash,” I said. “What happened?”
His mouth moved for a while before the words came, and his eyes stayed squeezed shut. “You weren’t—” He bit his lower lip. “He put me under the shower and you weren’t here.”
I felt sick. I glanced behind me to where everyone was fucking hearing this. Even Lee, who must have followed me inside and was standing behind Miller. My eyes stung. “Cash, that didn’t happen last night. That happened a long time ago.”
We must have been eleven or twelve. Our mom had sent me on a walk to go pick up something from her friend.
Well, her dealer. Meanwhile, in one of her occasional “I’m an excellent mother” moments of delusion, she’d gone all maternal over Cash and went about getting him ready for bed like he was still a little kid.
She’d told him to get into the shower, except the water had been cold and he’d balked.
She’d yelled at him, which had gotten our dad’s attention, and by the time I got back all I could hear was Cash screaming and Dad yelling, “Hot enough for you now, you little fuck?”
It hadn’t been like third degree burns or anything—the shower never got hot enough for that—but he’d hurt a lot, and after a couple of days, patches of his skin had peeled off like bad sunburn.
If I’d been there, I would have gotten between him and our dad. I would have distracted him long enough for Cash to run. But I hadn’t been there, and Cash had gotten hurt.
Cash was still rocking, his eyes still squeezed shut. “I was screaming, but you didn’t come.”
“I did,” I said, my throat aching so bad that I didn’t know how the words got out. “I came as soon as I could.”
I didn’t know if we were talking about then or now. It didn’t matter probably. My eyes got hot as tears welled.
“Chase?” Danny asked softly.
I didn’t turn around. “Get out,” I said, my voice hitching. “Just get out, please.”
“Chase?” It was Lee this time, and I hated how worried he sounded.
“Go away,” I said.
“Do you need—”
“Go away!” I rubbed the heel of my hand against my eyes. “I’ll—I’ll call you, okay? Just go away for now.”
I didn’t hear any of them leave, but when I looked over my shoulder again, the room was empty and the door was closed.
The floor creaked as Cash rocked back and forth.
We didn’t have a lot of stuff, so I only had to knock a few pairs of shoes out of the way to make room for me in there as well.
I crawled in with him, slotting my legs in between his so that we both fit and wincing a little as my tailbone hit the floor of the closet.
Then I reached out and tugged the door closed.
It was dark and quiet except for the sound of our breathing.
I took Cash’s hands in mine, pulling him forward gently.
He came easily, his forehead resting against my shoulder.
I put my arms around him. We probably wouldn’t be able to stay like this for long because it was cramped and awkward, and it’d be painful even after a little while, but that was okay. It was what Cash needed now.
His breathing slowed at last.
I rubbed his back. “Did you have a nightmare about the shower?”
“I don’t know,” he whispered.
“Okay,” I said. I thought of Lee, of last night, and of what taking that step away from Cash had cost, and said, “It’s okay. I won’t leave you again, Cash. Not ever.”
Not for anything, and not for anyone.