Chapter 23 Girl Code
GIRL CODE
CASSIDY
Issa is there when I wake up.
“It’s about time you woke up,” she teases from her seat next to me on the bed. “I was getting worried I’d have to get brunch on my own.”
“Hey,” a voice responds from the other side of the room. “You’d eat without me?”
I crane my head around, smiling at Jessica seated in the chair in the corner of the room, casually thumbing through a magazine.
“Nah, I totally included you in that statement.”
Jessica raises a brow. “Is that so?”
Issa smiles broadly. “I always mean us when we’re together.”
Jessica smiles, but I can tell she’s not convinced from the expression on her face. “Uh huh.”
“Why are you here?” I interrupt sleepily, my hand patting the empty bed beside me and finding it cold. “Where’s Ren?”
“Ren called,” Issa answers. “He had an early practice and didn’t want you to wake up alone.”
“Did he tell you what happened?”
“Nothing specific,” Jessica responds, but I give her my best not-buying-it look and she smiles then adds, “Just that you’d had a rough one and could use some moral support from someone who’s not your husband.”
“And we totally understand the sentiment,” Issa adds. “Sometimes boys just aren’t it, even if we love them to bits.”
“But this was so bad,” I confess, still feeling sick about it. “I was an absolute nasty ass shrew.”
“Maybe you were,” Issa teases, “But I’ve heard admitting it is the first step to recovery.”
“I’m serious,” I exclaim.
“Oh, I believe you,” she responds. “I just don’t feel whatever it was would be deemed unforgivable.”
“You’re biased.”
“How so?”
Jessica interjects, “Girl code.”
I nod. “Exactly.”
Issa rolls her eyes. “A smitten man trumps girls code every time.”
“Smitten,” I respond slowly, squinting up at her. “Who’s smitten?”
Issa’s jaw drops slightly, her eyes wide, her brows raise. “Are you for real right now?”
Frowning, I ask, “Do you really think he’s smitten?”
Issa looks at me as if I’m the dumbest broad she’s ever met. Jessica practically crows from her seat, “For fuck’s sake, Cass, the man’s completely obsessed with you.”
“Obsessed is not smitten.”
“Believe me,” Issa retorts. “Obsessed, when done right, is better.”
Sighing, I lie back on the pillow, my insides warming at the thought of him truly being smitten. But then the doubt creeps back in, and I whisper, “But what if he decides not to forgive me this time?”
“Listen, Cass,” Issa replies. “I don’t get the impression that Ren is the type of guy to punish anyone for having feelings, even if those feelings aren’t something that can be easily or reasonably explained.”
“But what I said was horrible.”
She waves her hand at me. “But are you sorry?”
I nod emphatically. “I was sorry as soon as I said it. I just didn’t know how to make it better.”
“Awww,” Jessica responds. “Are you saying you’re human?”
I grimace. “If by human you mean gross and messy, then yes.”
“Oh shit, we’re all that.”
“Not like me,” I whisper. “I’m the grossest and messiest ever. The worst of the worst. The most—”
Issa scoots closer, cutting me off. Her brow now furrowed slightly, she grabs my hand, squeezes lightly.
“You stop that, you hear me,” I go to respond, but she puts her hand up, “No one is born gross or messy. No one strives to be the worst. No one steps into adulthood wanting to hurt the people around them,” she pauses, glancing over at Jessica who’s watching us quietly.
They have some kind of silent conversation and then Issa turns back to me, her expression now pained as she whispers, “I knew I recognized you when I met you, the wounded animal, the glowing star buried beneath a learned darkness.”
My chest constricts, a dull ache that quickly blooms into a breath-stealing pain that pulses with each heartbeat. My tongue feels huge in my mouth, my lips taking on a strange numbness that makes responding impossible.
Issa takes my hand between both of hers.
“You can deny it if you want to, but I know better. Jessica knows better. We’d recognize our own anywhere, like we live on the same frequency or something…
” her words drift off, her gaze now on the blanket as she says, “You’re ours now, and we take care of our own. ”
I gape at her, truly surprised by her words.
“What Issa is trying to say,” Jessica interjects, her tone amused, “in her typical songwriter fashion, is that you’re not alone anymore, Cassidy. Whatever you wanna do, however you wanna be, we’ll be there with you every step of the way. Good days, bad days; no take backs.”
Much to my horror my eyes immediately start to burn. I inhale sharply, working hard to push the pesky feelings back, but it’s too late. My eyes well, spill over. I hiccup and then cough as the sob I’ve been holding in erupts violently.
Issa doesn’t move, just continues to hold my hand as what feels like years of emotion spill over. It’s painful, this complete annihilation of the walls I’d spent years and years perfecting, now a concrete armor turned to ash.
Time stops. Shifts backward. Starts again.
“Do you feel better?” I blink up at Jessica who’s now standing beside me, holding out a wad of tissues.
I take them with a small nod, wiping at my eyes and cheeks before finally blowing my nose.
She holds the trash bin in front of me, and I toss the dirty tissues in as she asks, “Wanna talk about it?”
I shake my head and then manage to say through my residual emotional hiccups, “I just want to be perfect.”
“No one is perfect, so get that idea right out of your head.”
“Turns out Ren may as well be,” I mutter, my words coming out whiny.
“I highly doubt that’s true,” Jessica responds with a snort. “But as long as he is to you, that’s all that matters.”
“I think,” Issa says as she slides off the bed, stands beside Jessica. “That if Ren wasn’t going to forgive you, he wouldn’t have called us.”
“Yeah,” Jessica adds. “It’s quite obvious the man wants to help you, so how about you do your part and let it go for now.”
“And you let us do our part, by helping you see the good in you.” Issa holds a hand out to me, and I scowl, annoyed by all the good sense the two of them are speaking. She waves her hand and after a moment I take it, pushing the blankets back and swinging my legs over.
My feet hit the floor just as she tugs and I come to my feet in a rush, then weave slightly.
The room tilts. My stomach flips. And I immediately realize the grave mistake I’ve just made.
I reach for the trash bin Jessica had left right beside the bed, barely managing to get it under my face before the wrenching begins. It’s painful and seems to go on forever even though there’s next to nothing left in my stomach for me to heave up.
Eventually, I sit back on the side of the bed, resting the trash bin on my lap as I try to catch my breath. Noting the silence, I glance around to find Issa and Jessica both watching me with matching looks of horror.
I shrug then laugh. “Did I mention that I’m pregnant?”