26. Caden
CHAPTER 26
Caden
My heart feels like it’s trapped inside a vice. We’re still about twenty minutes out from the lake shore, but all I want to do is wrap my arms around Millie and let her crumble inside them.
I ache to take away even the tiniest fraction of the hurt she’s holding on to.
We’re not so different, me and her.
Sure, her tits are way better than mine and only one of us knows how to change a light bulb, but at the core we’re more alike than I realized. Just two adults trying to get over the things that happened to us when we were kids, hoping there’s something better waiting for us at the end of it all. I know too well how it feels to have your childhood stolen from you, and I hate that she knows that feeling too.
“I get it, you know.” I’m nervous as I say the words.
I don’t tend to open up about this stuff. Took me years to see a therapist, and even then, my first few months of sessions were a train wreck .
But I’ll do anything if it helps Millie feel less alone.
She turns over her left shoulder to look at me, the canoe rocking slightly as she does. I’m going to need her to turn back around, it’ll be easier to have this conversation without seeing the look of sympathy on her face.
“Millie!” I grunt. “Don’t go rocking this thing – Doug will kill me if we get him wet, and I forgot my water wings.”
At that, she lets out a cross between a laugh and a snort, facing forward again and letting her paddle rest across her knees.
“My parents are dead.”
Her laughter cuts, replaced by a gasp that sounds like she’s just taken an arrow to the lung.
In hindsight, I could have started this conversation off a little better, but I’ve never been able to master socially acceptable grief or talking about this stuff without making it awkward.
“Oh, Caden, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bring th?—”
“No, listen,” I interrupt. “I’m not telling you this for pity, or to make it about me. I got plenty of that growing up and I don’t need any more of it. I’m telling you this because I know where you’re at. When I say you don’t need to apologize to me for breaking down or telling the truth, I want you to know that I mean it.”
She nods, and I can tell she’s biting back on the words she wants to say. She’s the kind of girl who wants to heal the world around her because she knows how it feels to be broken.
“What happened?” she asks.
“Car crash.” I feel my throat tighten as I swallow. “I was nine, Josie was three. It was a freak accident, something to do with the brakes on my parents’ SUV. They ran straight into the path of a trucker on the highway. Nobody was at fault, and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, they were all gone before the emergency services had even arrived on the scene.”
Doug pads towards me, resting his head on my feet and laying a weighted paw on my calf.
“Happened on Christmas Eve, nonetheless. Wasn’t very festive of them.”
“Caden…” Millie’s tone is scalding, but I can tell she’s holding back the very same laugh that I’ve come to crave.
“Sorry.” I laugh. “Coping mechanism.”
“At least the trauma makes us funny, right?”
“Right,” I agree, even though I know I haven’t been funny for a long time. I haven’t been much of anything until recently.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that so young, Caden. I can’t even imagine what that must have felt like.”
“It’s been years since then, but I still remember that night like it was yesterday. I have dreams too, flashbacks – like yours. Wake up drenched in sweat, and then I’m glad it was all a dream, until I remember that it wasn’t.”
I wasn’t there. I didn’t see what happened, but my mind does a good job of filling in the blanks. I’ve pictured my mom’s face watching the truck career towards them. And I’ve wondered at the final thoughts going through my dad’s head as he yanked on the steering wheel hopelessly, knowing he could do nothing to save the woman he loved.
“There’s some nights where I’m standing right there at the side of the road, watching them burn in the car and there’s nothing I can do about it. I want to run, but my feet won’t move. I try to call out to them, but there’s no sound. I’m just stuck in that spot, watching them go – like a useless prick.”
I don’t mention that in those moments, I sometimes find myself wishing that I had been there that night, that I’d died right there with them in that car. At least then I wouldn’t have had to go through this life without them.
“It took me years of therapy – and countless therapists – to start believing that maybe time is a healer. The pain never gets any smaller, but you do learn to live around it. These things happened to us when we were kids. That shit is part of who we are… we don’t get to forget the way it changed us, but we do get to decide how we live from here on in.”
I’d started to forget that until she showed up. But somewhere between the freckles on her nose and the sass on her lips, I’ve found something to live for again.
“I guess you’re right,” she sighs.
“I’m always right, Adams.”
“You’re always up your own ass,” she counters.
“I think you might be obsessed with my ass.”
She throws her fist up in the air, middle finger raised in my direction, but doesn’t refute my claim. I don’t blame her – it is a fine ass, after all.
There’s a newfound ease between us as we flit between deep conversations and the familiar territory of taking the piss out of each other. Even in the silences there’s an unspoken promise that we don’t have to be anything other than ourselves.
“You wanna know something?” I ask.
“Sure do.”
“Everyone thinks I rescued Doug, but that’s only half the story.” I smile down at him, choosing to ignore the fact that he’s slobbering all over my pants. “He rescued me too. Kept me going on the days when my mind was dark and getting out of bed felt like the hardest thing in the world. He gave me something to live for, and he’s been filling my life with those tiny somethings ever since.”
“Tiny somethings, huh.” Millie contemplates the words. “I like that.”
“Tiny somethings.” I nod. “You’ve just got to find yours, Millie.”