7. Cassidy
CASSIDY
“ A re you sure you don’t want any help?” Hannah leaned against the back of my couch, scrolling through her phone.
“No, Han, you’ll just get in my way.”
I darted around the living room, my eyes scanning every surface for my keys. The sound of the ticking clock seemed to grow louder, each tick a reminder that we were running late. Again. The girls would already be at the cinema, we’d get there just as the opening credits started to roll at this rate. I fucking hated being late.
Sometimes you need to give yourself permission to not be on your A-game. Life doesn’t always go as planned and the world won’t come crashing down because of a little hiccup.
Right. Okay. Deep breath. Maybe another one, for good measure.
“Yeah, okay, maybe you can help me look.”
Hannah shoved her phone in her back pocket and straightened. “Okay, okay. Let’s think this through. Where was the last place you had them?”
I stopped my frantic search and took Hannah’s advice. “Well, I definitely had them when I got home from Pilates. I swear they have legs.”
“What was the first thing you did when you got in?”
“What I always do. Put my purse on the hall stand and my keys in the bowl. Then I went for a shower.”
“But they aren’t in the bowl.”
“No, Han. They aren’t in the bowl.”
“What if, and work with me here, you didn’t put them in the bowl, like you always do? Where would you have put them?”
I chewed my lower lip. “Probably in my room.”
Hannah nodded, her curly hair bouncing slightly as she moved. “Let’s start there then.”
I followed Hannah down the hallway to my bedroom. The moment we stepped inside, a glint caught my eye.
“Aha!” I snatched the keys from my nightstand, holding them up triumphantly. “Found ‘em!”
Hannah’s lips quirked into a half-smile. “On your nightstand? That’s not like you, Cass. Usually, everything’s in its proper place.”
I shrugged, feeling a mix of relief and defensiveness. “I don’t always have to be on my A game, you know.”
Hannah’s eyebrows shot up as she followed me out of the room. “Oh, this is new.”
It wasn’t until we were in the car and out on the main road that Hannah spoke again. “I want to know more about this.”
“About what?”
“About your A game. All our lives, you’ve been the perfect one. The good one, the never messes up one. Now, suddenly, you’re realizing you don’t always have to be that way, don’t have to always be on your A game. What gives?”
I knew the minute I told her it was because of my conversation with Harle a few days ago, she’d go off.
Pretending to concentrate on merging into the traffic heading to New Bern, I gave myself some thinking moments.
The silence in the car felt heavy, and I knew Hannah was still waiting for an answer. Short of telling her I’d had a personality transplant, the truth seemed like the only option.
“It was Harle.”
“I fucking knew it! I’m gonna kiss that man the next time I see him.”
Okay, no need for the little jealous flare. She’s only joking.
“Tell me more. What did he say, or do?”
“Not even much, really.” If you discount the intense look on his face, and the way I shivered when he brushed my hair from my face. “Nothing seems to faze him. He’s just so laid back. He came by the other day to, you know…”
“Drop off his baby batter.”
I really did need to get over that awkwardness whenever I tried to talk about exactly what Harle was doing for me. “Yeah. When he came by to drop off his baby batter, I was half an hour late.”
“I bet the sky fell in.”
“I felt like it was going to. You know how I get.”
“I sure do. But Harle was all,” she dropped her voice to a deep, gruff tone, “Don’t you worry about it, darlin’. I’ve got all day because I’m a hot Viking who only exists to be worshipped.”
I burst out laughing. “Not quite like that, but close, yeah. Then we were having coffee and I was still uptight about it. And he was just like, hey, sometimes shit happens. Don’t sweat it. I mean, I know it sounds super obvious, and I’m not suggesting that I’m a changed person just from one conversation. But I might be a mom soon and I don’t want to be a control freak about it. So starting now, I’m just trying to take things a bit easier.”
“I love this for you.”
“Thanks, Han.”
Her voice was so low I almost didn’t catch her words, but what she said next had my heart aching. “How much of this type A personality do you think comes from our childhood?”
Oh, fuck. There goes our good mood. I gripped the steering wheel tighter, Hannah’s question hanging in the air between us.
“All of it, I’m guessing,” I finally admitted. “The way we never knew what mood Dad was going to be in. We had to always be so vigilant, didn’t we?” Flicking a quick look in her direction, I saw Hannah nod, her eyes fixed on the road ahead.
“Yeah, we did. It was like walking on eggshells all the time.”
I felt a lump form in my throat. “Remember how we’d listen for his footsteps? Trying to gauge his mood before he even entered the room?”
“God, yes,” Hannah sighed. “I used to hold my breath sometimes, trying to make myself as small as possible, hoping he wouldn’t notice me.”
The memories flooded back, unbidden. The tension that filled our house, the way Mom would flit around, trying to keep everything perfect. The constant fear of setting Dad off.
“It makes sense that that’s where my need for control comes from. If everything was in its place, if I was perfect, then maybe...”
“Maybe he wouldn’t get angry,” Hannah finished for me. “Maybe we wouldn’t get beaten.”
“Yeah.”
We fell silent again, the weight of our shared past settling between us. New Bern loomed ahead, its bright lights mocking the heaviness I felt inside.