25 Zara #2
One second Riley is still in the room and the lamp is on and my eyes are hot enough to hurt, and the next thing I know pale light is sneaking around the curtains and my neck is cramping because I’m still half-sitting up in bed with the blanket twisted around my legs.
For one weird second before I’m fully awake, everything is normal. Then it comes back all at once.
I’m not safe.
You have to let me go.
I love you.
The pain is different in the morning. I stare at the ceiling and realize two things immediately. One, I still have his hoodie on. Two, hunger, anger, and sadness are pushed back. All I feel is scraped out.
Riley is asleep on top of her comforter with one leg hanging off the side of the bed and her lamp still on, which means she stayed up longer than I did and probably only passed out because her body gave up too.
There’s a water bottle on my nightstand, a granola bar, and a sticky note in her handwriting that says:
If you die of dehydration after all this, I’m going to be really annoyed.
That almost gets a smile out of me. I sit up slowly. Everything in my body feels heavy, as if someone poured wet cement into my bones while I was sleeping. My eyes ache. My face feels stretched too tight from all the crying.
I go to the bathroom, wash my face, and avoid looking at myself for more than a second because I don’t think I can handle whatever expression is there right now. Riley wakes up while I’m brushing my teeth and pretends she’s not staring too hard when I come back into the room.
“You want me to skip class?” she asks casually.
I shake my head softly.
“You sure?”
No.
“Yes.”
She studies me for a second, then nods. “Okay. I’ll be back between classes.”
I nod too.
That’s all I’ve got.
The whole day goes by that way. Small yeses and noes. Later that night, when Riley leaves to shower down the hall and I’m alone in the room again, I look at the bed. And there he is.
Calcifer.
He’s tucked near my pillow where I must have left him days ago, and the second I see him, my stomach drops.
And you carry mine.
Do I, Cass?
I stare at Calcifer now, something sharp and ugly twisting through my chest.
You trusted me then.
You handed it to me. You said I held your heart. You put it in my hands.
So what changed?
Why don’t I get to hold it now?
Why don’t I get to decide what to do with it?
The anger comes back hard enough that I feel it in my teeth. I cross the room too fast, grab Calcifer and clutch him to my chest for one desperate second before shoving him face-down under my pillow because I can’t stand looking at him and I can’t throw him away either.
Why does everyone leave me at the end?
The thought follows me into the rest of the night.
It sits with me while Riley comes back from the shower with wet hair and one of those little microwave mac and cheese cups from the vending machine downstairs.
She peels the lid back, stirs it with a plastic spoon, and sets it on my nightstand like she’s leaving food out for a depressed raccoon.
“Eat three bites,” she tells me.
I look at the cup. “That smells like melted plastic.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a future marketer, not a chef.”
I almost smile as I grab the little cup. I eat three bites because Riley is standing there with her arms crossed, looking fully prepared to haunt me while alive. Then I stop because my throat won’t do the swallowing thing anymore.
By the time my phone lights up again, I’m so tired I almost don’t care.
Mama Lori ?? flashes across the screen, and my stomach knots.
Riley sees it from her bed. She doesn’t say anything this time. She just watches me in the careful way people do when they’re trying not to spook a wild animal with Wi-Fi access.
The phone keeps vibrating. I stare at it until my eyes burn. Then, because apparently I enjoy making terrible choices while emotionally unstable, I pick it up and answer. For a second, neither of us speaks.
Then she exhales, soft and shaky, right into my ear. “Oh, sweet girl.”
That does something awful to my ribs. I press my lips together and stare at Calcifer’s stupid little face.
“Hi.” My voice sounds rough enough to belong to someone who smokes in alleyways and gives tragic monologues under bridges.
“I won’t keep you long,” Lori promises gently. “I just needed to hear you.”
“I’m here.”
“I know.” Her voice thins. “I’m sorry.”
That makes my eyes close, because sorry sounds different from her. It sounds like warm food and clean blankets and being checked on by the kind of mother I always dreamed of having.
“I don’t know what he told you,” I force out.
“He told me he broke things off because he thinks he isn’t safe for you.”
My hand tightens around Calcifer. “Did you agree with him?”
The question comes out small. I hate that too. She doesn’t answer right away.
“No,” she finally admits. “But I understand why he’s scared.”
That lands wrong, sharp and hot, and my head lifts. “So you think he’s right?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“It sounds like you’re about to.”
“I’m not.” Her voice stays calm, but not in a fake way. More like she’s holding herself still so I don’t have to. “I need to ask you something first.”
I press my lips together as I wait for her question.
“Has Cass ever made you afraid of him?”
“No.” The answer comes so fast it almost cuts her off.
“Zae.”
“No,” I repeat, harder this time. “He scared himself, but he didn’t scare me.”
A shaky breath leaves her. “Okay. I believe you.”
“He thinks wanting to hit Derek means he’s dangerous. He thinks almost hurting me by accident means he’ll do it in the future.” My voice catches, but I keep going because if I stop, I’ll cry again, and I’m so tired of crying. “He’s wrong.”
“I think he’s wrong too.” Her voice drops lower. “But I also think he needs to take that fear seriously. Not by leaving you, or deciding for you. But by getting help and being honest about what’s happening in his head before it gets too big for him to hold.”
My eyes burn. “He didn’t trust me.”
“He trusted you to stay,” she says quietly. “That’s what scared him.”
That shuts me up. I stare at the blanket. My fingers loosen around Calcifer’s little felt wing as a tear slips down my cheek, and I don’t wipe it away this time.
“I was right there,” I tell her. “I was standing right there telling him I loved him, and he still left. Like I didn’t get a say. Like I was some… I don’t know. Some fragile little glass thing he had to put on a shelf before he ruined it.”
“You are not fragile.”
I make a sound that almost becomes a laugh. “Debatable.”
“No,” she says, firmer now. “You are hurt. That is not the same thing.”
My throat squeezes so hard I have to close my eyes. For a while, neither of us talks. Then Mama Lori sighs, and when she speaks again, her voice sounds older.
“I need you to know that if my son ever makes you feel like loving him means walking on eggshells or making yourself smaller so you don’t anger him, you call me. I don’t care what time it is. I don’t care where I am. I will come get you.”
My chest aches more as she speaks, and all I can do is quietly listen and let the pain settle.
“But if he’s leaving because he’s ashamed,” she continues, “if he’s trying to punish himself before life can do it for him, then you’re allowed to tell him he doesn’t get to make that choice for both of you.”
I swallow down the lump in my throat that threatens to spill tears. “He won’t listen.”
“Maybe not right away.”
“I can’t do yesterday over again.”
“Then don’t do it tonight.”
My eyes drift to Calcifer. “I wanted to go after him when he first left my room.”
“I know.”
“I almost did.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
That pulls my eyes away from Calcifer. “Why?”
“Because you were hurt enough to say anything just to make him stay, and he was scared enough not to hear any of it.”
I hate how much sense that makes.
My mouth twists. “That is extremely inconvenient.”
A soft breath slips through the phone. Not quite a laugh, but close. “Most true things are.”
“So what am I supposed to do? Sit here and let him be stupid?”
“No. You breathe first. You sleep. You eat a decent meal. None of that vending machine or ramen nonsense.”
“Rude to my microwave mac and cheese.”
“It knows what it is.”
My fingers rub over Calcifer’s little felt edge. Space. He just needs space. Maybe a few days to think, to stop letting his fears scream at him.
“I can give him time,” I whisper.
“You can.”
“But not forever.”
“No, sweet girl.”
“Tomorrow. I’ll tell him tomorrow,” I add, my voice thin but steadier than it has any right to be. “He gets seven days. To think, panic, and brood. To do whatever it is boys do when they’re being emotional and dramatic.”
“And after seven days?”
I hold Calcifer tighter as my throat burns. “Then I come back. And he can be ready to hear me or not, but I’m saying it anyway.”
Cass Wilder can have today to breathe, but after that, he’s going to learn exactly how stubborn a girl can be when she refuses to let the boy she loves break both their hearts.