34. Cassidy
CASSIDY
“Hey! Get your ass out here and drink with me!”
I flung the door open, glaring at Alyssa, even though I was happy to see her. “Did he send you here?”
Smirking, she grabbed my crutches that were leaning against the doorframe and shoved them at me. “He did not. I sent him away so we could have some fun.”
“I can’t drink,” I muttered, following her into the living room.
“Well, then I’ll drink for the both of us. God knows I need it. My apartment is burned to a crisp, along with everything in my life that I’ve ever owned. And now I’m living with my brother again. So, drinking is the name of the game.”
I eased myself onto the couch, then pulled my leg up to rest on a pillow. I was already exhausted, not that I would say a word about it. It would get back to Sam, and then he would make even more of a fuss than he already was.
“Did they catch your ex?”
She pulled the cork on the bottle and poured herself a large glass of red wine. “They did. Not that he’ll pay for attacking me.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because he’s a cop,” she muttered, bringing the bottle with her to the living room.
I was desperate to hear the story, to think of anything other than what happened to me or how I would be laid up for another six weeks.
“When I was with him, he always made this big show about how much he loved me. So, when I went to the police station and told them my boyfriend was trying to kill me, and they found out he was from a neighboring police station, they closed ranks. I was officially the psycho bitch who was trying to get their fellow officer fired.”
“They didn’t help you?”
“Not even a little,” she huffed. “I thought that when I came here, he’d never find me.”
I was under the impression we could thank Austin for that. I didn’t know how he did it, and I wasn’t sure anyone else knew either. But I heard Sam talking on the phone with Parker the other day, discussing the search for Austin. It didn’t sound like they were having much luck.
“Did you hear about Kasey?” she asked, her chin wobbling slightly as she dropped her eyes to the glass.
“Yeah. Though I’m finding it hard to feel sorry for her when she terrorized Ellie.”
“I know, but still…it makes you wonder.”
“About what?”
“What her life was like,” she said, staring into her glass. “I mean, she was a horrible person, but what made her that way? Are people really that cruel for no reason?”
I had no idea, and I wasn’t sure that was a question I was ready to ask just yet. I was too busy trying to figure out my own problems. But she had a point. Were we all too wrapped up in our own lives to see someone else was struggling?
“Hey, what about her friend, Raleigh? Is she going to be okay?”
“From what I’ve heard, she’s going to live, but it’s going to be a long recovery,” Alyssa said, still staring into her wine.
“Hey, are you okay?”
She shrugged, but that look she had on her face was similar to what I saw when I caught her getting lost in herself at the bookshop. Like she was locked in the past, unable to move forward.
And now it made sense.
Her questions about Kasey could just as well be about her. Did anyone see that she was suffering? Did anyone bother to ask in the past what was going on with her? Or did they just assume that she brought all the hurt on herself?
“You know, you can talk to me if you ever need to.”
Finally, that pulled a smile from her lips. “Thanks.” Sighing, she came over and lifted my leg, then plopped down, resting my leg on hers. “Let’s do something happy.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Obviously, but it’s Christmas. There has to be something we can do to get us out of this funk.”
“Well…I haven’t had time to put up my own decorations,” I mused. “I spent so much time decorating at the shop, and then I was wrapped up in Sam and his big dick. I kind of lost sight of decorating my own house.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” she grinned. “Where is everything?”
“In the garage. Are you sure you want to do this? I’m not exactly much help.”
“This is precisely what we need. And we can put on Christmas movies while we decorate.”
“I have to warn you, I’m very particular about where I put my ornaments on the tree.”
“And I will graciously listen to every direction, and then put them wherever I want.”
A half hour later, she was hauling in the last of the Christmas boxes while I called out orders from the couch, holding her wine glass as I sniffed it and wished I could drink.
“Who has this much Christmas stuff?”
I winced as she dragged the Christmas box across the carpet. I really hoped she wasn’t tearing the box. I still had it in the original packaging, and I wasn’t ready to go out and spend money on a Christmas tree bag when the box was still holding together.
“Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year!”
“It’s definitely a pain in the ass,” she grunted. “Alright. Now that that’s done.”
Leaning forward, I grabbed the scissors from the table and handed them to her. “Now we can put up the tree!”
“Yeah, we can do that.”
“Hey, this was your idea. I just went along for the ride.”
“Yes, but when I agreed to that, I thought you were like a normal person with only a tree.”
“What’s the fun in only having a tree? If the house isn’t lit up at night, it’s not really Christmas.”
“Funny, I assumed Christmas was about something else entirely.”
I waved her off, sniffing her wine again for another hit. “That’s for people who believe in God.”
“And you don’t?”
“Oh, I definitely do. But since Jesus wasn’t actually born at Christmas, I celebrate the spirit of Christmas. The Grinch, Santa flying in the sky, lights lining the streets, carolers singing…”
“I get it. You’re like Father Christmas.”
“Well, without the top hat. Though that would be really cool.”
She spent the next ten minutes putting up the tree while I called out instructions, telling her to move it more to the right, then the left, just to screw with her.
“I hate you,” she growled, crawling out from under the tree.
“But you’ll love me next year when you know how to put up a tree by yourself.”
She shot me a droll look. “Yes, this experience has been life-altering.”
I had to admit, her attempts at cheering me up were working. I was no longer throwing myself a pity party or thinking about what I was going to do with Sam. In fact, all my troubles seemed to fly out the window the moment she started decorating.
And when I saw her struggling with the lights, I got my butt off the couch and started helping, hobbling around with one crutch tucked under my arm so I could hold the lights as I directed her where to wrap them around the branches.
“You have to go deeper,” I argued.
“It’s deep enough!”
“That’s what she said,” I countered, shoving the lights in further, struggling to wrap them around the branch with only one hand.
“Would you leave it alone and let me do it?”
“You’re not doing it right!”
“There’s no right or wrong way,” she snapped. “It’s just a tree!”
I gasped in horror. “Just a tree? What a horrible thing to say!”
“Well, it is! You take this way too seriously.”
“And you don’t take this seriously enough!”
She yanked the string of lights out of my hands, then started jogging around the tree, nearly knocking me over as she passed.
“What are you doing? Are you crazy? You have to tuck the lights in!”
“No, I don’t,” she sang, practically skipping for joy as she drove me up the wall with her chaotic light stringing.
There was no way I could deal with this. Staring at this horrible display of lights all winter would drive me up the wall. I hobbled behind her, tugging at the strand, but she wasn’t having it and just walked behind me, stringing the lights around my body.
“What are you doing?”
“Making you part of the decorations,” she laughed.
“Alyssa, you let me out of this right now!”
“Admit that you’re a crazy Christmas psycho and I might.”
“I am not! I just like things done a certain way!”
She went around again, wrapping me tighter against the tree. I lost my footing, falling forward into the tree. “Alyssa!”
She reached for me, but it was too late. The tree was already tipping over. I caught her hand at the last second, hoping she could save me, but the momentum of the tree took me along for the ride, and Alyssa by default.
We yelped as we fell on top of the tree, crushing the branches beneath our combined weight. Needles pricked at my body, irritating my skin, but when I saw Alyssa, I started laughing. We’d knocked over the bottle of wine, and it dripped from the table onto her face.
“This is not funny.”
“What the hell is going on in here?”
We both screamed, but where she jumped to her feet, I was forced to burrow further into the tree, with nowhere to go since I was lashed to the tree.
I peeked out from under the branches, sighing in relief when I saw it was just Sam standing in the doorway, looking at us like we were crazy.
My eyes met Alyssa’s, and for a moment, neither of us said a thing. And then we both burst out laughing as Sam walked over, shaking his head.
“What the hell did you do? Why are you wrapped up in lights?”
“She wouldn’t listen to me about where to put them on the tree,” I said, pointing a finger at Alyssa.
“So, you decided to wrap yourself in lights in protest?”
“No, I did that because I was tired of taking orders from her.”
While she bounced around without a care in the world, I was still stuck in the tree. “Um, can someone help me out of this, please?”
Sam’s sigh of irritation only made me chuckle. For the first time since I came home, I wasn’t angry at the world or Sam for being here.
“What the hell did you even do? I’m not sure how to get you out of this. I might just have to cut the lights.”
“Don’t you dare! Lights are expensive. Just tip me back up.”
“Yeah, I’ll just grab the whole tree and you, without crushing your leg or injuring you, and put you upright again.”
I smiled at him, “Now you’ve got the gist of it.”