Ember
It's one of those slow, do-nothing weekend mornings. Cassidy and I are on the couch in our pajamas, each with a coffee and a blanket, half-watching something neither of us is following while we’re both scrolling.
And then suddenly, it’s an image of Sully and a woman on a gossip site I follow. My stomach turns and my skin prickles. I feel sick.
I gasp before I can stop myself.
“What?” Cassidy says, not looking up.
“Nothing.” My voice comes out strange. “I just … I didn't know Sully was dating.”
That gets her attention, and her head comes up. “He isn't.”
“Well.” I stare at the screen. “He is now.” I turn my phone around, holding it out to her.
It's a photo of the two of them outside a restaurant.
Not a big flashy place either, one of those tiny neighborhood spots with about nine tables and a handwritten menu in the window.
The place you take someone when you want to talk to them.
She looks incredible, with glossy blonde hair, an incredible body shaped by a pair of jeans that cling to her curves, and a shirt that dips low, showing off an impressive cleavage.
She's got her hand on his arm, and she's laughing up at him.
And he's smiling. Not a polite one, a real one, the one that crinkles his eyes. I scroll to the next photo, and they seem to have moved closer together. In the third one he is leaning in, his fingers in her hair, and it looks like he’s kissing her.
I recognize the woman instantly. She's the one from the gala, the one in the red dress who bought him at the auction, put her hand on his arm, and made me so jealous I had to go stand in a freezing garden and talk myself down.
The caption underneath makes my stomach drop.
Something about Mavericks defenseman Connor Sullivan being spotted out with influencer whoever-she-is.
Are the rumors true? Is this a new couple?
Watch this space. There are thousands of comments.
I don’t want to scroll down to read them, but I do, and of course everyone is for it.
Why wouldn’t you be? Two gorgeous people together.
Cassidy's face when she looks at the screen is exactly what mine must have been.
“No,” she says. “No, that's … hang on.” She takes the phone off me and scrolls, then zooms in. “That's the woman from the gala. The one who bought him.”
“I noticed.”
“Well, what the hell.” She hands the phone back like it's burned her. “He didn't say anything. He hasn't said a word. Maybe it’s part of the auction win.”
Maybe, but doubtful.
“Oh, Em …”
“What? He's single. He's allowed to date whomever he wants,” I tell her, struggling to keep my face looking neutral.
“I’m going to kick him in the balls when I see him next. What a dick thing to do.”
“Cass …”
“No, I thought after what he said …” She stops what she’s saying as if she’s said too much.
“What did he say?”
“Shit.” She curses. “It doesn’t matter.”
I frown at her. “Does it involve me?”
“Yeah, but … I think if you knew it would only hurt you more, and you’ve been doing so well. I don’t …”
I reach out and touch her arm. “I am doing well, I promise it won’t set me back.”
She doesn’t look convinced but takes another look at the image on the phone and shakes her head. “I’m disappointed in him.”
“Why?”
“Because …” she hesitates, “because I thought he was going to wait for you.”
Her words surprise me. I shake my head. “Why would he do that?”
“Really? You don’t know why?” she questions me.
“No, I don’t,” I tell her.
“You don’t remember what he told you in Vegas?” she asks delicately. “In the hospital.”
I shake my head. “That was all fuzzy to me. I don’t remember much.”
“Dammit,” she mumbles.
“Cass …”
“Fine but just know I am pissed with my brother,” she says angrily. “I heard him confess to you that he loved you. And that he promised he would wait for you. What a liar!”
Oh.
I’m stunned. I have no recollection of that conversation. “Are you sure?” I ask her.
“Yes. And that’s why I thought you two being apart would be okay because you would come back together, but it seems like it’s pushed you both further apart. I thought, he’s waited all this time, he can handle waiting just a little longer,” she tells me.
“What do you mean?” I ask her, because I feel like I’m missing half of the conversation.
“He’s been in love with you since high school. He’s never stopped loving you,” she declares.
Wait, what?
“And it’s my fucking fault that you two weren’t together, but I thought Kevin was your person, and I …”
“Cass, what are you talking about?”
She puts her coffee down and pulls her knees up under the blanket, she can't look at me. “Kevin.” She says his name like it tastes bad. “Me and Trevor pushed you at Kevin. Back then, that whole summer before college.”
“You didn't push me at anyone, I chose …”
“Em.” She finally looks up and her eyes are swimming. “I knew about Connor.”
Everything in me goes very quiet.
“I knew he was in love with you. I'd known for years, he was so obvious about it, and I never said one word to you.” She wipes her face with the heel of her hand. “And that night, when me and Trevor walked in on you two.”
My stomach drops, because I know exactly which night.
“I knew what we'd walked into the second I saw your faces,” she says. “I knew you were wavering, then Trevor bolted and called Kevin and told him what we had walked into. I stood right next to him, and I let him make that call, and worst of all, I agreed with him.”
“Cass …” I hate seeing her so upset about something that happened so long ago.
“And then Kevin came running back with all his big promises, and I told you to hear him out.” She's shaking now. “I actually said that to you. My brother had just laid his whole heart out on the floor, and I told my best friend to go and hear Kevin out. Because I liked our little foursome, and I didn’t want to break it up. I also didn’t think Connor was good enough for you because ew, my brother. I was so selfish, Em.”
“You’re not selfish,” I tell her.
“Connor was going pro, and I thought …” She's crying now.
“I thought he'd break your heart. I thought you were this smart, gorgeous, going-places person, and my brother was a boy who could barely finish a sentence around you, and I honestly, genuinely thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was protecting you. From him.” Now I’m crying.
“And instead, I handed you to Kevin.” She's shaking.
“I pushed you to stay with a man who didn’t appreciate you.
All those years I watched him make you feel small, and I sat there at dinners and holidays, and I let it happen.
The entire time my brother was three feet away, in love with you, not saying a word because you were married and he's a better person than me.” Her whole face crumples.
“I ruined your life, Em. I actually did. I took fifteen years off you because I was seventeen and selfish and I thought I knew best.”
“Cassidy.”
“I've been carrying it since Vegas.” It comes out of her in a rush now, like she's been holding it in her mouth for months.
“Since I heard him say it in that hospital room.
He said he'd loved you always, since you were kids, and it was like someone punched me, because I already knew. I've always known, and I did that.”
I wipe the tears from my eyes. I sit there with my heart going and the phone face down on the cushion between us, and my best friend sobbing into her blanket. I reach out and hug her because she did nothing wrong.
“You are not selfish. Who, for the past couple of months, has slept with me while I mentally break down? Who was there when the nightmares took over? Who cleaned blood off her own brother's face after I attacked every single night and never once made me feel like a monster for it? Who saved my life and forced me to get better? Who held my hand in an elevator so I could stand in a lobby for ten minutes? The girl who still to this day, carries drink covers in her purse and puts them over my drinks every time we eat out to make me feel safe. The girl who pulled me out of my misery when we left our husbands, who helped bring our dream to life, who has made me laugh when I didn’t think I could. Who sat and binged hours of reality TV with me? It was all you.” I cry as we hug each other.
“I couldn’t do this life without you, Cass, okay.
It’s you and me against the world. It always has been.
” She hugs me tightly. “I can’t believe you have been holding that in all these years. ”
She looks up at me with red puffy eyes. “I wonder what your life would have been like if you had not gotten back with Kevin and chose Connor instead.”
“I wouldn’t be right here, that’s for sure,” I tell her.
“Connor asked me to choose that day, and I couldn’t.
I wanted to, but I just couldn’t, so that was my choice, not yours, not Kevin’s, and not Trevor’s.
I chose to go in a different direction. So, none of this is your fault. It’s all mine, because it’s my life.”
Cassidy sniffles. “But …”
“Stop. We were kids, Cass. All of us. We made stupid decisions with about four brain cells between us. Now here we are in our thirties with all this wisdom, and we can look back and think what the hell were we thinking. Of course it's obvious from here, it wasn't obvious then.”
She sniffs. “It was a little bit obvious.”
“Okay, it was a little bit obvious.” We both laugh through our tears.
“But that's the thing I've actually been working on with Dr. Hay,” I tell her.
“Kevin and I weren't a good marriage that went bad at the end.
It was never right, that's the part I couldn't see until now.” Cassidy goes very quiet, listening.
“There were good years in there, I'm not pretending there weren't. But underneath all of it …” I search for the words she gave me, the ones that made something click into place.
“It was toxic, Cass. From the beginning.
How he'd twist things around until everything was my fault and I'd end up apologizing for things I hadn't even done. How small I got. How I stopped saying what I wanted because it was easier to just agree with him.”
“I saw it,” she whispers. “I watched it happen, and I never said anything because I thought that was normal because Trevor did the same thing to me.”
“I know. I wish we were both strong back then, but we can’t change all of that now.
That's what Dr. Hay explained. You get into a toxic relationship young enough, and it becomes normal.
It's just how it is. It's just Kevin being Kevin.
I had nothing to compare it to, so I couldn't see it, and by the time I might have been able to, I was married, and I couldn't get out.”
“I get that.”
I reach over and squeeze her hand. “I know you do.” I sigh.
“I thought about getting out so many times.
And every single time I'd talk myself back out of it, because leaving was terrifying and staying was easy, and I had so much to lose.” I wipe my face.
“So, I don't regret the good bits. But if I could go back and do it over, knowing what I know now? I'd run.”
Cassidy wipes her face with her sleeve. “And you'd pick Connor instead?”
I've thought about this. I've thought about it more than I want to admit, lying awake, running the other version of my life like a film.
“Honestly? I don't think it would have worked either.”
Her head snaps up. “Really?”
“Yeah, we were all too young.”
“But he loved you,” she says.
“Love sometimes isn’t enough. I wish I had made different decisions at certain points in my life, but if you focus on the ‘what ifs’ then you will never go anywhere and will always be stuck.
So, I’m choosing not to dwell on what my life could have been because I don’t know if it would have been better or worse, I will never know, but what I do know is now life is good, even with the big road bumps. ”
“I’m so proud of you, you’ve come so far,” Cassidy says.
“Because of you and Collette and Jo. I’m a stubborn bitch, and I would never have sought help if you hadn’t forced it. So, thank you, you saved me.”
We hug each other again. “I love Dr. Hay, she’s great.
After I saw the results you were having, I’ve been seeing her too.
” I had no idea. “I needed to talk about the anger I felt over the years I thought I wasted with Trevor. The fact that I might not get to be a mom, and how angry I am at him possibly taking that away from me.”
“Aw, Cass, I had no idea.”
She shakes her head. “You had your stuff, and I had mine. But I feel better, and like you said, I can’t change the past.”
“So true. You know what I’ve realized, that Kevin was the toxic one in our relationship, and I was the toxic one in Connor’s. I feel guilty about that because I think my actions have shaped the way he views relationships now. And that makes me sad.”
“Do you still have feelings for Connor?” Cass asks.
“Does it matter now? It seems like he has started something with that girl. I want him to be happy, and maybe that isn’t with me,” I tell her.
“Bullshit, you can’t have gone through all this to end up with someone else,” she says.
“Or maybe I did.”
She shakes her head. “Nope, you and my brother are endgame.”
“You’re just going to have to wait and see, I guess.”