What Lies in the Woods(81)

I could have told him about the nights she’d sneaked over so that I wouldn’t have to sleep alone in my bed or when she’d punched Grayson Talbot in the mouth for calling me Frankenstein. I wouldn’t have made it to adulthood without Cass Green.

“You know her best,” Ethan acknowledged, but it was half-assed.

“Yeah, I do,” I said. I set my jaw. “I’ll see you after.”

“See you soon,” he agreed. I pulled away the second the car door shut.

Who did he think he was? Cass was my friend, always had been.

Almost everyone loved Cass. She was beautiful, charming. She made you work to impress her, and there was something thrilling about succeeding. But there had always been some subset of people who didn’t get her. She scared them, or they only saw the hard edges and none of her generosity and charm. They thought she was bossy, a term that mysteriously only ever seemed to be applied to girls.

We’d needed that bossiness. Liv and I couldn’t make a decision to save our lives, sometimes, but Cass always had something for us to do. We’d gone along with her demands, however outlandish, because she was the best at creating the magic. Making us believe.

Later, it had been a blessing. When I was flunking math, she’d bullied me into doing my homework, showing up with worksheets and a graphing calculator and stealing the TV remote. After Liv got home from the hospital, it had been Cass who was there to boss her into showering and eating until she stabilized and could take care of herself again.

So I’d never much minded that there were those people who didn’t get Cass. But it bothered me that Ethan was one of them, and as I pulled up to the house I was glad he hadn’t come with me.

The Green family’s house was the biggest in Chester. It was an old Colonial-style, wildly out of place in this area. Big Jim had built it back when the mill was in full swing, right after he’d won his first mayoral race.

The drive was clotted up with a dozen cars—the gathering was bigger than I’d expected. I made my way up to the front door, and when I rang the bell Amanda opened it, looking polished and somber and perfect with her blond hair and little black slip dress, a black ribbon in her hair to match.

“Hello, Ms. Shaw,” she said, with painful formality. “I’m glad you could make it.”

“You used to call me Aunt Namie,” I told her, eyebrow raised. “When did you get all sophisticated?”

She flushed, looking borderline panicked by the attention. She might look like Cass’s clone, I thought, but Cass had never been timid. I tried to look friendly, but it wasn’t my strong suit. I cleared my throat, thanked her for letting me in, and left before I could traumatize her any further.

The cavernous living room was the hub of activity. Meredith sat on the couch next to a dull-eyed Kimiko. Marcus was over by the side table, a glass of red wine in hand. When he saw me his perpetual frown deepened.

I stood frozen in the foyer. I hadn’t been asked to speak at the funeral. Marcus and Kimiko hadn’t invited me here—Cass had. Was I even welcome?

I stiffened my spine. Why the fuck shouldn’t I be here? I walked across the room, straight to Marcus, and put out my hand. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said.

He looked down at my hand for a long moment before he reached out and shook it. “Thank you,” he said mechanically.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t think to ask if I could say a few words at the memorial,” I added, trying not to glance over to see who was watching me. Trying not to feel like every eye in the room was trained on me. “Liv was remarkable. She changed my life. I don’t know who I would be without her.”

His jaw tightened. “She thought the world of you,” he said.

I swallowed hard. Tears sprang to my eyes; I willed them away. You didn’t cry in front of people. You didn’t show how you could be hurt. “I wish that I’d done more to deserve that.”

He started to say something, then stopped himself. Kimiko appeared, sliding her hand into the crook of his arm. “Excuse us, Naomi,” she said. She drew him away even as a hand fluttered to my shoulder. I managed not to whirl around, but my stomach jolted as I turned.

Cody’s wife was standing behind me, holding out a glass of white wine like an offering. “You look like you could use this,” she said in a musical voice. I accepted it. I preferred red, but right now I just wanted something to hold so I could look less awkward.

“It’s Gabriella, right?” I asked her.

“Gabby, please. And you’re the infamous Naomi Cunningham.”

“Infamous might be overstating it,” I said, taking a sip.

“Infamous to me, at least. Cody talks about you a lot. He likes to keep an eye on you, you know. He’s a little bit of an internet stalker.” She held up her hand, thumb and forefinger pinched together. I obliged her with a chuckle, though I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. “I think it’s safe to say he’s the biggest fan of your work out there—and getting him to care about our wedding was like pulling teeth.”

“I didn’t realize he’d even seen any of my photos,” I said.

“The wedding stuff is great, but I love your other work,” she said. “That series of black-and-white photos of decaying things—the one with the mushrooms growing around the deer skull? I bought a print of that one.”