When We Were Bright and Beautiful(52)

Forsaken by all my friends, I can’t leave my room. I cry in my bed, won’t go to school. When my parents ask what’s wrong, I tell them, conveniently, that Avery and I had a fight. “She turned everyone against me.” They’re appropriately horrified. “No one is more dangerous than a teenage girl,” Eleanor says. She threatens to call Avery’s parents, but I beg her not to, knowing it’ll just make things worse. Marcus, meanwhile, still isn’t returning my calls. I hate him beyond all rational thought. I hate him so much I can’t swallow. I can’t breathe. I’m drowning in my own misery. I lose ten pounds, the one upside.

Frightened, Eleanor takes me to a social worker, a psychologist, a psychiatrist. No one can help me. Not because they don’t try, but because they don’t know I’m waiting. Finally, I see a shrink who suggests in-patient treatment. I’m skeptical but agree to check into a psych ward for three days. Surprisingly, it helps. In the hospital, we talk about feelings. When you feel so much, the doctor says, you get confused. So your feelings may be about other feelings than the feelings you’re feeling.

Is she speaking English, I wonder? I don’t know this language. Aloud, I apologize. “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I don’t understand what you’re saying. Your words make no sense.”

Feel your feelings, she repeats. Feel your feelings.

From this, I gather one insight: the only way to leave this place is to surrender something sacred. So I tell her about Marcus. He acted like he wanted me, and I think he did, but then one day he didn’t, and left me alone with my feelings.

What are your feelings? she asks.

“Sometimes, I feel rage, sorrow, and desperation. Other times, I feel love, affection, and adoration.” What I don’t tell her is that my feelings are so deep they’re deadly, and I feel all of them, all at once, all the time. It’s too much to bear so I try to feel nothing.

She thanks me for sharing. Sometimes, she tells me, we mistake kindness for love. Gratitude for devotion. Pity for desire. As I told you, Cassie, it can be confusing.

It sure can, I agree, lacing up my sneakers, grabbing my coat. Thank you; you’re very nice, thank you; goodbye. I race out of there feeling nothing.

I text him. Then I wait.

I’m sixteen and one-quarter. No longer a kid. A woman who knows her own mind. A woman who’s seen hard times. And just like that, something shifts.

Marcus replies: I miss you. I miss the ducks.

Marcus calls. “You weaken me.”

Finally, I think.

The next time we meet, he kisses me, hard. I want you; he tells me. I’ve wanted you for so long. I can’t stop myself. I can’t help myself.

No way, I think. I can’t tell Avery any of this. I realize my nails are dry. She’s watching me. “Let’s get a drink,” I say instead.

“Let’s.” She pauses. “Cassie, I—”

“Yes?” I look up. If I were a better person, I’d say, I’m sorry, Avery. I really screwed up. I lost my mind and here’s how it happened.

“Billy will be okay,” she says.

“Thanks, Avery. Your hair looks amazing. It’s perfectly you. I’ll text you,” I add, which I mean sincerely, but she’s already out the door and back on the street.





31


THE NEXT NIGHT, LAWRENCE AND I ARE IN THE KITCHEN, FORAGING for food. He’s eating Oreos, half a sleeve, one at a time. Seeing Avery has put me in a foul mood I can’t shake. But Lawrence is pissing me off too. Sometimes all it takes is the sound of him chewing to trigger my rage.

“Where’s Eleanor?” he asks, looking around. I nod at the terrace. “With Nate. They’re both brooding.”

“In the dark?” At the French doors, he watches her through the glass. “She’s smoking again,” he says absently, as if addressing a studio audience. “She promised to quit. Now look.”

“Everyone makes promises, Lawrence. Give her a break.” I take raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries out of the refrigerator and cut them into a fruit salad. He plucks a blueberry from my collection and puts it in his mouth.

I snatch my bowl out of his reach. “These are mine,” I say. “Get your own.”

“Oh wow, Princess, you’re selfish.”

He’s teasing but I won’t engage. “Maybe I am. What of it?” Behind me, he puts both his hands on my shoulders, requesting a truce. I shrug him off.

“Why are you mad at me?” he asks. “What did I do?”

“I’m not mad. I’m not anything. I just think you’re wrong about Billy.”

“I got that memo, Cassie. Your opinion has been registered with the committee. But I’m closer to the case than you are. I speak to Peter every day. Not for nothing, but you’ve been out of town all summer.”

Lawrence digs two fingers into my bowl, scoops out more berries, and slides the juicy clump into his mouth. Grinning, he shows off stained lips and teeth.

I don’t laugh. He’s right: I am angry. I’m infuriated. My anger may be disproportionate to the crime, but it feels righteous. “Lawrence, gross! You’re repulsive.”

Repulsive. The word distracts me. When I was a child, if a word was multisyllabic and sounded grown-up, I repeated it incessantly. He’s repulsive. The word reminds me of something, a movie? A picture? An image seeps in, a flicker of light from below a closed door. A man and a woman on a bed. The woman’s legs are open. Repulsive. The man is standing above her, holding his—He’s so repulsive. My skin twitches. I blink.