First & Then(12)

Jane would have a f*cking field day.

“How was your summer?” I said, trying to draw their attention away from each other.

“It was really awesome. I did Habitat for Humanity with my church group.”

Of course she did.

“How about you guys?” She smiled at Cas. “How was your summer?”

“Great.” Cas’s voice suddenly sounded deeper. “Really great. Worked a bunch. But great.”

Say great again, I thought. Go on, just say it.

“And two-a-days,” Cas continued. “Loads of ’em. But the team is really great this year.”

Lindsay didn’t seem to notice Cas’s inferior grasp of synonyms. “I know, the game was incredible, wasn’t it? And Devon”—she beamed at me—“I heard your cousin’s staying with you. That’s so awesome.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Have you met him?”

“Not yet. You should totally bring him around to the next party. I’m sure he’s a blast.”

“Foster’s not really the party type. And neither am I, actually.” I was pretty good at the quick escape. “I should probably get going.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Cas said.

“It’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

But Lindsay was already glowing at Cas’s gallantry, and I knew I couldn’t refuse.

“You’re staying, though, aren’t you, Cas?”

“Sure. As long as you save me a dance.”

I opened my purse to retrieve my keys and tried not to gag myself.

“Come on.” Cas reached for my hand, but I stuck it into my purse and rooted around noisily for the keys, even though my fingers had located the Matchbox car key chain a good four or five times. In that nature, I headed to the front door, and Cas, undoubtedly casting some kind of devastating smile back at Lindsay, followed.

“Where’d you park?” he asked when the front door had closed behind us and the sounds of raucous partying were somewhat quieted. A few more minutes and the cops would probably be here.

“Just down the street. You really don’t have to—”

“The only time I don’t will be the time you get snatched, and then you’ll be dying in an alley somewhere cursing my name, and I’ll be haunted for the rest of my life by an all-consuming guilt.”

“That was a really well-thought-out answer.”

“Thanks. I try.”

When I looked over, Cas was smiling at me. It was moments like this when Jane would say something about my feelings for him. I was attached to Cas—that’s how she’d put it. It had been the truth for so long that I really couldn’t imagine it any other way.

One of my favorite things about Jane’s books was the feelings—she understood that whole unrequited thing, how it felt to pine, how it felt to hope. But the best part was that sometimes the feelings became requited, and that was undeniably another facet of the allure for me. The heroines dared to love, dared to hope; their hopes are dashed, but then … there’s the reversal! The revelation in the final act—the person reciprocates. They feel what our protagonist felt all along.

Cas didn’t have those kinds of feelings. Not for me, anyway. I was almost certain of it. He cared about me, but it was a brotherly sort of affection, one arm perpetually slung over my shoulders in a this-is-my-pal kind of way. And that was okay, most of the time. It was nice. But sometimes …

Sometimes I just wanted to kiss him so bad.

I came home in tears on the last day of eighth grade, having walked in on Cas making out with Molly McDowell in the home ec room after school. Molly McDowell had long, curly hair like a Disney princess, and she played on the volleyball team, and she was always wearing the thing you were trying to get your mom to buy you. Nothing about the situation should’ve surprised me—obviously someone as cool as Molly and someone as cool as Cas would pull each other into their respective orbits—but it still surprised, and it still stung.

My mom poured me a glass of milk, squeezed in a healthy dose of chocolate syrup, and told me that this just wasn’t the universe where Cas and I were right for each other, simple as that. Maybe in another time or place, maybe if he were different or if I were different.

“But you don’t want to make yourself different for a boy,” she said. “You don’t want to make yourself different for anyone.”

My reply was something halfway between a sob and “You just don’t get it.” But my mother persisted.

“Someday someone will like you for you, just the way you are. And as much as you like Cas, this other person will be so much better for you.”

That didn’t cut it at the time. I sobbed through the glass of chocolate milk, went upstairs, blasted the radio, and hid under the blankets in bed, hating Cas and Molly and the world.

It’s silly, but even at this point, even at dumb postgame house parties, even knowing that Cas had now gone so much further than home ec room French kissing with girls like Molly McDowell, the image of them together still grabbed me in the stomach every so often. Just a quick little spasm, somewhere below the rib cage, that made me feel like I was in middle school again, and made me long for that universe out there where Cas and I were together, and hate the one where we weren’t.

But I would never admit that. I just smiled back, and we shuffled down the sidewalk toward my car, Cas with his hands in his pockets and me with my eyes toward the sky. It was a beautiful night.