Purple Hearts(84)

“That’s okay,” Cassie said, quiet. “You don’t have to tell me now. But sometime.”

“No, I want you to know,” I said, and hoped I didn’t look like I was in as much pain as I felt. Here was the rotten core, the snake in the water that didn’t belong with all the other sweet, cool facts. I wanted to tell her that I loved her, not that I was even worse than she could have imagined. I was a criminal. Even before we played this marriage game, I was an addict and a thief and a terrible son, a terrible brother.

“You can tell me,” she said, and held out her hand, palm up, on the futon between us. I took it and tried not to grip too hard.

If I was going to tell her the truth, that I was paying for pills that I flushed down a toilet, then I’d have to tell her I was too addled to understand what I was doing, and then I’d have to tell her that not two days before I flushed the pills, Johnno had kicked me awake because I had washed down some crushed-up Oxy with beer and “it didn’t look like you were breathing,” and then I’d have to explain that it wasn’t a big deal because I regularly smashed Oxy into a powder and either sucked it up my nostril with a straw or put it in my drink, and that I’d been doing it for years.

And then she’d wonder why, and I’d have to say I wasn’t sure, all I knew is that I felt better as cloud head at Johnno’s than I did in my own home, because I was pretty sure my dad hated me, and she’d ask why I thought my dad hated me, and I’d have to say I didn’t know, but I knew what hate felt like more than I knew what love felt like, and I was pretty sure what I had for her was love, so if she could look past all that, it would be great.

“Luke?” She squeezed my hand and let go, her eyes full open, still on mine.

“I owed money to an old friend from my hometown,” I said. The guilt grew but I couldn’t bring myself to force the right words—the real words—out. To see her eyes shutter, feel her hand pull away. “I . . . I lost something of his that was incredibly valuable. And I couldn’t pay him back for a long time, and so he started to charge interest. And it really added up.”

It wasn’t a full lie, at least. Cassie nodded, thinking. “What did you lose of his?”

“I was working for him, selling . . . medical supplies.” I looked away. Cassie wasn’t dumb. The honesty had felt so good, and now it was ebbing away. “And it was really embarrassing to have lost it, like, so dumb. So, so dumb how much money I owed. So I don’t like talking about it.”

“I get it,” she said, and put a hand briefly on my knee. “No further questions, Your Honor.”

“But it’s paid back now,” I said, not ready for her to move on, to get up and forget that we were getting somewhere.

She kept moving, slow, a smile almost hidden, and stood. Maybe someday when we were further away from all this, when the blood from Johnno’s nose wasn’t fresh in the drain, and when Cassie didn’t have a million other things to think about, like her mother’s safety, like the show at the Sahara she’d been rehearsing for for months and the stupid pseudoboyfriend who was tagging along, I would tell her everything, start to finish. If there was a “we.”

“Cassie,” I said, and resisted the urge to ask her to sit down again, her thigh close to mine, and we wouldn’t have to kiss, just sit, and I would run my hand down her back.

She turned, taking her hair out of its ponytail, and I was overcome. “What?”

“Your show’s going to be great tomorrow.”

A smile grew as my gaze traveled her face. But I had trouble smiling back. Cassie deserved the truth, and sooner or later I’d have to find a way to come clean. Even if it meant losing her.





Cassie


The day of the show, I went with Luke to River Place. While he did his physical therapy, I walked Mittens through the trails, up and down the hills, letting her sniff every leaf and root and footprint she wanted to. After breakfast yesterday, Luke had fallen asleep immediately. I’d gone over to Nora’s to practice, and Toby had asked me to stay at his place. I’d said yes too quickly, worried he’d sense my hesitation or feel my guilt. As conflicted as I felt right then, I was glad to get out of my apartment. I couldn’t work out my feelings for Luke very well while he was around, because the feelings themselves were too big. I needed space away from him to identify them, to wonder when they’d come, what to do next.

But the feelings had followed. They’d followed me to Toby’s, where I lay awake next to him, and today, through the trails, thinking about the day I’d first given Luke Mittens. How his face changed, softened. How I’d catch him speaking to her and everything inside me would become all warm and syrupy. When I’d tried to think about the future, somehow I could think only of him now.

The trails ended. We circled back to the green where Luke waited. My stomach did jumping jacks.

“Who’s got the cutest face?” He bent down and rubbed his nose to Mittens’s. “Who’s the cutest? Hello,” Luke said to me, grinning, scratching behind Mittens’s ears.

I could barely get a word out before grinning back. “Hi.”

We walked to the car together, and drove home with the windows down.

I walked behind him up the steps, slow, and when we got through the door, Luke turned to me. “Cassie, can we talk?”