Page 57 of See Me

Cassie looks at me, mouth hanging open. She stands up. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” He hands over a card with his number on it. “It’s tormented me, now let it heal.”

The first leg of the trip home is spent in silence. A silence so heavy it thickens the air around me. It adds to the weight I’m already carrying and I feel a sudden urge to expel it all.

“I’m homeless.”

Seriously?

I just spit it out like that?

Cassie pierces me with her still bloodshot eyes. “What?”

I shake my head. “Let me start over.”

“Start over? You barely started. No warm up, no lube. JustBAM.”

“Okay, okay, you’re right. Sorry.” I run my fingernails up and down the seat belt feeling the vibration through my hand. “To clarify, I washomeless. I’m not anymore.”

Her brows scrunch, lips pursing as she takes in a deep breath. “What do you mean? Start from the beginning. And the fact you’re just telling me this now has me raging, so if you leave anything out, I will choke you.”

“Geez, throwing off the kid gloves right outta the gate. Good thing I’m not in a fragile, vulnerable state oranything.” I look to the right at the sleeting rain streaking the window.

Cassie closes her eyes and takes a few deep breaths. “You’re right. I’m sorry. That was too much.”

“No. I get it. I should’ve told you guys. I was just embarrassed.”

“Embarrassed? You remember the whole last year right?” Cassie was pretty much forced to live with Jace for months when she had nowhere to go.

“Yes, of course. It’s just, you were finally happy and settled and using ropes and stuff and I didn’t want to ruin it.”

She turns the already low volume down on the radio and runs her hands through her hair. “So, you stayed homeless? And slept where?”

I chew the inside of my lip before meeting her eyes. “In my car. The bar I’m working in.”

“You’re working in a bar?” Her voice comes out high and squeaky. “That’s not starting at the beginning.”

“I know. Look, it’s a lot to tell and some of it will be hard to get through. The family stuff, you know.” Her eyes pierce mine when she realizes there’s a whole helluva lot I didn't tell her.

She nods with understanding instead of anger this time. “I’ve got novels worth of family stuff.” She reaches over and squeezes my hand. “I get it.”

“I know you do. And you’ve been so open. Seeing how you are with Jace and how you handled Adam back there. You have such a perfectly beautiful soul. I don’t know why I felt like I couldn’t tell you. I was afraid of losing you and Jess.”

“Because of family stuff? Never. You’ll never lose me. Okay?”

The floodgates open and the tears come. We pull over to a small roadside diner in a cute little town and talk until the sun goes down. Then we got a bottle of wine, a cheap motel roomthat she paid for now that she knows everything, and talk, laugh and cry until we pass out.

I drop her off the next day feeling lighter. My troubles are far from over, and my days will be far from easy, but I’m not doing it alone anymore.

I finally have someone in my corner that isn’t there out of some obligation, familial or otherwise, and I know the sun will grace me with its light and warmth, even if I have to blow the clouds away one by one myself.

EIGHTEEN

TAMED BY THE KITTY

My fingers floatover the keyboard. I’m on a roll. It’s like telling Cassie everything was dumping all that sewage out of my brain. It freed up the junk that was taking up the valuable space I needed to finish these lesson plans. If I can get this material finished up, I can enjoy the holiday, set up my classroom, float into my future and never look back at the rocky path it took me to get there.

I know people say your experiences and hardships make you who you are. That God will never give you more than you can handle, and blah blah blah. Well, screw that. I could’ve done without the treacherous mountain, with only one path leading to the top, that my family so easilycast upon me.

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