“Cade—“ I reached for him.
“Don’t, please. I can’t.”
The medicated smell of the shelter was suddenly overpowering, nauseating.
I asked, “Can’t what? Can’t be my friend?”
“I don’t know, Bliss. I just don’t know. Maybe.” The hint of bitterness in his tone was small, but it struck me like a slap across the face anyway. He walked out the door, and I sunk down on the bench, feeling frayed and burnt and bruised. My tissue paper heart was shredded.
I sat there, trying to puzzle out a way that I could have done this better. Was there any possible path I could have taken that wouldn’t have fucked this up so completely? Would telling him no straight out have been better? Should I have waited until the year was over and Garrick had left, and then tried to have something with Cade?
My mother had told me once when I was little and had a friendship fall apart that some relationships just end. Like a star, they burn bright and brilliant, and then nothing in particular goes wrong, they just reach their end. They burn out.
I couldn’t fathom my friendship with Cade being over.
Something nudged at my calf, and then the gray cat’s head poked between my legs. She pulled her whole body through the space between my limbs, rubbing against me as she went. She circled back and pressed her head against my shin. I reached a hand down, and she froze, flattening against the floor in fear. Slower, I moved until my hand pressed against her back, sliding along her fur in one smooth stroke. Her body relaxed, and I petted her again.
I eased myself down on the floor beside her. She locked up again, but she didn’t run. When I was certain she was comfortable with me, I picked her up in my arms. I pressed my face against her fur, absorbing the comfort she didn’t realize she was giving.
“Let’s make a deal, Hamlet. I’ll help you be less afraid, if you help me, too.”
Chapter Seventeen
By the time I had filled out the necessary paperwork, and had Hamlet housed inside a cheap cardboard cat carrier, nearly thirty minutes had passed since Cade had walked out to my car. Standing in the parking lot, I couldn’t find him anywhere.
I pulled out my phone, no text.
I looked on my windshield, no note.
I called his phone, no answer.
I called his phone again, straight to voicemail.
By the beep, I was crying.
“Cade, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to make this better. I Just want us to be how we’ve always been. God, that’s stupid. I know we can’t be. I know things can’t be how they were before, but… I don’t know. Nevermind. Just… let me know you’re okay. You’re not at my car, and I don’t know how you got home, if you got home. Just call me. Please. Let’s talk about this.”
A few minutes later, I was sitting beside my car in the gravel, my jeans smeared with dust, and I got a text.
I’m fine.
I tried to call again, straight to voicemail again.
And as hard as I tried to feel otherwise, as hard as I tried to hope that we’d get past this… I already felt it. I felt burnt out.
Maybe it was the grief. Maybe I’d just finally gone crazy. Maybe I just didn’t have anywhere else to go. But when I got back to my apartment complex, I didn’t go to my apartment.
Hamlet in hand, I went to Garrick’s.
I don’t know what I looked like when he opened the door. I don’t really want to know. But he opened the door wider almost instantly, gesturing me in with no questions asked.
I’d never been in his apartment. I should have taken it all in or asked him to show me around. I should have said something, but the only thing on the tip of my tongue was a sob, and it took all of my energy, all of my concentration to hold that inside.
But even that wasn’t enough when his fingers tilted my chin up. He spoke my name, and I saw the worried look in those eyes. The tears streamed out of me like a cup overflowing, and I couldn’t control it, couldn’t breathe right, couldn’t explain.
He took Hamlet’s box out of my hands and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. He led me down a hallway almost identical to mine into a living room that was vastly different. It was filled with books, some in shelves, some in stacks on the floor. The furniture was simple, slightly modern, but not so modern that I hesitated to sink into the cushions of the black couch, snatching up a white pillow to hug to my chest. Then Garrick was beside me, pulling the soft pillow out of my hands, and replacing its comfort with himself. He pulled me into his lap, cradling me like a child, wiping away tears, brushing back my hair, rubbing at my back.
“He hates me,” I finally managed. He hadn’t asked, but his concern tugged at me anyway, tugged the words right from my mouth.
“Who does, love?”
Quick, short breaths puttered from my lips, little whimpers that I couldn’t seem to control.
“C-Cade.”