“Nerd.”
Erin bumped her shoulder against Cassie’s. “As if you can’t tell me the first female US astronaut.”
“Yeah, but everyone knows Sally Ride,” Cassie said. “And I’m not going to be an astronaut!”
“Of course not.”
Cassie made a show of ignoring her and going back to the crossword. Erin couldn’t help but keep looking at her—she was so damn pretty. Her blond hair a lion’s mane and her skin with a glow even in March. Eventually Cassie caught her looking. Erin smiled, felt her face warm.
“This is nice,” she said.
Cassie grinned. “You gonna come visit when I live here this summer and bring me breakfast in bed?”
“That’s your favorite part of this morning?” Erin raised her eyebrows.
“You got something better?”
“Maybe after you finish the crossword.”
Cassie immediately filled the unsolved boxes with random letters, then held it up. “Look. Done.”
Erin laughed. “When’s your flight?
* * *
Erin sped the entire way to the airport. They didn’t have time for her to park and come in with Cassie. They didn’t even have time for Erin to get out of the car—Cassie kissed her hard over the console.
“Thanks, babe, I’ll text from the plane.”
“Have a good flight!” Erin called after her.
Cassie [Today 1:23 PM]
Had to fight the gate agent so they wouldn’t close the door on me, but I made it
Erin’s good feeling after seeing Cassie only lasted until she made it home to Nashua. By then, her mind had caught up with her.
Last night, Cassie had talked about Caltech. She had said if. Almost twenty-four hours later and Erin was still trying not to read too much into it. It wasn’t like they could keep doing this, even if Cassie didn’t move across the country for grad school. This morning, Erin had made a mental note to wear Cassie’s clothes more often. When was that supposed to happen? That night was their only shot. Even with Cassie in Boston for the summer, it wasn’t like she and Erin would get time alone together.
Erin couldn’t ask Cassie to go to MIT. She couldn’t ask anything of her. Cassie was weeks away from turning twenty-two. She had her whole life in front of her, the entire world in front of her. She could do anything. Erin wasn’t about to hold her back.
It’d been nice, validating, that a hot younger person was so into her. But Erin couldn’t act like they were something they weren’t. They weren’t dating. They weren’t in a relationship. They couldn’t be. Even if that was something Cassie wanted, it could never work.
Parker could never know Erin and Cassie had so much as flirted. There was no way it could go anything but horribly. Erin cared about Cassie—a lot—but she wasn’t willing to lose her daughter.
So, she wouldn’t ask Cassie to go to MIT. She wouldn’t imagine what it could be like, to keep her close. She would allow herself what she could for the summer, and then she would say goodbye.
This was why they didn’t talk about it. This was why Erin didn’t think about it.
This was why, at coffee the next week, when Rachel asked how Erin had been, Erin just said, “Good,” instead of giving details she knew her best friend would’ve loved.
Though once she thought about it, Erin realized lately Rachel hadn’t been as pushy when it came to her love life. The thought gnawed at her while Rachel talked about her trip to Greece at the beginning of the summer.
Erin expressed the appropriate amount of enthusiasm and interest in Rachel’s Greek Isles itinerary, and then blurted out: “You haven’t tried to get me to go on any double dates or some other ridiculous thing lately.”
“I know you’re busy getting everything ready for the clinic.” Rachel went with the subject change like it was normal conversation instead of a non sequitur. “Plus, you’ve got your sexting friend, right?”
Erin blinked at her.
“Do you not?”
It was the first week of April. Erin had told Rachel about the sexting exactly once, and it was right after it first happened. On Valentine’s Day.
“How’d you know we were still…” She trailed off rather than trying to find a word for whatever was happening between her and Cassie.
“No one smiles at their phone as much as you do if they’re not sexting someone.”
Erin stared at her. “I know you said you do it at the grocery store or whatever, but we’ve never sexted while I was with you.”
Rachel waved a hand like it didn’t really matter. “You know what I mean,” she said, but Erin didn’t.
She hadn’t realized she smiled at her phone that often.
“You seem happy lately, is all.”
Erin felt her cheeks heat. She tried for nonchalance. “Do I?”
“I like the way it looks on you,” Rachel said quietly.
They were having a moment—two friends who had known each other since college, sitting in a coffee shop a decade and a half later, talking about happiness.
“Plus,” Rachel said, “last week you were practically glowing. Either you changed your skin care routine, or you got railed.”
Ah. Moment over.
At least Rachel didn’t mine for more info about Erin’s sexting friend. She was relentless when she wanted details, but she also seemed to have a sixth sense for when Erin needed to be let off the hook.
Before the divorce was final, after Adam had moved out, Erin had thrown out her back rearranging furniture. It had been awful—she couldn’t stand up or sit down or twist her body without pain shooting up and down her spine. When Rachel came over to check on her, Erin was flat on the floor; her bed was too soft. Rachel, God love her, hadn’t asked anything about why Erin decided she had to rearrange the furniture right then, by herself. She also had hydrocodone.
Erin remembered when the drugs kicked in. It hadn’t so much been that she couldn’t feel the pain—the pain was still there, obvious, like a brick, but it hadn’t actually hurt. Everything felt smooth. She and Rachel ordered pizza, and Erin opened the door and paid the delivery guy and carried the box to the kitchen, all without crying out. She could do anything she wanted, even though her body still knew something was off.
That was what being around Cassie was like. The knowledge that she shouldn’t, that it was wrong, that it was a terrible idea, was all there. But Erin felt good anyway. She could be fucking everything up, but she felt good anyway.
The next Sunday, on their weekly call, Parker said, “Cassie got this job in Boston.”
This was bound to happen sometime: Parker mentioning something Erin had already heard from Cassie. Erin tried to act appropriately unaware. “Did she?”
“Yeah. Some engineering thing, obviously. Apparently it’s a big deal.”
“Well, that’s great for her.”
“Yeah. And you know, like, Boston is pretty close. We’ve been talking about her visiting Nashua on weekends and stuff.”