“How’s everything going with your parents?”
A small shrug. “We’re going to therapy together, which is so uncomfortable that it makes me want to scream. I think they’re starting to get me, though.”
“That’s good, right?” I latch onto that. “They’ll pressure you less.”
She examines her nails. “They’ll probably always pressure me in their special way. I think it’s ingrained in them. Dad wouldn’t be Dad if he didn’t make some backhanded remark about how art is a hobby and not a career.”
I frown. That doesn’t sound helpful. “Maybe things will be better next year when you’re not living with them.”
“You mean when we move to the city?” Her lips quirk up.
Don’t say it, don’t say it–“Or Providence.”
The tiniest crease between her brows. “I thought you hurt your ankle.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I did some research and RISD looks like a really good school.”
“I’m aware.”
“And there’s this thing where the city sets the river on fire–”
“Okay.” Her voice is clipped. Done with the topic.
“It sounds cool,” I finish. “I think you’d like it.”
“It doesn’t matter where we go.”
I can’t feel elated by this admission the way I want to. She sounds as defeated as that morning she spent hiding in her bed as I tried to coax her to come back to school.
“Look,” she says, “what I’ve learned from the doctors is that it doesn’t necessarily matter what’s going on around me, or how nice my parents are, or how much I love Mr. Riley. Which I don’t, for the record. It doesn’t matter if we’re in precalc or on Mt. Everest. Sometimes I’m just going to feel like shit, and it’s all because of my brain chemistry.”
“That makes sense,” I say. “Are the antidepressants helping?”
She tenses a little at the question. “They’re all right. They make me feel blah, which is the worst part, but I guess that’s better than feeling like you want to die, right?”
“Juliana told me about you taking yourself off the pills this summer,” I say. The ones I didn’t know you were on.
It’s the wrong thing to say. Her blue eyes are immediately cold. “You guys hang out and discuss your crazy friend Cassie?”
“No.” I hastily turn onto Towson Boulevard. “You know we don’t think that. Hell, we don’t even hang out.”
“You and Juliana don’t even like each other,” she adds.
I think we kind of, slightly do now. There’s a grudging respect. “I talked to her because I didn’t know what to do or what to think.”
“Why?” Her knees are drawn up on the seat.
“Because I felt guilty.” My heart hammers in my chest.
She tilts her head, genuinely confused. “Really?”
“I felt like I’d missed something.” I feel unburdened, finally telling her this. This might be what’s been holding us back from truly being on the same page since she returned to school. If I can get this off of my chest, we can move forward together. “I felt responsible for not seeing the signs. If I’d known, I could have stopped you.”
She sighs. “You’re as bad as Marcos with the hero complex.”
My fingers tighten on the wheel at the mention of Marcos. “What does that mean?”
“God.” She’s irritated. What did I do? “This is why I didn’t tell you about the pills in the first place. You want to fix everything. You would have run to my parents and made sure they administered the exact dose at the exact same time each day.”
“Why is that bad?” I’m trying not to feel hurt. She’s finally being vulnerable–
She throws up her hands. “Because I don’t want that! Juliana doesn’t try to fix me. She’s not about to give me a gold star because I did my lab report. She just lets me be.”
How do you respond to that?
I drive faster down the tidy honeycombed streets with gold Christmas lights wrapped around the porches and electric candles blazing in the windows.
Underneath my shaky breathing and hammering heart lies the truth: I can’t let it be. I am like Marcos, although I use my words instead of my fists. If I see my best friend hurting, I can’t sit back and watch.
But Cassie won’t let me be that person for her, and I don’t know what else to do.
I drive until Cassie says, “All right, Grandma, you’re putting me to sleep,” although I’m going fifteen miles above the speed limit, and so I drive us to my house and drop myself off.
She hangs her head out of the window. “When’s your meet?”
“Eight in the morning.” I try to look at her and see the Cass who would twist my hair into intricate braids and perfect buns in the back of the car on the way to competitions.
“Ah, man. I have an appointment with some witch doctor that my mom wants to take me to.” She rolls her eyes. “Good luck, though, okay?”
“It’s fine.” Another disappointment. She’s never missed a meet.
She waits there for a moment, looking at me.
She’s supposed to be the one who knows the right way to go, despite how many afternoons and nights we’ve spent driving down the wrong roads. She’s always made the plans, offered unsolicited advice (plenty of that), told the stories.
For the first time I can remember, we have nothing to talk about.`
HOURS LATER, I can’t sleep. I can’t stop replaying our conversation in the car, the way Cassie pulled away when I pushed and struck back when I retreated.
That’s not her. That’s not us.
My ankles crack as I slip out of bed and pad over to the wall, where photos of us cascade like a slideshow of my life. There we are as little girls on the beach with soaked hair and sandy sunglasses, sipping Slurpees with blue lips. Next come the countless Halloween costumes, including our classic peanut butter and jelly get-up that included actual peanut butter and jelly (Mom was not amused). In those photos, we’re unified. No hints of the cracks to come.