The second line had appeared sometime during the night because there was now another black mark drawn into the skin at my wrist, side by side with the first.
I knew what it meant by the wet clothes I’d found soaking in the bathtub yesterday and by the sick pit burning through the base of my stomach and chewing an ulcer there.
They were tally marks.
And if they were tally marks, I knew what the final tally would be.
Five.
My mom reached over to squeeze my hand during the chorus of “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Sometime after the song was over—I didn’t know how long—Dad tapped me on the shoulder to tell me the service was over. I realized then that I was just sitting there, staring at the cross over the pulpit with my mouth hung slightly open and my vision blurring into watercolor.
“What? Oh, sorry,” I said, startled when I looked up to find that the well-dressed, polo-wearing family beside us was trying to leave, but my knees were blocking the way. My parents shared a look over my head. I hadn’t caught a word of the sermon.
Honor and I hadn’t spoken since yesterday. Her shoulders were slumped and she stared at the ground, ignoring me with a mix of icy defiance and indifference. Not having the energy to make inroads with her, I trailed them up the aisle and out of the sanctuary as the organ played a recessional that sounded unusually melancholy to my ears today. I smoothed the wrinkles on my navy blue dress. Usually I would rush off to try to find Paisley or Ava so that we could quickly rehash what had happened that weekend and catch up on any gossip we’d missed out on before. But there was too much distance between Paisley and me, most of it put there by her, but I had to take credit for widening the gulf until there was no swimming back across it. And Ava would still be home nursing a leg that I’d helped break. She was probably BeDazzling her cast, I thought, and felt an unwelcome and bittersweet tug at my heartstrings.
Today, I just waited for the moment when my dad would start jingling the car keys and talking about traffic and I even vaguely hoped that there might be talk of waffles this Sunday given that there was no reason to care about my figure any longer.
Mom stopped the family in front of the table filled with store-bought Danishes and coffee dispensers. “Honor,” she said. “Why don’t you go find Meghan and thank her mom for helping with the Junior League bake sale the other day.”
Honor, who clearly had no interest in looking me in the eye, didn’t protest. Instead, she disappeared into the throng of churchgoers.
Mom smiled at me. She’d put her lipstick on crookedly this morning and the peaks were uneven. “Cassidy, honey, your dad and I thought that maybe it was time for you to talk to somebody. About your”—she lowered her voice—“well, about your depression. We’ve arranged for Pastor Long to meet with you.”
My mind went blank. I still felt as though I was just waking up. And now I was supposed to go chat with Pastor Long? “But … but I don’t want to.” This was a stupid way to object. Childish even. But it felt ridiculous that they thought a church pastor could fix my problems.
“Cassidy.” Mom rubbed her hand between my shoulder blades the way she used to when I was sick. “It’ll be fine.”
“When?” I asked, blinking my eyes rapidly as though I was still adjusting to the light. Everything about the church felt vague and unfamiliar. Like it was a scene happening to someone else.
“Now,” Dad said. The wrinkles around his eyes formed little starbursts. “He’s waiting for you in the elder offices. You shouldn’t keep him waiting, sport.”
“But—”
“Cassidy.” Dad didn’t sigh, but he did look very tired. Almost as tired as I did, I bet. Was that the effect I was having on people? “He only wants to talk. Maybe you’ll even feel better.”
At this very moment, I felt terrible. Worse than I had in my entire life. And I only knew that I didn’t want to make them suffer, too. It seemed that I could only accomplish small things now. And this was one of them.
I felt my parents’ collective gaze on my back as I trudged up the red carpet stairs to the elder offices. Lately my tongue had begun to feel as though it was made of wet cement.
I walked down the hallway lined with office doors. I wasn’t in a hurry. Since we were in church, after all, I didn’t think it was too much to hope for a miracle that would get me out of a heart-to-heart with the head reverend at Hollow Pines Presbyterian.
The desire to get out of the talk continued to grow with each step until a voice began to materialize. Duck into one, something inside me urged. I glanced at the office doors next to me, the lights inside turned off, vacant. Duck into one and skip this charade. My pace slowed and I came to a stop. I looked at the door closest on my left, indecision brewing in me at the same time as temptation drew my hand like a magnet.
“Cassidy!”
I jumped at the sound of my own name. My eyelashes fluttered and it took a second for the man in robes to come into focus. Pastor Long waved at me from the end of the hall.
“I’m in this one down here,” he said.