You and Everything After (25 page)

We watch television, a full couch cushion apart while her mom and Paige are in the room with us. It’s weird how nobody is talking. In my house, everyone is
always
talking—we talk over each other. Hell, I’m not sure any of us actually listen we love talking so much. Here, it’s pin-drop kind of quiet.

“Where’s your dad,” I whisper to her, after her sister finally leaves the room.

“He works late. His office is downtown,” she says, the corner of her lip curling in apology. “You’ll see him tomorrow though. He has the day off. We make the doctor-visit thing a
family affair.”

I don’t have an answer for that. I know how she feels. It’s smothering. But I also know that her parents—though they show it in freakishly overbearing ways perhaps—are probably just worried.

“Well, I’m totally coming too. I mean, this will probably become the topic of conversation at dinner tomorrow, right?” I ask, and she smiles, amused. “I don’t want to feel left out. It would be like not watching one of those big cable shows and then trying to decipher everyone’s
OMGs
on Twitter.”

I OMG-ed. It felt dirty. But she laughed, so it was worth it. Maybe.

“You may have noticed, HIPAA laws don’t apply to Cass Owens,” she says, a wry laugh coming through.

“Welcome to the club. I was a medical-student case. Had twelve doctors. Oh, and...my legs are in
Newsweek.”

“Shut up!” she says, shoving me on the shoulder.

“Google it. Look up my name, Louisiana Samaritan Hospital, and Dr. Bunshee,” I say, and she studies me for a few seconds, waiting for me to break. I cross my heart and her eyes widen.

“Okay, I’m Googling that. Tonight,” she says.

 
“Go right ahead,” I say.

“Oh I am,” she says back.

“Whatever. That’s fine, go do it,” I tease back.

“I’m totally doing it,” she smiles.

“Go on then. Go ahead,” I hold my arm out, and she stands, challenging me.

“Okay. Here I go. This is me…going to Google you and your famous legs,” she says, folding her arms over her chest while she walks by stomping. Her body is perfectly straight, and her steps come easily. No weaving or stumbling. I notice. Her mom notices. Neither of us says a word.

“Whatever. You’ll find it online,” I say back, keeping our silly banter going.

“Oh, I’m sure I will,” she says over her shoulder.

I watch until her door closes to her room and then I turn my attention back to the television. It’s some nature show, and it sucks balls. “Mrs. Owens?” I ask, trying to be as polite as possible, and not insult her absolutely horrid taste in television. “Would you mind too terribly if I maybe changed the channel, for just a few minutes?”
And then lost the remote and somehow stabbed this channel so you could never get it back?

Cass’s mom closes the magazine she’s been reading, pulls her glasses from her face, and then clicks off the small reading lamp next to her chair. She stops in front of me and hands me the remote. “You can call me Diana, Tyson,” she says during our exchange. And then she smiles. Not a fake one, but a real one.

“I’ll do my best, Mrs. Owens,” I say, and her eyes soften.

As soon as she leaves the room, I switch the channel for
Sports Center
, and I watch just long enough until I feel like it’s safe to follow Cass’s steps down the hall to her room. I knock with the tips of my fingers, just loud enough for her to notice, and she opens her door. Standing. Not swaying. Her eyes focus on me. Her laptop is closed on her bed where she was sitting.

She pokes her head out and scans the hall, then she opens her door wide and waves me inside.

And somehow I end up holding her until the morning.

Chapter 2
8

Cass

It was literally a caravan to my doctor’s office. There were five of us in the waiting room, and everyone wanted to join me when they called me back. The scene was a bit mortifying. My neurologist sees mostly older people, seniors. My visits already garner a lot of attention because I sort of
stand out
. But when I walked in with a posse?

I really only wanted Ty, but that would have opened up a whole new shit storm. So I let my mom come. It seems like doctors are places moms are supposed to be at with their daughters. We should do some things that are…normal.

Nothing was a surprise. I was relapsing. I haven’t relapsed in a while, since I quit playing soccer. My mom hasn’t said it, but she’s thought it. I can see it behind her eyes. My body was fatigued—under unnatural stress—and even though the doctor threw in that flare-ups can happen at any time, for any reason, I knew on some level that those things probably played a part. It was my mom’s conclusion. It was
my
conclusion, even if I didn’t like it.

Dr. Peeples ordered intravenous steroids at the medical center for a few days, plus an MRI to see if there was any active cell damage happening in my brain that would be causing the blurry vision, or maybe one of my old lesions is getting bigger. Either way, the steroids should calm everything down. Then, I’d be good to go. “Good to go,” Dr. Peeples said.

I had a feeling my parents and I were bound to have different definitions of “good to go.”

“He said you could start today, if you want. I really think that’s best,” my mother says as we all stroll through the parking lot. I nod in agreement. Steroids make me sick to my stomach and turn my face red and puffy, like an Oompa Loompa. So Ty should get to see that during the week he’s here. Awesome.

The medical center is the next parking lot over, and I really wasn’t up for having the posse follow me to my next stop. “Mom, why don’t you and Paige head home? Dad can take Ty and me,” I suggest, hoping she gives me this. Please, just give me this.

“Oh, there’s a really cute store that just opened up at the strip mall down the road. Great jewelry. Let’s go; we can meet them after for lunch,” Paige says, tugging on my mom’s sleeve. Her eyes meet mine for a brief second. I may be imagining it, but I think she’s doing me a favor.

“Well…” my mom says, swinging her keys back and forth between my sister and me. I think she’s actually saying “eeny, meeny, miny, moe” in her head. “I guess you know what you’re doing, Cass. You’ve done these before. And we can all meet up after?”

“Sounds good,” I say, tugging on my dad’s arm, dragging him to his car. I’m not giving her a chance to flop on this decision.

“Subtle, Cassidy,” my dad says as he pushes the
UNLOCK
button and waits for Ty at the side of the vehicle to take his chair for him. I notice my father’s gaze fall to Ty as he lifts himself to the edge of the seat, his arms fully flexed as he swings his body inside. It’s a move that Ty somehow makes look effortless even though there are about a hundred moving parts in his body doing the work. My dad doesn’t stare, but he notices. And I notice that.

My dad pulls up front and drops me off with Ty so we don’t have to travel far while he parks. I sign in and say hello to the nurse working at the station. Her name is Heather, and I remember her without having to check her tag.

“Come on back, Cass. Dr. Peeples sent your files over. It’s a slow time, so might as well get this over with, huh?” I always liked Heather. She was newly engaged the last time I went through this therapy. I see now that she has a band next to the engagement ring, and her belly looks about seven months pregnant.

“This is new,” I say, looking down, and she laughs lightly, rubbing her hand over her large belly.

“Yeah, and I’m about ready to be done with this part,” she says, turning her focus back to my file. “I’ll have this ready to go in about ten minutes,” she says, giving my shoulder a squeeze before she leaves the room to get my dosage. It’s amazing how much of this I remember. It’s like riding a bike, though
nothing at all
like riding a bike, I muse to myself.

“Wow, you’re like famous here. I bet they have a picture of you. No! A shrine,” Ty says, moving to face me and bumping me with his knees. He can’t feel our touch, but I can.

“You must have missed the sign. We’re sitting in the Cassidy Owens wing,” I say.

“No shit!” Ty says, reaching for my hands. His watch slides forward out of my sweatshirt when I reach to grip him, and he flips his eyes to mine when he notices. No words, just a tender smile, his eyes saying everything that needs to be said.

“Okay, let’s get you hooked up,” Heather says as she comes back into the room with my drip bag ready to hang and a needle ready to pierce my vein.

“Do you mind waiting for my dad in the hall, just so he knows what room I’m in?” I ask Ty while Heather connects the various tubes and begins prepping the IV for my arm.

“You got it, babe,” he says, and I scowl at him for the
babe
part. “Too late, you’ve already given me babe permission. No going back.”

“Uhm, I’m pretty sure I only
okayed
baby
,” I say.

“You missed the fine print, babe. I get Baby, and ALL derivatives. It’s locked in,” he says, his voice fading as the door closes behind him.

“He’s new,” Heather says, a little gleam in her eye. She knows better than to tease me. She and I talked a lot when I went through this in high school. Teasing was always off the table, because well…boys were always off the table.

“He is,” I say back, unable to help the grin that spreads the width of my face—teeth show and everything.

“I like that boy. You did good, missy.
Real
good,” she says, nodding for me to turn and face the window. I’m a fainter. “Now this will only hurt for a second.”

Usually, Heather is a liar, because I normally feel the pinch and the burn for much longer than a second. But today, I don’t feel a thing. Too much love in the way to let the pain through.

Ty

I don’t really like hospitals. They remind me of physical therapy, of waking up in a hazy fog to a beeping sound in the ICU. They remind me of my mom’s face when I finally opened my eyes long enough to recognize her. My mom’s tears. Nate’s crying. My…crying.

I’m happier here in the hall. But I’ll go back in when I need to. When Cass’s father enters through the sliding doors, I hold a hand up to get his attention before he veers off to the nurse’s station. He came home late last night, and I snuck back to my own room early this morning before anyone was awake. He and I haven’t been alone once yet, and I haven’t really been looking forward to it. I was braver over the phone with him. Too brave, I fear. But I wouldn’t take any of it back.

“She’s just getting set up,” I say.

“Good, good,” he nods, looking through the small window-slot in the door, and then running his hand through his graying hair. He’s worried.

“She kept this to herself. Otherwise…I would have made her talk to someone. I promise you,” I say, because I still feel like maybe Cass’s parents hold me responsible for this. Maybe I am.

“You can’t make her do anything, Tyson,” he says, looking at his daughter through the door window and pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

“Yeah,” I laugh once. “You’re probably right.”

“You…you want a coffee or anything from the nurse’s station?” he asks me. “This usually takes about an hour.”

“No thanks. I’m good. But go ahead,” I respond.

He just shakes his head, letting his gaze drift off. “I’m good too,” he says. I move toward the door, but before I get too close, he halts me. “It’s nice to finally meet you…in person, by the way,” he says, extending his hand. His grip is firm, and maybe a little threatening—as a father’s should be.

“Thank you for letting me
stay
with you all. It was really nice to be able to come here from my brother’s tournament. I know it was sort of a last-minute thing, so…anyhow,” I say, suddenly aware that I’m sweating. And rambling. Yeah, I’m definitely braver over the phone. I haven’t had to talk to many fathers. Just Kelly’s. And he was my Little League coach, so…

“I wanted to tell you,” he says, his eyes on me at first, but then at his feet. He sucks in his lips to think, and his posture grows stronger. He’s a prosecutor, and from what Cass says, he’s damn good. I have the distinct feeling he’s about to deliver a closing argument meant just for me.

“I appreciate what you said the other day…that you stood by Cass like that. It was…maybe a little surprising,” he says, his head cocked to the side as he looks at me with a knowing smile, one eyebrow raised.

“Thank you…sir?” I’m a dead man. I feel like a dead man.

“But I just wanted you to understand something, and please…don’t take this in a bad way, like I’m attacking. I…I just get the feeling that you and my daughter might be a whole hell of a lot more serious than her mother and I thought you were, so I thought this was important for me to say,” he says, and I can feel the sweat run down my back.

“The choices I made for my daughter, with this Paul Cotterman guy…they aren’t the easy route. You insinuated I was taking the easy route, but let me be clear—nothing about what I’ve done concerning that man, my daughter, and this case has been easy. Every fiber in my being wants to drag that asshole through court—to spread his story through every front page I can get to print it, to have him become viral on social media and the punch line for late night television shows. I want to spend months digging through his list of old girlfriends, hiring private investigators to uncover dirt, to make a case so strong that there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that my daughter is right. I know she is. God, Tyson—I’ve known it all along. But what would that do to her life? Dragging this story out, making it bigger, and bigger, and bigger, until it followed her forever? She’d have to live
this
. So as much as it kills me to let that asshole off the hook, as much as it killed me last year to appease the talking heads at her high school district, I struck a deal, and paid them all to keep their mouths shut. Forever. Because my daughter doesn’t deserve a media circus, and I have the means to make her nightmares go away.”

He’s looking down the hallway again, his jaw flexing, his teeth gritting.

“I think you should share that with her. I think she could really use hearing it,” I say.

“No, she needs to be angry at someone, until she’s done feeling angry,” he says. “And I’ll take the hard way, Ty. I’ll be that person she’s angry with. As much as it breaks my heart, I’ll be it for as long as she needs.”

His head hung low, he grips the handle to the door and takes a deep breath, trying to replenish his energy, his spirit—so that way when he walks into that room with his daughter, she has no clue how broken he is on the inside. I let him go in first, and I listen to his now-booming voice, confident and strong, and I move forward to watch him lean forward and kiss his daughter’s head. She shuts her eyes, wincing when he does. And I know that breaks him even more. But he sits down in the chair next to her and waits, all the while his jaw muscle clenching, biting his tongue, being
that
person.

For as long as it takes.