I shuddered and kicked myself out of my funk. You’ve definitely reached rock bottom when suicide in a mug of freakin’ cocoa had become an option. A muffled giggle escaped from inside me.
“What’s so funny?” Clarissa frowned at me. Marriage looked good on her. Her mass of red curls sprayed over her shoulders and her skin glowed.
I’d washed my hair that morning but that was about it for my beauty routine. “Thanks for letting me stay.” I’d arrived four days earlier and I should have driven straight to Gran’s farm, but it was empty there. So I’d crashed at Woodie’s. I hadn’t had to explain anything. My friend had welcomed me with a hug.
“Our home is your home.” Clarissa offered me a sweet smile and it warmed me inside. “You can’t always be strong, ya’ know. Sometimes you have to let the people who love you take care of you.”
“I don’t want to impose—”
“—Stop, Cassie.” She shuffled in her armchair and hunched forward. “I’ve known you since we were kids and I’ve never seen you back down from anything. I’ve never seen you cry or show any fear. You’ve always been the girl I watched from afar. And God forgive me, because I was so jealous of you, so jealous of how Josh and Woodie looked up to you, how they worshiped the ground you walked on.”
“You can relax now. You bagged Woodie. Josh and me… We’re hardly rom-com material, are we?” Tears glistened in Clarissa’s eyes and my throat constricted. “Damn, I’m such a bitch. Please forgive me.”
“Apology accepted.”
“You’re right though… I don’t let people in. The biggest mistakes in my life were because I thought I didn’t need anyone, that I could manage on my own.” I took a first sip of hot chocolate. Eek, Clarissa hadn’t spared the sugar. “The truth is that I was never alone. I chose to be because I didn’t give a chance to my friends and Gran to be there for me. I never let Josh be my Superman.”
Clarissa burst out laughing. “Superman? Are you blind, girl? Josh is more of a Thor or—”
“—Captain America. For sure, that’d come in handy in Washington.”
We kept laughing together and I watched Clarissa drink some of her own chocolate. Suddenly she bolted out of the armchair, her hand stuck over her mouth. She rushed out of the living room and disappeared into the downstairs bathroom..
You had to be deaf to miss the retching that followed. Granted, the cocoa was loaded with sugar but not enough to make her puke. I hurried to the kitchen, wetted a cloth and went to wait outside the bathroom. Shortly afterwards I heard the flush and Clarissa appeared in front of me. She wasn’t glowing anymore. Her skin had turned a washed-out green and some of her hair stuck to her forehead.
I took her in my arms and led her shaking body back to the sofa where I’d been squatting the whole morning. There, I covered her with the blanket and started patting her face with the damp cloth.
“I’m so embarrassed. I can’t believe…” she started rambling, but I hushed her. I went back to the kitchen for a glass of water. She gulped it down in one go, which wasn’t a good idea. I had a lot of experience of puking my guts out. I’d been one of those girls for whom morning sickness stretched to pretty much every hour of the—
Wait a sec! “Are you pregnant?” Clarissa’s eyes rounded like saucers at my question and some color returned to her cheeks. “You are pregnant.”
“I’m sorry. We didn’t want you to know.”
I shifted backward on the sofa. I was missing something here. “Why? Is there a problem with the pregnancy? Because I know a great ob-gyn in Kansas City and we can figure out a way for you to—”
She covered my hand with hers. “No, Cassie. All is fine so far, except for the vomiting.” She gave a slight shrug of her shoulders. “We just thought it’d hurt your feelings because of what’s happening with Lucas.”
It took me a while for my mind to wrap around what she’d just admitted. When it finally did, tears began to form in my eyes. “I might never get Lucas back, but I’ll be damned if I can’t be happy for you and Woodie to have your own baby.”
“We didn’t want the news to make you even more sad.”
“Sad? I’m thrilled. I’m so thrilled you might finally see me cry.” My voice had gone all wobbly and I hid whatever sobbing fest I was going to throw by taking her in my arms. I hugged her tightly. I’d never hugged a girl in my life before, except for Gran. But Gran wasn’t really a girl and she was the one doing the hugging most of the time.
“It’s nice to see you’re human after all,” she mumbled in the hollow of my neck.
The cell in my jeans pocket beeped. I parted from my hugging partner and we swept our tears off our cheeks at the same time. The text had to be from Josh. I hadn’t spoken to him since leaving Kansas City last Friday, but he’d written me several sweet, if slightly mysterious messages. I still had no idea what was going on.
Josh (13:12): On my way out of town in the car. Should be in SH in about 2 hrs.
My fingers started to type.
Cassie (13:13): Meet me. You know where…
It was time for me to let Josh in.
Good! I heard Gran say out loud, as though she was standing next to me.
I think she really was.
CHAPTER 27
Josh
The drive from Kansas City should have stolen my attention. I’d been squinting through the blowing snow to see the road ahead so hard my eyelids ached. But even a force-twelve hurricane wouldn’t have stopped me and my Honda rental. I was on a mission.
I drove past the city-limits sign welcoming visitors to Steep Hill, ‘The Legendary Cattle Town.’ As kids, Cassie and I used to make fun of it. Later, there was no road sign I’d dreaded more than that one. It wasn’t funny anymore. It meant heartache and betrayal. Today the road sign meant friends and family. Friends I chose. Family I had made.
It’d been a long road back to Steep Hill, not just on today’s drive. It’d been a five-year long road that’d taken me away from Kansas and from myself. But I’d found myself again and I was returning home.
I carefully merged onto the side road that led to Sweet Angel Point. The path was twisty and the wheels of the car skidded on the ice patches. If there was one thing my father had taught me well, it was how to drive. I hadn’t been that good a teacher with Cassie, unfortunately.
When I made it to the top of the hill, I gently applied the brakes. There were no other cars. I padded around the hood of the car, my feet crunching on the thick layer of snow. The weather had cleared and the cold rays of sun made the prairie around me glisten. I rested my back against the trunk of the cottonwood tree and let myself indulge in the snow-padded silence.
Cassie would arrive soon.
A whistle sliced through my thoughts. I straightened up. It’d come from close by. I checked my surroundings.
“Come on, Champ. Eyes up!”
I stumbled away from the tree, my gaze searching for the voice hidden within the branches. I circled around the trunk and there I found two legs hanging from a branch in the upper reaches of the tree. A head and a mass of blond curls soon emerged into view.
“Cass, are you fucking nuts? You’re going to break your neck.”
I extended my arms upwards, in an attempt to catch her should she fall.
“Relax. Unlike you, I kept climbing trees even as an adult.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better. Can we try and figure out how to get your skinny ass down here?”
“Do you remember the last time you were up here?”