Page 76 of Love at a Funeral and Other Awkward Conversations

He pads into the room with a towel wrapped around his waist, his shoulders still glistening with water droplets. The gold of the Saint Vincent medal around his neck glints at me from the nest of chest hair that’s soft under my cheek when I lay my head on it.

He lounges on the edge of the bed and snakes his hand under the comforter to find my ankle, wrapping his fingers around it. “You going into hibernation?”

“Yes.”

He frowns at me before wiping his thumb beneath my right eye. “What happened?”

“What hasn’t happened?” I say, catching myself leaning into him. The response we have to each other is automatic and effortless, and it’s so easy to be with him, it feels out of place. When the rest of my life has gone to the dogs, this hasn’t, and I don’t know how to handle it, not when I’m in the mood to smash everything.

Antagonism rises up through the cracks in the cement, where green grass and flowers had been growing. Now, they’re withered and wilted, leaving more than enough room for resentment to spread. I roll my shoulder away when Vince tries to massage it. “Don’t.”

He straightens up. “Why do you have the whole scared-cat thing going on again?”

I toss the covers away from me and, in my rush to stand up, get my legs all tangled. I kick at them. “Goddamn it.”

“Cass.”

“What?” I shoot my eyes to his after I’m standing.

“What’s wrong?” He’s patient with me, his face giving nothing away. And this is why I hate him. He knows me so well, he knows eventually I’ll give in to him, spill all my secrets, and I hate that. I really fucking hate that. And if he’s going to force me to bare my soul, I need him to put some clothes on at least.

“Can you put a shirt on or something?”

“What?” He grins, playfully flexing. “Can’t handle this?”

I roll my eyes, and he thankfully snatches a T-shirt and sweats from the bureau. I don’t watch him change. The act of him getting naked in front of me is intimate, and I don’t want to feel close to him—or anyone—right now.

Dressed, he holds his arms out at his sides. “Good? Talk to me now.”

I pull my cell phone out of my back pocket and flip it in my hand. “My parents are getting divorced.”

He cringes. “Oh god, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.” I wave off his words, but he continues. “That really sucks, but it’s not unusual for parents to divorce after the death of a child.”

I huff.

“I mean… It’s not helpful to you, but I can empathize with them.”

My hands fist at my sides. He’s always so goddamn logical and agreeable. “You can empathize, huh?”

He shrugs. “People grieve differently, and when couples move to the extremes of the spectrum, it’s probably really difficult to?—”

“Could you not be so understanding right now? I’m pissed. I want you to be pissed too.”

“I’m not sure what you want me to say here,” he says then pats the place on the bed next to him for me to sit down, but I can’t. The dam has broken. He wanted me to talk, so I’m going to.

“Nothing! I don’t want you to say anything. I’m not asking for you to problem-solve right now. I want you just to be my?—”

I stop short of the word boyfriend. Any other day, I probably would have said it, but now, the idea of having a boyfriend makes me want to cry. I’ve already decided I need to leave. I can’t stay here with my brother living in a cemetery and my parents splitting up. What’s the point?

I sniffle. “I don’t need you to fix this or fix my parents or…or…or fix me. I only need you to listen to me!”

He stands up with his hands out to me, slowly closing the distance between us. “I know.”

“No, you don’t know. Your family’s perfect, your parents still flirt with each other, your brother isn’t dead.”

“I get it,” he says, reaching out to me, and I slap his hands away.

“Stop!” In my head, it sounds like I’m shrieking, but I have to get the words out louder than the swirling in my mind. “My brother is dead. His bones are in the ground. And my parents hate each other. They hate me. And you don’t get it. You can’t get it.”

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