Page 81 of As the Rain Falls
It’s not a night I like to think about. Not after it took me so long to forget. The first few months that followed made me hate every dress I wore, and every second I spent obsessing over how I looked felt like a second too long, but I couldn’t stop. I became unlikeable.Everybody thought so. Mom, Dad, and even Nathaniel himself after he came back, and I guess it must have been true.
For someone who hated beauty, I could crave it just as much. My brother had taken something from me, and I wanted it back. Nothing I did would erase the weight of his touch, the way his stinky breath lingered over my skin, or the feeling of pressure Igot sometimes late at night. It kept building up between my legs, making me nauseous and flustered.
This was the worst part, I think. Suddenly, I knew what sex was and I couldn’t stop touching myself. I felt aware of it, haunted, torn apart. Foolish, too. Certain that I could never, ever, feel pretty again.Mom caught me doing it once, and she taught me how to stop. I needed to be good, so I did. I stopped.
I hated her. Though it was unfair, I hated Lucia Evans, too. I hated how pretty she was and how untouchable it made her, when I hadn’t been spared in spite of being less beautiful. I had these conflicting moments of jealousy and envy, admiration and longing, that I couldn’t tame. She’d catch me staring at her sometimes, at school and at church, and I could tell she felt sorry for me. I didn’t look happy anymore.
My brother’s return made me angry and volatile, and Mom would spend hours consoling me after school. Once I realized nothing would change, I began to ignore the ugly feeling in my chest, replacing it with a different kind of hunger. Being the prettiest didn’t matter, at least not when I could be the sweetest.Lucia didn’t have to feel sorry for me anymore. I got better. I could pretend.
That was, until I realized something. Something I wouldn’t think about again until years later, months after her death. It really was weird that she’d noticed how terrible I felt when no one else did. She never spoke to me about it, but we knew. We were two sides of the same coin, stuck inside together. She’d been there long before me, long enough to know how to recognize the signs.
Something about us made us vulnerable. Playing girls like us was fair game, and whatever ugly truth I knew about the world, she’d known it first. Every discovery I made, every path I decided to take, only meant that I’d find her instead.
And something told me sometime around the beginning of November that, out of the two of us, Lucia also knew it best.
NOVEMBER ALWAYS BRINGS MORE BAD NEWS
Cassandra
NOVEMBER, 2016
“Cassandra, wake up!”
I blink twice, but everything around me stays dark and blurry. My heart skips a beat as I struggle to turn the light on. His hand is gripping my shoulder, shaking me, keeping me from fallingback asleep again.I’m too tired to stay awake but also too tired to resist.
“Get the fuck up!”
“Stop shaking me!” I groan loudly, head tilting towards the nightstand. The red glow of my alarm clock tells me it’s too early to be awake. “Are you fucking nuts? It’s four in the morning!”
Nathaniel doesn’t answer.
“I know.” He drops a phone instead, and the device falls next to me in bed. “But Mom wants to talk to you.”
“Oh.”
It makes me sit upright almost immediately. My head is spinning with anticipation. The previous feeling of grogginess is being replaced by one of complete warmth in my chest.
I love my mother. I love the way she sees me. Mom knows everything about me. She’s the glue keeping us from falling apart. The sacrifices she’s made to keep our family together are endless, and even though she didn’t call the cops that day, I know she only meant the best for both Nathaniel and I. It had to be that way. I have to believe it, otherwise—
I just want her to come home. Nathaniel steers away from hitting me whenever she is around.
“Mommy?”
“Cassandra?”
“Mom!” I breathe out, my voice almost shaking. “How are you? How’s grandma?”
“Abuelita está muy enferma, cariño.”
My heart drops to my stomach.All the happiness evades me. I might not be close to my grandmother like Nathaniel is, mainly because she practically raised him, but I’m still part of the family. She loves me just as much and I don’t want her to suffer anymore. This sickness has been going on for far too long.
“Do you think…”
My eyes search for Nathaniel in the darkness. He’s sitting at the edge of the bed, staring at the wall, face grim. The way he won’t look at me tells me everything I need to know about this call.
“Is she going to be okay?”
It takes her another full minute to answer.
