Between You and I

Chapter Thirty- Four

May 21, 2012: 206 Hours After

I knock on the door once… Twice… Three times before someone answers. Cady opens it up, a smile absent from her face and the dark rims around her eyes as dark as ever as they widen at the sight of me.

“Oh, Dan… What are you doing here?” She swings the door open wider, gesturing me to come inside, but I don’t really want to. 

“I’ll stay out here, it’s fine.” Somehow, I manage to give her a small smile, and she returns it wearily. The night weighs on me like a blanket of black, the light emanating from the house doing nothing to fight it. 

“I just came by to see if you were okay.” 

“Okay? What do you mean?”

“I mean…” Everything’s awkward. I’ve never really talked to her before, so the right words failed to find me. If I just spit it out would she push me away? But if I say nothing at all, it would mean I came here for nothing. 

“Valentine’s death… Are you okay?” All of a sudden, the tired look she wore disappears completely and is replaced by shock at the question I threw at her. She stares at her feet as they begin to shuffle.

“Why are you asking?” Why am I? Because I care. Because I’m worried about you. Because you’re my friend.

“I was just wondering,” I press my lips together, a little frustrated because I feel like I still can’t say the things I want to say. Whether it be to Valentine, to Charlie, to Cady, or to anyone. There’s always that fear gnawing at my insides; the fear of being rejected because of the things I say. That I’ll be pushed away by the people I care about the most because of the stupid things my mouth can come up with. I’ve done that multiple times, and I’m scared to do it again.

“Oh. Well, yeah, I’m fine.” Her eyes pierce mine with a dead weight in between and I raise my eyebrows.

“Really, now?”

“Yeah, really.”

“You know what I think?” I cross my arms, not knowing what else I can do with them. All she does is shrug.

“That’s bullshit,” I tell her. A sigh leaves her lips as she tucks a blonde lock behind her ear and steps out onto the porch.

“You’re right.” It’s a whisper while she shuts the door. 

“It is bullshit,” she says, leaning against the wood behind her. If you saw her, you would literally feel the chain that’s holding her down. Sure, you wouldn’t be able to see it, but you would just know that it’s there. That’s she’s beating herself up over all these different things at the same time and she doesn’t know how to ignore or deal with the pain. Just like how I felt like I couldn’t handle it all. My mouth’s sewn shut because I absolutely have no idea what to say.

After what seems like an eternity, she starts with, “It’s just that… She… She just vanished. She disappeared into nothing without saying anything… Nothing at all.” Her attention never leaves her focus point on the floorboards as every word slips her tongue.

“I was her friend. Didn’t I matter to her? Didn’t she feel like I needed her here because she was my only real friend? She knew all these things because I’ve told her. I’ve told her over and over again that people need her. You need her. I need her. And she just goes and does this… This horrible thing and she didn’t even bother with a goodbye.” The syllables clog up in her throat and she chokes on them, unable to say more. It’s obvious that she hasn’t said this to anyone. Not even Charlie because he doesn’t know what it feels like. She didn’t tell him because he hated Valentine, and his words would be nothing but hate. 

Charlie didn’t know the things we loved about her.

She breathes out, setting herself down onto the porch steps. 

“At the same time, I’m so incredibly angry at her, but I’m incredibly angry at myself. What did I do to make her feel the way she did? How could she feel so alone? All these things just attack you and jump you out of nowhere and you start to think that you’re this horrible person who didn’t give enough of anything and it’s you who pushed her.” Her big green eyes look up at me, glistening in under the porch lights and digging into me. I bite my tongue, ransacking my head for something- anything- to say but I don’t come up with anything because everything she’s said is everything I feel. We’re both caged by the same thoughts and the same endless nights and we don’t know how to escape it. 

"Charlie told me that she left you her laptop, and sometimes, I wonder whether or not it's worth knowing why because it must hurt so much to know." Finally, I scrounge up something to say at last, and I quietly say, "I wonder that sometimes, too."

I sit down next to her on the cold step and she buries her head in her hands. Her body shakes because of the emptiness she has chained herself to. That, and the fact that she knows I’m glued to it beside her. The two of us sit there in soundless conversation; buried by the tiny insects making small noises in the bushes and the hushed sounds of her crying. The ice inside of me causes every nerve to shut down and my blood to drop in temperature because I’m numb. I’m numb to all of this because I know it well enough. I know it like I’ve known it since forever.

After the minutes have slid past, she takes her head out of her arms and drags the back of her hand across her eyes as she rests her chin on her knees. 

“What are we going to do, Dan?” She whispers loud enough to hear, but soft enough that I can hear the vulnerability she couldn’t help but show now. What should I do? The question speeds through me, but I don’t think because I’ve already done.

My arms are tight around her, and she goes ridged in my arms. I know she thought she would never be able to be friends with me because I’ve been so closed off towards her, but she relaxes then hugs me as well, accepting the only comfort I can give her.

“I really don’t know,” I start.

“But after everything, something inside me tells me that we’ll be okay.” I finish. The night encloses around us, and I can feel just how relived she is that I'm here to say these things, even if I don't believe in them myself. That I have finally accepted her. I smile because if that's all it took to make her feel better, then maybe we really will be okay.