Better (Too Good series) (33 page)

“So I’m doomed to be a freaking moron for . . . what is it? Nine more years!!”

Cadence burst out laughing. “Pretty much.”

“I freaking hate my life right now,” Oliver grumbled. “I hate Mom and Dad, my brain is stupid, and I killed my best friend.”

Cadence draped her arm over Oliver’s shoulders. “You didn’t.”

“I did!” he insisted, and then, right there in the open air, in the warm sunshine surrounded by teenage boys practicing their grinds and kickturns, Oliver cried. “Jesus, Cay!” He leaned over and buried his face in his hands.

Cadence rubbed his back and murmured words of encouragement, but she knew he didn’t hear. His grief drowned out the world around him. She felt it as her hand moved over his back—the tension and shell-shock. She was afraid it would twist his heart and make the brother she knew disappear forever.

Oliver wiped his eyes clumsily with the backs of his hands and sat up. He looked directly at a skater who’d stopped to watch him. Cadence hadn’t noticed the boy stared the whole time, trying to make sense of Oliver’s show of grief inside a skate park. It didn’t translate, so he went back to skating, careful to avoid making any further eye contact with Oliver.

Oliver took a deep breath. “What the hell happened to our family?”

Cadence shook her head. “Me.”

“Now if I’m not allowed to take responsibility for Charlie’s death, you sure as hell aren’t allowed to take it for our family falling apart.”

Cadence smiled sadly. “It’s hard to keep from messing up, isn’t it? I wasn’t looking to get in trouble at that party. I wasn’t looking for drugs. Yeah, I should have been stronger and walked away, but I didn’t. That’s my sin. But I couldn’t have known the effects that night would have on us.”

“There’s no such thing as ‘perfect’,” Oliver replied. “I don’t know why Mom and Dad live in this world where they think there is. It’s total denial, and instead of just dealing with our mistakes and helping us grow from them, they ignore. Or in your case, freak out.”

Cadence nodded. “I don’t think they’re very good parents,” she said thoughtfully. “And not because I’m angry with them for cutting me off or anything. I’m looking at it objectively. I really believe they simply don’t make good parents.”

“So what are we supposed to do with that?” Oliver asked.

Cadence sighed. “I’ve no idea. The best that we can, I guess.”

“That’s easier for you because you don’t live with them anymore,” Oliver pointed out.

“Doesn’t mean it’s still not hurtful, Ollie. Doesn’t mean my life is so awesome because I’m no longer under their roof. I miss them—bad parents or not. I miss them. They’re still my parents. And I did spend most of my life in their house. It’s not easy going from that kind of security to living with your boyfriend and pissing off people who think it’s wrong.”

“Do you think it’s wrong?”

“What? Living with my boyfriend? No.”

“Do you think you can be a Christian and live with your boyfriend?”

“I am and I am,” Cadence replied. Oliver grinned.

“Then what do you care?”

Cadence raised her eyebrows. What did she care? Oh, yeah. The stigma. That motherfucking stigma.

“It’s not acceptable in the church,” she said.

“Fuck the church. I keep hearing how Christianity is supposed to be all about your relationship with God. How many times have we heard that? ‘I don’t have religion. I have a
relationship’
.”

Cadence smiled.

“And then those same assholes pass judgment because you’re doing something they don’t like. Doesn’t matter if God said it was okay. They’ll argue that you can’t possibly be right. You’re misinterpreting him. You didn’t hear him right.” He scowled. “It’s complete bullshit.”

“
I’m sensing you have some issues with the church,” Cadence teased.

Oliver chuckled. “Don’t you ever feel like you’re in these invisible chains? You’re raised to believe a certain thing, and no matter how hard you try to form your own understanding of God and the world, you can’t e
ver truly escape that framework you were given.”

“You’ve thought a lot about this, huh?”

“Ever since Charlie died, yeah. I wanna get my shit together, but I wanna be happy with my choices. I need Mom and Dad’s voices to quit yammering in the background. Telling me I’m wrong.”

Cadence nodded.

“I don’t know how to do it,” Oliver said softly.

“Do what?”

“Be a Christian.”

Cadence rested her head on Oliver’s shoulder. “It’s a work in progress, bro.”

“Is it?”

“For the rest of your life.”

“Is it worth it?”

Cadence thought long and hard about that question. Is it worth it? Yes. She thought it was. And she was able to pinpoint it.

“Yes.”

“How so?” Oliver asked. He pressed his cheek to the top of her head.

“Because no one will ever love you like God does.”

“I’m not feeling the love right now,” Oliver said.

Cadence laughed. “Yeah, well, that happens.”

“
Dad asked you to come to dinner,” Oliver said suddenly.

Cadence shot up
in her seat and stared at her brother. “
What
?”

“He asked you to come to dinner tomorrow night. He wants to talk to you.”

The suspicion exploded in her heart. “Why? And why can’t he come to see me?”

“He won’t go to Mark’s.”

“It’s
our
apartment. Not just Mark’s,” she clarified.

“Well, he won’t go to
your
apartment.”

“If he has something to say to me, he can come to me.”

“Look Cay, I’m just the messenger. I don’t know what Dad wants. All I know is that he asked you to come to dinner.”

Cadence thought absurdly that her father had plans to kidnap her and keep her from Mark forever. She thought about Rapunzel—being locked away in her room forever—never seeing the outside world again. She didn’t want her hair to grow that long, and she blurted it out loud.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Oliver asked.

“Oh my God, I don’t know! He’s not gonna kidnap me, Ollie!” She grabbed the front of his shirt as she spoke.

“Calm. Down. Jeez.” Oliver peeled her hands away and eyed her curiously. “No one’s gonna kidnap you, and I’ll be there anyway. I’ll seriously kill Dad if he does anything.”

“So you want me to go?” she asked. The fear permeated every word.

“Well, I think you should go and hear him out. Maybe he wants to apologize, which would be completely insane and out of character for him, but who knows? People can change.”

“He punched me in the eye.”

“I know. And maybe he feels really guilty about it.”

Cadence snorted. “Only took him eleven months.”

Oliver laughed. “Look, I think Dad’s an asshole, okay? And I don’t trust him. But I’m just saying, if I were in your position, I’d go. Mostly out of curiosity. But you never know. And anyway, I’ll be there. I won’t let anything happen to you.” He paused for a moment and screwed up his face in confusion. “Or your hair.”

She giggled. “I was just thinking about Rapunzel and . . . just never mind.”

“Okay, whatever. Think about the dinner. I’ll be there.”

“You said that already.”

“Yeah, but I’m not sure you believe it.”

“I believe it.”

“Okay. Good.” Oliver drew in his breath and let it out slowly.

“Aside from this most recent breakdown, how are you doing?” Cadence asked.

He chuckled. “Fine.”

“It’ll be like that for a while, you know,” Cadence explained. “You’ll have a couple of really good days, and then you’ll just break down all over again like the accident happened yesterday.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because that’s what I’m still going through with Mom and Dad. Sometimes I go weeks without feeling any kind of pain. And then it comes right back—fills up my heart like the whole incident happened yesterday. And I cry like a baby.”

“Is that my fault? Should I have not even told you about the dinner?”

“No no! I’m glad you did. And you’re right. I should go. If only for some closure. God, I hate that word.”

“Dumb word,” Oliver agreed.

They were silent for a moment.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to shake the feeling of having some kind of responsibility for Charlie’s death. I think that’s what I’ll spend the rest of my life dealing with.”

Cadence nodded.

“I miss him. He was a great friend.”

“I know he misses you, too,” Cadence said softly.

“I’ll see him again, though.”

She smiled. “Yep.”

“I saw pictures of the accident,” Oliver said. “That car was obliterated.”

Cadence nodded. She saw the pictures, too—Charlie
’s car wrapped around a thick oak tree. She had no idea how Oliver survived the crash, let alone walked away with just a gash on the cheek and a broken arm.

“You know what?” Oliver asked.

“What’s that?”

“Sometimes I wish we could reverse time and go back three years.”

“Three years?”

“Yeah. When we were blissfully unaware. You were a goody-two-shoes sophomore with an equally goody-two-shoes best friend. I was in eighth grade and thought I was awesome because I was at the top of the middle
-school food chain. Mom and Dad liked us because we hadn’t done anything bad yet.”

Cadence considered all this.

“Maybe it wasn’t really real, but it was safe.”

Cadence nodded. And then she took Oliver’s hand.

“You’re gonna feel safe again. I swear.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Is it because of Mark?”

“He has a lot to do with it. But it’s not just him. It’s his mom, Fanny, Avery.” She paused. “You.”

He nodded.

“You all make me feel safe.”

“So it’s a matter of having good people in your life,” Oliver confirmed.

“Exactly.”

“So I need to get some good ones.”

“Well, I hope I’m one,” Cadence said.

“You are, but you’re not enough,” Oliver said thoughtfully.

“Have you reached out to Kim?”

“Yeah. At first she told me to get lost. But after two weeks of nonstop pestering, she agreed to hear me out over dinner.”

“That’s awesome, Ollie.”

“Yeah. Now I’ve gotta figure out what to say.”

“No better time than the present,” Cadence said.

“You mean, like, practice with you? Gross.”

Cadence laughed. “I’m just saying that it might help. Go on. Try it. I can give you some pointers.”

Oliver turned to Cadence. “This is sick,” he began. “But I’m desperate.” He pulled his hand from his sister’s. “All right. Here goes. Kim, I know you hate my guts right now . . .”

He paused and stared at his sister. And then they burst out laughing.

***

Mark was apprehensive about the dinner. He wasn’t invited—no surprise there—and he wondered what her father planned to say that he couldn’t say in front of Mark. He was reluctant to see her off, standing in front of the apartment and watching her car disappear from view. He had the sudden, sinking fear that he’d never see her again.

Cadence battled her own apprehensions, especially when she walked into her old house. Everything looked and smelled the same, and she avoided glimpsing the spot in the living room where her dad attacked her. Her mother tried to hug her when she opened the door, but Cadence sidestepped her. She wasn’t ready to be touched. She may never be ready to be touched again.

The last time she saw her father, he was crying in a hospital room. She recalled staring at him as if he were a stranger. She felt no empathy, no connection to his grief, though hers was similar. They were both grieving for Oliver and the loss of his best friend. But she couldn’t do it with him. She didn’t want to do it with him, and she wondered now why she even agreed to this dinner. The connection, she discovered quite suddenly, had been permanently broken. It was broken in the hospital room. She just didn’t know it until now.

“Thank you for coming,” Mr. Miller said as Cadence sat down across from him. He sounded like he was addressing business partners at a meeting.

Oliver took the seat beside Cadence. He sat a little too close, but she realized it was his nonverbal way of saying, “I’ve got your back.” She smiled to herself.

“I made your favorite, Cadence,” Mrs. Miller said.
“Lasagna.”

Cadence wanted to say that lasagna was no longer her favorite, but that seemed cruel. Her mother was obviously trying. Sort of, anyway.

“Oliver, would you like to say the blessing?” Mr. Miller asked once everyone’s plate was filled with food.