You and Everything After

I have a box full of those brochures and books, buried under an equally old tub of trophies and CDs tucked somewhere in the depths of my closet at my parents’ house. I’d get a new brochure with every new group I went to—or with every therapist I spoke to. I got them from the school, and from my mom’s whacko circle of friends who believe in holistic powers and positive thinking. And every time I got one, I’d thank the person, bring it home, and throw it in the collection.

When her backpack opened, I saw all of her insecurities spill right onto the floor, and I just knew. This one. This girl—she’s that other half my mom always talks about. I didn’t kiss her because I felt bad for her. I kissed her because I felt her. Cass is me—in every possible way. We’re both broken and pissed, fragile yet strong, careful with our hearts, but free with our words. And seeing the look on her face when I caught her in a moment of feeling less, in a moment that she felt unworthy…

“You are so much more than your sister,” I whisper to myself, amused that somehow she thinks she has something to prove. Fuck that. I have something to earn.

“Mail call!” Nate yells, tossing a hefty envelope at me as he busts through our door. It lands on my chest, so I sit up in my bed and look it over. It’s from Baker, Louisiana. Kelly lives in Baker. I toss it to the side and give Nate my full attention.

“Not gonna open it?” he asks, one eyebrow raised, tempting me.

“Nope,” I say, moving to my chair and pushing to the desk. I flip open my laptop to check my training schedule for the rest of the week.

“Wow,” Nate says. I can feel him staring at me, and I know there’s a grin on his face. “You’re smitten.”

“Shut up,” I say, following it up by tossing a pen at him from my desk. I’m more than smitten, but I’m also the one that does the dishing of crap around here. The crap doesn’t flow both ways. “You ask Rowe about the game and dinner with the parents yet?” I know he hasn’t, but this should get the focus off me and…feelings.

“Yeah…no…” he says, falling flat on his back and pulling his pillow over his eyes. “I don’t know what it is, dude, but this girl—she intimidates me.”

“Are you still tiptoeing around the boyfriend thing?” My brother saw Rowe hanging up a picture of her with another guy, and he’s too pussy to come right out and ask her about it—so instead, he’s taken to permanently moping. It’s annoying.

“I brought it up. She doesn’t want to talk about it. That’s about as far as it goes.” He blows out a heavy sigh.

“Well, if you don’t ask her, Cass won’t go. And if Cass doesn’t go, I’m going to kick your ass. So quit being a douchebag,” I say, grabbing his shoe and throwing it out in the hall like I always do when he irritates me. I’ve been doing this to him since he was a kid and used to want to hang out in my bedroom while I was talking on the phone to a girl.

“Fucker. I hate it when you do that,” he says, standing with a heavy slouch as he drags his feet toward his sneaker. He keeps walking down the hall when he picks it up, though, so I know he’s just as smitten as I am.

I push the door closed and turn to look at the simple brown package lying on my bed. It’s one of those over-sized envelopes, and it’s super puffy. It looks like a shirt. I bet it’s a shirt. That was Kelly’s thing—she loved those shirts with really silly sayings, and I thought they were a tremendous waste of resources, human labor, and money. She would buy me one for every birthday, holiday, anniversary, or whim just to tick me off. I loved it. I loved her for doing it.

Suddenly, I’m back on my bed, holding the package in my hand. For some reason, I smell it, wanting to know if it carried any sign of her along with it during its postal route. It just smells like cardboard and ink.

When I tear the corner open, I see the white fabric and confirm my suspicion immediately. I can’t help that it still makes me smile, and I rip the rest of the envelope away to hold the shirt up and reveal the punch line. It’s a stick man, humping the word it. Fuck it. Ha! Okay, that’s funny.

I toss the envelope in the trash and fold the shirt up and slide it in my top drawer. There really might be a time and place to wear that one—it’s a keeper. She finally found the one joke shirt I think is worth the twenty bucks she probably spent on it.

There’s a Facebook message waiting for me when I open my laptop, and I see Kelly’s picture looking back at me.

Well?

She must have followed the tracking code to see if I got it yet.