After Taylor, Natalie, and Ezra left, I decided to clean up the kitchen. But, before I could get much done Zac stopped me. He told me to go back to bed, and get more sleep. I guess I’d been acting as sluggish as I felt.
“I’m fine,” I insisted as I continued rinsing off the breakfast dishes and stacking them, less than neatly, in the dishwasher.
“Go,” he said, unrelenting. He gave me a gentle push away from the sink. “I’ll do this. You cooked.”
“Zac,” I said, trying to turn back around, but he gave me another push in the opposite direction.
“Fine,” I mumbled, secretly grateful for the opportunity. After I got past the initial defiance, the thought of my warm, comfortable bed sounded great. My eyes even started feeling droopy at the thought. I didn’t bother changing my clothes. I just hopped into bed, under my warm heavy comforter and closed my eyes, willing myself to not think about anything and sleep.
I figured, if I could shut my mind off, I would have nothing to do but sleep. It was a genius plan, but it failed. My mind wouldn’t stop reeling. I started off thinking about Zac doing the dishes which lead to thinking about breakfast, which lead to Taylor and Natalie, which lead to Natalie’s pregnancy, which, ultimately, lead to thinking about Casey, as I usually did. I wondered where Mike was, if he would ever return. I wondered how things would have turned out differently for all of us if her mother hadn’t died. I assumed we would have met her someday, our mothers were, after all, good friends. But would she have become friends with any of us? Would she have been a different person? Would we have liked her? Loved her, even?
And her life…it would have been so much different. If she hadn’t fallen in love with Zac, would she have ever met Mike? If not, then there would be no Chris and Kay. But there may have been another. Maybe she would have fallen in love with me instead. How would that have turned out? Would we still be together?
I must have dozed off for a little bit, because the next thing I remember is being startled to attention by a knock at the door. “Come in,” I answered, letting out a little yawn. The door opened a little bit, right before Casey poked her head around.
“Can we lay down with you?” She asked, and I could see, as she stepped into the room, that she was carrying Kay cradled in her arms. I nodded my affirmative and scooted over enough to give her room. She smiled warmly at my acceptance, and started towards the bed.
After she’d gotten herself situated under the blanket with Kay between the two of us, she looked up at me. “I didn’t mean to wake you up,” she said, barely above a whisper.
“It’s okay,” I said, honestly. I hadn’t even been a sleep very long, I didn’t think. I listened to the sounds in the apartment, and heard nothing. It was unusual as usually there was some sort of noise, whether it be the TV, or Zac messing with an instrument, or water running. But I heard nothing. “Is Zac here?” I asked, suddenly curious.
She shook her head. “He took Chris out to get ice cream. And I got bored…”
“Oh.”
We were both quiet for a while. I could feel myself slowly falling asleep again. As quickly as I let my eyes fall shut, I felt her feet push themselves underneath the calves of my legs. I opened my eyes and looked at her questioningly. She giggled.
“My feet are cold,” she explained, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. I didn’t move my legs, allowing her to warm up her feet, even though they felt like ice against my warm skin. It was a little uncomfortable, but nothing unbearable. She was just too amusing to not allow it.
I slid my eyes down to the baby sleeping fitfully between us. Her fingers were curled up in a fist beside her slightly opened mouth. I wanted to compare her features to Casey, but I just couldn’t see anything. Instead, I saw Chris in her. And Mike, now that I’d met him. I could see him in nearly all of her small, soft features. She was beautiful. Mike did not deserve to have such beautiful children. He didn’t deserve to have children at all. Especially not with Casey. She was too good for him. Too good for all of us, as Zac had declared the previous night.
When I looked up, I noticed that Casey was watching her sleep too, with a dreamy look in her eyes. She sensed that I was watching her, and without taking her eyes off of Kay, started speaking. “It’s hard to believe,” she started, uncertainly, “that she’s a part of me. That she’s mine.”
“It must be amazing,” I murmured, not taking my eyes off of Casey’s face. She kept her eyes on the sleeping baby.
“When Chris was born, I was too wrapped up in the terrified feelings.” She paused, biting the inside of her bottom lip. “I was terrified that I would screw him up, that I wouldn’t know what to do, that he’d grow up to hate me…”
“He definitely doesn’t hate you,” I said, and she chuckled, meeting my eyes.
“He’s only four,” she reasoned. ‘He still has time,’ I could practically hear her saying to herself inside of her head, but then she continued talking. “But I realized, all I had to do was love him and do the best that I could. That’s all you can do, right?” She said, looking straight into my eyes. “All you can do is your best. And I keep my mom with me at all times.”
“And you’re doing wonderful,” I assured her.
A sad smile spread across her face. “I wish I could do better,” she admitted. “I wish we could have stability, and I wish we could live without wondering when we’ll have to pick up and leave again.”
“You don’t have to pick up and leave anymore,” I tried to reassure her, but she wouldn’t have it. Nothing I could say would convince her that this could be home to her, if she’d only accept it. We were handing it out freely, and she just wouldn’t take it.
She tightened her lips and closed her eyes. Knowing she was about to cry, I pushed some of her hair out of her face, in an attempt to comfort her. Before I could pull my hand away, she grabbed it and laced her fingers in between mine. If she spoke in the next few seconds, I didn’t hear. I was too distracted by the feel of her hand in mine as they rested in a tight ball between us.
I moved my eyes up to her face, and saw her watching me. “I just want you to know, no matter where Zac and I - or Taylor…or any of this family - are, you will always have a home with us.” I recovered from my distraction quickly, hoping she hadn’t noticed it, or wouldn’t read too far into it.
She decided not to respond to my sentiment. “I never thought he’d find us here, you know? And I don’t even know how he did. Because, he knows about my history with Zac, and he knew that was the last place I wanted to be.”
I suddenly felt myself wanting to defend Zac, though I wasn’t sure why. Whatever problems they’d had in the past, he’d created. And it wasn’t like she was saying that Zac was a horrible person, she was just saying that they had a complicated history. But, before my mind could catch up with my mouth, I stated, “Zac is a good guy.”
“I know,” she said immediately. “I didn’t mean to…I’m just saying that after I left, it was so hard to think about him, let alone coming face to face with him.”
“He missed you,” I stated, though I’m not sure why. I knew it wouldn’t help the situation, but I didn’t think it would hurt it either. I guess I just said it for lack of anything better to say. I studied her eyes, waiting for her response. Not knowing how to redeem myself.
“Things just got so fucked up, you know?” She sighed. “I was so confused.”
“You were both too young to have to deal with something like that,” I assured her. “You did the only thing you knew to do.”
She nodded. “You’ve said that before, but I can’t help but wonder how things might have turned out. Do you know what I mean?” I nodded, knowing exactly what she meant. I’d been thinking along those exact lines only moments before. “I mean, sometimes I picture myself in different situations, wondering what I would have done. I try to figure out where I would have ended up, but I just can’t picture it.”
“What do you mean?” I asked just above a whisper.
“I mean…first, I think of all the things I could have done differently with Zac, but ultimately, they all turn out the same. If I’d done things differently, things would have turned out better. But…”
“But?” I prodded when she didn’t continue.
“But then I try to think of all the things I could have done differently without Zac, and my mind goes blank. It’s like…I can’t even picture what my life would have been like without him.”
I lay there still, trying to take in what she was saying. It seemed so innocent, but I wondered if she was really still in love with him. The thought crossed my mind that they may get back together, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
“And,” she started again, unsurely. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing, or a bad thing.”
“The important thing is to not dwell on the past,” I said assuredly without even thinking. I didn’t know where the words were coming from. Before I knew it, they were just spilling over. The filter between my mind and mouth had been turned off, and it was starting to annoy me. “What’s over, is over, and all you can do is worry about the future.”
She smirked sadly. “All I ever do is worry about the future.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I said, realizing that I hadn’t exactly worded that correctly. Where was the filter when you needed it? “I just mean, don’t dwell on the past, just concentrate on the future.” I was silent for a moment as she bit her lip. “You have a really bright future,” I said, knowing that it sounded corny, but not caring.
It brought a smile to her face. “I don’t know what I would do without you guys,” she admitted.
I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my mouth closed and smiled warmly. She didn’t need to hear my voice to know that I felt the same way about her. That any of us felt the same way about her. All those years without contact with her were hell. The not knowing killed us, especially in the beginning.
I looked down when Kay started moving around, her fist balled tighter. She opened her eyes and starting fussing, and I knew what was coming next. Casey sighed as she perceptibly started crying. Casey carefully leaned over Kay to press her lips to my forehead. “Thanks for always being there,” she said quietly, almost inaudible, before pulling her feet out from under my legs and getting out of bed. She took Kay and held her close to her chest as she left the room, trying to calm her sobs. All I could do was watch, wishing for more. Wishing it was my place.
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