Plus One

36: The hopeless heroine

I know, it's been forever. :( Meanwhile, I'm more or less working myself into a psychotic breakdown. Oops!

36: The hopeless heroine

“You’ve been in the shower for fifty minutes, Cassie. Hello?”

I opened my eyes slowly as the warm water swept down my back. I tried to remember the last time I’d found myself in this position: sitting on the floor of a shower, arms curled around my knees, letting my head roll against the tile as streams of water pounded over me like a personal rainstorm. It was childish, it was uncomfortable, and it was doing nothing for my carbon footprint, but I didn’t want to move. It seemed easy to sit like this and watch the steam rise from my wet skin; outside the bathroom, everything would be cold and dry.

The knock sounded on the door again. “You know I’m not strong enough to break down a door by myself, but there are some heavy things in this apartment that I won’t hesitate to throw.”

“Charlotte, go away,” I murmured, nudging a bar of soap with my toe. “I’m not clean yet.”

“You aren’t clean yet?” Charlotte scoffed. “You spent the night in a hospital and the morning in your boyfriend’s bed, not in a swamp. I found some clothes for you to wear.”

I scowled, partly at my persistent friend in the hallway, and partly because the shower was finally running out of hot water. Charlotte said something else, but in my egocentric mood I didn’t hear her. Nonetheless, fearful of being cold and of turning into a fish, I flicked the water off and peeled myself from the floor. Even the towel’s warmth couldn’t quite replace the suddenly missing hot water, but there was no use complaining any more.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” I said later, after getting dressed. Charlotte was making some sort of food—or at least, she was attempting to heat up leftover Chinese food from the refrigerator.

She laughed sharply, “Coming from the girl who almost drowned herself in the shower. Cassie, it’s okay to feel awful, but don’t act like I’m completely overreacting. You practically saw Taylor try to commit suicide. No one expects you to be a martyr and act like nothing happened.”

I winced and leaned further into the couch cushions. Taylor tried to commit suicide. Taylor tried to commit suicide for the second time. Maybe I wasn’t allowing myself to accept the gravity of the situation, but why should I? If I truly let myself come to terms with last night—with constructed memories of Taylor drinking himself to death all alone, with vivid images Dominic pulling a knife from his best friend’s bloody chest, with the wrecking ball of guilt hanging two centimeters above my head—I was walking into a death sentence. Why accept something you know you can’t overcome?

“Listen to me,” Charlotte said firmly. I jumped, unable to remember when she had left the kitchen. She was sitting beside me now, here eyes narrowed with worry. “This isn’t easy for anyone. But we’re all going to be okay: Taylor is still alive and well and Dom will be fine because of that alone. It was a bad night.”

“No, Char. Waking up in an unfamiliar room with a strange man is a bad night. Finding out your parents are getting a divorce is a bad night. You’re acting like Taylor fell down the stairs after eating a few too many pot brownies. This isn’t something that’s cured by happy movies or sex. This doesn’t… doesn’t go away. It hasn’t, and it won’t.”

“Oh come on, that’s not fair. I know that this is one of the hardest things anyone ever has to deal with. You know that I don’t think we should forget what happened, but you have to believe that Taylor is going to pull through this. If you don’t, you’re practically giving him your blessing that he’ll fail. It’s not like he’s danced around the apartment for the past year telling everybody that he’s giving up on life. For a few hours, he probably felt like his world was too overwhelming to deal with, but I’ve talked to him and he swears the feeling is gone. Even if it isn’t, Dom won’t leave his side until we’re all certain his words are true. No one’s brushing this off, Cassie. It’s just that what we need is a little optimism right now.”