Baby Don't Return to Me

“Emerson,” I didn’t understand the hesitant edge in Jared’s voice. I had followed Emerson into the hallway to talk, Jared and Pat were tagging along behind us, stuck somewhere between referees and a buffer. Kennedy would follow soon but he had ventured out into the hospital with Aunt Lisa in search of coffee for now, unaware of Emerson’s presence here.

“Shut up, Jared.” She snapped, her eyes gluing me in place. I had never been afraid of Claire Emerson in my entire life, but right now she was making me nervous. What had I done to her? I wracked my brain for the possibilities but came up empty—Claire had been my best friend since grade school. “What are you doing here, Cass?”

For some reason it felt like there was a wrong answer to this question. My eyes darted to Jared, standing off to the side uneasily as he ran a hand through his hair, his eyes locked on Emerson.

“Kennedy called me. He told me about our mother and I flew back to see her.”

“Are you staying?” She demanded heatedly, her blue eyes blazing.

“Em-“

“Shut. Up. Pat.” Emerson growled.

This was not the girl from my memory. The girl I had known would have chewed out the girl who spoke this way to Pat now. But this…I didn’t even recognize this girl. She stared at me expectantly, her icy orbs boring holes in me. She was 5’3, 110 pounds, she wasn’t the first person you’d expect to be intimidating.

“I don’t know,” And I honestly didn’t. It was moments like this, like my encounter with John, that made me want to hop back on a plane and never look back. I swear it has to run in the family, this reflex to get as far away from whatever bothered us as possible. Exhibit A: our father, Exhibit B Me, exhibit C: Macy, exhibit D: Kennedy who left time after time on tour and would go stir crazy if he was in Tempe too long.

“You don’t know?” She echoed enunciating every word slowly. I guess honesty isn’t the best policy. “Well you better fucking know soon Cassandra because you can’t just come here, stir shit up, and leave us here to clean up your mess again. I won’t let you hurt them like that again.”

Part of me wanted to know who she was referring to as them. Was it my family? Was it the boys? Was it everyone I’d ever known? But my jaw locked tight. I knew better than to ask—curiosity killed the cat after all.

“That’s enough, Claire.” The short clipped tone shocked us both. Emerson jumped slightly as she glanced at the figure over my shoulder, her eyes widening before narrowing. I turned to the voice I knew well; my brother.

It seemed my brother had also picked up a straggler on his travels. Garrett Nickelsen with his disheveled hair and piercing blue eyes stood before us, capturing the attention of us all.

From the emotion in his face I wondered if it had been him who had spoken and not my brother. What had Emerson gotten herself into? Gotten me into?

“Ken-“

His eyes were locked with Emerson’s an annoyed gleam in his eye. “Last time I checked chewing out your best friend who you haven’t seen in two years is a bad way to say you’ve missed her. Just because you can hold a grudge, it doesn’t give you the right to be bitchy and rude.”

This shocked me but from the looks of indifference on Pat and Jared’s faces proved my brother’s attitude toward Emerson wasn’t new.

“Fuck off, Kennedy.”

“Go back to the waiting room, Claire.” Garrett advised steadily. “Harass CJ some other time. Preferably when it’s not down the hall from her sick mother.” Okay, what. The. Hell. Had. I. Missed? Why was everyone tag teaming Emerson, why was Emerson attacking me ?

Emerson glared at him silently fuming before she burst, “What the hell are you doing here anyway? I thought you had to go find tall, pale, and lanky.”

“Why the hell would I be doing that when I apparently have to baby sit your ass?” Garrett retorted.

Emerson glared at Garrett and Kennedy while Pat and Jared looked like they were on the verge of restraining Claire at any given time. Something had definitely gone wrong while I was away, I was just curious as to what it was.

When it became clear that Kennedy wasn’t going to cave and Garrett wasn’t going to back down, Claire disappeared in a fury of blonde hair and clacking high heels as she retreated to the waiting room furiously.

“Alright,” I piped after a silence had settled and it became clear that none of the boys were going to break it. “Somebody explain to me what the hell is going on around here.”

“Don’t worry about,” Kennedy grumbled dismissively.

“Don’t worry about it?” I echoed incredulously. “Excuse me but when people start looking for a witch hunt I’d like to know what I am being accused of first.”

“It’s not like that, CJ.” Garrett stated. “Not everything revolves around you.”

“It’s nice to see you too, Garry. It’s been a hell of a two years but I’ve pulled through. How have you been? How’s the family?” I questioned sarcastically. It was good to know at least some characteristics of my friends were still intact: Garrett still didn’t understand the meaning of ‘hello’s or pleasantries but the bitterness to his voice was new.

“Stop it CJ,” Kennedy demanded, his eyes narrowing and his body tense—well there goes the strings of our relationship. “Stop acting like you have a right to be pissed off.”

“Are you kidding me?”

Seriously? Kennedy expected me to just lie down and take it when I get chewed out by my ex best friend. I don’t know if he’s looked in the mirror lately but that isn’t exactly the Brock way, sorry the Trotter way; I’d already been bitched at by Claire so I wasn’t going to point out this fact to Kennedy.

“You expect me to just take it lying down then is that it? Because I deserve to be yelled at, to be screamed at for no god damn reason. Stop acting like you have a right to be pissed off Ken, you’re the one who turned your back on me not the other way around.” I wasn’t sure when the conversation had taken this turn only that it had come much more quickly than I had anticipated. “You may have changed your name to Brock, but at the end of the day its still Trotter blood coursing through your veins that has you gripping onto this grudge you have on me so tightly.”

I saw the change in his face, the shock, the black anger. I knew that I had awakened something within my brother that hadn’t been alive since our father walked out. I knew that the anger surfacing now was not one that his friends could calm with a few beers and a drunken soccer game. I knew that the only way this anger in Kennedy would finally cease would be if we lay out all our problems, duke it out, and picked each other up out of the wreckage. But I wasn’t ready to lay out my heart again and Kennedy sure as hell wasn’t ready to hear it.

So I did the only thing I could think of, the one thing our family did best, I walked away.