Like No Other

I woke up the next morning to the smell of bacon and thoughts of deep brown eyes. I checked my phone for the twentieth time, still no text from Jeremy. Give it time, I thought to myself. I walked in the bathroom and washed my sweaty face, still trying to get the images of windshield glass coming at my face, my latest nightmare, out of my head. I had been having dreams like this for a while, not every night, but most. When I first started having these morbid dreams, a week after the accident, my therapist said I was suffering from shock and they should die down some, but they hadn’t. My parents thought I had stopped having nightmares a couple months ago. I was sick of them worrying so I lied.
I smelled the bacon again and I heard my stomach growl in response. I pulled my hair up and pulled on shorts and a tank. I ran down the step, memories from my dream still on the surface of my mind. Angie was at the stove, Jack at the table on his laptop.
“There’s milk or orange juice in the fridge,” Angie told me over the sizzle of the bacon. I grabbed the OJ and scrambled around, opening different cabinets, trying to find the glasses. “It’s the second to your right.”
I smiled sheepishly and opened the correct one. After pouring myself a glass I sat across from Jack. A couple minutes later, Angie was sitting plates in front of us, piled with eggs, bacon, biscuits, and sausage. Angie sat down next to Jack. Then they held hands, both of them reaching for my hand. I stopped mid-bite, a puzzling look on my face.
“We’re going to say grace,” Angie said simply.
Whoa, whoa, wait, my sister, Angie Rose Newcomb, once the queen of beer pong, is seriously about to say grace? What is happening to the world? But, I reached across the table, grabbed their hand and bowed my head. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against religious people. I actually believe there’s a God and Jesus died for our sins and all that good stuff, but my family just never really went to church every Sunday. We usually made it on Easter or Christmas but church just wasn’t a normal thing for us.
Angie said a quick prayer, something about blessing the food to nourish our bodies. I couldn’t pay much attention to it because I was still trying to figure who this alien was sitting across from me, holding my hand. All I knew was that it just couldn’t be my sister.
After the prayer, I scarfed down my food, only stopping occasionally to yawn. I wanted to get out of the house and think. But after a while Angie noticed my excessive yawning.
“Long night last night?” she asked.
“Yeah, kind of,” I looked up, shrugging my shoulders, trying not to make it sound like such a big deal.
"What were you up to?” she persisted.
"I checked out No Regrets and then just hung out with this girl I met there named Becca,” I looked over to Jack, “She mentioned you worked with her father.”
“Yeah, I know the girl,” Jack said. “She’s nice, a bit of a partyer, but her dad is a great guy.”
“Yeah,” I said, crossing my fingers under the table, praying that the conversation could be over.
“So what did you guys doing out so late? What time did you come home?” Angie pressed again.
What are you, my mother? I wanted to ask her but instead I just replied with, “Hanging out with a few of her friends. I got home at around 1:45.”
Angie cleared her throat. “Cassie, I’m not trying to act like your mother but I need you to text me if you’re going to be later than midnight.” She practically read my mind.
I just nodded my head, finished up the last of my eggs, and pushed from the table.
“Hey, can I borrow the car today? I wanna hit up some stores I saw last night. And besides, I need a new bathing suit.” I asked, placing my plate in the sink and running some water over it.
“Oh sure, you want me to go with you?” Angie sounded so eager and excited at a new opportunity to spend some “quality time” with me. I really didn’t want to shoot her down. But, I also didn’t want her tagging along beside me all day.
Jack was sitting back watching this whole conversation between me and my sister. See, Jack is a man of few words but he has this intuition about him. He notices things that other people don’t, kind of like me. He notices things people like my sister don’t. He noticed my lack of enthusiasm and the slight look I gave when Angie offered to go shopping with me. So Jack, good ole Jack, rescued me.
“Honey, this is my only day off. I wanted to spend some quality time with my fiancé,” he got up and came behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “Cassie will be fine, right?” he said winking to me.
Man, he is gooooood, I thought to myself.
“Right, right,” I said nodding my head. “You guys should spend some time together. I mean, only two more months before the wedding! Wow, that’s crazy. You guys should take a beach day, and maybe I’ll meet up with you there after I finish shopping.”
“Are you sure?” Angie asked reluctantly, but I could tell, Jack had her hooked.
“Totally,” I assured her.
“Alright,” she grabbed her keys, which hung off a hook above the counter and tossed them to me. Then she whispered in Jack’s ear and he pulled out his wallet and gave her $100 dollars.
I started to hand it back to him. “Oh, no guys, I can’t,” I said, but he shoved my hand back to my chest.
“Take it,” Angie said. “You can get a new bathing suit and whatever else you need.”
Jack pushed me to the door and practically threw me out of the house. I walked over to little Old Sue and hopped in. They had one of those little pine tree fresheners hanging from the rearview mirror that smelled like coconuts. The scent drifted through the car as I revved up the engine.
The leather steering wheel was hot from being parked in the sun. I navigated through the streets of Bridgeport, not sure of my destination. I just drove and thought. I thought of my old life, my new one, my old friends, my new ones. I thought of the beach, the waves crashing against the shore. I could almost hear them. I probably drove around like that for thirty minutes.
I was stopped at a red light, my windows rolled down. A couple was walking beside the car on the sidewalk, his arm around her shoulder. She laughed loudly, her head tilting back slightly. It was then that I realized how long it had been since I’d laughed, genuinely laughed. I tried to fake laugh but it didn’t sound right. The car behind me beeped, and I looked up to find the light had turned green. I accelerated.
I saw a small shop with a sign out front claiming the place was called The Runway and that’s where I pulled in. I got out, making sure to lock the doors before walking into the small boutique. As soon as I stepped inside I was hit with a draft of air that smelled like a mixture of different perfumes. There was a sign that hung above the center aisle. It said, “You’re runway starts here!” Cheesy, but I looked at the mannequins around me and saw the clothes were actually cute. I went straight to the swimwear section and started pushing through different bathing suits.
“Hi! Welcome to The Runway! Anything I can help you with today?” a familiar voice came up behind me. I jumped slightly startled. I turned. It was Becca.
Could this town get any smaller? I asked myself silently.
“Oh my god! Cassie!” she hugged me again like she had at the party.
I plastered a fake smile on my face, the one I had so perfectly mastered. “Hey Becca,” I said through gritted teeth.
This could not be happening! Out of all the stores in Bridgeport, Becca had to work at this one!! I thought to myself. Then I realized something else. Out of all the people in Bridgeport to be standing on the other side of the door last night, it had to be Jeremy Fielding that I ran into.
I turned back to the bathing suits and starting sorting through them again, pausing at a black and blue polka dot one.
“So, I want all the juicy details!” Becca exclaimed coming around so my back wasn’t facing her anymore.
“About what?” I asked.
“You and Jeremy,” she smacked on her pink gum.
“What about us? We’re just friends,” I said simply, praying that she would go away. I grabbed a lime green bikini off the rack and started to walk to the back where the dressing rooms were located.
“Yeah, suuuure,” she winked. “Friends, I get it. With benefits that is.”
“Naw, it’s not like that,” I said walking into an empty stall.
“That’s not what everyone else is saying,” she said knowingly.
“And what are they saying?” I asked, not really caring, but still intrigued.
“That you two hooked up.”
“What?” I asked puzzled and a little defensive. I didn’t want people thinking I was a slut, because I’m not like that at all.
“Yep, everyone at the party was talking about it after you guys left holding hands.
I walked out of the dressing room in the lime green bikini.
“Well, it didn’t happen so you can go back and tell everyone that,” I told her. I walked over to the mirror and admired my figure, checking it from all angles. “You like?” I asked Becca.
“I love it, you look great!”
I went back in the dressing room and grabbed my stuff. Then I reached in the back and ripped the tag off. I gave it to Becca back at the cash register so she can ring it up. I grabbed a big, off the shoulder shirt and threw it at her too.
She started to stuff the shirt in a plastic bag but I waved her off, and grabbed it from her, slipping it over my head.
“Well, I don’t see why you didn’t hook up with Jeremy,” she said, shaking her head.
“We’re just friends, promise. Besides, I’ll probably never hang out with him or talk to him ever again.” I said a quick bye before she could continue to interrogate me or talk about how hot Jeremy was.
I walked out and jumped in the car, throwing my clothes over the backseat.
I can’t believe people were talking about us, I thought to myself. In a way, it was sort of exciting. But I was offended at the same time. I hoped that word wouldn’t get back to Angie. She’d probably ship me back off to Wisconsin. There was a time when I think my sister would have laughed and gave me a high five at news of me hooking up with a guy, especially someone like Jeremy Fielding. But she had changed. I wonder if deep inside her there was still a part of her wanting to relive her glory days, playing beer pong, sleeping around (which I know she did), always with friends, and always, always breaking curfew.
Maybe a part of her still wants to be free. Just like there was a part of my dying to be free..