To Be Alone With You

Casey’s dead and it’s all my fault.
Her words rang in my ears for what felt like hours after she spoke them, her broken sobs heaved into my shoulder distant in comparison. Josselyn was lost then, unable to get a hold of herself, and I suppose in that moment I was lost too. Lost with the disbelief. Lost with the simplicity of the word “loss.”

Casey Stevens, my partner in crime for those years I was with Josselyn, was dead. Had been for years. And I had no idea that it had happened. Somehow, it managed to slip past me.

“Joss,” I breathed finally, wrapping my arms around her and propping her upright again, “Joss, you gotta tell me what happened.”

I hadn’t seen her like this in four years – in nearly all the time we’d been together, really. Josselyn was always a force to be reckoned with, shedding only a few tears (usually angry ones), and then moving on. But at the end of Pier 40 that night, she was despondent.

The wind off the bay was beginning to chill us, and when Josselyn finally calmed she then began to shiver. I managed to get her upright and standing, walking to my rental car to go back to her hotel room. I hadn’t even thought to book my own, so wrapped up in the hope that everything would go according to plan.

Wired had her put up at The Fairmont on Mason Street, though I could have sworn we’d been transported to the streets of France by looking at the beautiful façade of the building. The concierge glanced at me dirtily when I ushered Josselyn through the lobby. I guess it didn’t look great on me to be hushing a tear-sodden woman on the way back to her hotel room.

The room was plain compared to the extravagant decorations downstairs. It didn’t help that the contents of Josselyn’s suitcase were strewn across the room – she never was able to get dressed neatly. Knowing her, she must have changed outfits three or four times before going to her interview. In fact, she probably packed seven or eight just to be safe. But that was Josselyn.

She sat numbly, centered at the foot of the bed, staring over her shoulder at Nob Hill. I didn’t quite know what to do with myself, so I moved quietly to the armchair in the corner and waited patiently for her to speak. That was the way things went with Josselyn.

“She never understood why we broke up,” she murmured finally, her voice hoarse with the tears. “She never saw at school, always so busy at FIDM. She never got to see how bad it got. So every time I saw her afterward, she was always asking about you.”

My stomach lurched. I could practically see the two of them together in the front room of their house, Casey braiding Josselyn’s long hair over and over and over again as she chided her for breaking up with me, never fully understanding. Harper’s Bazaar on the couch, the room soft with lamplight. Exactly the way I remembered it.

I didn’t know what to say. Anything seemed inappropriate.

“She showed up the day before from Santa Barbara, just after she’d gotten hired on by some designer she was so thrilled about,” Josselyn continued, still staring out the window. “She’d cut off all her hair into a bob that she straightened every morning, like a blonde Victoria Beckham. She was so excited about it but I thought it was a waste of beautiful hair.”

I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t even part my lips to try. So instead I listened, the way Josselyn always listened.

“I was working at Arizona Republic, at the time, did you know that?” I shook my head. “And when she told me she had the weekend off, I came home right away. It wasn’t even a question. It had been so long since I’d seen her, it was like my body just knew how to navigate back to her. I guess it must have been a twin thing.”

She sighed, finally turning to me with a small smile. “She’d lost a lot of weight, living in California. It was mostly the stress. She told me at dinner that night she hadn’t had a real meal in weeks. She was used to eating yogurt straight from the cup over the sink before running out the door. I mean, none of us had any money at that time. I wasn’t eating well in Phoenix, but Casey was taking it really hard.”

I tried to picture a rail thin Casey with a severe haircut instead in that living room, but couldn’t bring my imagination to it. It seemed too far fetched. Casey was always the embodiment of an easy grace, both her and Josselyn the people who never had to try to be beautiful and unique. It almost made me sick I hadn’t been there for her then.

In fact, I tried to think of the last time I’d seen Casey and I couldn’t remember.

“Annabelle Yocum invited us to a party the next night, at some guy’s house that happened to be in your neighborhood,” she continued, now moving to tuck her knees up under her chin. “I didn’t really want to go, but Casey wanted to blow off some steam. She was so stressed out John, she was almost like a different person. I almost didn’t feel like I knew her that weekend.”

“Josselyn,” I breathed, trying to comfort her from feet away. I thought to close the gap between us, but when she was upset Josselyn needed space. She never liked to be stifled, especially when she was upset like this.

“We both got pretty drunk and had a great time doing it,” she began, and I worried I could already see where the story was going. “It was like a high school reunion. So many people were there. The whole newspaper staff. Annabelle. A bunch of Casey’s friends from track.

“Things were going great. We were having fun. Casey seemed like her old self again. But then…”

Her voice trailed off. Her eyes turned back to the window, hollow and wet with the threat of tears.

“Then what?” I prodded anxiously, needing to know what happened next, for the sake of my friend I didn’t know was permanently lost.

“Someone at the party started talking about you all, how you were playing a show in a week at The Marquee, and I was so drunk I got really upset thinking about you. She tried to convince me not to, but I left the party and walked to your house. I should have understood that you all were on tour, that you wouldn’t be home, but I didn’t. I walked there anyway.

“I lost my nerve once I got to your driveway, and for the longest time I just sat and stared at your house and just cried. I felt like I was losing Casey and no one could understand. I wanted to talk to you about it but I knew I’d broken your heart – it had been a long time since you’d called last, years probably – and I knew you wouldn’t want to talk back. So I started walking again, though I didn’t really know where to, and that’s when Casey decided to go looking for me.”

A wave of guilt started to come over me, though I didn’t even know the final details of the story. “I’m so sorry,” I breathed, the tears welling in my eyes this time too. “Maybe if I’d been there…”

“John,” she sighed, a sob escaping her involuntarily. “What would that have fixed? I still walked away, she still went looking for me. And she still crashed, and she still died.”

This time her sobs were hysterical, like reliving the death of her other half was tearing her apart from the inside. I cried too, watching her in pain, wishing I could help her but never knowing how.

“And it’s still all my fault.”

“You can’t blame yourself,” I murmured. “I wish I would have known. I wish I would have been there for you.”

She looked at me and sobbed, shaking her head. “I was so mad at you because I needed someone,” she muttered. “And you never called. But I don’t know why I expected you to anyway, after everything I put you through.”

“I would have called, had I known,” I replied softly. “You must have known that.”

She sighed, her sobs subsiding again. “I guess that’s what brought me to the concert that Saturday, after the funeral,” she finally explained. “I thought that seeing you would somehow make me feel better.”

That’s why she was crying, I mused to myself, shaking my head angrily. I felt so narcissistic to have ever thought those tears were meant for me.

“I couldn’t stand being in Arizona anymore,” she continued. “Everything reminded me of her. I couldn’t face my mom knowing I was the reason Casey was dead. I couldn’t face my friends knowing that they were the last ones to have seen her. I couldn’t face myself as I knew me in Arizona, so I applied for the first job I saw in New York and left three days later. And I ended everything with everyone here, my mom included. This time back was the first time I talked to her since Casey died.”

I couldn’t help but stare at her in awe. Suddenly, all the pieces were coming together. Suddenly, everything began to make sense. I rose from my spot on the chair, crossing the space between us to take her in my arms. She still fit so perfectly, just the same as she did when I first fell in love with her all those years ago. We were different people then, unable to be together. But now, it seemed, that we’d changed just enough. This time, things could work out. But there was a giant hole torn in the continuum – Casey. I couldn’t breathe, thinking I would never see her again.

“I’m so sorry,” I breathed, taking her in my arms and stroking my hands through her hair. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me.”

“What matters is that you’re here now,” she replied, and I could almost feel the soft smile in her voice. “Casey would have wanted us this way. In fact, I think she may have been the one who brought us together again. You came back to me when I needed you the most. And because of you, all the pieces are back together again.”

I was quiet for a second, not knowing how to say the words I wanted to say so badly.

“Including you and me?” I finally asked, not breathing until her answer came.

She pulled away from me, examining my face with searching eyes, her dark red lips tugging upward. “We have a lot to figure out,” she hummed. “But yes. Including you and me.”

We were soon two bodies again, our skin together and lips a mess – the way I’d dreamed of countless nights since I saw her at The Marquee that fateful Saturday. And finally, the dreams came true. Still, I dreamed of her again that night as our bodies curved together in that hotel bed. I dreamed of her and Casey, on the beach in Santa Barbara. They held hands until they reached me, and then Casey enveloped me in her arms. I could still smell her perfume.

“It’s good to have you home, John,” she breathed. “It’s good to have you home.”