Coming Home

I've thought about love and if I've ever felt it. I thought love would be selflessly giving your heart to another person and selflessly taking in theirs. But I just don't know if I'm strong enough to bear such a burden anymore.
---------------------------------------------------

He felt her skin run under like him as if she was water, her hair in bedrazzled knots as he ran his fingers through them. This all felt so familiar. He touched without seeing, heard her gasps without feeling anything but the gentle throb of his heart telling him again and again, “You’re too old for this, you’re too old for this.”

Then he kissed her, and he tasted alcohol and cherry, burning his mouth like poison.

“Derrick, lock the door will you?”

Numbly, he pushed his fingers deftly against the door latch, flicking it locked- their hands roaming like the way the music hummed in the background.

She had removed her dress, and it hung sloppily around her ankles, pooling by her feet. Derrick let his head clear for a moment before realizing that Sasha had that hungry expression that said that she had come here especially for this, especially for him.

“Are you dating?” He asked accusingly. He watched as her expression faltered before returning to that smile again. He hated that smile, especially now.

“We had an agreement to take time off, fuck whoever we wanted,” she shrugged. Derrick ran his hands across her shoulders, like he had a million times before, before letting them drop behind her back and unclasped her bra. Hearing it clatter to the storeroom floor, he traced the contours of her shoulders and neck before lowering himself to her breasts.

Feeling, but not thinking.

He heard her moan as he sucked and pulled, a million times before. The novelty of sex never wore off for him, but he had begun to grow tired of her needless moaning. He knew that he was the cause of them, but what caused him to do so?

Anger, and spite. He didn’t know whether at himself or Cassadee.

The thoughts became too much, and he felt her hands reciprocating, tearing off his shirt, travelling down his chest, circling his abdomen.

He had always imagined his first time to be sweet and pure, but his first time was with Crystal. And it was anything but. It was angry and loud, because they had just gotten into a fight. He realised bitterly then, that sweet and pure was always reserved for Cassadee. Looks like he never got the chance.

“What about you babe?”

He felt a pulling sensation at his groin as he realised that Sasha was running her fingers over his pants. It was wrong, but being an adult was making mistakes and getting away with them as long as you forgave yourself right?

“You think me doing this-“ she whispered as she ran her fingers across his member longingly, making him shudder, “will help your jealous little boy heart go away?”

The thought was too much to bear. Thinking about what was going on around him was a heavy weight on his mind. He didn’t want to hear her voice, he just wanted to feel.

In frustration, he yanked Sasha up by her shoulders, leaned her against the wall and entered her. Rough and hard. It was the only way to puncture the thoughts in his brain.

~

“Sorry Tobias,” sighed Cassadee as she walked him out of the bar. She watched as Tobias ran a hand through his hair, clearly frazzled by something.

“You’re not going to tell me why you had a meltdown seeing Derrick with another girl?”

“I assumed you knew,” shrugged Cassadee. She remembered that bitter taste in her mouth as she saw him, almost as if he was blind, clinging onto the girl.

“It still hurts?”

Cassadee turned to look at Tobias, his shirt wrinkled from the happenings of their night, and his eyes confused.

“What?”

“It’s been so long, didn’t think a childhood thing would last this long,” he shrugged. Cassadee pulled on her parka angrily, more at herself than at Tobias. Why couldn’t she just forget it? Forget him? Derrick seemed to do it easily, why couldn’t she just take a hint?

“You know you do have to talk about it eventually.”

“I can’t handle it. Everything,” Cassadee finally said, the cold wind burning her lungs painfully. It was the most succinct way she could phrase it. Tobias just sighed, the night lights reflecting off his eyes, making him seem more beautiful than anything. He had a delicate sort of beauty to him, something that Derrick never had- a kind that could manipulate and twist under his control. Derrick’s face just shone, like a bright light, never faltering. Tobias’s face could hide, like the master manipulator he had grown to be.

“Are you serious? You, the new girl, voice of the younger generation, voice of the truth. You can’t handle the truth?”

Cassadee sighed again, rubbing her palms together.

“I would really like to punch you if not for the shots we took.”

“Be honest Cassadee, isn’t that who you are?” Tobias asked, as both of them slid into his car. To be honest, what a depleting thing to say to her. Cassadee didn’t even know what honesty meant anymore. The truth of her feelings had been twisted and fixed into so many small, cramped areas that she doubted that she could ever grab hold of it again.

“I can’t tell you Tobias. I can’t tell anyone,” she shrugged as he revved up the engine.

“Fuck you. Stop being so self-pitying,” Tobias said, his brutal tone punctuated by his light way of speaking. Cassadee felt herself flush. It was funny, having your own thoughts thrown back at you by another person.

There was silence in the car as they drove. The silence bore down on Cassadee and she felt like she might break from the tension.

“He just left me,” she finally said, forcing the words out from her throat. It was then she realised how simple it was to describe her pain. 4 simple words, directly from her brain to the air around them.

“You have to be more concise Cass. You sound like a hormonal teenager,” Tobias said. She seethed, she could practically feel him rolling his eyes at her.

“His ex-girlfriend stabbed me, and I almost died okay Tobias? They said my heart stopped beating. And when I woke up, everything was different. My father cried, and I couldn’t take the guilt of almost dying- just like my sister. I didn’t even have time to fix anything or get used to anything before he left. I could have fixed everything if he gave me the chance, but he didn’t. He left me, Tobias. Do you get it now? I can’t look at myself the same knowing that I never had the chance to pick up what he left behind. And now he’s back and I can’t, I just can’t-“

Cassadee stopped. Her head ringing, her voice raw and scratchy- like it got when she was angry or upset. She didn’t know what Tobias heard over the last minute because she didn’t know how many times she heard her voice splinter and crack. It was the closest she could get before completely shattering into tears and jumping out of the car.

Tobias kept his eye on the road, not moving.

“Okay? Are you happy Tobias?” Cassadee asked, wrenching her hands free before clasping them tightly together again.

“Okay.”

~

The doorbell rang at 1 am, shrill and loud.

Stumbling out of bed, Cassadee reached blindly for the light switch- flooding her apartment with light. She had just gotten into bed, after tossing and turning frightfully as an aftershock of what she revealed to Tobias in the car earlier.

Yanking the door open, before realizing that she should have checked the peep hole first, Cassadee’s bleary eyes grew wide. The first colour she saw was red, not because she was mad. But because the same girl she saw at the bar was decked out in a dress, too ridiculously short for the cold season.

“This isn’t his house isn’t it,” she asked, blowing her hair out of her face. Cassadee stared at her, trying hard not to imagine both of them together.

“What do you want?” Cassadee asked, crossing her arms over her chest to cover the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra.

“He’s wasted,” the girl said, shrugging. Cassadee noticed her bra strap slipping down her shoulder. She forced herself to look at Derrick, barely conscious, slung over the leggy girl’s shoulder.

“Look, I have a flight to catch tomorrow. I’m leaving him here,” she said, thrusting Derrick towards Cassadee, who almost bucked under his weight. It was almost dead weight, except that Derrick had still apparently had control over his legs, moving them sluggishly, muttering under his breath.

Then with a flick of her fingers, the girl pranced off, leaving Cassadee with Derrick, struggling to get back on her feet.

~

Cassadee heaved Derrick onto her couch, in which his heavy body collapsed heavily onto. Pulling his shoes and socks off, Cassadee threw them at her doorway, muttering under her breath at how pathetic he was.

Grabbing a blanket, she smoothed it over his body before crouching next to his face.

Up close she could see the faded scars and bruises, their origins unknown. It could have been from that fateful day 5 years ago when his father had beaten him up.

They say when a person is asleep, he is at his most vulnerable. And it certainly seemed so, because Derrick had that sort of unprotected bliss imprinted onto his face as the alcohol seemed to send him straight to his bed. It was a sort of peaceful sleep that Cassadee wished she could have now, instead of having to watch his face in the middle of the night.

She looked at him long and hard, his breathing filling the air between them. Why had he come here? He had clearly moved on, why did he have to shove it in her face? Cassadee scrutinized his features, his hair, the hallows of his eyes, his cheek bones and his jaw. All these were once hers, but not now. Now they were just blurred lines, question marks between love and pain. Tobias had hit a nerve in her in the car ride, but now Derrick’s presence seemed to lock it all up again. She looked without feeling, watched him numbly.

When she finally got tired of the way the lights fell onto his features, as if they were cushioning him to sleep, she returned to bed and dreamt of falling off a building that had no ground.

~

“You’re up,” Cassadee spoke simply as she awoke to a new day, watching Derrick stand near her window sill, watching the city. She had just taken a shower after leaving some painkillers and water next to him.

She saw that the medication lay untouched, and the water drained.

Derrick turned to her, his heart a mess, his head throbbing. He didn’t want to feel better, the pain let him forget easily- the way Sasha moaned into his ear, the way he saw Tobias looking at Cassadee. Now she was standing right in front of him, in simple flannel shorts and a loose v-neck shirt which clung loosely to her bones.

He hated the way she looked at him, like he had done something wrong. And he hated the way she stood bathed in sunlight, more beautiful than ever, without a smudge of make-up on.

“How did I get here?”

“Your friend showed up with you at my door step,” Cassadee stated, her fingers clinging desperately onto her tea cup, letting the heat scorch her skin.

“This was a mistake.”

“Yeah I know, you’re free to leave Derrick.”

“No, no. This-“he gestured towards both of them, before stepping out of the sunlight. Cassadee hated the way the light fell flat when he stepped into the shadows.

“It’s wrong.”

“What are you saying?” Cassadee asked, suddenly afraid because Derrick’s face had clouded over with some sort of anger.

“I saw you with Tobias,” he said, breathing in deeply. Cassadee felt her insides empty.

“I hate this Cassadee. We’re neither here nor there, I can’t stop thinking about you. Do you know how angry I felt when I saw you with him?” Cassadee had never seen jealousy ooze out from Derrick before. Suddenly he seemed insecure and afraid, no longer that charming strong boy that she once knew.

“Derrick-“

“No! I came back because I wanted to fix things, and I come back to a girl who’s, who’s,” he stalled, looking desperately at her for an answer.

“What am I Derrick?” Cassadee asked, knowing very well what his answer would me.

“Broken. Stubborn. Reckless. Sleeping around.”

“Derrick-“

“Look, I’m sorry for what I did. I can’t, I can’t fix us. And I’m sorry for ruining you. But I don’t know why you just can’t seem to forgive me Cassadee. I’m trying to fix us, I am,” he spoke again. Cassadee stood still, letting his words wash numbly over her. She hated him suddenly. Hated how he came home to make such stupid accusations, as if he expected something from her.

“Derrick, Tobias isn’t interested in me,” she said finally, locking her thoughts in her mind.

She watched him falter, then watched with lazy amusement as a slight flush crossed his cheeks.

“I can still be friends with guys without wanting to sleep with them. I don’t know who gave you the stupid idea that I had become some sort of sex addict.”

As she spoke, she tried to keep her voice calm. She wasn’t broken. She didn’t suffer for 5 whole years to be called broken, she was strong. She had managed to take care of herself.

“And as far as I see, you were the one who was hanging around that girl in her hooker dress. I was in jeans Derrick. If you want to look at a girl by the way she dresses, be my guest. But you can’t accuse me of hurting your feelings when you were probably screwing around with her in the storeroom in The Red Thorn.”

Derrick kept silent. His guilt and regret washing over him the way a strong tidal wave washes over would, kicking him under. He had slept with Sasha to get back at Cassadee, and he could only imagine how badly she felt. He remembered the cold lurching feeling when he saw Cassadee kissing Tobias at Dave’s party, and he tried to imagine the crushing rejection she felt now. But all he saw were her hard eyes, bearing straight into him.

“Don’t tell me you’re sorry Derrick, please. All I ever wanted in the past was to you to be honest to me. But now you’re just telling me things I already know. I am reckless, I am sleeping around. But I am not broken. I’m not that same girl, and I think you knew that the moment you made the decision to leave me.”

She paused, running a hand through her hair. Derrick was suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to replace her hands with his, to feel her again. But she had a strange look on her face that made him look at her again.

“We’re not kids anymore Derrick. And I don’t know about you, but I think we should stop acting like it.”

She was right. And this time Derrick did take a step to her, watching the way she arched her neck to look at him. He saw a fire in her eyes that he had never seen before. For once, he was glad that she didn’t need his protection. For once, he started to see how much she had changed. And if he wanted to mend their relationship, he would have to accept that she could stand on her own.

“I’ve said my fill,” she said, looking up to meet his eye. For a moment both of them were scared that they might relive what happened the previous time they were in her house alone.

“I think that the most adult thing to say right now would be that you are absolutely right,” Derrick said. Cassadee felt herself melt a little under his gaze, her anger dissipating into the air around there. She knew at that moment that she had never stopped loving him, the same way she never stopped loving her family, Caleb or Angela.

“And I think that I should leave,” Derrick finally said, after what seemed like an hour of intense static.

As he pulled away from their gaze, Cassadee watched his presence seemed to stretch away from her. There was an unspoken sort of understanding between them, and she felt her heart flutter uncomfortably- a feeling she hadn’t felt in years.

“Wait.”

Derrick froze as he heard her feet padding softly towards him. He faced her, watching her face light up the space around them. Then she leaned in, and very quickly, gave him a small kiss on his cheek before opening the door and letting him go.