Author: Cassia Leo

‘Wait. We should open it at the hotel,’ he says, and he doesn’t have to glance at Jason for me to know why he’s suggesting this.

‘Okay.’

Crush takes the box from Jason’s hands and we all head back to the security vehicle. Once we’re back at the library, Crush tells Jason to tell Mary that we’ll try to make it back to share the contents of the box with her when we get back from Los Angeles. As we exit the library and descend the stairs, I’m overwhelmed by a dark dread.

‘I don’t want to know what’s inside the box,’ I say as we approach the sidewalk to hail a cab.

‘What do you mean? You don’t want to find out tonight? We can wait.’

‘No, you don’t understand. I don’t want to know at all.’

I’m afraid if I find out what’s inside that box, I won’t want to go to L.A. anymore. I want to tell him this, but I’m still so afraid of being committed. He said he won’t do it, but he’ll change his mind at the last minute. I know it.

‘Why don’t you want to know?’

He waves down a cab across the street and the driver slowly maneuvers a U-turn to get to us. We quickly hop inside to escape the cold, but I don’t bother putting on my seatbelt.

‘Because I don’t want you to think that knowing what’s inside that box will change anything. I don’t want you to get your hopes up. I’m still me and my life is still my life. And it still sucks and everything still sucks. Just because you’re beautiful and you’re here when I need you doesn’t change anything. I’m still me! You can’t fix what’s inside here,’ I say, poking my temple. ‘Nobody can. That’s why they’ve all given up on me.’

‘Who’s given up on you?’

‘Everyone.’ I pull my feet up on the seat and bury my face in my knees so the driver can’t see me crying in the back of his cab. ‘My parents, my therapist, my fucking best friend. The only one who gives a damn about me is my sister, but I can’t stay here just for her.’

Crush’s silence makes my whole body ache with shame. I want to be the type of person who makes plans for the future and finds beauty in a speck of floating dust, but that’s not me. That’s me only when I’m tripping on ecstasy or acid. Or when I switch to a new type of medication that really seems to work! Until it doesn’t work anymore, then I’m back to being me. And I’m just so tired of being me.

‘I’m exhausted,’ I say, laying my cheek on my knee so I can look at Crush.

He reaches across and brushes his thumb across my cheek. ‘We’re almost there.’

By the time we reach the hotel room, the tears have stopped, but I’m still so tired. All I want to do is collapse onto my bed and stay there for the next two days until our flight.

Crush sets the black box on the kitchen counter and I stare at it for a moment, wondering if my curiosity will win over my demons today. I look at him and he’s looking in my direction, but not anywhere near my eyes. He’s already thinking he needs to distance himself from me.

‘I’m going to bed.’

‘Wait.’ He grabs my hand as I turn to leave. When I look at him, he pulls me toward him so he can cradle my face in his hands. ‘Don’t go,’ he pleads, laying a soft kiss on the corner of my mouth. ‘It’s only three o’clock. We don’t have to look inside the box. Just . . . stay with me. Please.’

‘Why?’

He tilts my face up so he can look me in the eyes. ‘Because I want you with me. I . . . I think you’re supposed to stay with me.’

‘Supposed to stay with you? What does that mean?’

‘It means that I . . . Fuck. I think I’ve loved you for longer than I care to admit and I’m just starting to understand why. And I want you to stay.’

He lays another soft kiss on my nose and I clutch his forearms to keep from collapsing.

‘You love me? But . . . you hardly know me.’

He fixes me with a stern glare. ‘How many people know the things I know about you?’

I shake my head. ‘Nobody.’

‘Don’t tell me I don’t know you when I’ve spent the last three years trying to forget you.’

I grab the front of his jacket and pull it to me, burrowing my face in his chest so he can’t see me sob. He kisses the top of my head as he rubs my back. It takes a while before I finally catch my breath and slow the flow of tears enough to pull my head away from his chest. I immediately wipe my face, though I’m pretty sure all my tears are soaked into the front of his coat.

I take a deep breath before I look up at him. ‘Okay. Let’s open the box.’

*****

We decide to go back to my bedroom and sit across from each other while we open the box, which rests on top of the unmade bed between us. My fingers tremble as I reach for the lid of the box.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to be the one to open it?’

‘I’m positive,’ he replies quickly. ‘Go on.’

I lift the lid slowly and my heart aches when I see there’s only one folded piece of paper in the box. It’s not bursting with letters from June to Herman; or, rather, from Jane to Hugh. It’s just a single sheet of white paper, folded in half and lying in the center of a black box lined in chestnut-brown velvet.

‘You want to read it?’ he asks and, though I really don’t want to read it, I know I have to.

I lift the sheet of paper out of the box and a photograph falls out, landing back inside the box. Crush picks it up and holds it up so we can both see. It’s a handsome older gentleman who looks a lot like Crush, wearing a dress shirt and a fedora and a little girl with short blonde hair dancing next to a stage where a man is playing the saxophone. The stage looks very familiar.

‘Is this your grandpa?’

‘Yes, so that must be Jane.’

‘Was this taken at Wally’s?’

He nods as he gently lays the photograph inside the box. ‘Read the note.’

I unfold the paper and my stomach aches when I see the messy scrawl of a child.

Daddy,

I can’t remember the song you sang to me. I’m sorry, Daddy. They won’t stop hurting me and they won’t let me see Mommy. I don’t want to be sick. I miss you and Mommy. Please give Mommy my box so she can read this too.

Love,

Jane

I drop the note and it lands on the bed next to the box as I try to imagine why Hugh would want his grandson to see this. Why would anyone? My thoughts are interrupted by a dreadful realization. I reach into my pocket for my phone, but it’s not there. Glancing to my left, I see it lying on the nightstand where I left it, dead. I have to call Rina and tell her to get the note out of the windowsill. I can’t let Meaghan see that.

Chapter 26: CRUSH – January 4th

‘What are you doing?’ I ask Mikki as she stretches across the bed to reach for her cell phone on the nightstand.

‘I don’t know,’ she replies, clutching the phone against her chest. ‘I think I made a big mistake.’

‘What kind of mistake?’

‘The kind that hurts people.’ She pulls the phone away from her chest and stares at the screen for a moment before she sets it down on the bed. Then she lets out a very unexpected chuckle. ‘My phone is dead.’

This is such an inappropriate response to the letter she just read, it makes me uncomfortable. ‘Are you okay?’

‘My phone is dead.’ She repeats this as if I should know why this is so significant. ‘I just got a strong urge to tell my friend Rina to get rid of the suicide note I left on my windowsill.’

I quickly slip my phone out of my back pocket and hand it to her. ‘You can use my phone.’ She stares at the phone in my hand, but she doesn’t reach for it. And I’m beginning to understand why the people in her life are often frustrated by her behavior. ‘Make the call.’

‘I can’t.’

I know why she can’t make the call. She doesn’t want to ruin her plans in L.A.

‘Fine. If you can’t call it off, then go to one more place with me tomorrow.’

She sighs as she pushes my hand back. ‘Look. I know what you’re trying to do. You get me to go on this adventure to the most gorgeous library I’ve ever seen. Then you show me what’s inside the black box I’ve been obsessing over for three years. And now you’re probably going to try to take me somewhere to have a good time so I can see that I do have something to live for. While I appreciate the thought behind the gesture, I’d appreciate it more if you could let me do what I came here to do.’

‘You forgot to mention that I also told you I love you. You forgot to belittle that, as well.’ She appears stunned by this remark, so I continue. ‘You think I don’t understand how you feel? I do know how you feel. You’re afraid.’ I reach for her face and she turns her head. ‘You’re afraid of being vulnerable, physically and emotionally. You’re afraid of loving completely. Most of all, you’re afraid you’ll live your whole life without ever being truly happy because you don’t even know what it is that will make you happy. You’re afraid of not being passionate enough or brave enough to live. But you are. You are brave because not only did you go to the library with me today, you were the one who insisted we go.’

‘That was curiosity, not bravery.’

‘When you were drunk at Wally’s yesterday, you told me that, other than going to and from school, you haven’t left your house in four months. So I’d say what you did today was pretty brave.’ She shrugs, unimpressed with this explanation. ‘And looking inside this box . . . reading that note aloud . . . that took huge fucking balls.’

This gets a tiny smile out of her. ‘How do you know so much? You sound like my shrink, minus the balls comment.’

I swipe my hand down my face and take a deep breath as I prepare myself to confess. ‘I know what it’s like to feel so exhausted with your life that you feel as if you might be better off snipping all ties. Before I changed my name, there was a time when I thought suicide was the answer.’ Her smile disappears as she waits for me to continue. ‘That night in the parking lot . . . I was there to kill myself. That’s why I had my gun ready and I was able to save you . . . because when you stumbled into my life that night, you saved me too.’

I hang my head, unable to meet her gaze. I know she probably won’t judge me for wanting to kill myself. But I’m afraid she’ll think I’m not strong enough to care for her.

Her hands enter my field of vision as she pushes aside the black box and reaches for my face. Looking up, I find her wearing a soft smile as she looks into my eyes. She doesn’t speak as her fingertips roam over my face, caressing every curve and hard line.

‘I never saw your face that night.’ She swallows hard and my heart begins to race as she traces her thumb over the rim of my bottom lip. ‘But I never forgot your scent. Sometimes, I’d be sitting in class or walking through the corridors between classes, someone would walk by and the smell would hit me like a kick in the face. But I’d still close my eyes and breathe it in for as long as the scent lingered. You may have tried to forget me, but, as painful as it was for me, I didn’t want to forget you.’

She wraps her arms around my shoulders and buries her face in my neck. I can hear her taking a long sniff as I wrap my arms tightly around her waist to hold her against me. She’s trembling a little and it kills me to know that she may have had trouble separating my scent from theirs in the early days after the attack.

‘I feel like I’ve known you all my life,’ I whisper in her ear. ‘I don’t want that feeling to go away. I want to know you all my life.’ She squeezes me tighter, but she doesn’t say anything. ‘Come with me to Wally’s tonight. I want you to hear the song I wrote for you.’