Of Love & Regret (10 page)

Chapter Eight

Red. Everything was red. I raised my wrists in
front of me and my mouth opened in a soundless scream. Rivulets of blood streamed
down my arms from violent gashes sliced vertically down my wrists.

I sank to my knees as my life poured out of
me, yet I felt no pain. A pool of blood rapidly grew around me, covering the
floor in a gruesome sheen of crimson. I frantically tried to put pressure on my
torn flesh to stop the bleeding, but I was too weak and could barely move my
hands.

I heard a noise behind me, and my head shot
around as my heart started to hammer even faster against my chest. I couldn’t
have done this to myself. Maybe my attacker was still here, waiting to finish
me off. Because I couldn’t have done this to myself.

I came to
consciousness abruptly and gasped for air, my lungs feeling as if they were
about to burst. My whole body trembled as tears escaped my eyes, soaking the
pillow beneath me. I had hoped the sleeping pills would prevent me from
dreaming, but instead, they had trapped me in my horrific nightmare.

I instinctively
raised my arms to look at my wrists, knowing that I would find unmarred flesh
but needing to check anyway. I sat up in bed and leaned against the headboard,
staring sightlessly in front of me as I waited for my pulse to calm.

I expected this
day to become easier every year, and although it no longer had the ability to
debilitate me, the memory of Cassie’s death never faded.

I wearily rubbed
my eyes and checked the alarm clock next to my bed. It was only just past four
o’clock in the morning, but I knew there was no way I would be able to go back
to sleep.

My apartment was a
little chilly, so I threw on a sweatshirt before heading out into the living
room. Dawn had yet to arrive, so it was still eerily dark, and I quickly turned
on all the lights in the living room and kitchen, pausing to turn the
coffeemaker on.

I sat on the
couch, trying to blot my mind of the grisly images of my nightmare. I tried to
focus on happy thoughts about Cassie. There were a decade of them, and I needed
to not let that one awful moment overshadow all the good we had shared.

My mind wandered
to the summer before we started college. We had been so excited to leave Laurenston
behind and start a new life at school. I remembered one hot and sticky
afternoon when we had spent the day lounging around in Cassie’s bedroom
listening to music to escape the summer heat.

“Can you believe it?” Cassie said excitedly,
her eyes sparkling. “In less than two weeks we’ll be college students. No more
curfews and no more parents hovering over our shoulder. We can go to as many
parties as we want, whenever we want.”

“Yeah, but don’t forget those pesky classes
that’ll get in the way of non-stop partying,” I said drily. I was lying on
Cassie’s bed, and I stretched my legs out as I glanced down at her. She was
sprawled on her floor, flipping through an issue of Glamour. She looked up at
me and rolled her eyes.

“There’s more to college than just classes, Maddie,”
she said in exasperation. She sat up and flung her arms out expansively. “It’s
about experiencing life! We’ll finally be on our own. We can totally reinvent
ourselves, if we want.”

I frowned at her. “Why would you want to
reinvent yourself? It’s not like you’re some sort of weirdo or something.”

Far from it. From the outside, Cassie seemed
to lead a charmed life, and from my perspective, the exterior pretty much
matched the interior. Her family was well off, and both her parents were loving,
although I knew Cassie sometimes found her mother smothering. She was one of
the most popular girls in school, and was involved in tons of activities, from
soccer to the drama club. She had dated all throughout high school, although
she hadn’t had a serious boyfriend, but I knew there had been plenty of willing
candidates. Not only was she smart and beautiful, she had an effortless
confidence that seemed to be her birthright and drew people to her like moths
to a flame.

It would be easy to be jealous of Cassie,
but my love for her made it impossible. And she was easy to love. Besides being
smart and beautiful, she was also kind and generous. She was more than my best
friend or even a sister; if there was such a thing as soul mates, she was mine.

I shook my head ruefully at my cheesy
thoughts. Cassie didn’t notice as she stared out the window. When she turned
back to me, there was a slight frown on her face.

“Don’t you ever wish you were someone else?”
she asked. “Don’t you ever get tired of being inside your skin?”

“What do you mean?” I was confused by her
statement. Cassie never seemed to have any insecurities or fears, let alone doubts
about her entire existence. “Why would you want to be somebody else?” I scrunched
up my nose, wanting to dispel the heaviness that seemed to suddenly pervade the
room. “I think most people would wish they could trade places with you, even if
it’s just for your fabulous wardrobe.”

Cassie cocked her head, looking at me
curiously. “You think?”

I threw a pillow at her, which she deftly
caught. “Oh, be quiet. Why wouldn’t they? You’re drop dead gorgeous, you’re
practically a genius, and you have the best friend in the world a person could
possibly ask for. Who wouldn’t want to be you?”

I expected her to laugh at my light-hearted
comment, but instead her expression turned serious. She reached over and grabbed
my hand, squeezing tightly.

“Maddie, we’ll be friends forever, right?
You won’t abandon me in college for someone smarter and funnier and more
interesting than me, will you?”

I furrowed my brows, confused by her
question. It came out of left field and was hard to take seriously. “Don’t be
dumb. I’ll only recast the role of best friend if Sarah Michelle Gellar happens
go to our school. Which I doubt will happen, since she’s way older than us.”

Cassie and I had a slight Buffy the Vampire
obsession, and she laughed at my joke as she released my hand, looking like
herself again.

“It’s a deal. You can dump me for Buffy, but
no one else.” She suddenly got up, stretching her arms behind her. “Let’s go
downstairs and get something to eat. I’m starving.”

I hesitated. Something was bothering me.
There had been a look in her eyes that I had never seen before. I wasn’t sure
if it was fear or anxiety about things changing once we went to college, but I
couldn’t completely banish a niggling sense of concern.

“Is everything okay, Cassie? Is there
something you’re not telling me?”

She waved her hand dismissively. “I think I
was just in a mood. Don’t worry about it. Now, hurry up before I keel over from
hunger.”

I got up and followed her at a slower pace,
still not completely sure that I hadn’t missed something important.

The beeping of the
coffeemaker jarred me from my memory. I tried to clear my head as I made my way
into the kitchen. I had already spent years trying to dissect every
conversation I had ever had with Cassie, trying to figure out what I had
missed. All it had done was deepen my sorrow and guilt.

It wasn’t until my
second cup of coffee that I allowed myself to think about Logan. Despite what
had happened between us, a part of me was still expecting to hear from him
today. Out of everyone in my life, he was the only one that knew what today
signified. There was no point in contacting Mrs. Brooks since she didn’t
recognize today as the anniversary of her daughter’s death. How could she when
she pretended Cassie was still alive?

I watched dawn
break as I nursed my cup of coffee. My heart felt heavy, and I knew there was
no point in trying to banish the ache in my chest. Nothing would make it
disappear except time.

I had no appetite,
but I forced myself to eat a bowl of cereal. If nothing else, it was something
to do. I made no attempts to work on my article, because I knew it would be
fruitless. I turned on the television and half-heartedly paid attention to the
morning news shows.

It was almost noon
when my phone rang, and I jumped to answer it. My heart sank when I saw that it
was Adam. I hadn’t given a moment’s thought to his proposal this morning. I
wasn’t ready to talk to him about it yet, but I thought it would be cruel to ignore
his call after he had put his heart out on the line last night.

“Hi, Adam.” I
tried to make my greeting sound more enthusiastic than I felt.

“Morning. I was
just checking in to see if you had an answer to my question yet.” Adam sounded
cheerful and supremely confident as if he expected me to say yes right away now
that I had slept on it. I tried to not be annoyed by his persistence. I had
asked for some time to think it over, and less than twenty-four hours later, he
was bugging me about it. It didn’t help that it was today of all days.

I took a deep
breath as I told myself that Adam had no idea of today’s significance. I
couldn’t blame him for not knowing. He knew about Cassie’s death but I had
never shared the details of it with him.

“I’m sorry, Adam,
but I still need more time. Can I give you a call this weekend?”

“You seriously
need until the weekend?” He sounded affronted by the length of time I was
asking for, and I had to suppress the urge to snap at him.

“This is one of
the most important decisions of my life. I really need a few days to think it
over.”

“Okay, Madison,
I’ll give you until the weekend, but don’t think I’ll wait forever.”

“What’s that
supposed to mean?” My voice rose, and I couldn’t hide my ire. “I didn’t realize
there was a time limit on the proposal. It’s not like I’m asking for a year to
think about it. It’s just a few days!”

“I didn’t mean it
like that,” he said in a placating voice. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m just anxious
about what the answer will be.”

I took a deep
breath. “I didn’t mean to get frustrated with you. Just give me a few days.
That’s all I’m asking for.”

“Of course.”

We ended the phone
call on good terms, but I was still aggravated by his pushiness. I decided to
shelve any thoughts about his proposal until tomorrow. I had enough on my plate
for today.

I ended up eating
leftovers from last night’s Chinese for lunch, although I barely tasted it as
it went down. I kept my cell phone close to me and even took it with me when I
went to the bathroom, afraid that I would miss Logan’s call.

Waiting for his
call, combined with trying to suppress memories of Cassie’s death, was making
me extremely jittery. My jitteriness transitioned into despair the later it got
as I realized there was a good chance that I wouldn’t hear from him. Maybe the
damage that had been done to our friendship was irreparable, and I had lost him
for good.

That realization,
coupled with memories of Cassie that I couldn’t seem to keep at bay, pushed me
even deeper into an almost debilitating depression. I wanted to cry, to sob out
my feelings of sorrow and grief to release some of the tension, but my eyes
stayed dry. Instead, the ache in my chest grew until it was almost unbearable.

I struggled
against the memory of Cassie’s death, not wanting to remember, but it refused
to be ignored. As I had done every year since our junior year of college, I
relived her death as if it were happening all over again.

I checked my watch as I hurried home from
class. Talking to my English professor about my paper had taken longer than I
had anticipated, and now I would be late. I had promised Cassie I would be back
to our dorm room by five o’clock so we could make the five-thirty showing of
the latest chick flick at the local theater, but now we were in danger of
missing the movie.

I walked quickly, trying to shield myself
with my arm from the fat raindrops that were starting to come down. I cursed
myself for not bringing an umbrella. It was only beginning to rain, but the
intensity was building, and I didn’t doubt that in a few minutes it would
become a downpour.

I ran the last few steps to our dorm
building as the sky opened up to drench me. Once I was inside, I pushed the
button for the elevator more times than necessary, shivering from the cold of
the rain. When the elevator finally arrived, I stepped in and shifted from one
foot to the other restlessly, silently urging the elevator to move faster.
There was nothing I hated more than arriving late for a movie and having to
strain in the dark for vacant seats.

The elevator doors opened with a ding when
it reached our floor. When I got to our dorm room, I turned the doorknob only
to find it locked. I frowned, thinking it was strange since we usually left it
unlocked if one of us was in the room.

I knocked on the door since it would be
easier than digging for my keys in my wet clothes, but there was no answer. I
sighed heavily, thinking that maybe Cassie had fallen asleep while waiting for
me. She slept like the dead, and it was nearly impossible to wake her up.

I fumbled inside my bag for my keys, cursing
all the junk in it. I made a mental note to clean it out.

“Finally,” I muttered as my fingers closed
around the cool metal of the keys. I hurriedly unlocked the door and pushed it
open, stepping inside.

The door opened directly to my side of the
room and I dropped my bag on the floor next to my desk. I glanced at Cassie’s
side of the room and saw that she was indeed in bed with her back turned
towards me, facing the wall.

“Cassie, wake up!” I said loudly as I
checked my appearance in the mirror hanging above my dresser. My hair was drenched
from the rain, and I looked like a drowned mouse. I would barely have time to
change. I glanced at Cassie’s reflection in the mirror, but she was still fast
asleep.