Sometimes Never, Sometimes Always (2 page)

I don’t know. I don’t read those books. I don’t read much at all beyond what we’re forced to read for English class, not anymore. I start books sometimes, and it’s not that I don’t like reading, not exactly, but it messes with my head, with my feelings. With
me
—I get all tangled up in the head of this character, and let’s face it, it’s not all fun and games to be a character. I hate the way my thinking starts to fall into the patterns of the book, like I’m nothing on my own. Books trick me into caring for someone—someone who isn’t even real—and then
bam,
awful things happen to this fake person, to me, and there I am, feeling real grief for a made-up sorrow, a tragedy built of words. Kayla’s always talking about how great it is to lose herself in her books, but I worry. If I lose my
self
, what will be left?

I barely follow the discussion, but Terry wins, or whatever. Yay for the righteous. Magic—real or imaginary—is a tool of the devil. Reading about it is a step toward the lip of a gaping chasm of debauchery. A slippery slope of sin. Terry adopts a particularly ominous tone as he describes the dangerous places an unsuspecting teen could find herself in if she “opens the door to these terrible temptations.”

First, unsuspecting young people might start reading vampire books. The power of darkness consumes them, and they become unable to tell right from wrong. They begin disrespecting elders, believing themselves to be in possession of power and wisdom, believing themselves knowledgeable beyond guidance. They dress and talk inappropriately. Before you know it, a silly, wish-fulfillment story about a sexy vampire leads the vulnerable youth to kill puppies and drink their blood, basically. Whatever. I’ve heard this tirade before.

What’s the biggest risk you’ve taken this year?
Kayla taught herself to skateboard. Dicey helped “break” a colt at her stable. Emily Friar ventured nearly alone into the projects to deliver Christmas donation baskets to the poor. (Okay, so she called it a “socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhood,” and seriously, Emily, what do you think this is, Chicago? As if there’s a place in Sterling Creek that could be considered truly dangerous.) But really, what risks do I take? I search my memory for daring endeavors and come up empty.

“But don’t you guys think that God would be willing to forgive someone for reading a book about vampires, as long as that person, like,
knew
it was fake? Like, that it’s just a story?” Drew leans forward over the table, toward the rest of the group, and I can almost feel her earnestness like the scrub of a washcloth on my morning face. I guess I admire her, a little, for at least asking the questions. She’s not afraid of Terry, with his watery eyes and unwavering stare. So even Drew Godfrey takes more risks than I do.

“But why read such stories?” Another girl speaks up, her voice so breathy and sweet that I imagine she must sit in front of her mirror practicing, watching her eyes widen in the perfect semblance of purity and innocence. “Why fill your mind with evil when you could read stories about God’s love?”

I don’t remember exactly when I stopped believing. It wasn’t like one day I was this earnest girl and the next I was transformed into an evil atheist. It was more like a gradual realization that I only believed in a sort of safety-net kind of way. Like, if all else fails and it turns out there is a God, my ass will be covered. Okay, so I’m pretty sure that’s not going to fool Him. Or Her. It? Whatever.

I still don’t quite know what to do with this, though—with my lack of belief. It’s not like I’m going to advertise it. I’m the only one in my family who isn’t fully convinced that God exists, and I wonder sometimes, why didn’t it stick for me? I was only nine when we started coming here, and I know I believed back then, and even before that, when we were normal Lutherans like everyone else.

I think my parents assume that none of us remember when the baby got sick and Mom spent all those months crying, and then when it was over, we were all wrapped up in this Joyful News business—wrapped up with the kindness and the consolation and the community and the prayers—wrapped up snug like being trapped in the sheets after a feverish dream. At least, that’s how it sometimes feels to me. My parents don’t ever talk about it, in any case. But they’re happy, so I sit here in youth group, and even though I do stupid stuff like leaving my Bible at home, I generally try not to make waves.

Still, when this girl across the table speaks, with her baby voice and her eyes all shining with faith, I almost can’t keep myself from taking her by her rounded shoulders and shaking her, hard. I can’t explain the desire, and of course I don’t do it. I can’t. I bite the inside of my cheek and keep quiet. Like usual.

3. If you could
change one thing …

Eric’s the only one who ever knocks on my bedroom door. Dicey acts like it’s her room too, and Dad never comes in; he sends Mom. Mom’s a total barger.

“Hey,” Eric says. He leans on the door frame with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, waiting until I motion him in before he crosses the threshold.

“Hey,” I say, handing Pumpkin over to him. I scoop Nutmeg out of her bedding and cuddle her to my chest. The guinea pig makes soft happy noises in my arms. “Missed you in youth group. Had to sit by the Shrew.”

He smiles a little, but his gray eyes are serious. “Drew’s all right, you know? I mean, she needs to learn how to dress. And fix her hair. And— ”

“And stop smelling like a linebacker after a long game?”

“Cass.” He points to his
What Would Jesus Do?
bracelet.

I roll my eyes. “Fine, I’ll be nice.”

Eric and I have both known Drew practically all our lives, like everyone else in Sterling Creek, and to be honest, even when she was little she was the kind of kid who walked around with a target on her head. The girl who never gets any of the jokes but laughs anyway. The one who makes strange and fairly unbelievable claims about her family and defends the lies staunchly when she is found out. Oh, and then she used to have this tic; maybe she still does, I don’t know. She’d lick her lips, top and bottom, after almost every word she spoke, her mouth ringed by a circle of chapped skin.

“Were Mom and Dad pissed that I stayed home?” Eric sits beside me on the pink carpeting and drops a little blanket over shy Pumpkin as he sets her gently on the floor. Her pink nose twitches adorably, and then she burrows deeper under the blanket where I can’t see. I could write about the pigs in my stupid survey, but none of this was my idea. Eric’s the one who researched small mammal fostering and how to care for them. He’s the one who begged me to help him, who promised to clean all the cages and deal with all the medical needs. Eric’s the one who gets to take the credit.

I shrug. “They weren’t thrilled, but you know. Mom made excuses and Dad grunted.” They’re hard on Eric in general, but they wouldn’t let me off so easy. Probably, when it comes to him, they’ve got the sense to know that they don’t want to know.

Eric and I haven’t talked about the day I came home sick and found him with Gavin. He knows it’s not an issue with me. I couldn’t be mad at Eric if I tried. We’re just ten months apart, and neither of us can remember life without the other. He knows me—maybe better than I know myself.

“Hey?” He’s the only person on earth I could possibly ask. “How would you describe me, you know, like in a couple of words?”

He examines his perfectly shaped fingernails—a neat row of blushing half-moons. “Having an identity crisis, sissy?” He smiles as he says it, but he only calls me sissy when he’s feeling protective, big-brotherly. So what’s he protecting me from? “Aren’t we all supposed to be finding ourselves anyway?” He watches Nutmeg sniff at the edge of Pumpkin’s blanket from my cupped hands.

If you were someone else, would you be friends with you? Why?

What do you want people to remember you for?

What do you stand for?

“Eric.” He can sense my desperation; I can tell by the way the tip of his tongue slides over the back of his front teeth, lightly grazing the edges. It’s one of his tricks for speaking fluency, from his stuttering days.

“Cass.”

“Well? You’re not helping.”

“I’m pretty sure if I help you discover yourself, that actually defeats the purpose of self-discovery.” He grins, and this time it’s such a smartass grin—I know he’s not going to tell me anything.

And … okay. What he says makes sense, especially since I’m trying to separate who I am from who Kayla is and who Eric is. “I hate it when you’re right,” I mumble.

“Get used to it.” He slips his hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out a crumpled twenty-dollar bill. “This is for you, by the way. Or whatever.”

“What’s this?”

“Birthday.” He folds my fingers around the cash. “I wanted to pick something out for you, but I didn’t … I wanted you to be able to choose what you wanted. I thought maybe something for the pigs? Or for you. Your choice.” He shakes the hair out of his eyes and puts the pig back in the cage almost like he’s embarrassed. He couldn’t decide on a gift for me. Eric—the pathological shopper—couldn’t pick out a gift for his own sister.

I smooth the bill against the floor. Andrew Jackson and his oddly coifed hair look up at me with some kind of challenge. “I’m going to buy something for myself,” I say, but so quietly that nobody else can hear. I tuck my chin down into Nut’s soft brown fur and breathe in the warm aliveness of her, and I’m a little jealous of her simplicity. A pig never has to find herself. A pig just exists.

Eric closes my door behind him, and I look around my room as if I’m a stranger, a scientist making a hypothesis about the girl who lives in this room. A biographer looking for clues. A big loser discovering herself.

“I’m going to figure this out,” I say to Andrew Jackson, who smirks up at me. Nutmeg’s happy chickering against my neck gives me strength. It’s a promise. I’m going to find myself if the cliché of it kills me. I’ll start tomorrow. I’ll start with this.

I lean the twenty against my alarm clock as a reminder from Right This Moment Cassandra to Sometime Tomorrow Cassandra. A reminder of how things are going to change.

4. Your best friend
would say you are …

Kayla won’t give me a ride to school, although it’s what the best friend with the car (okay, hearse) is supposed to do, right? She’s supposed to pull up and honk, with the music blaring, ready with gossip to report or homework to copy or a crazy madcap plan to drive across the country instead of going to school today. That’s how this is supposed to work. Except I live, according to Kayla, “in God’s Armpit,” so until Mom and Dad give in and let me get my own wheels, it’s the bus for me, waiting at the same stop as my little sister. Eric’s (boy)friend Gavin picks him up every morning like a best (boy)friend should, except my parents won’t allow the whole pull-up-to-the-curb-and-honk business.

Morning Prayer Circle.

How I wish I were making this shit up.

Dicey squeezes my right hand. “Thank you, God, for the first day back. Please help us remember how to listen and obey our teachers, and please be with our teachers, too, as they get back into the swing of things.”

“Your turn, Cassandra.”

My eyes are open. The usual smile has settled over Mom’s features, and I hate this moment. “Pass.” I’ve passed every morning for almost two years now.

“Maybe tomorrow you’ll find Jesus in your heart, princess.” She says the same thing every time. Her smile dims the same way, too. She never opens her eyes.

I don’t answer. I never do. (Boy)friend Gavin is on my left, his hand warm and dry—his palms are never anxious and sweaty like mine. He sighs that breathy little sigh like every morning and says his “thank you” and “please” and all that. He plays it safe, but I know how his other hand clutches at my brother’s fingers. I know the twisted yearning of their grasp.

“Amen,” says my father. He exhales, an audible whisper of breath that carries his love and his loss and his hope up to heaven.

“Amen,” says everyone else. I suck my bottom lip inside my mouth to keep it still.

In God’s Armpit
. Because of this, I have to ride the stupid bus.

5. Your favorite
after-school activity …

Kayla holds one index finger in front of my face. I yawn. “Hear me out before you say no,” she says.

“Lemme put my stuff away.”

She removes her finger but doesn’t step away from the locker we share.

“Come on, Kayla, the stupid bus was late. If I’m tardy for homeroom, Ms. Franklin will make me come in during lunch.”

“Listen, though. I need a favor.” Kayla always needs a favor. And I always do what she needs because … well, why not? She’s my best friend.

“Yeah, and I need to put my crap in the locker.” I try to shove her out of the way, but K’s like twelve feet tall and made of granite. Okay, so she’s really an inch shy of six feet tall and supermodel thin. Still, I can’t move her.

“You’re so hilarious when you’re irritable, Midget.” She smirks, folding her arms across her chest.

Midget.
As Kayla makes a big show of looking over the top of my head like she can’t even see me, I push her with my backpack. “Are you going to stop bullying me and tell me about your stupid favor so I can crush your fragile dreams and get to my freaking homeroom already?”