Sometimes Never, Sometimes Always (31 page)

“You’re … in love.” As the words exit my mouth, I see it so clearly. I recall the looks he and Gavin save for each other during morning prayer circle, the way Eric seems so far away during dinner. “You really love him, don’t you?”

“It’s stupid, I know,” he says. “High school sweethearts never last.”

“That’s not true,” I say, though I think it might be.

“Doing this, giving Gavin a ring—don’t you think it would send a message to these haters? A message of support for Drew, too?”

I pull up a chair. “Will you let me do a reading?” Maybe I can ask, in general, what the carnival will be like, get a feel for whether or not I have anything to worry about. Maybe the cards can tell me what to do. About everything.

“Haven’t you figured it out yet, Cass?” Eric’s mouth tucks in at the corners as he studies my face.

“That’s what I need the cards for.”

He shakes his head. “Don’t you think this has gone on long enough?” He lops off the end of the banana bread and pops it into his mouth, then cuts three more slices and stacks them on a plate.

“I’m not saying I’m going to put it on the blog.” I pluck a piece of bread off his plate and take a bite, but once I’m chewing it up, the last thing I want to do is swallow it. My mouth is dry as dust.

“I’m not talking about the blog, sissy. I’m talking about the secrecy. You’ve got to come clean about this. Tell Clark about the blog. Tell Mom and Dad about the cards.” He spreads the butter on his slice of bread carefully, avoiding my eyes. “For Drew,” he says, after a pause. “Do the right thing.”

I force the mouthful of bread down and toss the rest of my slice on the counter. “Like you should talk!” I’m not the only one around here who has secrets. I stomp down the hall and pull the cards out of my closet, not bothering to close my door.

I need to focus. I need to figure out what I’m supposed to do here, what I’m supposed to say. Am I going to tell my parents about the blog? About the cards? About me? I think of what Darin said in the car, about how I can have thoughts and beliefs that are different from theirs. I know that; I mean, obviously. That’s what this whole card thing has been about, right? About me having my own thing. But can I tell them? Can I tell them I don’t really believe in God? That I’m an
atheist
? The word is like some kind of curse word, and I don’t know, I don’t know if I can break their hearts like that. I could tell them about the blog without telling them all of it, right? People get led astray all the time—they give in to temptations or whatever.

My thoughts are everywhere—Drew, Darin, Eric, Kayla, my English grade, the carnival, the snow sculpture, betrayal, guilt, my duty as a daughter and as a person. The cards flip through my fingers in a comforting rhythm. Am I still the least interesting person I know? Do I care anymore? It seems so long since the New Year, since my birthday and that stupid survey.

One month. So much has happened. I started working on the newspaper and met a boy I like. I lied to my parents and went to my first concert. I got dumped by my best friend and then … well. The next part is still in progress. I had a friend try to kill herself.
A friend.
My hands pause in their shuffling. I’m no friend to Drew, and it certainly isn’t because of her hair or her skin or any other failing on her part.

“Cassandra.” Eric knocks on the frame of my door, even though he’s looking right at me.

The garage door rattles the far wall of my bedroom, and I know they’re home. “How can I tell them?” I fan the cards out across the carpet in front of me. “They’ll be crushed.”

“Cass.”

I don’t look up from the row of cards, moving my hand slowly from one end of the line to the other. “What should I do?”

I speak my question out loud, but I’m not talking to Eric. I’m talking to the cards, waiting for them to call me, for fate to guide my hand to the right answer, the correct path, the perfect card. The kitchen door opens; I hear the bells on the leftover Christmas wreath that’s still hanging on the back door, the sound of Dicey kicking her boots off next to the hall closet.

“I told them,” Eric says.

“What?” He
told
them? My hand drops, and without thinking I scoop the cards up and stuff them back into the box, my heart stuttering inside my chest.

“I told them I’m gay.” His fingers tap against the legs of his jeans—I watch them for a stunned moment before I dare look up.

“What? Eric, when? How? Oh
god
.” I have to put a hand over my mouth to keep myself from blurting out more questions.

He shrugs. “Right after the thing happened at the lookout.” He gestures to the fading bruise on his eye. “It wasn’t such a big deal in the end. Pastor Jake is helping, and I think … it’s getting better. I don’t know, Cass. I guess I’m trying to say that Mom and Dad aren’t as delicate as you might think. They’re pretty open-minded once you let them in.”

I jump to my feet, and I think I’m going to give him a hug, but once I’m standing, I don’t know what to do with myself. Next to him I’m such a coward, and such a fool. I think about them talking in their bedroom, their voices so serious, and it all makes sense. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.

I hear the scrape of wooden chairs from the dining room, the sound of the television news. I’m still holding the deck of tarot cards, and I notice that I missed one card—it waits on the carpet, face down. Is it the answer to my question?

“You’ve been … ” He follows my gaze to the card on the floor. “Preoccupied.”

I look up. “It’s time, isn’t it?”

Eric smiles, a two-dimple smile. “It’s time to be yourself, sissy,” he says, and I feel brave, as though for the moment at least, I know what that means.

50. Something
you can’t do …

My parents sit still and quiet, heads bowed, hands outstretched and clasped together on top of the shiny wooden table.

“Cassandra,” says my father, but his voice sounds strange, like he’s having trouble squeezing the word out past a lump in his throat or something. He raises one hand and beckons for me to sit in the chair between them. I go to them, and they take my hands. My resolve of a moment ago is flattened by a sense of dread.

“Father, forgive us for the things we have said and done, the things we have left unsaid and undone.” Dad’s eyes are closed, his prayer a mere whisper.

Why is he referencing the confession prayer? I don’t think I’ve heard anything close to those words since we joined Joyful News. They make me uneasy, the part about things left undone. Is it possible to do every right thing, every good thing? But if there is no God, if there is nobody to forgive me for those things I neglect to do, then it’s up to me to make them right on my own.

I can feel my pulse jumping in my neck, and I wonder if they can feel it in my hands. They squeeze tightly, as though they’re terrified of me running away, but then they both drop my hands and I feel unmoored.

My father takes a breath, long and steady. In. Out. Then he opens his eyes and looks at me. Looks
through
me. “Lord, be with Cassandra,” he says. “Amen.”

“Mom! Are we going back … ?” Dicey comes sliding in from the hall, wearing a church skirt. Going back to church? For what?

Mom doesn’t look at my sister, just stares out the window.

“Did someone die or something?” Dicey spins her skirt out in a circle.

“Dicey!” I say, but I’m wondering the same thing. “Mom? Is it Drew? Did she … ?” My voice cracks.

“Dicey, go to your room,” my mother snaps, still without turning from the window. My sister and I exchange a look, and then Dicey scurries down the hall obediently. Mom doesn’t ever raise her voice or just sit and gaze out the window. Something is going on, that’s for sure.

Okay, so I’m the one who makes little, quiet waves. I forget my Bible. I stop participating in the morning prayer circle. I keep my eyes open while we say grace. None of these tiny rebellions has prepared me to be the kind of girl who can tell her parents that not only did she lie about going to a baptism, act uncharitably to a suffering girl, and dabble in the occult with disastrous consequences, but also she doesn’t actually believe in their idea of God.

“Mom?” I can’t quite figure out what to do with my hands, still adrift on the table, so I fold them in front of me. “Is Drew okay?”

“We don’t know yet,” says my mother, and her eyes fill up with tears. “She’s in Duluth, in a hospital for teens with … her issues.” Her voice breaks along the edge of the sentence.

A hospital for teens with issues sounds closer to okay than critical condition hovering on the brink of death in the intensive care unit. “But she’s alive.” I fidget, weaving my fingers together first one way, then the opposite.

“They showed us some pictures at the meeting,” my father says. “Screenshots of the bullying. Some of the comments that were made on that website … comments that
you
made.”

“We can’t … we can’t even trust you to tell us the truth anymore,” says my mother.

“I didn’t leave those comments, honestly. Mom, don’t cry. Please.” I can’t handle her like this. “It wasn’t me, I—”

“We stayed after the meeting to talk to Pastor,” says Dad.

“About Drew?”

“About you.”

My mom reaches over to the napkin basket and presses a cloth against her eyes, puts herself back together. “He has agreed to meet you for counseling, several sessions a month,” she says.

“Counseling?” I’m not crazy. Drew’s the one who needs a therapist.

“Spiritual guidance,” says my dad. “Your mother and I both worry that you might be feeling a bit adrift—your faith needs an anchor, and Pastor Fordham is willing to give up his time and energy to help you.”

And again with the anchor. Is that what they think? Like they can weigh me down with more dogma and everything will be all right. “That’s not what I need,” I say, but how can we finish this conversation? “I can’t talk to Pastor Fordham. I can’t … ”

“You can’t even try this?” says my dad.

“I can’t,” I say. “I can’t believe in everything you believe. I
don’t
believe.”

There’s a sound—maybe my mom draws in one breath, quickly, sharply—or maybe all of the oxygen is unceremoniously sucked out of the room. Either way, there is a small sound followed by silence, and I can’t breathe. I can’t speak. I can’t take back what I just said.

“Young lady,” says my dad at last, but his voice lacks its customary power. He, too, falls silent and brings one hand up to press against his chest, as though my words are physically breaking his heart.

“I’m sorry,” I say, but it’s not what I mean, and I don’t try to make it sound like it is. “It’s not like I’m trying to disappoint you. I’m
trying
to tell you the truth.” And I squeeze my hands together so tightly I can feel my arms start to shake, thinking of all the truths lined up in front of me, still waiting to be told.

“What you
think
is the truth … ” My mother whispers into her fist.

“This is exactly why you’re going to talk to Pastor,” says my father. A light sheen of sweat has broken out across his brow, and I remember the way his hand felt, the papery skin—how suddenly frail he seemed on the night Eric was attacked. I’m hurting him. I’m aging him. What if … what if he has a heart attack?

I can’t tell them. I can take it all back, right now—tell them I was mixed up. I can spend an hour a week with Pastor Fordham, breathing through my mouth to avoid the sour smell of him; I can pretend, like I’ve done all along.

Except. It’s time to stop pretending—time, as Eric said, to be myself. But also, time to take responsibility for all those things I’ve done and left undone. “I’m not talking to Pastor,” I say. My voice is quiet but it’s firm, too. I sit up a little straighter. “Look, I’m not trying to hurt you guys, I swear—”

“Cassandra.” My father admonishes me out of habit. The hand on his chest moves to the bridge of his nose, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger as though he’s trying to staunch the bleeding. He doesn’t look at me.

“I started that tarot blog.” I speak to my clasped hands, and I go on before they can interrupt. “I’m Divinia Starr. I’m the evil influence the whole church has been so worked up about, but I’m not … it’s not evil. It’s an advice column. It’s a bunch of cards.” I pause, but the room is silent, waiting. “I made a big mistake. I let the comments go unchecked, and it all got out of hand, and if I could go back in time and change things I would. I’d change everything, I
swear
.” And one more thing. “Also I’m failing English.”

Okay. So that’s everything. I wait, my eyes still fixed on my own hands, for the fallout.
Please, if there is a God, don’t let my dad have a heart attack because of me.

I look up, and my mom’s eyes are waiting, but they’re not the watery, brimming eyes of sorrow I expect. They’re set, narrowed—almost flinty. Her mouth opens, she speaks, and I’m trapped by her eyes and forced to listen.

“Cassandra, if your intention is to hurt me, to repay all of the love—the selfless kindness I’ve given you all of your life—with the most piercing cruelty and rejection, congratulations.” She shakes her head, but she doesn’t look hurt. She looks distant. “You are a complete success.”