Learning to Love Again Page 6

  “Ah, yes. Antibiotics happened. No one told me that antibiotics screw with the hormones in the Pill. I had Strep throat, I took antibiotics . . . I got pregnant. Ironic, huh? I prescribe antibiotics all the time, and I make sure to tell people the side effects. I learned that lesson the hard way.”

  “Ironic? I don’t know about that. Unfortunate, maybe . . . but your son probably doesn’t think about it that way, and the couple you gave him to doesn’t either. I think it’s incredible that you did what you did.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. This wasn’t exactly the sexiest conversation . . .” Rachel worked her way to the headboard and leaned back, taking Cassie’s hand in her own, re-establishing the connection they’d had minutes before.

  “Well, no, but I’m glad we had it. I’m glad you trust me enough to share this with me.”

  “So, what are your deep, dark secrets counselor?”

  “Ooh, I like it when you call me counselor. It sounds so . . .”

  Before she could finish her thought, Cassie found herself consumed in the scent of vanilla, hungry lips meeting hers with a new intensity. Those perfect teeth gently pulled on her lower lip, nipped at the bottom of her chin, scraped the nape of her neck. Toned thighs spanned her waist, pinning her to the headboard. Apparently sharing dark secrets turned Rachel on, because her hands had found their way to the buttons on Cassie’s long-sleeved top and were skillfully unfastening them one by one. As each button was released, a warm kiss landed on her skin, lower, lower until the last button was unfastened, two halves of her top released to expose bare skin.

  “Rach . . .” Cassie started.

  “Hmmm?”

  “It’s just . . . I don’t know if I can do this. I like you a lot. I think you’re so smart, and I think you’re absolutely gorgeous, it’s just . . .”

  “. . . the best friend?” Rachel knew immediately where this was going. She’d just spilled her guts about her past and the best friend was interrupting forward progress. Damn the straight girl that had a hold on this woman.

  Cassie sighed, “Yeah.”

  “She must be something else.”

  “Yeah, she is. I shouldn’t tell you this, but you actually know her.” Cassie chastised herself in her head. Why did she say that? Why was she half-dressed in Rachel’s bed—Rachel, who was smart and successful and totally her type—talking about Jessica? I’m an idiot, she scolded, knowing that what was said was said—there was no recovering now.

  “I do? How?”

  “You gave her a root canal yesterday. She asked me to drive her—I had no idea you were her dentist.”

  “Jessica Taylor?! She’s the best friend? Wow . . . redheads are dangerous, you know.”

  “I know . . .”

  “Okay, well, I’m not going to lie and say my feelings aren’t hurt a little. I mean, I just spilled my deepest, darkest secret to you, so this feels a lot like a rejection, but I understand. Do you want to go home?”

  “Oh Rachel, I’m so sorry. Clearly I’m a mess, I really am sorry. I think we have something building here, and I’d like to see you again, that is, if you want to see me . . .” Cassie hung her head in shame before continuing, “I understand if you don’t want to.”

  “Of course I want to see you again, but maybe we should give it some time. You have a little healing to do . . . I like you, Cassie, but I can’t compete with love, and I don’t want to, you know?” Rachel wasn’t going to do this, not again. She knew better than to be the transitional person, the fling, the one that opened the door for the relationship that would stick.

  NINE

  Cassie did the drive of shame in silence, no music at all, beating herself up repeatedly for totally blowing the best opportunity that had come her way in years. Rachel was successful and smart; she had legs for years and the most piercing green eyes. She was both single and interested, and Cassie had walked away in a weak moment. She felt like a fool and needed time to figure out what to do next.

  Words are dangerous, she’d often thought. Once spoken, they can’t be taken back. They can be used for good or bad, to make a compelling argument, to dismiss an accuser, to convince a judge. She felt she was fairly decent when it came to choosing the right words for the situation, when it came to protecting her heart from hurt by not showing her full hand. She thought she was good at keeping that Ace in the hole—she had a decent poker face, didn’t she? Her hands might give her away, but her face was under control. She could say one thing and believe another, if she needed to. At least, she had typically been able to.

  Why then, in the past three weeks had her world started to unravel because of word choice? Why had she obliterated her friendship with Jessica by professing her love? Why had she been in an intimate situation with a wonderful, engaging woman and stopped, unable to go forward?

  It was confusing. It was maddening. Cassie had no words that could fix what was said. The truth was, she had said those things to Jessica and she had told Rachel the truth: she hadn’t been ready, not yet.

  She drove past her apartment, past the outskirts of town, past the factory outlet mall and just kept driving south, her mind spinning, her thoughts tangled in confusion. She passed the truck stops and fast food restaurants that littered the sides of the interstate and just kept going. Before she knew it, Cassie was south of San Antonio and had a choice to make: turn around, or take the side road to the coast. She could be at the ocean in two hours. She hadn’t planned on a road trip; hadn’t packed a bag. There wasn’t even a question, though, as her Jeep steered itself onto I-37 South. She was going to the beach.

  + + +

  Cassie hadn’t been to Corpus Christi, the closest town to Padre Island, since she was a little girl on vacation with her family. Her dad was still alive then, and for some reason, even though they lived in Houston—even though they could go to the beach anytime they wanted with ease—they’d gone on vacation in South Texas. She hadn’t asked why, but there must have been a reason.

  They’d rented a cheap motel room and the four of them spent a week playing outside. Well, she and her sister played while her parents sat under the relative shade of a beach umbrella and did whatever it was they did. Cassie and Claire occupied themselves for hours building elaborate sand castles. They splashed in the ocean under the watchful eye of their mother, who constantly scolded them for going too far out into the surf.

  They drank ice-cold Cokes wrapped in aluminum foil, which in truth were generic sodas, but they didn’t care. Every soft drink was called a Coke in the Texas of their youth. They chased each other on packed sand and hunted for seashells, every now and then finding an intact sand dollar and squealing with excitement. It had been a good vacation, a memory that brought a smile to her otherwise troubled face.

  As she pulled into town, she surveyed its changes. There weren’t many. She remembered a Navy town flanked by oil refineries, and was currently looking at a seemingly endless row of oil refineries. Four hours from home and no real plans, Cassie decided to get some dinner and then find a hotel near the beach. It was too late to go beachcombing now—it was already dark.

  + + +

  The Padre Island national seashore is the longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island in the world. Cassie thought it seemed like another planet compared to her normal surroundings in the city, and it was just what she needed. She parked her Jeep near a sand dune and hopped out, her attire not all that beach-worthy. She didn’t care. A turn of the key and her door was locked, not that it mattered. It was a Sunday in November—there wasn’t another soul around. With a deep breath, she headed toward the water, loose sand already working its way into the lightweight running shoes she’d bought the night before. Her failure to plan for this trip had sent her in search of something, anything, she could wear for a long walk.

  She’d left Rachel’s house with a mind full of thoughts and questions, and now, as she breathed in the salty air and looked out onto an expanse of water that went on into infinity, she started to relax. She too
k herself so seriously sometimes. People had been telling her that since she was a kid. “Be more like Claire,” they’d say. “You need to learn how to relax.”

  Step by step, she made her way closer to the shore, drawn to the movement of the blue-gray water in her view. The Gulf coast didn’t boast crystal clear water or particularly breath-taking vistas like beaches in Florida or California, but it was what she knew. It was comfortable. It was also fairly warm. She ditched her shoes and rolled up her jeans to walk on the water’s edge, turning every so often to watch her footsteps disappear with each subsequent wave.

  What the hell am I going to do?

  Cassie walked for hours, those emergency running shoes in her hands, thinking. She looked for seashells and thought of her sister, of their youth, of the happiness of being a kid without a care in the world. She thought about her dad; what it would be like if he’d lived to see her grow up. What he’d think of her career choice. Whether he’d judge her as harshly as her mom had.

  She stared at the vastness of the Gulf and thought about how small she was in Mother Nature’s eyes. Just a drop in the ocean, she thought. Just a grain of sand on the beach. She thought about building sandcastles, of being certain if they just kept digging in the sand, they’d eventually reach China. Those memories made her smile, and she realized she needed to call her sister. They hadn’t talked in a week—that was an eternity for them.

  When her time at the beach was over—when she had to head back to real life—she felt calmer. Not totally at peace, not completely sure of herself or what she should do, but better. She knew she couldn’t keep fixating on Jessica. It wasn’t healthy or practical. Everyone she’d encountered told her that storyline doesn’t work out, and she knew it didn’t.

  As she put her shoes back on and prepared to leave, she made herself a promise to make it up to Rachel. The truth was she liked Rachel. Beyond a physical attraction, Rachel was smart and funny; they shared so many interests—there was promise there. She might have met her a little too soon, she told herself. The timing threw her. She didn’t know if the dentist would consider talking to her again, but she was going to find out.

  + + +

  “Where the hell are you? You sound like you’re in a wind tunnel.” Claire always kept it real with her sister. She couldn’t help it.

  “I’m in the car, sorry, let me pull over—hang on a second.” Cassie had just started her car and hadn’t even made it out of the State Park yet. “Is that better?”

  “Yeah, much. When are you going to get a real car with real doors and a metal roof? Aren’t you past the Jeep thing yet? Don’t you want automatic windows and a clicker?”

  “It’s nice to talk to you too. What’s your deal? Should I call you back when you’re in a better mood?”

  “Oh, sorry . . . I’m sorry. Tom and I had a fight and I guess I’m still kind of mad.”

  “Is everything okay?” Cassie was surprised to hear this news. Her sister and her boyfriend had the perfect relationship, she’d always thought. She’d never seen them fight. They were both so spiritual, she figured they just meditated or did some sort of chakra cleansing when they disagreed. They’d never married—Claire wanted to keep her “options open”—but they’d been together since they were twenty-two. Cassie knew they were in it for the long haul.

  “Yeah, it will be. It will be. It was a stupid fight, honestly. I won’t even bore you with it. How are you? I haven’t heard from you in a while . . .”

  “I’m at Padre, and it made me think of you, so I had to call.”

  “You are?! Why?”

  “Hang on, let me call you right back on FaceTime and I’ll show you.” Cassie dropped the call and re-connected with video, pointing her phone straight at the ocean so her sister could see.

  “Wow, you really are there. You didn’t tell me why, though. What’s going on?”

  “Oh, Claire. I didn’t intend to be here—it was a total spur of the moment thing,” Cassie looked into her sister’s eyes via the phone. It was like looking in the mirror, and she knew she couldn’t hide from her twin; she’d never been able to. “I messed up, to be honest. I was with Rachel . . .”

  “Is that the dentist?”

  “Yep. So, we went to the farmer’s market yesterday morning and had a great time, it was fun. I went back to her place and things . . .”

  “Good for you! You finally took my advice?”

  Cassie hesitated. “Not quite. I wanted to. I wanted to so much, but I couldn’t. She told me something really personal and that part was fine, but then, I couldn’t do it. I just kept thinking about Jess. I knew that if I went through with it, I wouldn’t be thinking about Rachel, and that wouldn’t be fair to her.”

  “Wow. You have it bad. I didn’t realize how love-struck you really were. How’d she take it?”

  “Pretty well, all things considered. But I left, and started driving. I just kept driving, and before I knew it, I was on the outskirts of Corpus. I just kept going until I got to the beach. Thank God I didn’t end up in Mexico . . . I totally could have.” Cassie was turning her car key over in her hand, her phone propped up on her dashboard so she could see her sister.

  “And I thought you weren’t very spontaneous. Did it help? The beach?”

  “Yeah, honestly, it did. Remember how we used to build those crazy sandcastles and then get all upset when the water washed them away? Why didn’t they tell us to just move farther away from the water to build them?”

  “Yeah! I do. You know, I think they were teaching us some sort of weird lesson about life. Nothing’s forever, you know? And, the way you’re feeling right now won’t be forever. It’ll pass, Cass. It will.”

  Cassie fought every instinct she had to just let loose and cry right then. FaceTime helped her fight it—she wouldn’t break down while her sister could see her. That wouldn’t be in her character.

  “Cass?” Claire nudged, bringing her sister back into the conversation from what appeared to be a far-away place in her head. “What are you going to do about Rachel? It sounds like she actually likes you. Do you like her?”

  “I do. I’ve got to figure out some way to show it, though, because I’m in a pretty deep hole with her,” Cassie sighed, running her hand through matted blonde hair. The ocean air may have been good for clearing her mind, but it wasn’t great for her hair.

  “You’ll figure it out. I’ve gotta run—I can hear CJ in the background terrorizing the dog. I love you.” Claire blew a kiss into her phone. She and Tom had a love child, a three-year-old in the throes of being a total hellion.

  “I love you too. Talk to you soon.”

  Claire had been helpful, as usual. Cassie had overlooked the importance of her sandcastle memory until Claire mentioned the significance. Nothing was forever. Not mistakes, not loss, not a broken heart. It was late, and she needed to get back to Austin. She popped in her favorite mix CD—her Jeep didn’t have Bluetooth, so she relied on old-fashioned technology for entertainment—and made her way back to the highway, back to her life, the shifting of the gears a physical metaphor for the shifting of her mindset. She’d figure out a way to make it up to Rachel. It would just take a little time and a little creativity.

  TEN

  “Okay, Jessica, let’s have a look at that tooth,” Rachel Gifford coaxed her patient to open her mouth, to let her see inside and check the progress of the root canal she’d performed a week before. “It looks really, really good. How does it feel?”

  “Urgh, okay . . .” Jessica never understood why her dentist asked her questions with various tools in her mouth. Why did dentists do that?

  “Okay, very good. I think you should really feel a difference in the next few days, but if anything changes—if you develop pain that just won’t go away—call me, okay? Some people experience infections a few weeks after the fact, sometimes the mesial lingual root can become infected and cause a dull ache. If that happens, we’ll need to get you on some antibiotics before it becomes a bigger deal. I don’t
expect that, but just pay attention to how it feels as it heals.”

  “Okay, will do, thanks.”

  “Have you talked to Cassie lately?” Rachel asked as she rolled away to enter some information into Jessica’s chart on her laptop. She shouldn’t have asked—she knew she was walking a fine line talking to a patient this way— and almost redacted her statement. The question was innocent enough, though, so she waited to see if she’d get an answer, if she could get some insight into what was going on in Cassie’s world.

  “Oh that’s right, I forgot about you two.” In truth, Jessica hadn’t forgotten about her friend’s status with her dentist, but didn’t want to seem overly-invested in it, so she fibbed a little. “I haven’t talked to her since she drove me home last week. Have you not heard from her?”

  “Nope,” Rachel said, continuing to type in Jess’s chart. “We had a bit of a . . . false start, I guess you could say.”

  “Really? I know she likes you . . . not that it’s any of my business, I mean.” This was getting awkward. Jessica wanted to be dismissed, to be ushered to the receptionist so she could pay her bill and get out of there.

  “Yeah, I guess. I think . . . she likes you more.”

  This was really awkward now. What should she say to that statement? It wasn’t a scenario she could’ve ever predicted—talking to her dentist in a clinical setting about her best friend was pretty bizarre. She just sat there, fully reclined, her eyes trained on the ceiling, unable to reply.

  “Never mind that I said that—I’m sorry I dragged you into this. It was completely inappropriate of me. Let’s get you out of here, okay?”

  I need a new dentist, Jessica thought as she walked out of the dental office. What did she mean, about Cassie liking her “more,” anyway? They were past that, weren’t they? What happened? They’d had a decent enough time the week prior, hanging out like old times. She knew Cassie was going to the farmer’s market with Rachel the next day after her root canal—had it gone poorly? She had no idea. She probably needed to call her friend, but didn’t want to push it. They were starting to rebuild, but they weren’t back yet.