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"As long as I don't say I love ABBA?"
She jumps straight to Cassie-Steele-Music-Critic. "ABBA is iconic."
"But the lyrics…"
Her shoulders fall as she smiles. She sinks into the joke. She finds her ease. "You think you know me so well."
"Sometimes." I know this side of her. I know the Cassie who lives and breathes music. And the Cassie who hates me. It's the Cassie who cares about me I don't quite understand.
She's not family. She's not obligated to care about me, but she does. Why?
I have to trust it. Somehow. I return her stare. I try to find my own vulnerability. "I know I hurt you."
She doesn't deny it. She nods in agreement and shifts away from my attempt at humor. "If you want to get serious…"
"You swear you're not judging?"
"No, I can't promise that. But I can promise to try." Her eyes bore into mine. "If you promise to try too."
I can do that. In theory. "Can we do it right here?" I pat the spot next to me on my bed. "Or do you need all that distance?"
"I hate all this distance." She rises to her feet and sits next to me on the bed. "But I need to trust you to stay closer."
"I want you to trust me," I say. "I do. I just… don't know where to start."
"At the beginning, maybe."
It's a reasonable request, but it's hard to place it. There's the minute Dad took his first drink. The day he met Mom. Conception. The doctor announcing it's a boy.
How much of this was fate, and how much was my action?
It still feels like destiny, like I'm doomed to repeat my father's mistakes again and again. But I have to take responsibility. I know that.
I take a deep breath, and I look into Cassie's gorgeous grey eyes, and I begin. "Daphne says it's biology. The predisposition for addiction. I'm sure that's part of it. But it can't be all of it. Or Daphne would be staying up late with a bottle instead of a textbook."
Cassie's lips curl into a bittersweet smile. There is something funny about the mental image of my sister drinking her way through a study session. It's absurd. It's totally out of character.
It fills me with relief.
I'm a mess, yes, but Daphne is okay. She's strong and capable. She's without these kinds of demons.
Softness spreads through my limbs. Then I feel Cassie's knee against mine, and I tense again. This isn't as easy as looking at Daphne as a role model.
This is tangled and messy and impossibly complicated.
"I know I'm the one in charge of my actions," I say. "I'm not trying to deny any of that."
Cassie nods. "There's not a lot of scientific debate, is there? On the inherent ability of alcoholism?"
"A predisposition to alcoholism, yeah." I nod too. "I don't think so. You'd have to ask her."
"Does it feel that way?" She turns a little more toward me. "Do you remember when we were kids and everyone said you'd be tall one day, just like your parents?"
"Of course."
"Does it feel like that?"
"More." No one said you'll grow up to be an addict one day, just like your dad. It was in their actions. In the way they looked at me, talked about me, got quiet anytime anyone mentioned drugs or alcohol in my presence. "It's one of those things that was always there. Even when I was a kid. I didn't realize it, at first. I didn't know what it was, only that people were worried about me. I'd seen adults drink before, but never Mom and Dad. I thought it was something they just didn't like, the way I didn't like fish sticks."
Cassie offers her hand.
I take it. "Then, Dad slipped. I was eight or nine. I'm not sure. He was outside, in the backyard, all fuzzy and distant. I didn't understand why. I just knew it was off. It happened a few times. Then he went somewhere to get clean."
"Did you know what was happening?"
"I did and I didn't. I knew something was wrong. I knew he disappointed Mom. I knew she looked at me and saw the possibility I'd do the same thing to her. She explained that adults liked to have a drink sometime, for fun, or to relax or to get a little silly. Only, sometimes, they had too much, and got too silly, and they needed help taking a break. A time out."
Cassie rubs her thumb over the space between my thumb and forefinger. She rests her head on my shoulder, sinking into me, trusting me, giving me space and time.
Right now, our connection feels easy. Safe even. It doesn't make sense. This is shit I don't talk about with anyone. Shit I can't face on my own. "Can I borrow some of your braveness?"
"Huh?" She looks up at me with confusion in her gorgeous green eyes. "What braveness?"
