The Book of Us

It was okay to leave them, it was okay not to get involved. She wasn’t one of the pack, she wasn’t part of any of this. She was just the woman who had married Veronica’s biological father. She was just someone who knew Cass when they were younger. That was it. No one would expect anything else. She had more than enough of her own shit to deal with.

When she reached the car, her heart was pounding and her ears hurt from the cold. She shivered as she waited for the heating to get going, and stared across at the little house, the Christmas tree visible in the front window. She couldn’t give up her life again for Cassidy Jones. She had to focus on herself. It seemed that was how all of this had started, that determination not to be in Cass’s shadow anymore, to finally be her own person instead of the plain little friend always along for the ride.

Cass was asking again. Come along, Loll, it’s my party but you’re invited. She wondered if the howling was a mistake or not. Veronica throwing her head back like a young cub, it had torn right through her. Cass had to have known, had to have remembered.

*

It had been the second year of uni, because they lived with Emily and Rachel, who insisted on having ridiculous parties every weekend. Ones that descended into screaming matches about other people’s boyfriends and acceptable boundaries. It became boring, so they used to camp out in the pub across the road, the Resurgence. Lauren had a soft spot for the bartender, Luke, who always smiled and gave them free packs of salt-and-vinegar crisps. Mainly because he had a soft spot for Cass. Lauren was used to that turn of events by then. There’d been something particular about that night though, and Lauren strove to remember. Something to do with Babs. A serious diagnosis, or a bad week of chemo. The years of her sickness blended together, she had always been waiting for treatment or undergoing it. Cass had always been either pretending she wasn’t worried, or escaping into drugs and booze. The years were hard to keep straight.

This night though, Lauren recalled the specifics. She remembered the purple jumper that Cass wore, how she pulled the sleeves over her fingertips. How her eyes looked even more blue against her pale skin. She kept coughing from the damp in the house.

‘I should be with her,’ Cass had said, wallowing in self-pity, ‘she’s going through this alone.’

‘And you’re sick and you could make her worse. Focus on getting better. Or focus on passing your course.’

Cass had raised an eyebrow. ‘Something you want to say there, Loll?’

‘Don’t change course again, even if it bores you?’

‘Well, what’s the point of all this really, if I’m not passionate about the thing I’m studying? If it’s not meant to be?’

‘If it’s not easy, you mean.’ Lauren had sipped her pint of cider, her eyes flitting to Luke behind the bar and the way he rolled his shirt sleeves up.

‘Excuse me, I’m having an existential crisis here,’ Cass had nudged her, ‘plus don’t you have a boyfriend?’

‘I have a … Darren. We don’t have a label.’

Cass rolled her eyes, then rested her head on Lauren’s shoulder, nuzzling in. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing, Loll. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

Lauren snorted, ‘That is absolutely not true, and you know it.’

Cass lifted her head and smirked. ‘Okay, well I wouldn’t know how to be myself.’

‘You mean maybe you’d be a completely normal, well-balanced person without me?’ Lauren faux-gasped, ‘The horror!’

Cass sat back, her fingertips tapping the sticky darkwood table insistently. ‘You joke, but I’m being serious. You’re like … my tribe.’

‘We can’t be a tribe by ourselves.’

‘We can,’ Cass nodded, eyes wide, ‘and maybe we’ll add more people if they prove themselves worthy.’ Her gaze strayed towards the bar briefly, where Luke was polishing glasses and looked across the bar at her. She turned back to Lauren, ‘But we’re definitely a tribe.’

‘And how will these people prove they’re worthy? Slay a dragon? Rescue a princess? Run through a burning building?’

Cass’s eyes were sometimes shocking in how blue they were. She blinked, then laughed. ‘No, they just have to be there when we need them.’

Lauren couldn’t think of a joke to make, and she knew Cass’s thoughts were returning to her mother and the chemo. She could imagine Barbara, sitting in her chair, making all the other people around her laugh, asking the nurses if they could switch out the solution in her drip for wine. A nice sauvignon blanc, if you please.

It was impossible to imagine her not looking glamorous, her golden blonde hair curled elegantly, wearing her best navy wraparound dress and her heels. Barbara always wore heels, no matter if she was in a hospital ward or on a camping ground. When she’d first met Lauren, she pulled her in for a bear hug against her ample bosom, asked her how she felt about marriage, and offered her a glass of wine. Lauren had blinked, looked at Cass, who had shrugged, and said she thought it was probably very nice for people who were into that sort of thing, but currently she was quite happy dating.

Barbara had a laugh like a foghorn, and she bundled Lauren through to the kitchen. ‘Thank God! Finally a normal friend, hey, baby?’

‘Normal?’ Lauren’s heart had sunk. Here she was in Cassidy Jones’s house, seeing the things that mattered to her in her childhood bedroom (a stuffed whale called Winston, and her eternally broken-spined book collection) and meeting her mother. And she had been dismissed as normal immediately. What an awful word, normal. They knew how they sparkled, and they recognised her dullness.

‘Not a fuck-up!’ Barbara elaborated, handing her a generously poured glass of wine. ‘Someone simpatico! Friends should be on the same page. Every other “friend” Cass has had seems to be from a different book entirely!’

It was horrible to admit, but when Cass loved you, she shone a light on you, and Lauren loved that warmth. When Cass was with her, she felt her prettiest, smartest and loveliest self. Until she was in the shadows again. Cass had slipped an arm around her friend, staring at her mother defiantly, as if trying to prove her wrong. Look, I found someone who gets me. I am lovable. I have a friend, I have everything I need. Lauren could tell what that look meant, from the jut of her lip, the tilt of her chin, their heads next to each other, as if posing for a picture. Barbara suddenly laughed and clapped her hands together, wine sloshing out of her near-empty glass and onto the cream carpet.

In the pub, Lauren had looked at Cass, resolutely drinking her cider and staring into space, the empty bar suddenly so silent. It was her job, as her friend, to get her through this. To listen as she offloaded, and be there when she cried. Cass had done it enough times for her, over things much less important than a dying parent. But she needed to know she was strong enough.

‘You remember what your mum used to call us?’ Lauren said, remembering a comment that Babs had once made, when they came downstairs in their matching Halloween outfits and garish make-up. ‘She called us a pack.’

‘A pack’s the same as a tribe.’

‘No, it’s not. Because a tribe can be people. But we’re not people. We’re wolves.’

‘Wolves?’

‘Sharp teeth and pretty fur and fucking deadly.’ Lauren tried her best to sound like Cass, energetic and passionate. ‘Wolves can deal with anything, no matter how cold it gets, right?’

‘I get it, Loll, and I appreciate it, but …’

‘Nope, we’re wolves. And what do wolves do?’ Lauren asked, grinning.

‘I don’t—’

‘Arooooo!’ Lauren howled, enjoying the look of shock on Cass’s face. ‘Join in or I’ll keep going! Arooooo!’

‘I’m not going to—’

‘Arrrrooooo!’ Lauren howled louder, seeing Luke jump across the bar and narrowly avoid smashing a pint glass. ‘Are you a strong wolf, or are you a puny human?’

Cass fought the smile, but it seemed to spread across her face despite her attempts. ‘I’m most definitely a wolf.’

‘Prove it,’ said Lauren, crossing her arms.

‘Arrooooo!’ howled Cass, using all the air in her lungs until she couldn’t howl any longer for laughing. In that moment, Lauren knew she’d done her job.

It was painful to think about now, the moment she’d been strong enough to care for Cass. Everyone always thought she was weak, but she wasn’t. She was just quiet. Cass knew. Cass had always known what she was capable of.

Now there was a wolf pack of two again. She had been replaced by Veronica. They thought they needed her, but they didn’t, not really. They’d have their adventure as mother and daughter. She didn’t need to be a third wheel. But the whole way home she couldn’t stop thinking of that little girl in the yellow coat, staring out at the sea, and wondering whose hand she’d have to hold when her mother was gone.

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