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Cassie had planned to go out and have fun with her friends for one night, a way to make the rictus grin slog of the holiday season more bearable. She’d already done all her shopping - she’d done it back in August (which was late for her). She’d checked in on her mother, three times, like always, usually interrupting an argument between Mom and Leo over whether to put up the tree now or the day before Christmas, and whether waiting brought bad luck.
Instead of relaxation, Cassie was staring awkwardly at a stranger, a “friend of a friend” her so-called friends had pushed on her. Some guy named Aaron who’d just moved there from Wilkes-Barr. He was a nice guy, funny, cute - a little scraggly but she didn’t mind that. She just didn’t want to be with anyone right now. It was pretty much the last thing on her mind
About six years earlier, when Cassie’s mother had finally admitted that she couldn’t live in Cape Giradeau anymore, that every street corner and every light switch brought memories of pain and regret, Cassie had finally been able to exhale. She’d never really liked Cape Giradeau, she’d always felt different, judged, shamed. The harder she pushed, the harder they’d pushed back, and when she’d finally broken through, it had felt hollow, somehow. She had a great job at the paper, but the paper was running on fumes, like the rest of the industry.
When she got to St. Louis, it took a while, and most of her savings, but she got a better job, at one of the city’s biggest papers. She worked hard, and her lack of history in various feuds with various personnel helped her advance. If Cassie was being honest with herself, it was her mother who’d truly blossomed in St. Louis. She’d been able to get a job she actually wanted, not one she needed to keep food on the table. The little antique store she’d taken a part-time job in was now hers in all but name only, and that was probably going to happen any day now. She’d also fallen in love with one of the store’s favorite customers, a widower named Leo. She’d refused to admit she had any feelings for Leo beyond professional courtesy until Cassie told her she wasn’t angry about it, Dad wouldn’t have been either, and practically dialed Leo’s phone number for her.
They’d gotten married about six months later.
Leo was a kind man who would die for her mother, and that’s really all that Cassie wanted or needed. They mostly had polite conversations, no more, no less. She still saw her father, dancing with her mother in the kitchen to old Lou Rawls songs. She didn’t need or want another father. She just wanted her mother to be happy.
That made Cassie a hypocrite when she turned dragonfire onto her friends each and every time they tried to make her happy with the latest dream man who just happened to be their coworker or second cousin or brother-in-law or shy neighbor who was getting on their nerves, but, as Dad had once told her, “Double standards make the world go ‘round.”
She’d been in love, she still had the scars, as the cliche song lyric might say. She was fine with waiting until she and she alone would make the decision. The last time she’d been with someone - really been with them, not just fucking and forgetting - it had been unexpected enough to where she knew it wasn’t going to be found in a million blind dates.
Aaron had been kind enough to tell her that he felt pretty much the same as she did, his warm, brown, slightly bloodshot eyes going a long way to alleviate any potential awkwardness. They’d spent most of the night conning their mutual friends into buying them more booze as they whispered seductively in the corner…about the latest episode of ‘Sleepy Hollow.’ As the night and the liquor went on, he’d confided in her about his ex, “really funny guy, hot too…so hot, very protective,” and how something always got in the way, until finally, Aaron knew it was time to go, knew he’d always be second or third best, no matter what he did. That it wasn’t what the guy wanted, that’s just how life worked out.
Cassie knew the feeling.
After a few more drinks, Aaron asked her to keep an eye on his wallet while he went out for a smoke. Cassie thought he must be a very trusting guy to assume a near-stranger wouldn’t take his money, but at least it was a change from all the store clerks who’d just happened to follow her everywhere she went, even in “post-racial” America.
When someone jostled the small table she was steadying herself at, Aaron’s wallet fell out of her hand. The aftereffects of her last beer made her feel slightly woozy as she leaned over to pick it up. She sobered up once she saw one of the photos on the floor.
She saw a freakishly tall guy who looked like a pale Hulk, standing next to a man with long dark hair and a lost, gaunt expression, with a smile so weak and eyes so dead. He looked like a man she’d once known, a man with laughing eyes and a big heart. She knew it couldn’t be him, but…
She finished looking at the rest of the photo. Aaron was standing next to them, kissing the cheek of a grimacing - playfully grimacing - man.
Cassie shook her head until she thought it was going to fall off, trying to clear what must have been beer vision. He looked so much like…
Dean.
Older, a little rounder, a lot scruffier, but….Dean.
Even now his eyes seemed to shine right through her.
Cassie put the photo back in the wallet, various scenarios running through her mind. Some part of her, probably the drunkest part, fantasized that this was some twist of fate, that she and Dean would get back together and live happily ever after.
The sober part of her, whatever was left of it, insisted that she’d left him for a reason, that if she’d gone on what her heart told her, she’d never have let him go, and that probably would have been a very bad thing, no matter how much they’d wanted to be together. That had never been good enough.
When she stood back up, everything warring inside her kicked in with the alcohol enough to knock her off her feet.
Funny how Dean could do that from just a photo.
A few of her friends helped keep her steady, calling a cab for her once they saw that she was alright.
"M’fine," she insisted. "Just that time of year."
They understood. Or they thought they did, anyway.
As she staggered out to the taxi, she handed Aaron his wallet back.
"Happy Hanukkah!" she yelled out, a little too loudly.
She wasn’t quite sure what he said in return, but it seemed friendly enough.
She cried herself to sleep that night, which she blamed on the alcohol, or tried to, anyway. She remembered Dean’s arms around her, and what a risk he’d been, and how much, deep down, she still regretted not taking the risk. Then she imagined her mother losing both husband and daughter, or Cassie living, but in pulse only - becoming bitter, angry. Hating Dean.
As she finally wore herself down to about five hours and a bad hangover the next morning, she decided she was lucky. Only good memories. No time for wallowing. And if she imagined Dean’s arms around her that night, fine. She’d earned one last wallow.
She saw Aaron again after that. Quite a few times, actually. He was just as warm and funny as she’d remembered, even moreso when she was sober. She learned that he had a golem (the big guy in the photo, as it turned out), which didn’t surprise her as much at it should have (“C’mon…no reaction? None? You were more shocked the first time you saw my underwear than when you saw my fucking massively powerful golem…wait, that doesn’t sound right.”). The golem was very protective of her and her family, and her mother, once she got over the shock, welcomed him like a brother, or at least a close cousin. He went to work at her mother’s store - he was good at dusting, and keeping out the creeps.
Cassie also learned he was a pretty good kisser - Aaron, not the golem - even with the beard burn. She had a lot of fun with him, laughs and gentle touches in all the right places, and the occasional joint when she was in the mood. Neither of them wanted a serious relationship, but there was nothing wrong with fun.
Plus, he made her mother laugh, and that really wasn’t easy.
Every once in a while, when Aaron stayed over at her place, she’d see that photo in his wallet again.
She almost asked Aaron about him, but it was just too.much of everything crashing into her, killing her nerve.
She never did ask.
She just hoped he was happy.