Chapter Fifteen
Cassidy
“Are you ready for Miracle on 34th Street?” I asked Erik when he finally joined us in the living room. “This is one of my all-time favorite movies.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“What?” my mother asked as she turned and looked at Erik like he was from a different planet. “What do you mean?”
Erik looked embarrassed, and my mother certainly wasn’t making things any easier. I didn’t know all that much about his childhood, but it hadn’t sounded like it was the best. I did my best to rescue him from my mother’s sympathetic clutches, but she was one of the biggest fans of Christmas and every holiday movie out there. It was going to be really hard for her to wrap her brain around the fact that Erik hadn’t even heard of the movie before.
“Mom, it’s okay. We’re watching it right now. After tonight, he will have seen it.”
My parents sat on the couch with one of them on either end of it. So, that only left the love seat for Erik and I to sit on. It was a cozy couch without a bunch of extra room, but it would certainly be hard to sit next to Erik and keep my hands to myself. He had just proven that he was tough and sensitive and that really got me.
When Kaitlin and I talked about the perfect guy, I always said I wanted a guy who was sensitive. I didn’t mean that he had to cry all the time and act like a baby. All I meant was that he could see something emotional and actually shed a tear. Or, that he would feel some sort of emotion when things called for it. Too many guys felt like they had to hide their emotions with a stern look. The guy I was looking for in my life would be able to actually show his emotions when the time called for it.
As the movie played, I totally forgot that Erik was sitting next to me because I was so engrossed. But as the ending scene started, I looked over at him to see what sort of emotion he had on his face. It was a scene that even made my father cry when everyone helps out Kris Kringle. But as I turned and looked for the expression on Erik’s face, I quickly realized that he wasn’t even awake.
His head was propped up on his hand, and he was fast asleep. I had no idea how long he had been sleeping, but certainly it was long enough that he was totally out of it. There went all my ideas that he might actually be a sensitive guy. It baffled me that he hadn’t seen the movie before, yet he still fell asleep in the middle of it. How was that even possible?
I tried my best not to react, but the more I thought about, it the angrier I got. He was in my home on Christmas Eve and our thing was to watch a movie together. He couldn’t even respect us enough to stay awake. My blood pressure continued to rise as the movie finished and he still didn’t wake up.
“Looks like he was worn out by the day,” my mother said kindly.
“Yep.”
“I’ll get some sheets and blankets for the couch. I’m really sorry the bedroom is such a mess. Your father started painting it and just hasn’t finished it yet.”
“I didn’t know we were having company,” my father responded loudly enough that Erik finally woke up.
He looked around the room to see if anyone had noticed he was asleep and noticed we were all staring at him. A very uncomfortable silence fell, and I just let it stay there for a little bit. If it had been up to me, I wouldn’t have talked to Erik at all and would have just left him to wonder where we had all gone when we got up and left the room. But it wasn’t up to me, and my mother soon started mothering him, since that was what she did best.
“Hi there. You look like you haven’t been sleeping well. Are you hungry for a snack at all before bed?”
“No, ma’am. I’m all right.”
“I’ll go grab you some sheets. You can sleep on this couch. Santa usually comes a little after midnight, so you’ll be able to get a good glimpse at him.”
My hands flung up to my face to cover my laughter as my mother went on and on about Santa Claus like he was real and he did visit our home. She had always been such a firm believer in Santa, and I had to admit I still liked the idea of him. My mother had made my childhood very wonderful around the holidays.
When my mom finally left the living room with my father behind her, I couldn’t hold the laughter in any longer and burst out. It was so fun to have Erik there with me. Growing up as an only child I often didn’t realize what my family did differently than others around Christmas. I could still remember very clearly the year I had questioned my mother when she talked about Santa Claus. I soon learned that Santa was real because if he wasn’t, that meant I didn’t get presents.
“You better believe in Santa or you’re going to be in trouble.” I giggled.
“I’m sorry I fell asleep during the movie. I think that panic attack totally wiped me out. I’m exhausted.”
He apologized. Now how am I supposed to stay mad at him? I couldn’t; I had to let it go. I had experienced a few panic attacks when I was going through treatment and even for a few months afterward. They were exhausting. My body would get all tensed up, and then when I finally calmed down, all I wanted to do was sleep.
A lot of people ended up taking anti-anxiety medication to deal with their panic attacks, but I always believed it would be best for me to learn how to calm myself down. I didn’t want to rely on medication to get my body back in control. I had already spent so long using alcohol as my own personal anti-anxiety liquid. As much as possible, I avoided all medications. I didn’t even take Tylenol unless I really couldn’t stand my headache.
“It’s okay. I’m sure you’ll sleep well.”
“Cassidy, I really did have a great time tonight. It might not have seemed like it, but this is as close to a family Christmas I’ve had in a very long time. It was great.”
“Here you go, some blankets and sheets for you,” my mother said as she handed a very large stack of items to Erik. “Hopefully, you won’t get too cold.”
“I know; the weather here is freezing compared to San Francisco. I can’t wait to get home and jump in my nice warm pool.”
My eyes got larger than I thought physically possible as Erik spoke and totally blew his cover. He hadn’t remembered the story I told my mother, at all. He wasn’t supposed to be from California; he was supposed to be from New York. He certainly wasn’t supposed to have enough money for a home and a pool, otherwise why would he need a bed to sleep on for the night?
It took my mother a moment to register what was going on, and I saw the flash of recognition as it hit her. She held herself together very nicely and simply requested that I come and talk with her in five minutes.
I hated when she did that. Five minutes was her rule because she wanted to calm down and talk to my father before she yelled at me. Even though I was clearly an adult, I still felt like a naughty teenage now that I was caught in a lie.
“I’m sorry,” Erik winced.
“You had one lie to keep straight. Come on, man. I know you’ve had to tell worse lies to the ladies you slept with when you were smashed.”
My voice was judgmental and rude, but I couldn’t stop myself. He wasn’t thinking at all. Erik hadn’t even tried to keep the story straight. It was my life he was messing up now, and I didn’t like that he seemed so nonchalant about my life. I had taken him in as a favor so he wouldn’t have to spend the holiday alone. I couldn’t believe he had forgotten the one story he was supposed to remember.
“I said I was sorry.”
“Really, is this what you’re like all the time? Don’t put any effort in at all and then apologize? Why not actually put an effort out there?”
“What are you talking about? It was an accident. I said I was sorry.”
“And at treatment? You didn’t even start going to groups regularly until a couple of days ago. Before that when you could be bothered to go to group, you sat quietly and hardly participated.”
“How do you know how much I went to group? You got scared and hid from me on the other unit. Plus, you’re not in my groups, so what do you know?”
“I need to go deal with my mother. This was clearly a bad idea. I’ll have my parents take you back tomorrow,” I said and stormed away.
About halfway down the hall, I started to cry. I didn’t mean to be so horrible to him. I had expected his visit to go so well, and instead, it was a disaster. My mother and father were going to be crazy angry with me. Erik probably thought I was a psycho girl. And now, I felt like I was about to have a panic attack.
I hated when things didn’t go as I planned. It was like I put every bit of effort into something and in one swift motion, it was all wiped out. Even before I had a drinking problem, I always had a problem with being in control.
Hiding it was what I normally did. I could mask my controlling personality by being excessively nice to patients. There was something about being at work that I could adjust better to. But when things got out of control, like they did on the night Brianna had her seizure, then I felt like I couldn’t contain myself.
Slowly, I opened the door to my parents’ bedroom and faced the inevitable. My parents were good people. They had put up with a lot over the years, and they did handle things very well. My biggest issue was that I just hated to disappoint them. The look in my father’s eyes was the worst when I did something that he thought was wrong.
“Cassidy, is that boy a patient from your work?” my father asked me.
There was no way I could lie to him. For some reason, lying about the story originally seemed perfectly okay, but lying when I had been found out was not all right. I had to just tell him the truth – there was no other option.
“Yes.”
“Cassidy!” my mother exclaimed.
“Mom, he doesn’t have any family and only one friend back home. I felt bad for him. He’s been in the hospital for a while and no one has visited him.”
“Where is home? California, in a fancy house? Those are the only people who can afford to be at your work. I can’t believe you lied to us. You lied right to my face, Cassidy.”
“I know, Mom. I really didn’t want him to have to spend Christmas alone.”
It was the truth. I hated when anyone had to spend their Christmas at our facility. The dark gloomy holiday wasn’t good for the spirit when you were locked up in a hospital.
“Are you sleeping with this boy?” my mother asked, and my father covered his ears and turned around.
“No! I’m not sleeping with him. He’s a friend. His mother died a long time ago; he needed someplace to go for Christmas. That was it.”
“Cassidy Conrad, you better be telling me the truth,” my father said, even though he still had his hands over his ears.
“Yes, Daddy, it’s the truth. He didn’t have anywhere to go. If it makes you feel better, he told me this was the best Christmas he’s had in years.”
The statement made both my mother and father calm down. Our evening had been incredibly boring. We had simply eaten dinner and watched a movie – which Erik had fallen asleep during.
“He really must not get out much.” My father laughed.
“I don’t have a present for him,” my mother replied.
That was my mother: Even though she was angry with me about lying, she still wanted to make sure she had a present for the strange man who I had brought home to eat our food and sleep on our couch. She was such a good person, and at moments like that, I had to hope that I would someday be as good of a woman as she was.
“He doesn’t need a present, Mom,” I said as I breathed a sigh of relief that the worst of the conversation was over.
“You could give him that sweatshirt you bought for cousin Henry. We aren’t seeing him until next weekend, we can get him something else by then,” my father added.
“Perfect idea, Bob.”
It wasn’t very often that my father came up with a good idea, and it was even more infrequent that my mother acknowledged the idea. She loved him dearly, but he often wasn’t paying attention enough to contribute to any sort of idea generating.
“So, can I go back out there?” I asked as I inched closer to the door.
“Yeah, but you keep an eye on him. I don’t want anything bad happening and you’re to blame.”
“Like what, Mom? What bad could happen while he’s sleeping on the couch?”
Both my father and I laughed at how ridiculous my mother was at times. She was bossy and domineering, and even when there was nothing to worry about, she found something to worry about. Sometimes I had to wonder how my father put up with her all these years, but then in the very next moment I would wonder how my mother put up with him for the same number of years.
“Oh, just go,” she said in exasperation and waved me out the door.
I didn’t wait another second and quickly left their room and went back out to the living room where unsurprisingly, Erik was asleep. He looked like a large, teenage boy as he slept all curled up on the couch with every single blanket my mother had given him. Even though he was thoroughly covered up, he still looked like he was freezing.
He and I would have a lot to talk about in the morning. Or at the very least, I would have to apologize for behaving so badly toward him. I felt horrible for how I had talked to him, and even though it would be Christmas in the morning, I had to find the time to set things straight.
If Erik was going to get to know me, he was going to have to learn that I didn’t always think logically. Sometimes I was a bit wild and disrespectful. Maybe I would grow out of it as I grew older, or maybe that was all just part of my personality – I really didn’t know for sure. All I knew was that I felt horrible and I didn’t like feeling like that.
When I woke up, it was already light outside and I heard my mother and father in the living room talking with Erik. I pressed my ear to the door to see if I could hear what they were saying, but I couldn’t. It didn’t seem like the best of ideas to leave Erik out there with my parents, but at the same time, I wasn’t sure I really wanted to go out there and listen to them grilling him with questions.
Hopefully, he knew that he could be honest with them now and just talk to my parents like he would talk to anyone else. My parents wouldn’t really care that I had brought him home from work, as long as Erik didn’t make it sound like we were sleeping together. If he made any of those types of comments, I would surely be mortified and my father would be crazy angry.
“Thanks for having me,” I heard Erik say as I walked down the hallway. “This sweatshirt is beautiful; I really appreciate it.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, confused at why Erik was standing by the door and looked like he was leaving.
No matter what had happened between us, I wanted him to stay for Christmas Day. He didn’t need to leave. I knew I had made him feel bad, but he didn’t need to leave. If I could just get him alone for a minute and we could talk, I was sure we could work things out. He had to be leaving because of me, and now I felt horrible about it.
“Erik’s going to head back to Paradise Peak,” Mom replied. “He’s tired and just wants to rest.”
“I’m glad you’re up. Thank you so much for having me here with your family. I really appreciate it. Spending time with you all has given me a clearer vision for my goals, and I really can’t thank you enough.”
“You should stay. We have presents to open and cookies to eat. It will be a great day.”
“No, I better get going. I have a lot of things I need to work on, and I don’t want to be lazy about my treatment.”
My heart sank. He was throwing my own words back at me. I hadn’t meant them, though. I was just agitated and angry that my parents had caught me in a lie. Sometimes, I felt like I was the biggest jerk. Nothing I had said to Erik meant that I truly wanted him to leave, because I didn’t want that.
Actually, despite our argument, I had been looking forward to spending Christmas with him. I had planned that we could make sugar cookies and decorate them. It was going to be a great time and would give us some more time to talk. But it was looking more like I would have to make those cookies alone.
“Don’t go,” I said as I moved closer to him. “It’s Christmas, you don’t need to go.”
Desperately, I wanted to make him stay. He had come so he would have a good Christmas for a change, and now it was all getting ruined. Not only was he leaving my house after we had fought, but he was going straight back to treatment.
The only good thing about it all was that Erik hadn’t relapsed. Hopefully, he had gotten a tiny taste of what it was like to be outside of treatment and have to deal with your emotions and other issues that would come up.
“I have to; my taxi is here.” He smiled. “Thanks again.”
And just like that, he was gone and I felt like the biggest jerk in the world. What had been a beautiful Christmas Eve had actually ruined Erik’s Christmas Day. I could hardly stand still as my guilt started to spread across my body.
Even if Erik and I were only friends, I should have been nicer to him. Actually, because we were friends, I should have been more understanding and talked to him like a friend would and not like an angry girlfriend. As I watched his taxi drive away, I hoped that he would have a decent Christmas and that I hadn’t totally ruined it.