Page 162 of Secrets on Ice

“You’re not selfish,” I tell her.

“Connor was going pro, and I thought …” She's crying now. “I thought he'd break your heart. I thought you were this smart, gorgeous, going-places person, and my brother was a boy who could barely finish a sentence around you, and I honestly, genuinely thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was protecting you. From him.” Now I’m crying. “And instead, I handed you to Kevin.” She's shaking. “I pushed you to stay with a man who didn’t appreciate you. All those years I watched him make you feel small, and I sat there at dinners and holidays, and I let it happen. The entire time my brother was three feet away, in love with you, not saying a word because you were married and he's a better person than me.” Her whole face crumples. “I ruined your life, Em. I actually did. I took fifteen years off you because I was seventeen and selfish and I thought I knew best.”

“Cassidy.”

“I've been carrying it since Vegas.” It comes out of her in a rush now, like she's been holding it in her mouth for months. “Since I heard him say it in that hospital room. He said he'd loved you always, since you were kids, and it was like someone punched me, because I already knew. I've always known, and I did that.”

I wipe the tears from my eyes. I sit there with my heart going and the phone face down on the cushion between us, and my best friend sobbing into her blanket. I reach out and hug her because she did nothing wrong.

“You are not selfish. Who, for the past couple of months, has slept with me while I mentally break down? Who was there when the nightmares took over? Who cleaned blood off her own brother's face after I attacked every single night and never once made me feel like a monster for it? Who saved my life and forced me to get better? Who held my hand in an elevator so I could stand in a lobby for ten minutes? The girl who still to this day, carries drink covers in her purse and puts them over my drinks every time we eat out to make me feel safe. The girl who pulled me out of my misery when we left our husbands, who helped bring our dream to life, who has made me laugh when I didn’t think I could. Who sat and binged hours of reality TV with me? It was all you.” I cry as we hug each other. “I couldn’t do this life without you, Cass, okay. It’s you and me against the world. It always has been.” She hugs me tightly. “I can’t believe you have been holding that in all these years.”

She looks up at me with red puffy eyes. “I wonder what your life would have been like if you had not gotten back with Kevin and chose Connor instead.”

“I wouldn’t be right here, that’s for sure,” I tell her. “Connor asked me to choose that day, and I couldn’t. I wanted to, but I just couldn’t, so that was my choice, not yours, not Kevin’s, and not Trevor’s. I chose to go in a different direction. So, none of this is your fault. It’s all mine, because it’s my life.”

Cassidy sniffles. “But …”

“Stop. We were kids, Cass. All of us. We made stupid decisions with about four brain cells between us. Now here we are in our thirties with all this wisdom, and we can look back and think what the hell were we thinking. Of course it's obvious from here, it wasn't obvious then.”

She sniffs. “It was a little bit obvious.”

“Okay, it was a little bit obvious.” We both laugh through our tears.

“But that's the thing I've actually been working on with Dr. Hay,” I tell her. “Kevin and I weren't a good marriage that went bad at the end. It was never right, that's the part I couldn't see until now.” Cassidy goes very quiet, listening. “There were good years in there, I'm not pretending there weren't. But underneath all of it …” I search for the words she gave me, the ones that made something click into place. “It was toxic, Cass. From the beginning. How he'd twist things around until everything was my fault and I'd end up apologizing for things I hadn't even done. How small I got. How I stopped saying what I wanted because it was easier to just agree with him.”

“I saw it,” she whispers. “I watched it happen, and I never said anything because I thought that was normal because Trevor did the same thing to me.”

“I know. I wish we were both strong back then, but we can’t change all of that now. That's what Dr. Hay explained. You get into a toxic relationship young enough, and it becomes normal. It's just how it is. It's just Kevin being Kevin. I had nothing to compare it to, so I couldn't see it, and by the time I might have been able to, I was married, and I couldn't get out.”

“I get that.”

I reach over and squeeze her hand. “I know you do.” I sigh. “I thought about getting out so many times. And every single time I'd talk myself back out of it, because leaving was terrifying and staying was easy, and I had so much to lose.” I wipe my face. “So, I don't regret the good bits. But if I could go back and do it over, knowing what I know now? I'd run.”

Cassidy wipes her face with her sleeve. “And you'd pick Connor instead?”

I've thought about this. I've thought about it more than I want to admit, lying awake, running the other version of my life like a film.

“Honestly? I don't think it would have worked either.”

Her head snaps up. “Really?”

“Yeah, we were all too young.”

“But he loved you,” she says.

“Love sometimes isn’t enough. I wish I had made different decisions at certain points in my life, but if you focus on the ‘what ifs’ then you will never go anywhere and will always be stuck. So, I’m choosing not to dwell on what my life could have been because I don’t know if it would have been better or worse, I will never know, but what I do know is now life is good, even with the big road bumps.”

“I’m so proud of you, you’ve come so far,” Cassidy says.

“Because of you and Collette and Jo. I’m a stubborn bitch, and I would never have sought help if you hadn’t forced it. So, thank you, you saved me.”

We hug each other again. “I love Dr. Hay, she’s great. After I saw the results you were having, I’ve been seeing her too.” I had no idea. “I needed to talk about the anger I felt over the years I thought I wasted with Trevor. The fact that I might not get to be a mom, and how angry I am at him possibly taking that away from me.”

“Aw, Cass, I had no idea.”

She shakes her head. “You had your stuff, and I had mine. But I feel better, and like you said, I can’t change the past.”

“So true. You know what I’ve realized, that Kevin was the toxic one in our relationship, and I was the toxic one in Connor’s. I feel guilty about that because I think my actions have shaped the way he views relationships now. And that makes me sad.”