Family Vacation, Adirondacks 

Cassandra floats on an O-shaped ring in the middle of a lake, no sunblock, listening to Hector 

reminisce about his ongoing glory days. 

She told Mom he was going to do that and Mom just said your brother loves you.

Mom likes to go swimming in the lake right after they arrive at the lodge. Cassandra is trying to feel 

normal, and listening to her brother talk about himself is helping. 

Sunflower in the dark, settling for porch lights.

Remember when I came here for a fencing competition, Mom? 

Yes, honey. 

Get over it, Cassandra snaps.

(His ease creates her anger; she becomes made of thorns, prickly when touched.) 

Hector turns away, and Cassandra watches the still water pooling in the creases of her belly. 

Cassandra once did not like bikinis, would not show off her peony softness in a polka-dot pattern.

Her body 

was hers. She opened it once, a firepit offering, 

but he is dead now, 

so the ownership feels confused. 

Half-listening to Hector’s fell swoop to fencing victory last week, her eyes 

rest on the edge of the lake opposite from where they came, far away

from herself 

and success-story-Hector 

and Mom who’s trying so hard to be nice 

and The Boy who never loved her. 

There’s a horizon line of fern trees, and a smattering of white flowers on the shore, winking. 

The before-girl in her winks back.

Later, towel tight around her chest, Cassandra shuffles into the lodge to get a snack. No one is looking 

at her lilypad self because the elderly woman owner is attacking a light fixture. 

Something leaps to Cassandra’s left. The woman shrieks and drops her broom.

Hoisting up her towel, Cassandra picks up the broom and tries to help corral the squirrel.

The broom tilts, top-heavy,

and Cassandra has to balance it with two dewy hands.

Her towel falls. She is all flesh body, shaking the broom and herself until the squirrel feels 

so closed in, it leaps. 

Cassandra hopes the flying squirrel finds a field of flowers.

She rearranges her towel, tucking away skin made red with shame and sun. 

She’s still hungry, 

but too embarrassed to stay inside. 

Cassandra splashes her way back to Mom and Hector instead. They’re sword-fighting with pool noodles. 

She, an invasive species owing an explanation.

Cassandra wants to tell Mom about her fell swoop victory. She first mumbles about the towel, 

but scrapes the best parts of the story out of her throat. 

Mom pushes up her sunglasses and smiles. 

Firepit, New Jersey 

They sit wrapped around a firepit like a ritual sacrifice to the gods of high school parties, 

begging please, make this a fun one. 

The Boy and his friends toss marshmallows into the flames and watch white confection burn to smoke.

Cassandra feels warmth on her face and The Boy’s flannel-covered shoulder against 

her bare arm. Like rose vines wrapping around an old house until 

they choke the paint off. She is thorny, expanding. 

She is blooming red.

And he is beautiful.

They sit criss-cross on an old knit blanket in his backyard, sparks shooting into the sky like little lights

to cast wishes on. 

Cassandra presses her hands against her denim-covered thighs and watches burnt bits of sugar 

pop and crackle, inching too close to the haven of this blanket 

and this Boy and this memory that is not a memory (yet). 

The Boy’s smile threatens to burn the house down, 

but the house is not empty (yet). 

There are thorns in Cassandra’s throat as she swallows, tasting applewood smoke and uncertainty. 

She warns The Boy of sparks in a cherry blossom whisper, pink and willowy. 

Aw, don’t be paranoid, Cassie. 

Roses explode on her cheeks but Cassandra loves being Cassie, his Cassie, so she laughs 

with his friends that are not quite her friends 

and pretends she isn’t concerned anymore. 

And five minutes later the blanket begins to burn right next to Cassie’s white sneakers. 

She noticed late; she was too busy 

marveling about how The Boy’s grandmother made the blanket they're sitting on, and 

wishing he would blanket her in his stories forever, 

like how the soft pink flowers from her favorite tree litter the ground in spring.

Then, there is commotion and standing and the smell of burning yarn. 

The Boy pulls Cassie’s water bottle from her fumbling fingers. It is over fast. 

Flames quelled and smoke left to soak into their clothes. 

Cassandra’s shoes are melty and browned.

She didn’t feel a thing.

The Boy turns to Cassie and says, Sorry. Are you okay? 

Don’t be sorry, Cassie says back. She soft-smiles into the horizon between his dark hair and freckled forehead.

Cassandra does not point out that if he had moved the blanket when she said so

she would still have white shoes and something to drink. 

The Florist, Pennsylvania 

Cassandra knows Mom is trying. That’s why Cassandra sits on the passenger side of the family SUV, unseeing eyes turned to the passing fall foliage.

Orange blur.

They pull up to the high school and Hector gets into the back seat, still wearing his whites. 

He smells like boy sweat and gym mats. 

Silence-breaker, Mom asks him, 

How was practice?

Coach told me I’m the best on the team. 

Golden Boy, Cassandra snips. 

You can’t talk. You don’t even do anything anymore. 

Cassandra rolls her eyes into the rearview mirror. Hector keeps talking between bites of hamburger. 

Mom picked up food for him on the way over; 

Cassandra ordered fries and ate them too fast.

The fries are growing roots in her chest and she feels heavy.

Mom needs floral arrangements and Cassandra loved the florist once 

so Mom invited her. The sky is beginning to go dark and misty;

they’ll be out of their best flowers.

Cassandra doesn’t bother saying so. 

Bleach-blonde Golden Boy Hector waits in the car while Cassandra and Mom go inside.

Cassandra breathes in the petals 

and lets a rare smile break the surface as she takes in the riot of colors. 

Mom does not offer to take pictures of Cassandra by the garden beds like last time. 

Mom instead peruses the perennials while Cassandra drifts through the aisles, 

the ghost of a girl who had her photo taken here.

Damn, they’re out of tiger lilies.

Cassandra thinks, how do I always know, then remembers that

she does not always know. 

Not when it mattered.

Not when The Boy was involved. 

She stops short in the seed aisle. 

Mom looks up. What if we got a bouquet for your room? Would that cheer you up?

But Cassandra’s momentary marvel has been snapped up like a bug in the mouth of a venus flytrap.

Mom is oblivious. Mom loves her so much.

Cassandra stares blindly until Mom says we have to be fast, Hector is waiting.

So Cassandra picks up a cluster of hot pink hyacinth and lavender hydrangea. 

It’s a pretty arrangement, she sees from a distance.

In the car, the flowers are bright in Cassandra’s face 

—squeezed between her legs—

which look different now, thick-stemmed. 

The petals are a caress against tired hands, a reprieve from the fall. 

They make Cassandra feel more alone. 

By the time they get home, Cassandra is a watering pail, too full.

Mom says through Cassandra's bedroom door,

(while Hector listens outside)

 I’m sorry, honey. I thought you would like the flowers. 

Cassandra stares at the beautiful bouquet perched on her dresser and thinks or maybe says

how could I have missed this? I never miss anything.

Parking Lot, Pennsylvania 

After class lets out, there is a rush to get to your car before the buses block the exit lane. 

Suburban high school survival. 

Rain twists Cassandra’s strawberry hair into damp curls. 

She used to hate how her hair looked wet, but once

Mom said her little loops looked like the tendrils of sweet pea flowers, so she doesn’t mind them anymore.

Cassandra hikes her backpack up on her shoulders and prepares 

to cross the street with her best friend, braced to weave together 

through cars and kids and hassled faculty members. 

The crossing guard flips down his stop sign, and, laughing, go! go! go!,

the two girls make a rush for where Mom is waiting. 

They are dodging a sports team

when she sees him, 

feels his presence through the warmth blossoming in her cheeks, 

a pale pink wedding bouquet,

and her best friend’s elbow shoving into her ribs. 

The Boy walks toward her, sloshing through puddles in the parking lot. 

He steps into one of the pools with extra force, making water splash up his legs. Cassandra feels 

her hand, divorced from her body, rise and wave.

Hey, she says, with the nonchalance of a poppy field. 

Her friend giggles while Cassandra grins, wondering 

if her mascara is terribly smudged. 

Hey Cassie, The Boy says. His t-shirt is soaked through, his hair slicked back with water. 

Cassandra is made of light. 

She manages to keep her cool and not get hit by a car. 

Her best friend drops her voice an octave and wiggles her eyebrows. Hey Cassie. Cassandra’s feet are 

barely touching the ground; she is swept up in an orchard wind, 

fresh and delicate. 

He’s gonna invite me to that firepit next week, she shout-whispers. I can feel it. 

Her best friend looks unsure, but agrees 

with hesitant enthusiasm only best friends can pull off. 

Cassandra doesn’t care. 

She knows she’s right.

She can’t wait to tell Mom.

Doctor’s Office, Pennsylvania

After she steps off the scale, the doctor tells Cassandra that she is 

a little heavier than last year, but still within the high-normal range of healthy. 

Cassandra told Mom to come in with her because 

Cassandra does not know how to be alone anymore. 

She regrets it; 

shrinking violet insecurity of her expanding body. 

It’s not enough growing for anybody to notice, probably, but Cassandra can feel

tightness in her jeans, 

underwire cutting into petal-soft skin. Easily bruised. 

(Or maybe that’s just grief: constant chafing.)

Cassandra told Mom that she can’t remember how normal feels anymore, 

what she was like before The Boy died. 

Wonders sometimes if she will always feel this way. 

Mom was at the kitchen counter, stopped and looked up,

That makes me sad, she said. 

Sorry, Cassandra said, 

and didn’t mention it again. 

So when the doctor asks Cassandra about her diet, 

Cassandra says it’s okay. 

Mom says they eat vegetables every night.

Cassandra does not tell the doctor that, late at night, she is presented with a choice:

think, or eat. 

If only The Boy could see her at this well-visit appointment. 

Would he still think she’s pretty? 

Sometimes, her belly gets so bloated she can feel the food pushing against her throat,

tall grass and graham crackers in the space where her voice box used to live. 

It hurts, stretching herself out like this. 

But physical pain is better than the alternative, 

and if Cassandra is full, 

it’s harder to feel empty.  

Fencing Competition, New York

Hector wins yet another fencing competition. King Midas, gracing friends and family with photographs, 

holding out his Golden Boy trophy and smiling stupid and celebratory.

Good job, kid, Cassandra tells him, ruffling his hair. 

She’s proud, even though there’s something annoying about being the older sister holding the camera, trailing after the baby of the family.

Jaded paparazzi. 

There are kids and parents everywhere; conversations echo off the gymnasium walls. 

Like a leaf in a greenhouse, 

Cassandra absorbs the heat. Dew forms on her hairline. 

She clicks candid after candid of Hector and considers how

she would hate the attention he receives, 

so it makes no sense to be jealous. She’s never liked competitions. Or photos. 

She cracks under pressure,

and her body doesn’t capture right, something always too soft or angled wrong.

Mom calls her 

my moonflower. Cassandra agrees: 

only beautiful in the dark. 

That’s okay, though. 

The Boy must like moonflowers. 

He invited her to the firepit. And he asked her on a date just before he dropped her off at home. 

A real date, 

to a coffee shop, 

and he said he had a surprise for her. Each time she remembers, 

it’s like stepping outside on the first warm day of spring.

So when Mom takes the camera and snaps a photo of her and Hector, Cassandra doesn’t mind.

Hector may be a state champion, but 

Cassandra is worth loving. 

Thanks for doing this, honey, Mom says. It means a lot to me. 

Cassandra is happy.

Then, Cassandra’s phone rings. She hears her best friend’s breathing and knows 

that something is terribly, terribly wrong.

Mom, with Hector chasing behind, finds Cassandra on the linoleum floor of a hallway. 

Mom holds her tight.

Mom tries to squeeze her daughter together, even as she crumbles.

There will be no first date.

Mom’s SUV, New York 

Who makes a bunch of sad teenagers travel four hours for a funeral?

It’s a long drive 

just to see a dead body. 

Cassandra remembers from the firepit that The Boy's grandmother has a beach house in Connecticut.

The beach has never been her favorite—not enough green, too much wet and sticky—but 

she would have loved it for him.

Some of the kids in her class road trip together, but Mom drives Cassandra, just the two of them. 

That’s the exit for the Adirondacks, Mom says into the silence. 

We’re booked for this summer.

Sarcasm dripping sap like from a fir tree, Cassandra says, Can’t wait to listen to Hector talk about himself. 

Honey, you’re not mad at Hector. 

Cassandra pushes a handful of sour gummy worms into her mouth instead of answering. Worms

like the ones 

that eat away at decomposing leaves, 

decomposing bodies.

The Boy probably drove along this highway often, 

when he was still alive. 

Cassandra has never been to Connecticut before. She’d secretly hoped The Boy would take her with him one day, 

had silly-girl dreams

of her feet propped up on the dashboard and him in the driver’s seat,

fingers tracing circles on her thighs. 

She would tilt her head into the open-window breeze,

but her hair would never tangle,

and he would never die.

It’s all fantasy, fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. 

She feels hot tears welling up despite the gummy worms, and suddenly 

Cassandra is real and red-faced 

with knotted hair at the top of her skull. 

Oh, honey, Mom says, and pulls a tissue out from her door compartment.

Cassandra tosses the gummy worm bag against the dashboard.

Sour sugar explodes everywhere, and

the neon packaging falls to the floor mat,

empty anyway. 

Mom pulls over, and her blue SUV shudders from cars racing by

on the New York highway while Cassandra cries.

Home, Pennsylvania 

Cassandra didn’t mean to ask Hector to play a game. 

He just looked bored, sitting on the couch, and she is tired of moping in her room. 

(The worst part about hard anniversaries is the day before,

when Cassandra knows it’s coming. 

A few years ago tomorrow,

Cassandra found out The Boy was dead.) 

Hec, she calls, voice carrying through the kitchen like petals in the wind. Wanna play checkers?

She is ashamed at his excitement; his forget-me-not eyes go wide at the offer.

The teenage boy that Hector is, though,

he plays it off cool. 

Sure, he says, rolling back lanky, growth-spurt shoulders. 

When did Hector get so tall? 

He sets up the checkerboard from across the kitchen table. Hector takes the red pieces. She, the black. 

At least something is familiar. 

Cassandra asks him about fencing and tries to listen to his fell swoops to victory. There is a lot

to be proud of, she tells him.

Roses bloom on Hector’s cheeks, and she hopes they stay for a while.

After-girl’s thorns are falling to the ground, one by one; Cassandra doesn’t notice. 

They begin.

Then, Hector knots his fingers together, asks if she is sad, still. He’s so earnest

that Cassandra sees through her initial irritation at such a stupid question.

She slides a checker across the board. 

Yes, she tells him. 

Mom said tomorrow’s the anniversary, but not to mention it. Hector looks down at his hands, blistered from practice. 

It’s okay to mention it, Cassandra says. 

Her lips uptick at Golden Boy, and maybe she understands the glow:

naivety unshaken by tragedy. 

Sunflower seeking light, she tilts toward him.

Cassandra blocks the move he tries to set up, taking one of his checkers. 

Dammit, Hector says. 

Then, I’m sorry that he died. 

Cassandra’s lips break into a soft smile, a calla lily curve. 

Thank you, she says. Me too. 

Hector looks up at Cassandra. She doesn't feel the urge to look away. 

Have you figured out my game plan yet?

I’m getting there, Cassandra tells him.

(But she already has.)