Dear Cassie (18 page)

There is nothing I can do to make it go away.

It started the night I let Aaron in.

After he gathered up the balls to come and see me that first time at Pudgie’s, our break time “dates” became routine. So routine that we did the same thing each time he picked me up: I got in his car, we lit two cigarettes, we drove to the park, we stopped the car, and we made out and humped on each other until our lips and hips were raw.

Usually he didn’t ask for more and I never did. I’d had sex a few times before him but not with anyone I’d actually been with enough times to be able to pick out in a kissing lineup.

Aaron was the first guy who came back for seconds and thirds, and though he never said it, I sort of assumed he was my boyfriend.

He was the closest I had ever come to one.

It’s not like we talked a bunch or had any deep profound conversations or anything, but there was something about when we were together. Something about the way I felt safe in his black convertible. How when I got in, the life I was living outside of it went away. Of course, looking back, that could have been because the life I was living outside of it was shit.

My prom night arrest had made sure of that.

If I was asked why I finally slept with him, I would lie and say that was the reason, but really I knew it was because I liked him. Really I knew it was because he liked me.

Boys didn’t usually like me. They liked my face and body fine, but my personality was something else. Somehow Aaron found a way to hatchet through my bullshit.

Too bad I hadn’t figured out a way to detect his.

“I wish I could have seen you in your prom dress,” he said, stopping our make-out session to look at me. His hair was sweaty, like he had come from the skate park. We had been seeing each other for a month and it was the first time he’d mentioned the prom since the night we met. I should have known he wanted something.

“What?” I asked, even though I’d heard him. For some reason his saying that made me sappy, and I wanted to hear it again.

“I think you would have looked hot,” he said.

“You mean you don’t like my garlic-scented uniform?” I said, pulling at my Pudgie’s T-shirt. It had a fat dude spinning some dough on the front and was stained with sauce, grease, and vinegar.

“That’s the thing,” he said, “you look hot in your garlic-scented uniform. Imagine how you would look all dressed up. Imagine the bra you’d be wearing.”

I put my lips to his ear. “PS . . . I wasn’t wearing a bra.”

He clawed at me, went back in for more. I pushed him into his seat lightly.

“Well, because you’re an asshole, I guess all you can do is imagine,” I said.

“You might be saying that,” he said, leaning in closer to me, “but I know you’re lying.” He kissed me again.

“You think you know it all,” I said.

“No,” he said, stopping to look at me, “I know you.”

Normally, a boy saying that would have heard me reply,
You don’t know shit
, but there was something about the way Aaron was looking at me. Something about the way his blue eyes floated over my face that made me believe. They were big like he’d shoved magnifying glasses on top of them. Seeing as I had so little to believe in back then, maybe I just needed to believe in something. Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered what it was.

I guess it was just my luck that it turned out to be a sneaky-ass boy who was also doing my best friend.

He put both his hands on my waist. “You want to?”

I knew exactly what he meant, but I was stalling. “Do you?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t,” he said, leaning in to kiss me again. He pulled back and looked at me. “Wait, are you a virgin?”

“No.” I laughed. I wasn’t, but if I really thought about it, I sort of was. I’d never been with a guy I had actually let myself like.

“Okay,” he said, and I could tell he was checking that off in his head,
not a virgin.
He looked at the digital clock, “I mean, we don’t have to.”

“No,” I said. “No, I want to.”

“You sure?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said, “as long as you have something.”

He smiled, that crooked tooth poking out over his bottom lip. “I’m like an STD-free Boy Scout,” he said, reaching over me and opening the glove box. A pile of condom wrappers shined back at me like coins stacked up by a banker. I tried not to think about the other girls he had worn them with. I didn’t really have a right to think about them, considering I wasn’t a virgin, either.

After that night our routine changed: I got in his car, we lit two cigarettes, we drove to the park, we stopped, and we got into the backseat, where we would pretzel into each other and shake the car, trying desperately to forget.

That was what I was doing, anyway, but it was hard with the seat belt always digging into my back and the clock on the dash ticking by to call me back to my old life. I had no way of knowing that this attempt to escape would take me into an even worse place than my post-arrest life.

That post-Aaron life was worse.

There was a short time I considered telling Aaron about the baby, but I knew he would abandon me. As much as I wanted to convince myself that he had real feelings for me, I knew even before Amy’s letter that being confronted with something
that real
would make his feelings seem like anything but. Besides, what could I have gained by telling him?

Looking back at that time, considering what I now know about Amy, I realize Aaron would have pulled out that old cliché where he asked me if I was sure it was his. Better to reject him first, to not have to even play that game.

Better to be the girl I should have been in the first place, the Cassie with thorns.

12 Fucking Days to Go

T
oday was archery practice. I hope I’m not the only one who thought it was insane that they were giving any of us access to actual weapons, especially considering they made such a big deal about keeping us away from regular items that could be turned into them—dangerous things like cinnamon gum and hoop earrings. Yet somehow they made an exception for bows and arrows.

Rawe said we had to be prepared to hunt for our own food. Just in case. This too was part of our training—our never-ending, still-not-sure-what-for training.

We waited in a clump with the boys while Rawe and Nerone showed us how to pull back the bow and fix in the arrow, but it was hard to take that seriously when the arrows we had to use had bright, fake feathers on them and the bull’s-eyes were bright gobstoppers of primary colors.

I watched as Nez whispered in Ben’s ear. I saw him nod and look at me.

Oh, mother fucker.

Did Nez know about the other night with Ben, or was it sweet nothings she was whispering? I couldn’t help wondering who Ben would pick if Nez and I were standing in front of him like the dream I’d had.

I hated that I wondered that.

There were only two targets, so while Nez and Eagan prepared their weapons on the range, the rest of us sat on upended boulders. Rawe stood behind Nez and Nerone stood behind Eagan, like human shields in case either one of them decided to turn around and go all
Hunger Games
on us.

Nez didn’t seem like she needed Rawe’s help. She knew her way around a bow and arrow, but Eagan was struggling. At least it kept him from telling us how many fatalities had resulted from kids playing Cowboys and Indians.

“Cassie,” Ben whispered, “come and see me tonight.” He had somehow found two sticks and was beating them against the rock he was sitting on, drum style, of course.

Troyer looked at me with her eyebrows raised.

Luckily, Leisner and Stravalaci didn’t hear Ben. They were talking about Nez’s ass.

I looked at Nez out on the range. If I was worried about what she was capable of before, watching her wielding a bow and arrow let me know immediately. She’d hit within inches of the red bull’s-eye on every shot she’d made.

“Why don’t you ask your girlfriend?”

“Who are we talking about?” he asked. “There’s only one girl here who I want to be my girlfriend.”

Troyer’s face turned red; she got up and sat on a boulder far away from us. I understood. I was embarrassed enough to walk away, too. But I couldn’t.

“Right,” I said, bouncing my left leg up and down like a jackhammer, wishing I could break through the dirt and leaves below me and dive down and down and down and hide forever.

“Why are you angry?” he asked.

“I’m not,” I said, my knee still bucking.
Anything
not to think about him, me, his hand holding mine tight enough to keep me from falling off a cliff.

“Cassie,” he said, putting his hand on my knee and holding it to make me stop.

“Ben,” I said, pulling away from him, standing and picking up one of the bows.

He stood too and grabbed the bow from the other side. He kept it away from me with one arm, one hand. “I really don’t understand why you’re mad,” he said. The bow was taut between us, both of us pulling on it and getting nowhere.

“Can you let go?” I asked, looking past him at Nez and Eagan. “I’m trying to learn how to slice you in two with a bow and arrow.”

Nez started hooting. She had gotten a bull’s-eye, not inches away but right in the middle of the red. Eagan’s target was still empty. He was as big as the bow and was definitely having a hard time maneuvering it. At least he was keeping Nerone busy.

“I kind of thought you might be nicer after the other night and everything,” Ben said, holding tight to the bow and moving his face close enough to mine that I could feel the breath coming out his nostrils and onto my forehead.

“Nothing happened, Ben,” I said. My words shot out one at a time like bullets.

“Maybe not that you’re willing to admit,” he said.

My arm was starting to shake. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could fight to keep the bow away from him, but there was no way I was giving up. “Why me?”

“I like you,” he said, his eyes tight on mine, like he was daring me to look away.

There was no fucking way that was going to happen. I locked onto those brown eyes like they were made of superglue. “Why?” I asked, my voice sighing out.

He stepped even closer to me, maneuvering to the side of the bow but still holding it, like he was dancing with it. “What would you do if I tried to kiss you?” His voice was breathy, hot in my face. He didn’t move.

“Step back, Ben,” I said. My heart felt like it was going to fly up and out of my rib cage like a helicopter.

“I might surprise you,” he said. I looked at his lips, the edges of them turning up slightly.

“I doubt it,” I said.

He let go of the bow and the force I had been pulling it with sent me flying right on my ass. My tailbone throbbed, my chest ached from shock.

“See?” He laughed. “Surprise.”

My face burned like I had been out in the sun all day without sunscreen.

I heard Troyer spit-laugh. It was the most noise I’d ever heard her make when it wasn’t just the two of us.

He held out his hand to help me up. “Come on, I was joking,” he said, apparently his attempt at a truce.

“I’m not taking your hand,” I said, like I was reminding myself not to as much as I was saying it to him.

“I’m patient,” he said, starting to hum.

“You are a zombie that won’t die,” I said, looking up at him.

He held his arms out in front of him and shuffled his feet. “Brains,” he moaned. “Mmmm, Cassie brains.”

I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it.

“Mmmm, Cassie laughs,” he moaned, still acting like a zombie.

“You’re seriously crazy,” I said, finally standing up.

“But that’s why you love me,” he said, pretending to tap dance.

I started to laugh again and it made him dance harder, faster, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.

“I’ll keep this up all day if I have to,” he said. He was clearly out of breath, but he didn’t stop.

Laughing at him, I felt warm, safe. Like I had at the lakeshore, in that moment when I had let myself hold his hand. When I had forgotten I needed to stay away.

“You can’t keep dancing forever,” I said.

He stopped, watching me. “Just like you can’t keep pushing me away forever,” he said, “eventually one of us is going to have to give up.”