Paper Airplanes (27 page)

“Oh, yeah? That’s cool,” Reese said, and I was sure he didn’t care about my crush on Jared.
He was just being polite.

“Yeah, but he’s playing all hard to get, I think,” Marley continued
, testing out a new theory on why Jared was playing me hot and cold.

I knew that wasn’t his style, though, but I didn’t have the heart to correct her.
I didn’t feel like getting into a pointless debate.

“
I wish that’s what he was doing,” I muttered, shaking my head. “He’s such a great guy, but I think we’re just going to be friends. It kind of sucks, especially since we have this weird connection thing happening. It was so crazy. We became friends, and I kind of fell for him, but then I found out he’d been at Coleman visiting his brother the night of the shooting. He was in the dining hall and got shot in the side. It kind of brought us closer together.”

Marley’s eyes got wide. “You didn’t tell me that! Jared was there?! That’s crazy.”

“I know. It’s completely crazy. I just found out a week ago. I never put two and two together since I stopped watching coverage of the shooting a month after I got home. It just got too hard.”

“What’s his name?” Reese asked.

“Jared Lansing,” I told him, and he nodded in recollection.

“Yeah, I remember him. He was in the hospital at the same time as me. We had similar injuries
, and both of us had to have surgery to have the bullet removed. One of the nurses told me about him, but we never met. How’s he doing with everything?”

I shrugged. “The same as us. Some days he’s fine, and some days he’s not.”

“My life in a nutshell,” Reese said.

“Are you going to go back?” I asked him.

“To Coleman? No. I’m transferring to the University of Wisconsin. I can’t go back to Coleman after what happened. Too many bad memories. What about you?”

I shrugged. “I still don’t know. I want to go back, but I’m not sure if I can.”

Marley took my hand in hers. “I’m not going back if you’re not,” she said.

I nodded. “We’ll see, I guess. I’m going to wait and make a decision in August. If you were to ask me today, though, I’d probably say no.”

It was the first time I was admitting that out loud, and it hurt to say it, but it was the truth. And sometimes the truth sucked.

“Hey, so I have to ask you guys something,” I said then, wanting to change the subject.

“What’s up?” Reese asked as he and Marley looked at me expectantly.

“So, I have this teacher who’s in grad school at Northwestern. She’s getting her PhD in psychology, and she’s writing her thesis on shootings like the one at Coleman. She asked me a week and a half ago if she could interview me since she hadn’t approached any of the survivors or the victims’ families
from Coleman since it was too soon. I originally turned her down, but I’m thinking now I might do it. I think it could help. I’m not sure how, but it’s just a feeling I have, and I was thinking maybe you guys would want to do it too?”

I’d originally told Andrea that I didn’t want to be interviewed, but after everything that had happened in the past few days, I’d had a change of heart. Now I wanted to do it, if for no other reason than to use the voice I had. Aiden and Will no longer had voices to speak up about the injustice of what had happened to us all, but I could. And I was pissed – for so many reasons. And after remembering parts of that night and the senselessness of it all, I felt more inclined than ever to speak up.

“I don’t know,” Reese said. “Can I think about it?”

“Yeah, sure. I won’t even tell her I talked to you guys, but if you want to do it, let me know. I’m sure she’d be grateful.”

Reese nodded. “I’ll think about it.”

“I’ll do it,” Marley said quietly.

“You will?”

She nodded. “Yeah, definitely. Maybe it’ll help in some way. I don’t know, but it’s better than doing nothing. Her paper will be published, right?”

“It will.”

“Yeah, then I’ll definitely do it. Maybe it’ll bring to light how things like what happened can be prevented in the future.”

“I’m in,” Reese said then.

“Really?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Marley’s right. This shit can’t happen again. I’ll do whatever I can.”

“You guys know this isn’t a paper on gun control or laws that punish criminals who kill people with guns, right? I mean, it’s a psychology paper on the criminal mind of killers like the guy from Coleman and what crimes like this do to the victims and their families. I’m not sure it’ll do much except bring what happened to light and make people more aware of the fallout.”

“Which will hopefully inspire people to take different action,” Reese said, connecting dots that I hadn’t. “It’s a start, Cass. It’s more than what any of us are doing now.”

I hadn’t thought of it like that. I’d just wanted to help Andrea out and share the things my friends couldn’t, but Reese had a point. I wasn’t naïve enough to think that one paper would change the world, but maybe if more people focused on the whys behind things like what we’d
gone through there would be a better chance of keeping them from happening again and again. It was all any of us could hope for.

Chapter Nineteen

Cassie

It had been a week since Marley and I had gone to Wisconsin, and in that time things had gone from
mildly hopeful to pretty much dismal for Jared and me. My plan to be just friends with him wasn’t working in the slightest since he was being more distant than ever which only made me want him more in a completely non-friendly way. It was so frustrating. I just wanted us to go back to the way we were before the Fourth of July when we were at least friends. I missed him.

Sure I saw him in class, but for some reason that week he’d decided to actually pay attention to Mr. Graves, shushing me whenever I tried to talk to him, and then after class, instead of getting coffee like we’d done
every day for more than a month, he kept saying he needed to go to the library to study. I tried to call bullshit, but he wasn’t listening.

And it was
really pissing me off.

At work it was the worst though, because I had to see him for extended periods of time, and no matter how much I tried to get him to be in the same place as me at the same time so we could talk or crack jokes or something, he always seemed to be dodging me.
And he’d completely stopped leaving me little notes on paper airplanes. I think I missed them the most.

And forget hanging out. Where
I used to spend at least two to three nights a week with him and Scott, that wasn’t happening anymore. I did have Marley to keep me busy, but it wasn’t the same. I missed them. Scott and Jared had become integral parts of my life. Not hanging out with them was weird.

So much so that I decided to say screw Jared and invite Scott over to hang out. He and Marley had become friends at work, and I figured even if Jared didn’t want to be friends anymore, I didn’t have to stop hanging out with Scott.

So the three of us went to dinner and to a movie on a random Wednesday when we all had the night off. I was surprised to see how well Scott and Marley got along, but really, who didn’t like Scott. He was so much fun. He just turned on his puppy dog charm around her and had her laughing non-stop like he’d done with me when we first met. And after that night, they were kind of inseparable.

I’d
even noticed that over the past week that Rick had to constantly remind her to get out of the kitchen and back to the hostess station since she was back there so much talking to Scott. I tried to make a joke about it to Jared, but he just gave me a funny look and walked back into the dining room while I shot daggers at his back.

I turned to face the bar and picked up the beers Brooke had set on the counter for one of my tables.

“Doesn’t feel good, does it?” she said as she walked over to me. The bar wasn’t busy, so she must have figured it was a good time to get a few verbal punches in.

“Excuse me?”

She was smirking at me. “I see Jare finally got smart and realized you were just playing him.”

“What are you talking about, Brooke?” I asked, my patience wearing thin.

She put her hands on her hips. “I told him to be careful when he saw you flirting with those guys last week. I haven’t seen him look that hurt in a long time. Way to make him feel like shit.”

“What are you talking about? I wasn’t flirting.
”

“
It looked like flirting to me, and it looked like flirting to Jared,” she said matter-of-factly.

“So what? He doesn’t even like me. Who cares if he saw me flirting?”

I didn’t think Jared had cared that I’d been flirting with anyone. He wasn’t interested in me. If he hadn’t made it known before, he’d made that abundantly clear over the past week.

“You’re such an idiot,”
Brooke said, before she turned on her heel and walked away from me, going back to the other end of the bar to flirt with one of the regulars who came in every day.

I wanted to say something to her, ask her what she meant by that, but something out of the corner of my eye distracted me. I saw Jared watching me from where he was p
ouring drinks behind the servers’ station. He quickly looked away when I made eye contact with him, but he’d definitely been staring. I watched him yank a few straws from the holder and throw them down on his tray before he stalked back toward one of Hale’s tables. Jared’s section was empty, so he’d been helping out.

Dammit.
I was so confused. I just needed to talk to him. This thing between us – whatever it was – had been going on for too long, and we needed to clear the air.

I waited for
him to come back to the servers’ station, but Rick intercepted him on his way back. I saw them talking, and Jared nodded. Then he walked toward me. I opened my mouth to say something to him, but he just kept walking.

“Hey,” I said to his retreating back as he started to untie his apron.

“What?” he asked tightly, not turning to face me as he started to punch out. Rick must have cut him.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Not right now,” he said, sounding defeated as he walked into the kitchen. A minute later he walked back out and headed for the front doors without even looking at me.

I let out a sigh of frustration as I
watched him walk out the door. To say I was pissed was an understatement.

I managed to get through my shift without showin
g my aggravation too much, but then Marley bounced up to me at the end of the night to tell me Nicole wanted us to go to a party at her house. I told her flat out no. I wasn’t in the mood for a party, but then Marley begged, and I found myself saying yes, because she was pouting, and I had a hard time saying no to her. But in truth I had no desire to hang out with those people. I just wanted to go home and crawl into bed. But now I had to go to a party. Fan-freaking-tastic.

My phone rang
suddenly, and my heart started to pound as I realized how much I was hoping it would be Jared calling to rescue me from a party I didn’t want to go to. But it wasn’t him. I was an idiot for thinking he would call me. He hadn’t called me in a week.

It was
just Scott, and my heart sank when I saw his name on my caller ID. All I needed was five minutes to make things right with Jared, but it looked like getting that time from him was going to be harder than I’d imagined.

“Hey
Scott,” I said with forced cheer as I answered, because I didn’t want him to know I was bummed to talk to him. It wasn’t his fault I was in unrequited love with his best friend.

“Hey Cass!
Whatcha doing?”

“Just finishing up at work,” I said as I tucked my phone between my ear and
my shoulder and loaded my dishes into the dishwasher. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing. I’m bored. Jared’s being anti-social tonight, and I don’t feel like going to bed.”

“Do you want to come out with us?” I asked, knowing that if he came I could hang out with him. That was such a better alternative than any of the other assholes who would be at the party.

“
Go out with you and Marley?” Scott asked excitedly.

“And Hale,” I told him. “Were going to a party
at Nicole Daniels’s house.”

“Yeah! Totally,” he said in his usual hyper way.

“Cool. Do you want to meet us at the restaurant?”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes. Should I invite Jared?”

Yes.

“He won’t want to come,” I said, knowing how true that was.
This party would definitely not be his scene.

“Yeah, you’re right. He won’t, but I do. I’ll see you soon. Don’t leave without me!”

I got a feeling in the pit of my stomach that this was just the opportunity Scott had been waiting for his whole life, to be invited to hang out with the popular kids. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, and I’d much rather be hanging out in his game room with him and Jared.

But that wasn’t an option, so I went into
the bathroom to change in to the red dress Marley had told me to pack so we could go out after work. I spritzed perfume on, knowing I probably smelled like food. I would have liked a shower, but that wasn’t going to be an option. Thankfully my make-up still looked good.

“Hey Cass!” Scott said when I met him and Marley outside. Hale had gone over to the party already, and we were
meeting him there.

“Hey Scotty,” I said, giving him a hug.

He hugged me back tightly. “Jared said to say hi to you,” he whispered in my ear.

I pulled back and looked at him. “He did?”

That was certainly an about-face from how he’d been acting earlier, but maybe Brooke had been telling the truth about how Jared felt. It would have been a first for her, but still.

Scott
nodded, but then his nod turned into a head shake. “Okay, not really, but I know that’s what he’d want me to tell you. In reality he just shot me a dirty look when I told him I was going out with you guys. He’s feeling all down about what happened with you guys last week. He’s been kind of a jerk ever since. You should call him.”

“What did he tell you about what happened with us last week?” I asked, hoping I was finally
going to get some answers.

“That you kissed
him and everything kind of went to shit after that. I don’t know all the details.”

Yeah,
I pretty much already knew that piece of the story.

“You should call him, though, seriously,” Scott insisted.

“He doesn’t want me to call him,” I told him. “I’ve been trying to talk to him all week, and he keeps blowing me off.”

Scott shook his head. “
He’s hurt, Cass. He likes you, but he feels like you blew him off.”

My jaw dropped. “I did not!
”

No way had I done that. He’d done that to
me
!

“
He thinks you did, Cass. Trust me,” Scott said, and I had no reason not to believe him. He’d never lied to me before. 

“But I kissed him, and he pulled away. Why did he do that if he likes me?”

“Because he didn’t know I was cool with how he felt about you. He was trying to be a good friend. He wanted to talk to you the next day and explain, but he said you were acting all weird, and then you blew him off when he asked you to come over and watch a movie. I don’t know much more than that.”

Oh crap.
I had done that, but it had only been because I thought Jared had blown me off first. Ah, hell. Had I seriously caused this riff between us? And if I had, did that mean I could fix it? Hope filled me for the first time in days.

“
Are you serious?”

“Yeah, but don’t tell him I told you that. He probably didn’t want me to say anything.”

It suddenly felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my chest. “I won’t. I promise,” I said as a wide smile spread across my face. I leaned up to kiss Scott’s cheek. “Thanks Scotty. I owe you one.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said coyly, so I play punched him in the shoulder. I turned to Marley. S
he was examining her cuticles, looking bored with our entire interaction. “Mar?”

She looked up at me. “Yeah?”

I bit my lip. “Can you and Scott go to the party together? I need to take care of something first. I’ll meet you there.”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever,” she said, sounding like she didn’t care what we did as long as we didn’t have to stand in front of the restaurant any longer.

I turned to Scott. “Give us just a minute, and then we’ll leave, okay?”

“Sure,” he said brightly. “I’ll be in my car.”

As soon as he was out of earshot, I turned to Marley. “Will you do me a favor?”

“Sure, what’s up?”

“Take care of Scott tonight. Make sure he’s okay?”

She scrunched up her face
and looked at me like I was nuts “Why would you ask me that? I’m sure he can take care of himself. He’s quite capable, you know.”

I sighed. “
I know he is, but I just worry about him. Scott is one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met. He’s so kind-hearted and sweet, but he got picked on all throughout high school by people who are going to be at this party. All he ever wanted was to be their friend, but they thought he was weird and a loser, so they boxed him out and made fun of him. Just make sure they don’t do that tonight, okay?”

“Well that’s shitty. Why on earth would you invite him to a party with people who used to be mean to him?”

I was slightly taken aback by her accusation. “Because I knew he wanted to go, and he’s fun. I’m hoping if they get to know him, they’ll like him.”

She laughed. “That’s not going to happen, but I also won’t let them be mean to him. Neither will Hale. We’ll make sure everything’s cool.”

“Good. Thank you. And I’ll be there soon.”

“You’re going to talk to Jared, aren’t you?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I need to. Is that okay?”