Chapter 46
Forty-Six
Cassie was on her bunk, eyes wide open, counting the cracks in the ceiling. Twelve. It might be thirteen, but the last one was possibly just a dead spider. She couldn’t decide.
She hadn’t meant to let Delilah hold her. Cassie should have shoved her off. Should have laughed, or turned, or done anything to break the contact. But she didn’t. She sat there and let it happen. Leaned in to it, even.
And now she couldn’t stop replaying it.
She’d meant to hold herself together, like always. To be a wall. But something in Delilah had crept in without Cassie noticing.
And that was the part that made her stomach twist.
She’d spent the last ten years learning to be untouchable, building walls so high she couldn’t even see over them. Not just because of Petra, but mostly… Well, yeah, actually. Because of Petra. That poisonous first love.
What began as coaching turned quickly into something intense and deep and very physical.
Cassie had believed they were built to last. The dream team.
Maybe not easy, but who wanted easy, anyway?
Things were only valuable when earned. That’s what life had taught Cassie.
And she’d been willing to keep earning Petra every day.
She’d been willing to fight to love her.
Then Cassie’s elbow had given up, and Petra had ended it like she ended a drill, and with about as much feeling. And Cassie had been left gutted.
After that, she’d sworn off anything that could expose her again. There’d been flings, yes. Quick things. Things easily kept behind the wall.
But when Delilah’s arms closed around her, Cassie let them. Worse, she melted into them.
Afterwards, Cassie had quietly asked for some time alone and had come back to the cabin to lie here thinking. Delilah, with maximum respect, had not come back till after sunset. Cassie had turned to the wall and pretended to be asleep until Delilah was secured in the bottom bunk.
And here Cassie lay, hours later, pulling it all apart. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she muttered. She realised she’d spoken aloud, and she held her breath to hear signs of consciousness from beneath her.
A long, long pause. And then, a snore. Cassie breathed again.
This wasn’t her. She didn’t fall apart in front of people. She didn’t let anyone see her like that.
And yet…
Delilah was closing in. Cassie had thought she could hold her ground, keep the boundaries sharp.
But they were slipping. Everything was slipping. And for Cassie, that was just about the worst thing she could imagine.