30. Cassidy
THIRTY
CASSIDY
I press my back against Bindi’s locker and wait for her.
The second bell has already rung, but I don’t give a shit.
Other students stream past in a noisy blur and I ignore them all.
Especially the girls who ogle their eyes at the resident bad boy— gross attention whores.
My eyes flick anxiously down the hallway, searching for the familiar shape of hers.
A small, feisty redhead with her guarded green eyes.
Bindi emerges from her bio class, a few sheets of notebook paper clutched to her chest, wearing that oversized, green striped sweater she stole from the lost items last week.
She said it was a designer brand. I said that the sleeves swallowed her hands up and that she looked like Numbuh 9 from Codename: Kids Next Door .
Either way, I think she looks beautiful like that, but I know the moment we get on the bus she will complain.
I push off the locker, and weave through the thinning crowd after her .
I catch up, fingers curling around the strap of her backpack just hard enough to make her stop. “Yo.”
She whips around, her brows furrowing. “What, Cassidy?”
“I was waiting for you,” I say, falling beside her as she takes off down the corridor again. “Thought we could walk to class together.”
“You’re going to be late . . . again.”
“I don’t mind being late. Not if it means I get to see you for five fucking minutes.”
“I can walk myself. ”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t. I just—why are you acting like this? Did someone upset you?”
“Everything’s fine,” Bindi mutters as she quickens her pace, practically jogging now. I’m taller, but I struggle to keep up without flat-out running. “Just leave it, Cass.”
“Hey—” I reach for her elbow as we round the corner, not even caring that Mr. Baird is standing outside his classroom ushering stragglers in. The tardy bell rings and Bindi jerks her arm away from me.
“Seriously, what’s your problem?” she hisses, pulling me into the alcove by the trophy case. “You’re suffocating me. I can’t even go to class without?—”
I flinch. It feels like she slapped me, but her words are the sting. My mouth goes dry and I struggle to find something to say that won’t sound pathetic. I just want to take care of you , I want to say. I promised to take care of you. Don’t you remember?
But I don’t say it, because I already see regret flit over her face. Bindi bites her lip, and the fight drains out of her stance. She adjusts the fraying strap of her backpack and looks down. “Cass, I didn’t mean?—”
“Bindi! Hey, Bindi, wait up!”
We both look, and my stomach lurches when I see Caleb Vasquez half-jogging toward us.
He slows as he nears. He’s one of the sophomores I’ve seen hanging around the art room sometimes.
A skinny kid with a mop of dark curls that won’t stay out of his eyes and those dorky braces.
I’ve never paid him any mind, until right now.
Until he decided that talking to my girl was deemed appropriate.
He gives me a timid nod of acknowledgment but mostly focuses on Bindi. I can practically feel myself turning invisible in her eyes as she steps toward him.
“Oh . . . hey,” Bindi says.
I move to her side, making sure this kid knows I’m there, looming a good half foot taller than him. But he doesn’t back off; he’s holding a folded piece of paper in one hand.
“You, um, I forgot to give this to you in bio,” Caleb says, offering the paper to Bindi.
My eyes lock on the note. It’s small and creased, like it’s been folded and unfolded a dozen times. I catch a faint whiff of something sugary—did Bindi spray her perfume on that note? Bindi’s cheeks turn a pretty shade of pink as she takes the paper back from Caleb. “Oh, thanks.”
“I’m glad I caught you before the final bell of the day!” Caleb adds quickly.
I step even closer, slipping an arm around Bindi’s shoulders. Truthfully, I just need to touch her, to stake a claim in front of this intruder. My fingers dig into her sweater a bit too hard, bunching the knit. Bindi tenses but doesn’t pull away. She just shoots me a sidelong glare.
“Thanks,” I say curtly to Caleb. It comes out sounding more like fuck off .
Caleb shifts awkwardly under my stare, then glances between us with this weird half-smile. “This your brother?”
Before Bindi can answer, I cut in.
“Foster brother,” I say flatly. Enough to make the kid flinch. “Temporary setup. Not blood.”
Bindi makes this sound—half a sigh. “Cassidy . . .”
Caleb’s eyes dart between me and Bindi. He swallows and runs a hand through his messy curls. “So, uh, anyway . . . see you in class, Bindi? ”
“Yeah, see you then.”
She’s still blushing. Is she . . . smiling?
Caleb gives one last awkward grin and turns to hurry off. I want to lunge after him, drive his face into the nearest locker until those braces break off into bloody shards along with his fucking teeth.
But as soon as he disappears around a corner, Bindi shrugs out from my arm, not meeting my eyes. Instead, she quickly unfolds the note to check it. I lean in, trying to see over her shoulder, but she notices and steps back, stuffing the note hastily in her pocket.
“What was that about?” I demand. My mind is racing. “Why’s he giving you a note?”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “It’s nothing, Cassidy.”
I stare at the pocket where she shoved the note. A hot, sick feeling churns in my gut. “Nothing? Seemed like it was something. You gonna tell me what it is?”
She scowls. “None of your business. God, you’re nosy.”
“I’m just worried about you. I mean, you’re passing notes to some random kid now?”
“I am not ‘passing notes.’” She air-quotes mockingly. “It’s for class, okay? Bio homework, not that I owe you an explanation.”
“Fine. Keep your dumb secrets. I was just trying to look out for you.” I turn on my heel, feeling a whirlwind of rage and hurt twisting inside me, and start to walk away before I say something I can’t take back.
Bindi doesn’t call after me, she just lets me go.
I spend the rest of the school day in a fog of my own making. Algebra class blurs by without me writing a single equation, and my leg bounces under the desk while I chew the inside of my cheek raw, tasting blood. All I can think about is the look on Bindi’s face when that kid handed her the note.
Some part of me knows I’m overreacting. She’s allowed to have friends, isn’t she? Maybe it really was just a homework thing, like she said. But if it was innocent, why lie? Why shove the note away so fast?
I picture a thousand worst-case scenarios scribbled on that piece of paper. Maybe she wrote a secret about me, complaining that her weirdo foster brother won’t stop hovering. Or maybe—maybe it’s about how she likes him. How she has a crush.
Bindi liking that scrawny little Vasquez kid who can barely talk to her without stuttering? It seems ridiculous. Yet, I keep recalling her blush. God, what if it said something like “Meet me after school,” or, “I think you’re cute”?
I snap my pencil in half. A couple of people around me glance over, but I ignore them, clenching the broken pencil so hard it leaves indents in my palm.
I can’t concentrate on anything.
When the final bell rings, I’m out of my seat before the teacher finishes reminding us about tomorrow’s quiz.
In the hall, I scan the crowd for that mop of dark curls.
Students are bustling out, eager to escape.
Some are heading to the parking lot, others to the buses.
I shoulder through a knot of underclassmen until I spot him near the main stairs.
He’s alone, fumbling with his backpack like he’s in a hurry.
Good.
My heart hammers as I follow him, while my mind is strangely calm and cold now, every emotion funneling into a single purpose. I’m going to make sure he stays the hell away from Bindi.
He heads out the side door of the school, the one near the dumpsters.
The door swings shut behind him and we’re momentarily out of sight from the throng.
Caleb walks toward the chain-link fence that separates the school from the dried-up football field beyond.
No one else is around except some kids on the far side of the field.
“Hey!” I call out. Caleb turns, eyebrows lifting in surprise .
“Cassidy, right?” Caleb says, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with one hand. Didn’t notice those earlier—probably because I was too busy fantasizing about smashing his face in. He offers a weak smile. “What’s up?”
I step closer, and he instinctively steps back until his shoulders press against the chain-link fence. “Listen, I don’t know what you think is going on with my sister, but you need to back off. Don’t talk to her. Don’t look at her. Got it?”
Bindi isn’t my sister—not by blood—it’s just a word the system uses to label what we are to each other. Still, I know it’s the quickest way to assert that she’s off-limits. Not that it matters to me whether we share DNA.
If I had my way, I’d throw that word out and replace it with mine .
His eyes widen behind those smudged lenses. “I-I’m not—I mean, we’re just lab partners in bio, man. It’s not?—”
“Lab partners . . . is that why she was blushing? Why are you two passing cute little notes?” I sneer.
“It wasn’t like that,” he insists, shaking his head. I notice his fingers trembling as they clutch the fence behind him. “Seriously, Cassidy, it’s nothing. I don’t . . . I barely know her outside of class.”
Lies, lies, lies.
Everyone’s lying to me today, it seems. My vision goes red at the edges, and there’s a roaring in my ears. Without fully realizing it, I grab the front of his T-shirt with both hands and slam him back against the fence. The chain-link rattles violently.
Caleb’s mouth falls open in shock. Up close, I can see a smear of ink on his chin—maybe from art class—and the freckles scattered across his nose. He looks so harmless, I hate him for it. I hate him for making her smile.
“Please—” he croaks, raising an arm as if to ward off a blow. He doesn’t even try to hit me back. Pathetic.
The rage in me has momentum now. Once, when I was ten, I was in a foster home with this older kid who liked to shove me around.
One day, I snapped and went at him with a broken bottle.
I don’t even remember doing it; I just remember coming back to myself with him screaming on the floor and blood on my hands.
After that, they stamped me with “anger issues” and threw me into therapy that never worked.
Like sitting in a circle and drawing feelings would stop me from breaking bones.
It’s like I blackout, a switch flips, and I become something feral. Something that only knows how to destroy what it fears losing.
This feels like that. Like I’ve been wound up too tight and now I’ve sprung.
I cock my arm and drive my fist into Caleb’s stomach. He folds forward with a wheeze, the air knocked out of him. Before he can recover, I yank him upright by his shirt again and snarl inches from his face. “What did it say?”
He coughs, choking on breath. “I—I didn’t?—”
This time, I punch him in the face. My knuckles explode in pain as they meet his jaw, but it’s satisfying—a bright flash of release.
Caleb yelps and crumples to the ground, hands flying to his mouth.
I see blood on his lips now; one of those braces must have cut him.
He’s whimpering, eyes glazed in shock and fear.
A distant part of me whispers that this is too much, that he’s just a kid and I’m acting crazy. But that voice is drowned out by a louder one screaming in my head: He’s going to take her from you. They’re all going to take her from you. Stop them.
I drop to a knee and grab his collar, shaking him. “What. Did. It. Say?” I enunciate each word.
His eyes focus on me, tears collecting at the corners. “Okay!” he babbles, spitting blood. “Okay—I’m sorry. I—I’m sorry?—”
“What did it say?” I bark again, my heart thundering so loudly I almost can’t hear him over it.
He coughs, and a tear slips down his cheek. His voice is a frightened squeak. “It—She needed some things researched for our project and that was just her thanking me—I swear, man. And I wrote back for her not to sweat it.”
I freeze, my grip on his collar loosening a fraction.
That’s it? Thank you for your research?
He must see doubt in my face, because he blubbers on. “Please, let me go. We aren’t . . . it’s not like that. I wouldn’t?—”
His words cut off in a grunt as I slam him back once more for good measure.
I feel a wave of disgust, both at him and at myself.
He could be lying through his teeth just to save his skin, but I remember Bindi’s twitching brow and think .
. . Maybe she did lie to me about it being a homework note, but only because it was something trivial, like a thank you. Could I have really gotten this wrong?
Caleb’s whimpering breaks through my haze. Shit. What am I doing? I’m out here roughing up some nobody because I’m jealous, like a freaking psycho. If Bindi finds out about this, will she ever forgive me?
She’d have to forgive me. Everything I do, I do for her. Nobody else has ever given a damn about us except us. I can’t let some crush or whatever the hell this is between us ruin that.
“You’re lucky I didn’t break your teeth. If you say one word about this to anyone, I’ll find you. And next time, it’ll be worse. Understand?”
He nods frantically, not looking up.
I leave him there. As I walk away, I hear him spit and groan.
He’ll live.
Maybe he’ll even think twice before talking to her again.