Cassius
I’ll Protect You From Yourself
I don’t mean to white-knuckle the steering wheel. But here we are.
Zae’s curled up in the passenger seat with her feet on the dash, one of my hoodies swallowing half her body. She’s scrolling on her phone, her hair in a messy braid over her shoulder with her bangs falling in her eyes. There’s a faint red mark on her cheek from my pillow.
My pillow she fell asleep on.
Next to me.
On my bed.
Her hand in mine, our foreheads pressed together, and Hozier humming in the background while I said the dumbest fucking thing I’ve probably ever said in my life.
I don’t even know if I said it out loud or just thought it really hard, but it’s lodged in my skull either way.
I’m so fucked. I don’t know how I’m supposed to pretend you’re just my friend.
“You’re staring,” she notes without looking up.
“I’m not. I’m checking my blind spot,” I lie.
“We’re in the right lane.”
“I have many blind spots.”
She snorts, finally glancing over at me. “You saying you’re emotionally stunted, Brin Lee?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Then don’t lie,” she counters, all smug-like.
I grunt, because she’s right and I hate it.
The highway sign for Campus Exit—1 Mile flashes past. The closer we get, the tighter my chest feels. I liked the bubble of last night, of just us, no classes, no dorms, no girlfriends, no reality.
“Hey.” Her foot nudges my thigh. “You good? You’re doing that jaw thing.”
“What jaw thing?”
“The one where you clench like you’re trying to break your own teeth.”
I force my jaw to unclench. “I’m fine. Just thinking.”
“Those are dangerous words,” she teases lightly. “What about?”
You.
Last night.
How I probably confessed some shit in my sleep I really shouldn’t have.
“Homework,” I lie instead.
She hums, unconvinced. “Nerd.”
I shake my head, but the tension eases a little. That’s the thing about her. She talks shit for five seconds and suddenly everything feels less… heavy.
We pull off the exit and onto the road that cuts toward campus.
“Oh, before I forget,” she starts, changing the subject on a dime. “Can I borrow your calculator?”
I blink because I wasn’t expecting that. “My what now?”
“Your calculator, Cassius.” She drags my full name out on purpose. “The TI whatever. The fancy one with the graphing. I have math on Monday and the professor practically foamed at the mouth describing how much we’d need it.”
“TI-84,” I tell her automatically. “Yeah. You can borrow it.”
“Look at you,” she teases. “Math nerd.”
“Shut up.”
“Yes, dear.”
My grip tightens on the wheel for half a second.
Dear? Really?
Fuck, she’s trying to kill me.
We pull into the campus lot near my building and park. She unbuckles and twists to grab her weekend bag from the back, then slams her door and comes around to meet me at the front of the car, squinting up at the dorm.
“Back to the box,” she grumbles, but there’s still that curve to her mouth.
“We were gone for one night.”
“Yeah, and?” She bumps my arm with her shoulder. “Come on, I need the magical math brick. Academic weapon status must be achieved.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“Bite me,” she sings, spinning the keys on her finger as we start toward my dorm.
We cut across the courtyard, dodge a guy with a football, and push into my building. The blast of cool air hits us, that generic dorm smell of boy, ramen, and weird cleaning products.
She wrinkles her nose but oddly doesn’t say anything. We climb the stairs and turn down my hall. My chest is finally starting to loosen, but then I see her.
Her honey-blonde hair is straightened within an inch of its life. She’s wearing those tight jeans she likes and a white crop-top shirt. Her back is to us, fist raised as she knocks on my door again.
Stacey.
I stop short.
Zae almost runs into me. “What the—oh.”
Stacey turns at the sound. Her eyes land on me first—relief flashes for about a second—then she sees Zae and it freezes over.
I’m such a piece of shit. I know it.
“Cass.” Her tone is brittle-sweet. “There you are. I was starting to think you were dodging me.”
I can feel Zae go still next to me, like she’s worried she’s making it worse just by being here.
“I left my phone in my room,” I lie. “We just got back from my mom’s.”
Stacey’s gaze drops to the hoodie Zae’s wearing. My hoodie. Her mouth presses into a thin line.
Fuck.
“Oh,” she says, voice cool. “That must’ve been cozy.”
Zae adjusts her grip on her bag. “Hey, Stacey.”
“Zara,” Stacey replies, like the name tastes sour. “Didn’t realize Fridays were still your thing.”
“It’s our thing,” I say automatically, because I don’t like her being hostile with Zae.
Not when she’s tried to be nice to Stacey, tried to be her friend and make her feel included.
Zae and I have invited her to countless game nights that she turns down every time.
It’s Stacey who has refused to get to know Zae.
Zae shoots me a side-eye that reads shut up, you’re not helping yourself here.
A second later, Stacey’s lashes flutter in my direction. “Right. Of course.” She lifts her chin toward my door. “Can we talk? Alone?”
My stomach drops.
This is going to suck.
I look at Zae. Her face is so carefully neutral it somehow makes me worry more.
“I’ll just be over there.” She points to the end of the hall, already backing away like that’s where she belongs.
Stacey watches her go, then mutters, “Unbelievable,” under her breath.
That gets my head snapping back to her. “What?”
She tosses her hair. “Nothing. Just—” She sighs. “It’s like she’s always here. Always attached to you. Don’t you ever… I don’t know. Get sick of it?”
I have to try so hard not to show how annoyed I am right now. “Sick of what?”
“The constant clinginess. She’s always around, always being loud and obnoxious. I thought last year was bad, but now she’s here and it’s even worse.”
The word lands like a punch.
Obnoxious.
My brain immediately flashes back to junior year of high school when Zae was huddled at a picnic table, picking at a thread on her sleeve, telling me how her dad called her obnoxious in front of a caseworker.
How a teacher wrote “too talkative, disruptive” on every report card.
How her mom snapped “you’re so annoying” right before a breakdown.
Those were the words that stuck. The ones that dragged her into the kind of week-long depressions where she wouldn’t eat or talk or leave my couch.
I feel my jaw lock, that stupid heat climbing up my spine again.
“Don’t call her that.” I lower my voice, thick with anger. It’s hard to separate Zae’s best friend from Stacey’s boyfriend, and when I get protective, it’s even worse.
Stacey blinks. “What? I’m not saying it to be mean, I’m just being honest. She’s—”
I step closer without thinking. “I said don’t call her that.”
I can’t have the girl I chose to be my girlfriend hurt the most important person in my life with her words.
Her eyes widen, and for a second I think maybe she’s scared of me. That has me taking a step back faster than anything else would. “Wow. Okay. Defensive much?”
“Yeah,” I snap. “When you talk about her like that, yeah. I’m gonna be defensive.”
“She’s just… too much, Cass.” Stacey folds her arms. “It’s like she doesn’t understand boundaries. You and I haven’t had a proper date in weeks because she’s always there. Game nights, calls, you running to her every time she has a bad day—”
“She has depression,” I cut in. “Bad days aren’t optional for her.”
“Lots of people have issues,” she throws out, because unlike Zae and I, Stacey doesn’t have that sprinkle of spice in her brain. “We don’t all demand full custody of our friends.”
Something cracks in my chest.
Part of me knows I’ve been the shittiest boyfriend on the planet. But the bigger part of me knows she doesn’t actually care. Stacey doesn’t care about me. She cares about appearances. She cares about having a hot guy on her arm at her beck and call. About being the center of attention.
I’m none of that.
“She doesn’t demand anything,” I bite out. “Half the time she’s apologizing for existing.”
“Maybe she should—”
“Stop fucking talking,” I snap, because if she finishes that sentence there’s going to be a hole in the wall, and I’ve been doing too good to ruin it now. “Just—stop. You don’t get to talk about her like that. You don’t know her. In fact, you refuse to get to know her.”
“I know I’m tired of feeling like the side piece in your relationship with your best friend.” Her voice wobbles, then hardens. “Every time I see her, she’s in your clothes or in your space like she owns it—”
“She doesn’t own it,” I grind out. “But she’s allowed to be in my life.”
“So am I,” Stacey says quietly. “Or at least I thought I was.”
The thing is, she’s not wrong about one part: I do choose Zae over and over again. But that’s not something I’m going to apologize for.
“We can talk about us,” I say, forcing my voice down. “But you don’t get to make her the problem. She’s not doing anything to you.”
“She exists,” Stacey says. “That’s all it takes.”
Silence presses in between us.
“You should go,” I say finally.
Her face shutters. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. I don’t want to say something I shouldn’t, Stace.”
Her jaw works. “Wow,” she whispers. “Okay. I get it. I see where I rank. Enjoy your little co-dependent bubble, Cass.”
She spins on her heel and stalks down the hall.
I stand there, heart pounding, watching her go. Problem is I don’t feel relieved. I just feel wrong. Trying to divide myself between them is making me a shitty boyfriend and best friend.
Zae’s at the far end of the hallway, pretending to study some awful portrait of the building’s donor. Her arms are folded tight, hands tucked into her sleeves with her shoulders drawn in.
My stomach sinks.
“Zae?” I call out, keeping my voice soft.
She turns to look at me slowly, as if she needs a moment before she can look at me. Her face is blank, which is almost worse than if she were crying.
“You heard her, didn’t you?” I realize, asking, even though I already know.
She gives a tiny shrug. “Hard not to. This place has the sound insulation of a cardboard box.”
“Zae—”