Cassius #2
“I get it,” she quickly interrupts me before I can make any kind of excuse. “She’s your girlfriend. She’s allowed to be upset.”
“I don’t care if she’s allowed.” I shake my head, shoving my hands deep in my pockets so I don’t reach for her. “She doesn’t get to call you—”
“Obnoxious?” She lets out a short laugh that doesn’t sound like her. “It’s fine. Not like it’s the first time I’ve heard it.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
She shifts her bag higher, eyes sliding past me. “Cass, I really do have a lot to get done today. Can I just… grab the calculator?”
I hate how small her voice sounds.
I dig out my key, unlock the door, and push it open. She steps in ahead of me, looking everywhere but at my face.
I go to my desk drawer and rummage until my hand closes around the familiar plastic brick. “Here.”
She takes it carefully, like it might bite. “Thanks.”
“Zae—”
“I know what you’re going to say,” she cuts me off almost immediately. “And I’m fine.”
“You don’t know what I’m going to say.”
“You’re going to tell me she’s wrong,” she assumes, staring at the calculator. “That I’m not… that. That I’m not too much. And I appreciate that. I do. But you don’t have to do the whole reassurance thing every time someone points out the obvious.”
Anger and something like panic claws under my ribs.
“Hey.” I take a small step closer to her. “Look at me.”
She doesn’t. Her eyes stay glued to the calculator’s screen instead, thumb rubbing over nothing.
“Zara.”
Slowly, she lifts her gaze. The light behind her eyes is dimmed, like someone turned the brightness down.
“I’m fine,” she repeats, as if saying it enough will make it true. But I know her. And I know how this is hitting her. “Really. I’ve had worse days. I’ll… bounce back. You should probably text her or something. Make sure she got home safe.”
“I don’t want to text her right now.”
“You will later.” She tries to smile, but it wobbles. “It’s okay. You don’t have to feel bad for having a girlfriend and a mentally ill friend at the same time. It’s not like I make things easy.”
I hate when she does that. Make light of herself.
“You don’t make things hard,” I manage. “She does.”
She flinches barely, like I tugged a thread I shouldn’t have and things are starting to unravel that should really stay together..
“Cass,” she says softly. “I really am okay. I just… need to go to my dorm. Do the reading. Maybe nap. I’ll be fine.”
Liar.
But I know how this goes. When she starts folding in on herself like this and I push too hard, she disappears even faster.
“Text me when you get there.” It’s not a request, and she knows it.
“Yeah. Sure.”
She tucks the calculator into her bag like it’s the most important thing in the world and slips out the door, immediately making the room feel colder in her absence.
I sit on the edge of my bed and stare at the floor until my phone buzzes on the pillow.
Stacey:
I made it back. Thanks for kicking me out, I guess. Really made things clear.
I stare at the message until the screen goes dark, then decide I better reply.
Cass:
You know, I get protective of the people I care about. My mom, Zae, you. I just need you to get along with her.
Cass:
I will make time for us. I promise. How about tomorrow? Just you and me. Okay?
Stacey:
I have a sister event I can’t miss.
Cass:
Okay. Monday then.
Stacey:
You better not ditch me again, Cassius. Or I swear this time we’ll be over for real.
Is it bad that part of me wants this to be over?
Things would be easier.
I toss my phone to the side and try to be a functional human being.
I open my mechanics book, read the same paragraph three times, retain exactly none of it.
I try scrolling through my phone. Everything just pisses me off more.
I lie back and do the breathing exercises the counselor taught us in anger group.
All I see is Zae’s face in the hallway, blank and dim.
I last maybe twenty minutes before muttering, “Fuck this,” and grabbing my keys.
On the way out, I swing by the little convenience store near the student union. I grab whatever I know she’ll eat even when she isn’t hungry—Snickers, Trolli worms, caramel popcorn, Nerd gummy clusters—and load my arms like a raccoon who robbed the candy aisle.
The cashier gives me a look like I’m single-handedly causing a diabetic crisis.
Whatever. It’s all for her.
I head across campus to her building, punch in her code, and take the stairs two at a time. Three knocks on her door later and there’s a pause, then cautious footsteps. The door cracks open a few inches, revealing one brown eye, peering out.
“Hi,” she greets me slowly. “You forget something?”
“Yeah.” I point at her with my free hand. “You.”
She rolls that visible eye. “Wow. Cheesy.”
“Shut up and let me in.”
She hesitates half a second, then opens the door fully and steps back.
She’s in leggings and an oversized T-shirt now, hair down, bangs pushed back with a headband. Her eyes are ringed with faint smudges, like she either cried or almost did.
“What’s in the bag?” she asks, eyeing it in my other.
“Bribery.” I hold it up for her to see, shaking its contents. “Or a peace offering.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I set the bag on her desk and start unloading it. Her eyebrows climb higher with each thing I pull out.
“Cass, you really didn’t have to—”
“Stop,” I cut her off this time, not wanting to hear it.
She blinks. “Stop what?”
“Thinking you’re not worth the effort.” I force my hands to unclench. “Can we just… sit? For a minute?”
She chews the inside of her cheek, then nods. “Yeah. Okay.”
We move to her bed. It’s more of a twin than a full, but we’ve shared worse when she got her first apartment alone. I don’t know how that beanbag held together so long. I drop into one corner; she folds herself into the other, knees up, arms around her legs. The candy bags end up between us.
“You don’t have to check on me every time someone says something mean,” she eventually says, staring at her toes. “I’m not going to shatter.”
“I know.” I nod, laying my hands flat on the bed for a second, needing to feel something other than this weight in my chest. “You’re the least breakable person I know.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is.”
“Cass…”
I tear open the Trollis and hold the bag out to her. “Here. Accept my sugar-based apology for having such a terrible girlfriend.”
She eyes it, then takes a worm. “You’re really pushy today.”
“Leaning into my strengths.” I shrug, sinking further back against the wall.
We’re quiet for a beat, her chewing slowly, me crinkling the plastic too hard.
“What she said,” I start, then bite it back.
Zae’s shoulders inch up anyway.
“I’ve heard worse.” Her voice is flat as she speaks. “From people who were actually supposed to love me. It’s not a big deal.”
“It is,” I argue, needing her to hear me. “It’s a big deal because it hurt you.”
Her mouth twists. “You can’t prove that.”
“I can.” I wait until she glances up. “I know you.”
Something flickers across her face that makes her eye-roll less annoyed and more anxious.
“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” I continue, tense, because trying to convince Zae that she’s worth something feels impossible sometimes. “She barely knows anything about you.”
“She knows enough to form an opinion,” Zae mutters. “That’s all people ever need.”
“Well, her opinion is shit,” I counter quickly, a bit too sharp. “You’re not obnoxious or clingy.”
She huffs out a breath. “She’s not completely wrong. I am a lot.”
“A lot is not the same as obnoxious. A lot is you being alive. I like a lot when it comes to you.”
Her gaze softens for a second, then drops back to her hands, twisting the hem of her sleeve until the fabric protests.
“I hate that she made you feel like you have to shrink. Like you’re a problem I’m supposed to manage.”
“She didn’t make me feel anything I didn’t already know,” she admits quietly, her voice smaller than I’d like it to be.
Yell. Be upset. Come on, Zae. “I am a lot, Cass. I take up too much space. I need too much. You literally had to go to anger management partly because of me. You’re always worrying, always checking, always—”
“That is not on you,” I cut in, because I would never put that on her.