9 Cassius
I Regret It All
By Friday afternoon, the silence is starting to feel like a tombstone on my shoulders.
Three days.
Three days without a meme, a TikTok, a ‘wake up, skater boy’ text. This is the longest we’ve gone without talking since freshman year of high school.
My phone is face-down on my knee, but I keep flipping it anyway, dragging my thumb over the screen, thinking maybe this time she broke the silence. But there’s nothing from her, just a bunch of texts from the only three friends I made in college last year that I found worth keeping.
They skate, they joke, and they keep circling back to Zae like they’re being subtle about it.
They aren’t.
I haven’t told them much, but apparently I don’t have to. Somewhere between the way I check my phone, the way I get quiet when her name comes up, and the way I lose my train of thought if I see someone with her hair from behind, they figured it out.
I guess I’m pretty pathetic when it comes to Zara Hart.
Riot:
Still alive or did she finally kill you
Maverick:
if she did, understandable
Riot:
RIP cass
Ghost:
He is typing.
Riot:
Ghost can see ghosts. Confirmed
Cass:
I’m not dead.
Maverick:
Worse. Brooding.
Riot:
Thoughts and prayers.
Maverick:
Did you apologize yet?
Cass:
For what?
Ghost:
Wrong answer.
Riot:
WRONG ANSWER
Maverick:
This is why she’s not texting you
Cass:
I didn’t say I wasn’t going to apologize.
Riot:
but did you
Cass:
No.
Ghost:
Then stop staring at your phone.
I scrub a hand over my face and stare past the sorority house window, out at the quad.
People laugh, cut across the grass, live their normal, non-disasterous lives, while I sit here and wallow in self-pity.
I can still see her on that sidewalk outside Sigma Tu, looking the angriest she ever has at me.
You hit him? Cass, what the hell?
My knuckles throb just thinking about it. The skin over my first two fingers is still scraped and tender, a little yellow around the edges where the bruise is fading.
My phone buzzes, and for half a second my chest seizes—then I see the name.
Riley:
She ate. Before u freak out.
I’d only gotten Riley’s number by sheer stubbornness.
Cornered her in their doorway Wednesday morning after Zae didn’t text me all Tuesday.
I asked her how Zae was. When she tried to brush me off with a “she’s fine, dude,” I just stood there until she caved, muttering “you’re intense” while typing her number into my phone.
Worth it.
Riley:
But she hasnt left the room much all wk
Riley:
She went to class, came right back, put headphones on, grabbed her laptop, and turned into a blanket burrito
Riley:
Idk if thats normal or…bad?
I bite the inside of my cheek.
That’s not good.
Cass:
thx 4 telling me
Cass:
srsly
Three dots appear, disappear, reappear.
Riley:
u gonna fix it or keep having me be a creeper
Cass:
working on it
Riley:
uh huh
Riley:
clock’s ticking lover boy
I roll my eyes so hard it almost hurts and stuff the phone in my pocket before I obsess over the chat for another ten minutes.
I really am working on it, I just don’t know exactly what to say.
Every time I think about texting her, I know I can’t.
I need to give her the space she needs, even if all I want to do is knock her door down, tear that blanket off her, and hold her tight while I apologize fifty-thousand more times.
“Are you even listening?” a voice cuts in.
I look up to see Stacey across from me on the sorority’s ugly floral couch, legs crossed. Her friend Kennedy is on the armrest, and another girl whose name I keep forgetting is sitting on the floor. There’s a cheesy movie playing on the giant TV, but no one’s actually watching it.
I clear my throat. “Huh?”
Stacey sighs, all put-upon. “I said, the Sigma Tu party is apparently ‘invite only’ now, and Jason told Alyssa he’s only inviting girls who actually dress up and don’t show up in, like, hoodies and ripped jeans.”
Her eyes flick down to my clothes, band tee, black jeans, and vans. You know, the usual. Me.
“Kinda sounds like my personal hell anyway.” I lean back, sliding farther down my chair. The rule is because of me, she knows it. I know it. Yet we’re tip-toeing around it like it’s not some massive elephant in a tutu. “You going?”
“Duh,” she replies, as if that should’ve been obvious to me. “We have to at least walk through. It’s good PR for the house.”
“Of course,” Kennedy says, twirling a strand of hair. “Boulevard boys need to remember who runs campus.”
They laugh, but I don’t. I glance around the room, taking it in for the hundredth time.
Everything is coordinated—pink pillows, framed sorority photos, fairy lights, some letterboard sign about sisterhood over the fireplace.
Even the girls look coordinated. Matching tans, matching lashes, and matching energy.
And then there’s me, in a shirt from a band Stacey doesn’t like, sitting here like a nail needing to be hammered down.
“I’m surprised you even came,” Kennedy says, eyeing me over her phone. “Don’t you usually spend Fridays prepping for, what is it, Pizza Nerd Night?”
“Game night,” I correct. “And yeah. I do.”
Stacey nudges my leg with her foot, all playful. “He came because I asked him to. And because he’s trying to be a better boyfriend.” Her tone shifts on the last part, a tiny jab hidden under sugar.
I force a polite smile. “Told you I’d make time.”
What I don’t say is although I’d rather be somewhere else than with you.
Honestly, this week I’ve spent more time with Stacey than usual and only because I haven’t heard from Zae. I figured it was the decent thing to do, to see my actual girlfriend. To make an effort and do the normal college boy thing.
But the more time I spend with her, the more I realize I don’t actually like her. She’s not the girl I thought she was when we first started dating. I used to think Stacey was sweet and genuine, that she cared about others. But it’s all show.
She’s as plastic as they come.
I’m already tired of sitting here, listening to her friends gossip about people I barely know. I feel like I’m wearing a costume made of my own skin.
“We’re honestly surprised you’re here,” Kennedy voices, thumb flying over her screen. “It’s like trying to date a ghost with you always running after your little shadow.”
The word hits me wrong.
“Don’t call her that,” I say before I can stop myself. “Like I told you before… we’re best friends.”
“Best friends don’t live in each other’s pockets,” the other girl says lightly, not looking up from her phone. “Like, I get having a history, but it’s weird. You’re in a relationship now.”
“Wow, thanks for the announcement,” I mutter.
Stacey frowns slightly, finally putting her own phone down. “They’re not trying to be mean,” she explains, smoothing the hem of her skirt. “They just see how things look from the outside.”
“How do they look from the outside?” I ask, even though I shouldn’t.
Kennedy snorts. “Like you’re dating two girls and emotionally committed to one.”
“Okay, we’re done with this topic.” I sit forward, tone clipped.
Stacey reaches out and pats my knee like I’m overreacting. “Relax. We’re just talking.”
No, you’re all dissecting my life like I’m not even in the room.
I stand, needing to move before I explode. My knuckles throb again as my hand brushes my jeans. I suck in a breath, counting like they taught us.
In four, hold four, out six.
“Hey,” Stacey says, reaching for me. “Sit. I have something for you anyway.”
I sink back down, more out of habit than desire as she digs in her tote bag and pulls out a folded shirt.
“I saw this when we were at the mall yesterday,” she explains, holding it out like an offering I should be grateful for. “Thought of you.”
I take it even though I really don’t want to. It’s a pale blue button-down with tiny white dots. Not awful by itself, I guess, just… not me.
I flip the tag, seeing some preppy brand I’d never buy.
“You’d look so good in that, with those khaki joggers I told you to get. If you wore that to a party you wouldn’t look so…” She waves her hand in my general direction. “Intimidating.”
Kennedy laughs. “Less like you’re about to punch someone and more like you might actually be fun.”
I stare at the shirt.
It’s not the first time she’s done this, given me some little ‘gift’ that all have the same vibe. Collared shirts, neutral sweaters, even a denim jacket that I made mysteriously go missing after the second time I wore it because it felt wrong.
“You don’t like it?” Stacey asks, misreading my silence.
“It’s fine. Just not really my thing.”
Her mouth tightens. “It could be. You’d look more approachable. People already think you’re this angry skater guy who’s always starting shit.”
“That’s not really how it—”
“And like,” she keeps going, ignoring me completely. “You punched a guy at a party this week. So maybe not leaning into the whole ‘I’m scary’ thing would be good?”
The shame hits, quick and sharp. I flinch, even though I try not to.
“I’m working on it,” I remind her quietly.
Kennedy shrugs. “You could also just… not hang around people who bring that out of you, you know?”
I know exactly who she means.
But she’s so wrong.
Zae is my calm, not my catalyst.
Something brittle cracks in my chest. I look around this curated, soft-lit room. At the girls who only ever talk around me or about me, never to me. At Stacey, who keeps trying to change who I am and calling it love.
When was the last time she asked about my anger management group without making a joke?
When was the last time she listened when I talked about skating or fixing engines without zoning out?
When was the last time any of this felt like something I chose because I wanted her and not because I was trying to outrun feelings for someone else?
A thought I’ve been dodging for weeks finally lands.
I’m using her.