27 Cassius
Day Three
By the time I pull into the counseling center parking lot, I’ve checked my phone too many times.
Nothing from Zae.
I knew there wouldn’t be. She said she was giving me space. That day to breathe, then seven days to come to terms with the fact that she wasn’t accepting the breakup. They’re her words, her choice. Both of those should make me feel better, but they don’t.
I sit there with the engine off and my hand still wrapped around my phone, staring at her name in my messages. My thumb moves over the screen, over her name.
I don’t text or call. I just sit there like an idiot, wanting something I’m the one who asked her not to give me. The last message from her is old now. Before I left her room. Before I watched her face fall apart and still made myself walk out.
I scroll up far enough to see a TikTok she sent me three days before everything went to hell. A raccoon on someone’s porch stealing an entire bag of marshmallows.
Zae:
you.
Cass:
I don’t steal marshmallows.
Zae:
you steal everything else.
I stare at it until my throat starts to close.
I should put the phone down.
A knock hits my passenger window, and I jerk my head up like I’ve been caught doing something illegal.
Ghost stands outside the car, hood up, skateboard tucked under one arm. He stares at me through the glass without blinking, so I roll the window down.
“You coming in?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
He looks at my phone, then back at my face. “Could’ve fooled me.”
I exhale through my nose and shove the phone into my hoodie pocket. “You always this nosy before group?”
“No.”
“Special occasion?”
“You look worse than usual.”
I open the door and step out. “Appreciate that.”
He doesn’t answer. He just turns toward the building like the conversation is over because for Ghost, it probably is. I lock my car and follow him.
The counseling center smells faintly like coffee as usual, but today it smells strong enough to catch in the back of my throat. The room is already half full when we walk in. Soft chairs in a circle, fake plant in the corner, and tissues on the table.
I hate the tissues.
I hate that I’ve used them before.
Ghost drops into his usual chair by the wall. I sit beside him because apparently I do that now. Have a spot. Have people who expect me to show up. Have a girl I love who’s stubborn enough to tell me no even though she shouldn’t right now.
Dr. Malik looks up from the notes in his lap when I sit down. “Cass, good to see you.”
I nod. “You too.”
It comes out rough, but it isn’t a lie. His eyes move over my face, not missing much. He never does.
“Hard few days?”
The easy answer is already there. Fine. I could say it.
I usually would. Instead, I think about Zae’s voice outside the skatepark.
I think about her saying I didn’t get to call leaving her love just because I was scared.
I think about the way she said she’d come back, and how badly I wanted her to mean it even though I shouldn’t.
“Yeah,” I admit. “Hard few days.”
Ghost shifts beside me, his knee bumping mine once, not out of comfort exactly, but it still helps.
Dr. Malik nods. “We’ll start in a few minutes. If you want time after group, I can stay.”
In four days, Zae comes back. She’ll expect me to look at her and… I don’t know. Expect me to argue? Force me to accept something I can’t?
I don’t know which truth scares me more. That I still think leaving is safer, or that I want her to prove me wrong.
I look down at my hands and flex them once. “After,” I mutter.
“Good.”
Group starts a few minutes later with Dr. Malik closing the door and settling into his chair. He doesn’t make us do breathing exercises today, which is good because I hate them, even if they work. Especially because they work.
“Let’s check in,” he says. “Just tell me where you actually are. Honestly.”
A few people shift in their seats. I keep my eyes on the carpet. The first couple of check-ins pass without much. Someone had a bad night. Someone else almost got into it with their roommate. Another guy is doing better and seems pissed off about it, which makes more sense than it should.
Then Ghost speaks. It’s always a little strange when he does. Because everyone listens when he finally decides something is worth the effort.
“Almost lost it at work again,” he says.
Dr. Malik turns toward him. “What happened?”
Ghost shrugs one shoulder. “Guy came in ten minutes before close. Wanted me to check the back for something we didn’t have. Told him no. He started running his mouth.”
“What did you feel?”
“Annoyed.”
A moment passes as Dr. Malik waits for Ghost to be honest.
Ghost exhales through his nose. “Pissed.”
“What did pissed look like?”
“Quiet.”
Dr. Malik nods once. “That still one of your signs?”
“Yeah.”
The room stays still. Ghost rubs his thumb over the side of his phone case, slow and even.
“I didn’t yell,” he continues. “Didn’t say anything. Just stood there letting him talk. That’s usually where I start thinking too much.”
“What were you thinking?”
“That I could make him stop.”
He says it flat. No fanfare. No need for anyone to react. That’s what makes it hit harder. My shoulders tense.
Dr. Malik’s voice stays even. “What did you do instead?”
“Called my manager.”
“That was the plan?”
“Yeah.”
“Did it work?”
Ghost’s jaw shifts. “I guess. The guy left, and I took five in the stockroom.”
Dr. Malik lets that sit. “How did it feel after?”
Ghost looks at the floor. “Stupid.” A couple of people glance at him, but he keeps his face down. “Standing in the back with my hands on a box of paper towels, trying not to be the person I would’ve been two years ago. Doesn’t feel like growth. It feels embarrassing.”
I stare at him, because yeah, I get that.
That’s the part people don’t say. Control sounds good.
It sounds strong when someone else names it.
In the moment, it feels like standing there with your teeth locked together, sweating through your shirt, pissed off that being decent takes this much effort.
Dr. Malik leans forward slightly. “Did you go back out?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“I finished my shift.”
“That’s good. That matters.”
Ghost shrugs again, but his fingers stop moving over his phone case, because it does matter. He knows it. He just hates needing anyone to say it out loud.
Same.
My turn comes too soon. It always does. Dr. Malik looks at me, and I can feel Ghost do the same without turning his head.
My mouth feels dry.
“I broke up with Zae,” I say.
The room changes. Nobody gasps or does anything stupid like that, but people shift in their seats. Ghost goes still beside me.
Dr. Malik, however, doesn’t move an inch. “When?”
“A few days ago.”
Four days since I walked out of her room broken. Three since she found me at the skate park and gave me ‘today and then seven days.’
“And how are you feeling about it?”
A laugh tries to crawl out of me but doesn’t make it. “Like shit.”
Ghost makes a low sound that I ignore.
Dr. Malik nods. “What led to the decision?”
My hands tighten together between my knees. I look down at them. My knuckles are scraped from skating.
“I thought it was the right thing.”
“Thought?”
I glance up, because that catches me. Dr. Malik doesn’t look smug. He doesn’t look like he caught me. He just looks like he heard the word I used and isn’t letting me walk past it.
I hate that.
“I still think it might be.”
“Why?”
I drag one hand over the back of my neck. “Because I don’t trust myself.”
“With her?”
“With me.” My voice comes out rougher. “With what happens when I get angry and she’s too close.”
The room goes still enough that I regret saying it in front of everyone.
Too late now.
“At the skatepark, I almost clipped her with my elbow. She ducked. If she hadn’t, I would’ve hit her.
Not on purpose, but that doesn’t change anything.
” My throat tightens. I push through it.
“Then Halloween happened. Some guy said something. Nothing even happened, but I felt it. That drop. That thing where everything gets narrow and I stop thinking right. She stepped between us. And not for the first time. She keeps stepping in front of me when she shouldn’t. ”
Dr. Malik is quiet for a moment. “What does that mean to you?”
“That I’m putting her there.”
“Is she choosing to step there?”
My head lifts. “That doesn’t make it okay.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
I look away again, because the room feels too small now.
I should have kept my mouth shut.
Except I’ve been doing that for three days, and it hasn’t fixed anything.
“I love her,” I say, and it hurts every time because it is not past tense. It is not something I can put down just because I made the decision to let her be free of me. “I love her, and she thinks that means I should stay. But loving her doesn’t make me safe.”
Ghost turns his head then. I feel it.
Dr. Malik’s eyes stay on me. “Did Zae tell you she feels unsafe with you?”
“No.”
“Has she told you she’s afraid of you?”
“No.”
The answers come fast because I know them. She said them. She stood right in front of me and said it like she could shove the words into my bones if she tried hard enough.
Cass, you are not unsafe.
I am for you.
No, you’re not.
My chest tightens.
Dr. Malik waits until I look at him. “Then whose answer are you using?”
I don’t speak. Nobody does. Even Ghost goes more still than usual. The words sink in slow because I don’t want them to.
Mine. My answer.
“It’s not that easy,” I say.
“No,” Dr. Malik agrees. “It isn’t.”
That pisses me off more than if he argued. “If I’m wrong, I hurt her by leaving. If I’m right, I hurt her by staying.”
“What if the answer is not leaving or staying?” My brows pull together as Dr. Malik leans back. “What if the answer is learning how to stay differently?”
Something inside me goes tight.
Stay differently.
Like that’s a real thing.
I want to believe that so badly I almost hate him for putting it in front of me.