40. Cassie
CASSIE
It is a long fucking shift.
I’m depleted by the time I get to leave.
I left my phone off, but it never left my mind.
I feel like a fucking addict, fiending for a fix.
I tell myself it’s my humanity. I don’t even know if he’s alive. Maybe he drove into the lake last night for all I fucking know.
But deep down, I know that’s not what it is.
When Russell and I broke up, it happened after I lost feelings.
I didn’t get that with Tor.
I was building a future with him, and suddenly, the rug was pulled right out from under me.
I went from “it’s cute that you think I’d let you break up with me” to not hearing from him once today.
I don’t know what’s real anymore. What has ever been real.
My grip on reality is so fucking distorted, I don’t even know how to function.
I wonder if Carson ever put Myra through some shit like this. Maybe he broke her brain, and that’s why she gave up her grip on reality. It was just too hard to hold on to that and sanity. She had to pick one.
Maybe she should have just gotten rid of him.
I tell myself I’m lucky Tor’s leaving me alone. He’s clearly a monster, even if it took me some time to see it. Even if the memory of his kisses still incinerates my soul and leaves nothing left of my heart but a sad pile of ashes.
But then I turn my phone back on when I get in the car, and the sight of a text message from Tor breathes life back into me. It may not be healthy, but the dead heart I’ve been carrying around all day manages to beat again.
The relief only lasts a split second. The “what the fuck” of it all catches up to me quick.
His message is simple. “We need to talk.”
My eyes narrow. Now that I know he’s alive, I text back, “I have nothing to say to you.”
His response doesn’t take long despite the message being sent hours ago. “That’s not true.”
Even though it’s a text on a screen, I can almost hear the knowing amusement in his tone, and it puts another crack in my heart.
Because I know I’m going to miss him, and I don’t even know if the person I miss is real.
“Don’t go to Shaley’s tonight,” he texts when I don’t respond fast enough. “I gave you your space last night because we both needed it, but you need to go home tonight.”
Tears well up in my eyes. “That’s not my home.”
“Yes, it is.”
“I don’t have a home,” I text back, my vision blurring. “You took it from me. You took everything from me.”
Not hearing from him fucked me up, and then hearing from him fucked me up differently, but typing out that sentence grounds me.
I turn my phone back off before he can respond.
I draw in a few shuddering breaths and take a minute to collect myself, and then I have to decide where to go.
He warned me not to go to Shaley’s house. Do I think it’s an idle warning or one with teeth?
I’m not sure I can risk it.
I’m not ready to decide.
Dread fills my gut as I navigate out of the parking lot and turn left like I always do.
I could keep going straight on my way to Tor’s apartment building.
Instead, I turn right at the corner of Main and Chestnut. I drive past the funeral home, the memory of Tim’s funeral surfacing.
I keep driving until I reach the cemetery.
I slow to a stop just inside the entrance, unsure if I really want to do this.
But I need to.
Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I make my way to where I know Tim’s body is. I know it’s there because members of the Walters family are too good to be buried in the dirt like the rest of us—they have a mausoleum.
The structure looks especially spooky in the dark.
I shift into Park but leave the engine running and open my car door. My headlights and the moon are the only sources of light.
I can’t believe I’m in a cemetery at night. This is creepy. I should have waited.
But I’m here now.
I’m not sure what I intend to do, but I walk up the steps and pull on the door.
It doesn’t open.
I wasn’t sure if it would.
The Walters family owns the mausoleum, so I guess it makes sense that it’s locked so random people can’t get inside.
And I’m the last person who deserves to be inside.
Sighing, I move back away from the door. I sit down on the top step.
“Hi,” I say, my voice coming out a little wobbly. I sit there for a long moment, just looking at the door, trying not to imagine Tim inside even though I’m talking to him.
“I don’t know if you can hear me,” I finally say.
“I don’t know how death works. In case you can, I just…
” I look down, shaking my head. “I’m so confused.
I don’t know what to believe anymore. If there’s one thing your family is very good at, it’s making me feel crazy.
Honestly, if trophies were given out… Walters family gets it in a landslide.
Guess you can add that one to your trophy case.
” I frown. “Though, it may not be on the wall anymore. Tor wrecked something in your bedroom last night, I’m not sure what it was.
” My gaze shifts back to the door. “Anyway, I could never understand… We were friends once. Not good friends, but friendly, at least. We liked each other, didn’t we?
In some capacity. And after everything, you saw how much it hurt me, and you just…
” I shake my head, tears welling up in my eyes.
“I could never understand why you couldn’t just say you were sorry.
Why you couldn’t mean it. Because I knew if I ever hurt someone like that, even if it had been unintentional, which yours was absolutely not, I would apologize.
They wouldn’t have to drag it out of me because I would mean it from the bottom of my heart.
I would want to give that to them. I would feel terrible if I ever hurt someone the way you hurt me, and you couldn’t even give me the respect of an apology.
” I swallow, dashing away moisture that leaks from my right eye.
“I’m murky on the details right now, but if Nina is telling the truth…
maybe I understand. You didn’t feel the apology was your responsibility because you knew…
” I stare at the door. “But I didn’t know.
Didn’t you understand that? I thought you were so callous because you were protecting yourself, but maybe you were protecting him.
Either way, you did it callously. Callousness doesn’t deserve a death sentence, though, so if I was wrong, I want you to know I’m truly sorry, and I’ll carry the weight of what I did to you for the rest of my life.
I know it doesn’t change anything. It’s too late.
It doesn’t matter. But it would have mattered to me, so… ”
I feel the tears welling again, and I’ve said all I really needed to say, so I stand, clear my throat, and turn my back to the mausoleum.
I don’t try to stop the tears this time. I let them track down my cheeks as I head back to the car.
Once I’m inside, I glance at the mausoleum one last time, knowing I won’t be back. “Goodbye, Tim.”
___
I push the key into the lock and turn it, and a moment later, I’m where Tor told me to be: inside my apartment.
My body feels heavy with exhaustion, both the emotional and physical varieties.
When I turn the corner, I expect to see Tor sitting in my living room on my couch, and I’m too tired to deny the tug of disappointment when he isn’t there.
I don’t want to talk to him, but he’s right, we do need to talk.
I don’t want him here, but it feels awful that he isn’t.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I don’t waste energy trying to figure it out. I shower alone, then go straight to bed.
There’s nothing I want more than the escape of a dreamless sleep, but the moment I curl up alone in my spot on the bed, all I can focus on is the emptiness of Tor’s.
The unfairness of missing the person who may have ruined my life is a lot to bear, and I don’t want to go down the paths my mind leads to when I think about that.
It’s just that I can’t escape it either.
I’m alone in the dark inside a building he owns.
That family owns everything in this town, but I thought I made it clear they couldn’t buy me.
And they couldn’t.
Not with money, at least.
For two weeks, falling for Tor hasn’t felt like falling into line because I thought he was on my side, but now I have to consider the possibility that he had ulterior motives from the start. That he isn’t who I thought he was. That maybe it was never about protecting me at all.
For two weeks, I thought I’d slain the monster in the Walters family, and it turns out maybe I fell in love with him instead.