5. Cassie
Cassie
Tyler is making it very difficult to maintain my anger.
Anger is easier than anything else. Anger is clear and protective and doesn’t require me to be vulnerable. But Tyler keeps doing things that make the anger harder to hold onto.
He shows up to my shifts at the campus writing center and volunteers to help with editing.
He reads every piece the literary magazine publishes and writes thoughtful feedback.
He stops trying to force conversations with me, but he doesn’t disappear either.
He just… exists in spaces we share, like he’s earned the right to be there.
The worst part is that Lennox is right. He’s changing. Actually, genuinely changing. I can see it in the way other people treat him, in the way he carries himself, in the way he’s become someone I could potentially respect if I wasn’t so committed to hating him.
“You’re thinking about him,” Maya says one day while we’re getting lunch.
“I’m not.”
“You are. It’s all over your face,” Maya says with a small giggle.
“That’s just my normal face.”
“No, that’s your Tyler face.”
“I don’t have a Tyler face.” My voice goes a little high, which if i heard, even I would say that the person is lying.
She raises an eyebrow. “You absolutely have a Tyler face. It’s the face you make when you’re trying very hard not to admit that you’re attracted to someone you’ve decided to hate.”
“I’m not attracted to Tyler.” A small laugh escapes as I say the words.
“Cassie.”
“I’m not. I don’t like him. I don’t trust him. I don’t—” I stop, because I’m about to lie and Maya will call me on it, she always knows when I’m lying.
“You think he’s hot,” Maya says matter-of-factly. “You think he’s been genuinely trying to change. You think maybe you were wrong about him still being a terrible person. And you’re angry about all of that because it would be easier if you weren’t.”
“I’m not angry that he’s changing. I’m angry that I’m supposed to just accept it and move on like sophomore year didn’t happen.
” I know I haven’t told anyone how bad it got for me, and the things I was thinking, and if they did maybe they would understand a little more, but I don;t want to tell anyone that I had become weak.
“Who said anything about moving on? Who said you have to forgive and forget? You can acknowledge that someone changed and still hold them accountable for their past.”
“Can you?”
“I don’t know. Ask Ryder.” She takes a bite of her salad. “He nearly destroyed himself through self-destruction, and I had to learn to accept that he was trying to be better while still being careful with my own heart. It’s possible to do both.”
“How?”
“By being honest. By setting boundaries. By not letting his redemption arc become your responsibility.” She looks at me for a while then smiles. “There is nothing wrong in forgiving someone.”
The problem is that I’m not sure I’m capable of that. I’m not sure I can separate my hatred of what he did from my growing respect for who he’s becoming. The one person who I liked the most was the one who let it happen.
I see him at the library again, in the quiet study section.
He’s working on what looks like a Chemistry problem set, his brow furrowed in concentration. There’s something vulnerable about seeing him struggle with something academic. It’s a reminder that he’s a whole person with things he’s bad at, not just the hockey player who hurt me.
I should leave. Should maintain distance. Should not sit down across from him at the table.
I almost fight myself on what to do, but for some reason my feet are moving closer to him, and I sit down across from him.
He looks up, surprised, and for a moment we just exist in that surprise together. Because I’m just as shocked as him, but maybe there is a part of me that wants to forgive, but I’m fighting it too much.
“Hi,” I say, because apparently I’ve decided we’re doing this.
“Hi.” He sets down his pencil.
We sit in silence for a moment, and it’s not uncomfortable which surprises me the most.
“I’m still angry,” I tell him.
“I know.”
“And I’m not ready to forgive you.”
“I know.”
“But I’m also starting to think that maybe you’re actually changing and I don’t like that because it’s harder to hate you when you’re actually trying.” I should tell him how bad it got for me, should tell him it was because of him and his friends. Make him feel like crap about it.
He leans back in his chair, studying me. “So what does that mean?”
“I don’t know yet. It means… I’m not ready to completely shut you out. But I’m also not ready to be friends. We’re somewhere in between.”
“I can work with somewhere in between.” He sounds almost relieved about it.
“Can you? Because I need you to understand that this doesn’t erase sophomore year. This doesn’t mean I suddenly trust you. This just means I’m willing to see if maybe you’re actually becoming someone different.”
“I understand.”
“And if I catch you being the old Tyler, if I see you being complicit in toxicity again, I’m done. No second chances after this one.”
“And I won’t.” He sounds happy about this, and the smile on his lips makes me feel happy, and I hate that I feel like that.
“Why did you sit down?” he asks.
“Because Lennox is right, and I hate when she’s right. Because you’ve been genuinely trying. Because…” I trail off, not wanting to admit the last part.
“Because?”
“Because I’m tired of carrying this anger around. It’s exhausting.” I sigh because hating someone does take a lot of energy, energy I could be using on other things.
“That doesn’t mean you have to forgive me.”
“I know. But maybe I can stop hating you. Maybe I can let you prove that you’re actually different. Maybe I can…” I don’t finish the sentence, but we both know what I was going to say.
Maybe I can let myself like you.
He doesn’t push it. Just nods and says, “Thank you. That’s more than I deserve.”
“Don’t thank me yet. You still have to actually prove it.”
“I will.”
I look at him for a moment, seeing the boy I had a crush on the first time I saw him. The first time I saw him he was laughing, and that’s all I needed to see how handsome he was. I had a crush on him so big, that it hit me a lot harder when he was an asshole.