44. Cassie
CASSIE
Life gets back on track.
I haven’t been working on my personal essay like I should have been because I thought college—and especially Calhoun University—was no longer on the table, so I’m a little behind—again.
Tor books our flight and gives me a hard deadline because his dad’s friend needs to get the paperwork handled so they can get started on my admission.
But when I start looking at what I wrote in my journal at Shaley’s house, I realize maybe I was working on my personal essay, and I just didn’t realize it.
Tor gives me my old journal back, too. I know he didn’t intend to, but maybe what I told him that night settled the last of his lingering thoughts about my interest in his brother. Maybe he finally accepted that I’m obsessed with him, too.
I immerse myself in writing again. I draw up my plans and lay out the structure I expect, but then when I start typing, I let the narrative guide me. Once I have the bulk of it down, I don’t come up for air until I’ve wrangled every word into place.
I’m so proud of it when I’m finished, but I’m nervous, too. What if it’s not good enough for them? What if the admissions people at Calhoun take one look at it and immediately know I don’t belong there? “How did she get in? We would never have approved this imbecile. Throw her out!”
I need a second opinion, so when Tor comes over, I give it to him to read. I don’t even let the poor man sit down, I just shove it in his face as soon as he comes through the doorway.
“Tell me if it’s bad,” I warn him. “I don’t think I have time to completely rewrite it, but I’m sure I can… I don’t know, rework it if it’s too... I don’t know, just read it.”
“You’re already in, Cassie. It doesn’t even matter. They just need something to file.”
“It matters to me,” I insist.
Tor shakes his head, taking my essay.
I watch anxiously as he reads the first line.
I know it’s a little provocative.
I also know it’s potentially uncomfortable to make him read it because there’s some ambiguity about the reality of certain aspects of our past, and in the best-case scenario, I’m still talking about his brother.
But when I sat down to write, it was the first line that demanded to be written.
That was where it all started, the only beginning there could be.
It almost felt like a crime to change it, to try to file down the edges and make it any easier to swallow.
“Is the first line too much?” I interrupt.
He looks up from the paper, meeting my gaze. “Let me read. If you want an honest opinion, I need to read it in its entirety before I can give you an answer.”
I know he’s right, but I’m vibrating with anxiety. I nod, trusting his opinion, and trusting that he’ll be honest with me, too.
I look at his face, then down at the page as he reads.
My gaze catches on that first line.
I’m not sorry my rapist died.
The essay isn’t some bitter trauma dump, though.
If it reads as intended, it should be an empowering piece that gives a vulnerable peek at the journey I’ve been on, but beyond that it’s a dissection of societal expectations.
I wrap it all up in my personal narrative, of course, because that’s the assignment.
I weave in threads of a lifetime spent vying for approval but show the journey I’m taking to get away from that.
To think and live for myself, and still consider others, of course, but worry less about always having their approval.
Clearly, I’m still working on it, because my heart is in my throat when Tor looks up at me after he’s finished reading.
“What do you think?” I ask anxiously.
“You nailed it.”
My eyes brighten hopefully. “Yeah?”
“Oh yeah. If they didn’t approve your application after that, they were out of their fucking minds. They don’t even deserve to have you attend their shitty school.”
I grin, throwing my arms around his neck. “That’s a crazy thing you just said about one of the top schools in the country.”
“I said what I said.” The paper crinkles as he wraps an arm around my waist and tugs me even closer. “It’s fantastic. I’m so proud of you.”
“Thank you,” I say, and I can feel myself glowing. “I wanted to write something powerful.”
He lingers close to my lips. “You succeeded.”
I can’t be this close to his perfect lips without kissing them, but he knows that, so he closes the remaining distance between us. I sigh with pleasure, my eyes closing.
He walks me back, pinning me against the wall.
His hand moves beneath my shirt, lightly grazing my skin on his way up to squeeze my breast. Since I’ve been busy fine-tuning my essay and haven’t left the apartment today, I’m not even wearing a bra.
I moan softly when his palm covers me and squeezes.
My head falls back, and as his thumb skims over my nipple, a shiver of pleasure passes over me.
Then there’s a knock on the door.
My eyes pop open, and Tor steps back with an, “Aw, shit,” as he rakes a hand through his hair. “That’s my mom.”
“What?” I ask, horrified.
“I was going to tell you she was right behind me, but you accosted me when I came in the door.”
“Oh my god, Tor, I look homeless. I can’t see your mom right now.”
“She’ll only be here for a minute. She has something to give you.”
“Let her in. Get her a drink. Give me a minute to at least put on clothes.”
I race into my bedroom to pluck a dress out of the closet and a bra out of my dresser, but I wait until I hear Tor take her into the living room area so she doesn’t see me dressed like a hobo, then I hurry to the bathroom to brush my hair and get dressed.
I pin back a lock of hair on each side, then make quick work of dabbing on some lip gloss and a little mascara.
Finally, I fluff my dress and take a quick look.
I haven’t attained the polished Stepford look I aspire to when I have to see Tor’s family, but I do at least look prepared for a picnic in the park.
It’ll have to do.
I still have some lingering anxiety from being caught off guard—and also knowing I’m going to have to see Tor’s family—but as soon as I enter the room and Myra turns to me with a warm smile, it trickles away.
“Hi, Mrs. Walters.”
“Oh, you look so lovely,” she says, absently reaching out to fan my skirt. Tor’s right; the woman does not understand physical boundaries whatsoever. She meets my gaze, her brown eyes so full of warmth. “You always do.”
Immediately, she makes me feel safe, like a drugged-up angel floating around on a cloud.
Letting go of my dress, she says, “I know you and Tor are busy, so I won’t keep you. I just wanted to drop in because your father and I,” she says, glancing at Tor, then back at me, “wanted to give Cassie a graduation present as well.”
“Oh, you really didn’t have to do that,” I say on instinct.
“We wanted to,” she assures me. “You’re family now, and in our family, we don’t let milestones pass without celebrating them. If you and Tor had gotten together earlier, we would have thrown you a graduation party. I know your mother didn’t.”
“She was willing to,” I say. “But I knew no one would have come, so…”
She glosses past that. “Right. Well,” she turns, picking up a white gift box tied with a pink ribbon, “we wanted you to have something to commemorate the occasion, and after our dinner, my husband thought this would be the perfect thing.”
I cock an eyebrow, surprised. “Mr. Walters picked out my gift?”
She nods eagerly.
I thought he hated me.
I untie the bow and lift the lid. At first, I just see a book, but it’s inside a clear acrylic display case. I look closer at the cover and see it’s a very old copy of The Great Gatsby.
My breath catches as I realize I think I know what it is.
I look up, wide-eyed. “Oh my god. Is this…?”
Myra nods happily. “A first edition. To start your collection.”
“It’s signed, too,” Tor tells me, and my disbelieving gaze jumps to him.
My jaw hangs open. “Wow. This is such a generous gift. I don’t even know what to say. Thank you so much.”
“You’re so welcome,” Myra says, smiling. “Now, I have an appointment to get to, so I’ll leave you to it.” She gives Tor a hug before she leaves, then she gives me one, too.
We walk her out, Tor’s arm settling possessively around my waist, and once the door closes behind her, he grabs me and pushes me backward until my back meets the wall. “Now, where were we?”
“I think we were about to admire my new first edition,” I tell him innocently.
He smiles as he bends to kiss my neck. “No, I think I was about to admire something else.”
A sigh escapes me as he trails his lips across my shoulder, kissing around the thin strap of my dress. He drags it down, then shoves the material lower, pulling down the cups of my bra and baring my breasts. He bends to catch my nipple in his mouth, and I gasp, my hands finding his broad shoulders.
The tight material rips as he drags it lower.
I gasp. “My pretty dress.”
“I’ll buy you a new one,” he assures me, ravaging the material as he pulls it down to my waist. I’m wearing a strapless bra, and that annoys him, so he reaches back and unclasps it. When the material drops, my tits are free—just the way he likes them.
Catching my hand, he says, “Let’s take this to the bedroom.”
I smile up at him. “Let’s.”
___
A shopping spree with Shaley was on my to-do list, anyway. I decide to go before our trip to Boston instead of after so I can replace the dress Tor ruined before that style is gone and also see if I’d like to buy anything for the trip.
It’s a short one, just a couple of days, so we can hand in my paperwork and explore the grounds a bit.
It’s summer, so the campus will likely be pretty empty.
Still, I’ve seen pictures, and they’re so idyllic and collegiate that they make the overachieving old version of me die with anticipation at the idea of actually getting to go there.
I daydreamed, but I never thought attending a university like that would really be in the cards for me. It certainly wasn’t in the budget.
When Tor and I first got back together, I eased up on the spending because I felt like I had been working hard to punish him financially when we were separated. When I told him this, he seemed confused because he hadn’t even noticed.
Finally, he decided to give me a better idea of “our” financial position. He didn’t show me everything, but he showed me just his trust fund now that it has absorbed Tim’s. There were a lot of zeros. I needed to sit down after I saw it.
So, when I take Shaley to the boutique, I feel no hesitation in telling her to pick out anything and everything she likes—it’s all on me.
“Are you sure this is okay?” she asks uncertainly, no fewer than six dresses draped over her arm.
I nod confidently. “Yep. I better see the number of dresses doubled before you even think about going to the checkout.”
“This is crazy,” she mutters, but she snatches another hanger off the rack. “Absolute lunacy.”
“Don’t forget to look at the purses, too.”
My gaze settles on a beautiful dress on the next rack.
It’s not the pink and creamy color palette I shopped for when I was selecting dresses to wear to see Tor’s family.
It’s navy blue with white flowers. The straps are thin, but when I pair it with a soft white cardigan I had already picked up, it feels… well, it feels like me.
I snatch it off the rack. This is my Boston dress.
After our shameless shopping spree, we load our bags into the back seat of the Lexus and head to the salon.
Our nail polish is chipped from our last mani-pedi, and I want to freshen them up with a new color before our trip anyway.
Now that I know what I’ll be wearing, I decide to go with a midnight blue to complement it.
I still text Tor a picture to make sure he likes it before I finalize my choice.
Shaley side-eyes me a little this time. I don’t think she thought anything of it when I texted him from the salon last time, but that was before Tor gave her a much stronger reason to think he might be controlling.
When I take the bottle off the shelf, she says, “I guess he approves.”
“He does,” I say brightly, flashing her a smile. “I swear, he’s not a controlling asshole.”
She nods, not appearing fully convinced, but she doesn’t argue with me, either.
I was surprised when Tor called her malleable because I don’t look at people and categorize them that way, but she’s definitely nicer and more easygoing than some people who witnessed what she has probably would be.
Despite the clear red flags that he flew right on her property, she’s been willing to overlook them and not bother me about leaving him.
She knows I’m not going to, so she’s decided to make the best of it.
To me, the sides of Tor that I see, I know he’s wonderful, but I can see how—from the outside looking in—if only given a glimpse, things might look a little… dysfunctional.
They’re not, though.
We function incredibly well together.
I figure Myra probably feels the same way from the inside of her fairy-tale prison.
I’m not in prison, though.
As long as I never want to leave, I’m completely free.
And who would want to leave Tor, anyway? He’s perfect.
At least, he’s perfect for me.