by Amanda Abram
Dylan’s car.
I let out a sigh as I slowly walked over to the driver’s side and stopped at the door.
He lowered the window and stared up at me with a furrowed brow. “I wanted to make sure you made it home okay,” he explained.
A fresh set of tears spilled over and I quickly wiped them away. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I did.”
Hugging myself, I glanced around at the empty street. Most of the houses were dark, including mine. Everyone had gone to bed already.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice quivering. “I didn’t mean to accuse you of knowing about any of this.” I sniffled. “Not that it would matter if you did. You wouldn’t be obligated to tell me. He’s your best friend and I’m just your pretend wife.”
He leaned his head back against the headrest. “He’s a dick,” he muttered under his breath.
I nodded in agreement. “I’m going to head inside,” I said, feeling another lump forming in the back of my throat. “Thanks for following me.”
He smiled. “No problem.”
I turned to go but noticed a car screeching to a stop at the side of the road in front of my yard. Lauren’s car.
“Oh, by the way,” Dylan said. “I called Lauren and told her what happened. I told her she should maybe come check on you.”
I had thought I wanted to be alone, but as soon as I saw Lauren emerge from her car, I realized I was wrong. She was exactly what I needed right now.
“Cassie!” she breathed. She ran over to me and enveloped me in a hug. “Cassie, honey, are you okay? What happened? I’m going to kill Elijah! And Hannah!”
Dylan smirked. “I’ll leave you girls to it. Take care of her, Laurie.”
“I will,” she said, squeezing me extra tight.
Dylan pulled out of the driveway as Lauren and I broke apart.
She took my hand in hers. “I’m so sorry, Cass. But I’m going to help you through this, okay?”
I nodded as we headed up the walkway.
“I hope you have lots of ice cream,” she said. “This is going to be a long night.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Okay, Cassie, what’s wrong?”
Nearly three hours into my shift at the coffee shop on Saturday, Jade finally worked up the courage to question my zombie-like behavior.
All afternoon, I’d been operating on autopilot. Customers would come in and order coffee, my ears would hear them and then notify my brain, which would then tell my hands what they needed to do to complete the transaction. All smiles were forced, and small talk was kept to a minimum. I wasn’t my normal chipper self, and I would have been concerned if Jade hadn’t noticed.
“It’s nothing,” I said glumly.
But it wasn’t “nothing”. Elijah cheated on me. With Hannah. I stayed up all night crying over the whole thing. Lauren did a great job consoling me, and I finally got to sleep around three o’clock this morning. But it wasn’t quality sleep by any stretch; I was vaguely aware of tossing and turning for hours until the sun came up, after which Lauren tried force-feeding me some breakfast while my family looked on, wondering what was up with me.
I hadn’t told them yet. I wasn’t ready to talk about it. Not with them, not with Jade.
Reaching into the display case next to the counter, she pulled out a chocolate chip cookie and handed it to me. “Well, whatever it is, it’s nothing a good cookie can’t fix.”
Tears sprang to my eyes as I took it from her. “Thank you,” I said, taking a big bite in hopes that it might keep the tears at bay.
It did seem to work. The cookie distracted me just long enough for the tears to dry up before they could fall. Crisis averted.
Or not. I was just about to swallow my first bite when a customer walked in.
No, not a customer.
Elijah.
The cookie fell from my hand and landed on the counter with a slight thud, breaking into two pieces on impact.
“Elijah!” Jade greeted him cheerfully.
“Cassie,” he said in a soft, broken voice, as he stared at me with pleading eyes. “Can we talk?”
He’d been texting and leaving voicemails on my phone ever since I left the party last night. He wanted to talk. He wanted to explain. He claimed it wasn’t what I thought.
“Please, Cassie.”
Jade glanced between the two of us, and with a look of concern on her face, she said to me, “Cassie, why don’t you take a fifteen-minute break?”
“No,” I said firmly, tearing my gaze away from Elijah. I picked up the cookie from the counter and brushed the crumbs onto the floor. “I’m working. I’m at work, Elijah.”
“I know, but I need to talk to you. Please.”
Jade placed a hand gently on my shoulder. Leaning in, she whispered, “Go talk to him. I’ll watch the counter.”
“Okay,” I mumbled, taking off my hat. “Let’s go outside.”
I led him through the employee area and out the back door. I didn’t want to have this conversation out front for potential customers to witness.
As soon as the door was closed behind us, Elijah took three large steps in my direction to close the distance between us. I wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Kiss me? Hug me? But he did neither. He looked like he wanted to do both, but he didn’t have my permission.
“Cassie, I don’t even know where to begin,” he said, raking a hand through his hair.
I took a step back. He was too close; I could smell the mixture of his aftershave and shampoo, and the pleasant scent was threatening to lower my rage level.
“Why don’t you begin with telling me why you were making out with Hannah in your car last night,” I suggested.
He sighed and stared down at the ground, pulling a hand down his tired face. “I don’t know. I was wasted. I know that’s no excuse, but I seriously had no control over my actions last night.”
He was right. Being wasted was no excuse. I’d been to many parties with him in the last ten months, and yes, he often drank alcoholic beverages, but he’d never once gotten “wasted”. Buzzed, yes. But so drunk he wasn’t aware of his actions? So drunk he would cheat on his girlfriend without so much as a second thought? Never.
“Stop blaming the alcohol, Elijah.” With a shiver, I crossed my arms tightly over my chest. It was the middle of January, and the t-shirt I was wearing under my apron was very thin—great for the climate-controlled environment inside a coffee shop, terrible for the below-freezing temperatures outside.
Elijah must have realized how cold I was because he took off his jacket and moved to drape it across my shoulders.
“Don’t.” I pushed him away. “I’m fine. I’m not planning on being out here that long.”
With a disappointed nod, he lowered his arms to his side. “Cassie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to kiss Hannah.”
“Then why did you?”
He took a step back and leaned against the building. “I’m not going to lie to you. This past week, I’ve been confused.”
“Confused?”
“Yeah. Confused. I was with Hannah for two years, but I’d liked her since fifth grade. And yeah, she broke my heart last year, but it’s hard to just shut those feelings off, you know? I mean, I did as soon as you and I started dating. I swear. But when she and I got paired up for the project…”
I felt a lump beginning to form in my throat. I didn’t want to hear the rest of this.
“Those feelings just came flooding back,” he admitted softly. “I didn’t want them to, but they did. And I ignored them all week, telling myself it was just nostalgia I was feeling. But when she told me she had broken up with her boyfriend…”
“You brought her to your car to make out,” I finished for him.
“I brought her out there to talk,” he corrected me. “But she’d been drinking too, and one thing led to another and we kissed.”
“Yeah, I know. I saw that part.”
“Cassie.” Elijah pushed off the
side of the building and stalked over to me, placing his hands on my shoulders. He lowered his head, so we were at eye level with one another. “When I saw you outside the car, I sobered up. I immediately came to the realization that I don’t want to be with Hannah. I want to be with you.”
“You already were with me, Elijah.”
“I know, I know. What I mean is that I knew right away that I no longer have feelings for Hannah like I thought I did. I knew right away that, Cassie, I love you.”
I stopped breathing. Was he serious? I’d waited ten months to hear those words, and he’d saved them for this moment? The moment where he was trying to explain why he cheated on me?
“I love you,” he repeated, his voice stronger this time. “I love you so much, and I can’t stand the thought of losing you. I can’t stand the thought of you hating me. I’ve been a wreck since last night because I’m so scared that you’re going to end things between us—”
“I am,” I said, surprising us both. I hadn’t planned on saying it. Heck, I hadn’t even planned on breaking up with him necessarily. But there I was, about to do just that.
He stared at me, slack-jawed. “What?”
“I’m ending things between us.” I didn’t wait for him to ask why. “Elijah, I knew months ago that I loved you. And I didn’t have to get caught kissing some other guy to figure it out.” I bit my lower lip as the lump in my throat began to dissolve. “I can’t trust you anymore.”
“Yes, you can. I swear, you can. I don’t want to break up.”
“And I didn’t want to get cheated on, but it happened anyway.” I pried his hands off me. “I have to get back to work.”
His shoulders slumped forward in defeat. “Please, let me fix this.”
“There’s nothing to fix, Elijah. Our relationship wasn’t like the one you had with Hannah. We weren’t childhood sweethearts. We probably would have broken up soon anyway.”
“That’s not true.”
“It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done. But hey, look on the bright side: now you and Hannah can get back together and live happily ever after.”
“But I don’t want to be with Hannah, I want to be with you.”
He was delusional. He and Hannah were still in love with each other, and their kiss last night was solid proof of that.
“Well, I don’t want to be with you,” I lied. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back inside. Goodbye, Elijah.”
I brushed past him and hurried to the back door, hoping to get inside before he said anything else. But I wasn’t quick enough.
“I am going to fix this, Cassie,” he called after me. “I love you. I know you love me too. And I’m going to do whatever it takes to earn your trust back. I promise.”
My hand froze on the door handle. For a split second, I almost considered turning around and canceling our breakup on the spot. Maybe he did love me. Maybe he was over Hannah.
But nothing was going to change the fact he cheated on me. Nothing was going to erase the memory I now had of him making out with Hannah in his car.
So, I didn’t turn around. Instead, I went back inside without saying another word.
CHAPTER NINE
By Monday, everybody at school knew about my breakup with Elijah.
I earned sympathetic glances from most of the girls I walked by in the hallways. Elijah’s friends avoided eye contact with me because I could tell they felt awkward about the whole situation. Hannah’s cheerleader friends also avoided eye contact, probably out of secondhand shame for what she’d done.
I didn’t see either Elijah or Hannah until our Life Economics class that afternoon. I wasn’t even sure what we learned about because I was too busy making sure my line of vision never ventured to the corner of the room to pay attention to whatever Mrs. Andrews was saying.
When the end of the school day came, I was hit with a dilemma. Normally, Elijah drove me home on days when Lauren had to stay after for cheer practice. Days like today. Now that I was boyfriend-less, I was going to have to take the bus home on days Lauren couldn’t drive me.
I hated riding the bus.
So, I was relieved when, as I was heading for one at the end of the day, somebody threw an arm around my shoulders and began steering me away from it.
“I can’t let you do this,” my abductor said as he led me toward the parking lot. Dylan grinned down at me. “Why were you about to get on that bus?”
“Because I need a ride home,” I replied, removing his arm.
“Um, hello.” He stepped in front of me and began walking backward. “I’m your husband. Why didn’t you just ask me for a ride?”
“You’re not my real husband. And besides, you should be avoiding me like the rest of Elijah’s friends are.”
He stopped walking suddenly, causing me to crash into his chest. After steadying me, he furrowed his brow in confusion. “Why would I avoid you?”
“Because. Elijah and I broke up. Everything is awkward now.”
Dylan rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on. That’s a lame excuse to avoid someone.”
“Tell that to the rest of Elijah’s friends. None of them have so much as looked at me today. Or said hi. I just figured you’d be no different.”
“Well, you figured wrong.”
When we began walking again, I glanced down at the ground and asked, “So, did Elijah tell you everything?”
“Everything? You mean like how you dumped him?”
I nodded.
“And how he’s going to do everything in his power to get you back?”
“Not gonna happen,” I scoffed as we arrived at Dylan’s car.
He tilted his head sideways and gave me a curious look. “Why not? You’re crazy about Elijah. I know he screwed up—bad—but you don’t think you’re ever going to forgive him?”
“I can forgive eventually, but I’m never going to forget.”
We both got into the car. After buckling, I turned to him. “You know Elijah better than anybody. Do you honestly believe for one second that he loves me more than Hannah? He’s lying to himself about his feelings for her. Maybe it’s because he’s worried he’ll get hurt by her again, I don’t know. Either way, I’m not going to be in a relationship with someone who still loves someone else.”
“I don’t know, Cass. The guy is pretty broken up about all this. I think he’s genuinely in love with you. If he still had feelings for Hannah like you believe he does, why isn’t he back with her already? Obviously, she still likes him and would agree to get back together, so why aren’t they back together?”
He had a good point there, but it wasn’t enough to convince me that breaking up with Elijah was a mistake. Maybe he was in love with me. But was I still in love with him?
“It doesn’t matter. It’s over between us, and it’s never going to be on again.” I paused and then changed the subject. “Hey, I don’t have to work today. Do you want to hang out at my house and work on today’s assignment?”
He shot a quick, amused glance over at me. “Do you even know what today’s assignment is?”
He must have noticed me zoning out in class earlier. “No,” I admitted.
“That’s what I thought.” Dylan chuckled. “Yeah, sure, I don’t mind sticking around.”
When we arrived at my house a few minutes later, we were the only ones there.
“Where’s Caitlyn with a C?” Dylan asked, glancing around the living room.
“At a friend’s house down the street,” I replied. “She spends most afternoons there after school.”
“Ah, I see.” He dropped down onto the couch. “How did she take the news about you and Elijah?”
“I haven’t told her yet. Or my parents.”
Arching an eyebrow, he asked, “Why not?”
“The subject just hasn’t come up, I guess.”
“Don’t you think they’ll notice Elijah isn’t coming around anymore?”
“Yes, and when they question it, I’ll tell them.” I sighed. “Trut
h is, I just haven’t felt like talking about it. And as mad as I am at Elijah right now, I don’t want my family to hate him.”
Dylan smirked and shook his head. “I knew it.”
“You knew what?”
“You will get back together with him. Mark my words.”
“Oh yeah? What makes you say that?”
“You don’t want to tell your parents or your sister that Elijah cheated on you so that when you get back together with him, they won’t judge you or disapprove of your decision.”
Was that the reason I hadn’t told them yet?
“You’re wrong,” I said with a shake of my head. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“No, thanks, I’m good.” He was still smiling, like he was so sure he was right about me and Elijah.
I went into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water before returning to the living room and taking a seat next to Dylan on the couch. “Okay, so what is today’s assignment about?”
He studied me for a moment. “You seriously have no idea?”
“My mind was kind of somewhere else all day,” I mumbled.
“I guess so.” He handed me a piece of paper. “This is a list of catastrophic events. We’re to figure out how to deal with each one individually. Mrs. Andrews said if we’re able to combine some of the problems and successfully solve them together, we’ll get extra credit.”
I glanced at the paper. “Have you already looked at the list?”
“I did a quick scan. Hey, remember when we opted out of getting flood insurance?”
I frowned. The first catastrophic event on the list was a flood that had caused significant damage to our house.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I groaned. “I told you it would be wise to get that insurance.”
“But you let me talk you out of it, didn’t you?” He grinned. “So, it’s kind of your fault.”
I gave him a playful shove. “Whatever. Let’s figure out how we’re going to pay for this.”
We each pulled out our laptops and got to work. Three catastrophic events later, I set my laptop down on the coffee table and dropped my head onto the arm of the couch with a sigh.