And they’d pretty much just backed me into a corner, but in that corner was Northwestern, a school I would kill to go to. I had no more arguments left.
“Thank you,” I said, because it was all I could do.
I was so grateful to them in that moment – for everything. I stood from the table and went over to hug Diana, doing everything I could not to get emotional, but it wasn’t easy. She and Chris hugged me and told me how proud of me they were. They told me they loved me. Then they’d told me to get on the phone with Northwestern and get enrolled. I’d gone out to the pool house and called, and just like that I was a student. I still had to choose my classes, but it was done. I was going. But I still had to tell Cassie.
It had been a few days since I’d gone to Chicago with Diana. We’d met with her realtor who’d shown us condos and townhouses that I just knew were way above a price range I was comfortable with, but every time I tried to ask what the rent was, Diana shushed me and told me it didn’t matter. She was paying, so I wasn’t allowed to ask.
What I didn’t realize was that we weren’t looking at rentals. Diana and Chris had no intentions of renting a place for us. No, they bought a freaking three bedroom condo for us a few blocks from View Crest, close enough for Austin to walk, and close enough for me to get to the ‘L’, so I could get to campus in Evanston if I didn’t feel like driving. When I asked about the third bedroom, Diana had said it was for when Scott visited, since she knew he wouldn’t be able to stay away. And I was secretly glad she’d thought of that. He’d been my best friend for most of my life, and this would be the first time we’d be living in different cities. I also knew that if he got into SAIC in the spring, he’d need a place to live, so it was probably a strategic move on her part.
Before I knew what was happening, the condo was purchased, and we had a move-in date that was three weeks away. It would give us just enough time to get settled before Austin and I had to start school. And Cassie didn’t know.
As I’d walked over to her house that day, I told myself it was the day I’d tell her. I’d promise her we’d make it work, tell her I loved her and make sure she knew that this didn’t mean the end of us. We’d do long distance, and we’d be fine.
“Are you guys moving in together for real?” Scott asked, shouting at us from the pool.
“Stop listening to our conversation, Scott,” I chastised him.
“You guys are like ten feet from us, and you’re not whispering. I can’t help it if I have good hearing. If you guys are going to live together, that’s cool. I just wasn’t aware Cass was moving to Chicago. Were you?” he asked Marley.
Oh shit. I felt the color complete drain from my face as he said that.
“No!” Marley said, sounding horrified. “What the hell, Cassie?!”
Cassie looked over at the two of them like they were nuts. “Why would I move to Chicago? What are you two talking about?”
My heart was pounding in my chest as I willed Scott to keep his damn mouth shut. I wanted to tell her, and I wanted to do it in my own way.
But before I could stop him, he blurted out, “Jared’s moving in three weeks. I just assumed when you said you were living with him, that you were going too. Am I wrong?”
Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.
Cassie’s eyes were on me in a flash, glaring and confused and a little hurt, so much that it squeezed my heart. I was going to kill Scott later.
“What is he talking about?” she asked quietly, her voice shaking just enough to let me know how she felt about the prospect of me leaving.
“Um, so I need to tell you something,” I mumbled, but I’d said it so low that she couldn’t hear me, so she just looked at me in confusion.
“What?” she asked, getting pissed.
“Cass, are you going to Northwestern too?” Scott asked then, and I turned on him.
“Shut up, Scott! Jesus, can you see that the more you say the more pissed at me Cassie gets? What’s wrong with you?”
I was so pissed at him I was seeing spots in front of my eyes as I yelled at him.
“Don’t yell at him,” Marley scoffed at me, coming to Scott’s defense. “It’s not his fault you lied to your girlfriend.”
Fuck. I was going to kill Scott, and then Marley would be next.
“You lied to me?” Cassie asked quietly, her voice sounding detached.
I could see the empty, hurt look in her eyes, so I reached for her hand, but she wouldn’t let me take it.
“Baby, let me explain,” I pleaded, and her face morphed back into a glare. That had apparently been the wrong thing to say.
“Chicago? Northwestern? Are you kidding me?” she asked, her voice like ice.
“Austin – the school – Diana and Chris.” I shook my head, my explanation coming out in fragments of what I wanted to say.
Cassie narrowed her eyes at me. “Let me see if I understand this. Austin got a scholarship, you found a way to pay for his housing, which means you’re moving to Chicago, and you already have a place to live apparently, and you’re going to fucking Northwestern?!”
My shoulders slumped even further as she yelled at me, her voice rising higher with each punctuated word.
Cassie raised an eyebrow at me when I didn’t answer. “Did I leave anything out?”
“It wasn’t like that,” I tried to tell her, but she just crossed her arms in front of her chest, a glare on her face, her mouth twisted into a sneer.
“Were you even going to tell me?” she asked, and it was then that the steely demeanor she’d been trying to maintain slipped from her face as it crumbled.
She got up from her chair and stormed past me, her fingers swiping under her eyes as she did. My first instinct was to go after her, but Marley, who was already out of the pool and wrapping a towel around herself, stopped me.
“I’ve got this,” she said coldly, her glare practically piercing me.
“No,” I told her, knowing I was the only one who could fix what I’d done. I just should have told Cassie.
“You’ve done enough,” Marley said before she stalked into the house.
I sighed and glared at Scott. “Why? What have I ever done to you?” I asked him feeling defeated.
He looked up at me from where he stood in four feet of water. “What just happened?” he asked, the look on his face one of complete confusion.
He had no idea what he’d done wrong, and in truth, it was all my fault anyway. He could have kept his mouth shut, but I also should have manned up and told Cassie everything from the start. I’d been too damned scared of hurting her that I’d held back. Now I’d hurt her ten times worse since she hadn’t found out my news from me.
“What just happened is that I majorly fucked up,” I told him.
“Why didn’t you tell Cassie about Chicago?” he asked, not ever imaging the option to open his mouth and not tell the complete truth. He didn’t understand that sometimes the truth hurt.
But then again, I was the guy who’d omitted the truth, and now my girlfriend was pissed at me. I was probably fucked, so maybe next time I might consider telling the truth. It might not be such a bad idea.
But I knew what would have happened if I had told the truth. Cassie would have wanted to go with me. I knew she would have. And I would have been powerless to stop her. In truth, I hadn’t told her my plans, because I didn’t want her to give up everything for me. I wasn’t worth it, and I knew it. She couldn’t give up college just to follow me. But then again, what I really wanted, more than anything was for her to come with me.
She’d made two comments about us living together in the past few days, and each time she did, she’d made my whole world light up with that prospect. I wanted that. Why was I trying to stop her from giving me exactly what I wanted? Because I felt like I should. I felt like I’d be an asshole for making her give up her life for me. But why would she be giving up her life? She could still have a great life, with me. We could have a life together. Why hadn’t I thought of that earl
ier? Why was I trying so damned hard to make us both miserable? I wanted her next to me, living with me, sharing my life.
That was what I really wanted.
And fuck it, I was going to get it.
I marched into the house and right up the stairs to Cassie’s room. I met Marley outside the door, right as she was about to open it.
“Don’t,” I cautioned her.
She spun and faced me, the glare fixed on her face.
“Marley, please,” I said, just wishing she’d stop interfering. This was my relationship, not hers.
On the other side of the door I could hear Cassie sobbing, her voice soaked with pain, and it broke my damn heart. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt her. I swear it was. I was just trying to – shit, I don’t know what I was trying to do, but it was honorable. I was trying to do the right thing, but dammit if for the first time in my life I didn’t want to do what was right. I wanted to do what was selfish.
“And just what the hell are you going to say?” Marley demanded.
“That I love her, and I want her in my life, with me, forever,” I said, because it was the truth.
Marley just looked at me with a stunned expression on her face, obviously not having expected to hear those words come out of my mouth, but I wasn’t playing around. I was serious.
“Really?” she asked.
“Yes, and if you let me have this moment to actually tell Cassie that, I’ll even give you my goddamn pool house. You and Scott can consider it a love nest for all I care. All I need is Cassie.”
I heard the desperation in my voice as I said that, but it was completely genuine. I needed her, and I knew she needed me.
Marley nodded. “Okay. Fine, but you’d better not screw up again. Don’t lie. It’s a shitty thing to do.”
I nodded miserably, knowing she was right. But at least she stepped aside and headed down the stairs, leaving me alone with my girl whose heart I’d stomped on. I had no choice but to make things right.
I tried the door, but it was locked, so I knocked on it tentatively.
“Go away,” Cassie growled from inside, and my heart cracked a little more.
“Cassie, it’s me,” I told her, as if it would have been anyone else.
“I know!” she shouted back “It’s why I said to go the fuck away!”
Oh, God. She was so pissed at me.
“Cassie, please,” I said, resting my head against the door in defeat.
I’d so fucked up, and I had no idea how to fix it. She wouldn’t talk to me, so I couldn’t apologize. I was fucked.
“Jared, just go away. Go to fucking Chicago, and leave me alone!” she screamed.
Come with me.
I thought it. I didn’t say it. I should have said it.
Fuck it.
“Come with me,” I said through the closed door, my head still resting on the hard wood. “Give up college, move in with me and just put me out of my fucking misery, because I’ve felt like shit ever since I made the conscious decision to move to Chicago for Austin. Come with me, because I’m a selfish bastard who loves his girlfriend more than anyone else in the world. I want you in my life, Cassie. I want you in my bed, and in my house, and in every freaking corner of my world, because you made it bright again. You pulled me out of the goddamn darkness, and I don’t want to leave you. I love you, and my life would suck if you weren’t in it.”
I stood there for several moments, my head resting on the door, my words hanging in the air around me, the silence of not getting a response suffocating me. After minutes that dragged on and on, I saw something move beneath my feet. Sliding under the door was a piece of paper folded into a crude airplane. My heart leapt at the gesture, and I grabbed it up and unfolded it.
Are you just saying that?
“Hell no!” I called out in response to what was written on the airplane. “Cass, I love you so much. Please, come with me.”
A few moments later another airplane slid from under the door.
I love you too.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I read those words.
“If you love me, open the door. Please, Cassie.”
A few seconds later, the door opened and Cassie stood there, her eyes red, her cheeks tearstained, so I let instinct take over and pulled her into my arms. She fell into me, her arms wrapping around my waist as I held her.
“You told me to stay with you,” she mumbled into my shirt. “You told me to stay.”
“I know. I know,” I said as I held her as close as I could. “And I meant it. I meant it with everything in me. I love you.”
Her arms just squeezed me tighter. “I don’t want you to go,” she said then. She looked up at me. “I put everything on hold for you. I made the very conscious decision to stay here for another year because of you, Jared. I’ve always been honest. I told you that I had the chance to go to Illinois, but I turned it down. It was because of you, and then you just up and decide to go to Chicago without me? How could you do that?’
I looked down at her. “I didn’t want you to choose me over your life. I wanted you to be happy and follow your dreams. I didn’t want to ask you to do anything that would hold you back from everything you want in life.”
“Jared, you are what I want in life. You’re all I want. Everything else is just details. Don’t you get it? I can get my degree anywhere, anytime, but I can’t find another you.”
She looked up at me as new tears formed in her eyes and threatened to spill over.
I sighed, feeling like a jerk at the same time my heart filled up so much it almost burst. “I didn’t want to keep this from you, but I didn’t know how to tell you. Cassie, I love you. Please don’t think I wanted to end things with you. It’s not the case. I figured we could do long distance. We could make it work.”
“I don’t want to do long distance,” she said firmly. “I want to go to Boston for you.”
I looked at her in confusion. Had she heard me wrong?
“Boston? No, Chicago. I’m only moving to Chicago. It’s only an hour away. Trust me, we can make long distance work.”
She sighed and mumbled something about Boston being a metaphor for Chicago that made no sense to me.
“I don’t want to do long distance,” she said petulantly. “I want to move in with you. I want to see you every day and tell you I love you and kiss you. I don’t want you part time.”
That was exactly what I wanted to hear, but I hated what she was considering giving up.
“What about college?”
“My dad has connections at Northwestern. He went there for undergrad, and he’s a very supportive alumni. I’m sure he can pull the same strings he did at Illinois, but even if he can’t, it doesn’t matter.” She shook her head. “I almost died this year. My boyfriend was killed, and I lost one of my best friends. My year started off shitter than most people ever know, but then I met you, and it was like I could breathe again. I wanted to live, really live, because of you, Jared. College can happen now or it can happen in a year. But I can’t wait a year for you. Don’t you get that? The last thing I want is for you to disappear on me, even if it is part time. And Boston is a metaphor. It means I’d follow you to the ends of the earth, because you’re the guy I want more than air. That’s what it means.”
I pulled her against me, wanting to feel as much of her warm body as I could. She needed me more than air, and I knew exactly how she felt.
“Cassie, you have to know that I want you to come with me. I want you to move in with me. I should have asked from the start, but I didn’t want to hold you back from your life.”
“You’re my life,” she said, interrupting me.
“I know,” I said, the relief I felt coursing through me. “I feel the same way, and the prospect of being separated from you sounds like it would be a slow torture, so even though I know it’s wrong and it’s not what I should want because it’s so self-serving, Cassie Witter, will you move in with me, in Chicago?”
She laug
hed through her tears. “Yes,” she said, looking up at me. “In a heartbeat.”
“Are you sure? My seventeen year old brother will be there?”
She smiled up at me. “I don’t care. As long as you’re there, nothing else matters. I’ll be roommates with you and Austin, and we’ll figure the rest out. We have our whole lives to figure the rest out.”
I hugged her tight against me, never wanting to let her go. She was right. We did have our whole lives to figure things out, and the truth was, our lives were just getting started. All the bullshit I’d dealt with my whole life, all the bullying and the feeling like I wasn’t good enough and the fighting to get over the hand I’d been dealt melted away in an instant, because of the girl standing in front of me. She loved me, for me, and she thought I was worth it.
I could leave everything else behind and just be with Cassie. I’d been given a second chance in January when I hadn’t died on the floor of that dining hall, but until now I hadn’t known what to really do with it. With Cassie I’d get a second chance to live the life I wanted, to chase my dreams and to know that regardless of what happened, I’d always have her with me. She told me she wanted me to be selfish and brave and to fight for what I wanted, and I was going to do that. And when it was all said and done, no one was going to tell me that I didn’t take my second chance at life and live it to the fullest. I’d make sure we both did that.
Epilogue
Cassie
I was running late to meet Jared for dinner. I’d been in the library on campus, buried in notes from several interviews Andrea had done over the past month, pulling out key information that might be relevant to her thesis, and time had gotten away from me. When I looked down at the clock on my laptop, I realized it was fifteen minutes past the time I needed to leave to meet my boyfriend.
Jared had been working a day shift at the restaurant where he’d been working since we moved to Chicago and had texted me around lunchtime that he wanted me to meet him for dinner. I’d initially told him I couldn’t, since I had a ridiculous amount of work to get through, but he’d insisted, and I’d acquiesced, feeling like I’d been neglecting him as of late.
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