Dear Cassie

by Burstein, Lisa

  Troyer sat up and watched as I put on my uniform. “You, too,” I said, pointing at hers. It was folded in a tight brown package on the trunk in front of her cot.

  “Hurry up,” Nez said. I could hear her boot tapping on the floor.

  After Troyer and I got dressed, we each grabbed our flashlights and followed Nez out of the cabin. Troyer closed the door quietly behind her, our flashlights still off.

  “What if Rawe wakes up?” I asked. I looked at Troyer. She nodded.

  “We tell her we all had to use the ladies,” Nez said.

  There was no way Rawe would believe that. It was bad enough going out to the bathroom on your own—you did not want to stand next to it waiting for someone else.

  We walked down the path to the soccer field, huge cedar trees on either side of us, our flashlights three small spotlights on the ground.

  “Do you know where we’re going?” I asked.

  “I can smell boys,” Nez said, sniffing the air, “like meat cooking.”

  “Any chance you can smell us up some smokes?” I asked. “They smell like tobacco cooking.” Being outside at night made me crave a cigarette. Well, to be truthful, everything made me crave a cigarette.

  Nez ignored me and kept walking. It was definitely the middle of the night. The air had that feeling, like even it was asleep.

  “What are we going to do when we find their cabin?” I asked the back of Nez’s head. We walked like we had that day when we were hiking, in a straight line, army style.

  “I haven’t figured that out yet,” Nez said.

  “If we get caught, I’m going to punch you so hard you’re going to need to make out through a straw,” I muttered, though I had to admit it felt pretty good being bad again. Other than my break time escapes with Aaron from Pudgie’s Pizzeria, I hadn’t been out at night doing something I wasn’t supposed to do in a very long time. I felt the familiar adrenaline rush, the buzz in my ears.

  We stood at the edge of the soccer field, the sky above us filled with stars, like someone flung a football stadium full of glitter into the sky.

  “Maybe we should skip the boys’ cabin and check out that locked building over there,” I said, pointing to the white mess hall. There had to be something inside we weren’t supposed to get to, since it was locked. I liked getting to what I wasn’t supposed to get to.

  “Does that locked building have four boys inside?” Nez asked.

  Troyer shook her head.

  “Very good, Troyer,” Nez said, like she was a puppy.

  “We can head to their cabin after,” I said.

  “There’s nothing for me in there,” Nez said, waving it away.

  I looked at her.

  “I am not spending another night alone,” Nez said, not bothering to explain more.

  I was glad.

  Nez turned and started across the field. There was nothing else to do, so I followed her. I could hear Troyer running to keep up behind me. I hadn’t noticed it when we were chopping wood, but there was a flagpole standing flagless at the far side of the field. There were also bleachers and beyond that, a baseball diamond complete with dugouts.

  “I guess this place really used to be a summer camp,” I said.

  “Wow,” Nez said, not turning around. “You’re a fudging genius.” She was walking so fast, I was out of breath trying to keep up with her.

  “Well, you’re a fudging bitch,” I said. Then I turned to look at Troyer. “You okay?”

  She shrugged.

  We kept walking, our boots swishing in the grass and our breath sighing. The night air felt sharp in my lungs.

  “There it is,” Nez said, pointing.

  It’s not like they were hiding it. The boys’ cabin was only a few paces past the far edge of the soccer field and looked exactly like our cabin—as small and as shitty.

  “So what are you going to do now?” I asked, putting my hands in my pockets. I felt myself sneer. Now we would see what size balls Nez actually had.

  “Duh,” she said with her own sneer. “Get one of them to come out, or one of them to let me in.” She walked to the side of the cabin. She was about to be totally fucked, and not in the way she wanted to be.

  If it was built like ours, there were windows along both sides. That was probably where she was headed. Was she going to climb in? Lila had climbed into Brian’s house on prom night after he and his friends had stood us up. When she swiped the pot that eventually got us arrested. This probably wouldn’t end any better.

  I remember sitting with Amy on Brian’s front lawn while we waited for Lila, smoking cigarettes and trying to figure out why the hell I was so pissed off about being stood up by a boy I didn’t even know. I knew why Amy was upset and that made sense to me—she had a lot of girlie notions about what prom night was supposed to mean. What didn’t make sense was how angry I felt. Maybe because I had allowed myself to be fooled. That was how I felt, like a gullible idiot in a skanky red dress.

  I guess that was why I hated thinking about what had happened with Aaron, because he’d made me feel the same way … minus the dress.

  I could hear Nez heave herself inside the cabin with a grunt. I guess I couldn’t blame her. If there were cigarettes waiting for me in there, I would surely be doing the same thing. I would probably be kicking the door down with the boots that felt like anchors on my feet. I guess Nez saw boys like I saw cigarettes.

  “Come on,” I said, leading Troyer over to the bleachers. “We’ll wait over here for her to get busted.”

  Troyer and I sat on the cold metal. The outdoors made its outdoorsy sounds around us: crickets and mosquitoes and whatever the hell else was out there that I didn’t want to think about.

  “Nez is pretty fucked up,” I said, looking at Troyer.

  She nodded.

  “Like you said …” I put my hands on my thighs. “A bitch.”

  Troyer smiled, and I wondered if she’d ever talked. If something had happened to her like what had happened to me that had made her stop talking. Was there anything that I had stopped doing because of what had happened with Aaron? Other than letting myself fall for another guy’s bullshit?

  “Hello, Cassie.”

  Ben.

  Speak of the fucking devil.

  I turned. Brace Face and Curly Blond Hair Dude were standing next to him. I guess that meant Nez was in the cabin with Arm Sleeve Tattoo Guy doing golly knows what.

  Brace Face and Curly Blond Hair Dude ran past Troyer and me onto the soccer field. They sprinted around like they had both drank a ton of coffee and were trying to work off their energy. Ben sat down next to me.

  “Why don’t you go play with your friends?” I asked, sliding closer to Troyer.

  “No thanks,” he said, looking at me. I could feel Troyer on the other side of me trying not to giggle.

  “You look good in brown,” he said, biting his bottom lip.

  Ha, ha, funny, like I don’t already know I look like shit. Fuck off, Ben.

  “You don’t,” I said, staring at the guys on the field. In the dark, I could only see their skin, their heads and hands floating.

  “I thought I looked pretty good,” he said, pulling the top of his uniform out so he could see it.

  “Go away,” I said, turning on and off my flashlight—click, click, click. Maybe Troyer knew Morse code. Maybe she could teach it to me. What was Morse code for Die, you asshole?

  “That’s Eagan with the braces,” Ben said, pointing to him running by. “Well, Patrick Eagan, and the other one is Leisner, or Kurt.”

  “Who cares?” I said.

  “You’re as pleasant as ever,” Ben replied, tapping his foot. His boot clanged on the bleacher below. I could tell he was doing it like a drummer would, like he had a bass drum sitting in front of him. He was such an ass.

  Troyer wrote something on her pad and passed it to me. It said, He’s cute. I crumpled the note and stuffed it in my pocket.

  Never again.

  “Who’s that?” Ben
asked, stopping his concert.

  “Troyer,” I said.

  “What’s her first name?” he asked, looking over at her.

  “Why would I ask?”

  “Why wouldn’t you?” he said, and his face went screwy. “I mean, you’ve been here long enough.” He turned to me with those wide brown eyes again. In the dark I could only see the whites.

  “She doesn’t talk,” I said, looking at my hands. They were in fists on my thighs.

  “You could still ask her name,” he said. He looked over at Troyer. “What’s your name?”

  Troyer wrote something down on her pad and passed it to him.

  “Laura,” he said, showing me the paper in his flashlight beam. “Her name’s Laura.”

  “I might not know how to make you disappear,” I said, rolling my eyes, “but I do know how to read.”

  “So Patrick is here for Adderall addiction and Kurt got caught breaking into a competing high school to steal their athletic equipment,” he said, ignoring me.

  “What are you, a game show host?” I asked. I didn’t care why anyone else was here. All I cared about was making it through the next twenty-five days without killing someone.

  I guess he knew how to make me disappear, because he continued. “That’s what the running is about, is all. They have a lot of energy to expel.”

  “I guess Nez does, too,” I said. I turned and looked at the cabin, but it was quiet.

  “Stravalaci, Andre—he’s the one inside with your friend,” Ben said.

  “I doubt she cares what his name is,” I said. I didn’t bother adding, And she’s not my friend,because I still wasn’t quite sure what Nez was.

  “You should probably tell her to stay away from him,” Ben said.

  “Nez can take care of herself.” I paused and looked at Troyer. “Well, tonight I guess she needed some assistance, but usually she can.”

  Troyer’s hand went to her mouth and she giggled.

  Ben ignored my joke. “Stravalaci brought a gun to school,” he said, his skin looking pale. “Said the only thing that stopped him from using it was that a teacher saw it in his pants pocket. That’s about as fucked up as it gets.”

  “He probably said that to scare you,” I replied.

  “I’m not scared,” Ben said. “I might not have done something that fucked up, but I’m not scared.”

  I realized maybe that was what was driving me so crazy about Ben. He wasn’t scared. Not of Stravalaci, not of asking Troyer her stupid name, not even of me.

  I needed him to be scared, so he stayed the hell away.

  “You gonna tell me about Square Head now?” I asked. “I mean, since you feel like it’s your job to narrate this bullshit.”

  “Oh, you mean Nerone?” Ben asked, pointing at the cabin behind him with his thumb.

  “Yeah, the charmer who drove us here.” I looked at him, could feel my lips smirk. “What’s his first name?”

  “He never told us.” Ben shrugged. “He’s kind of a dick.”

  “Shocker,” I said.

  Troyer wrote something on her pad and held it up. Why are you here, Ben?

  “I’ll tell Cassie if she asks,” Ben said.

  “Cassie doesn’t care,” I said, even though I kind of did. Whatever Ben had done, it didn’t appear to have broken him. Not like Troyer was broken. Not like I was. I could feel him looking at me, but I didn’t turn, just watched the boys running around the field. How were they not tired? Hadn’t they hiked ten miles that day like we had?

  “Laura,” Ben said, leaning over me, so close that I could feel my heart in my ears, “you like it here so far?”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I asked.

  Troyer snorted.

  “Lucky you,” Ben said, tilting back. “You have an audience now.”

  Troyer got up and walked to the center of the field. She sat cross-legged like she did on her bed, but the boys kept running around her.

  “So, you wanna know why I’m here?” Ben asked.

  “How many other ways can I say no?”

  “I want to know why you’re here.”

  “Why?” I flashed my flashlight in his face like a cop might, wanting to piss him off because he was pissing me off. “Seriously, what is your deal?”

  “I’m trying to figure out what makes you tick,” he said, knocking his knee into mine, slowly, carefully like he wanted me to know he was touching me. There was no way I couldn’t know it. I felt my chest tighten; my skin pulsed.

  “Good luck with that,” I said. I knocked his knee back, but not playfully. Hard. I hoped I left a bruise.

  “I also think you’re hot,” Ben said.

  I could feel him staring at me, like he wanted to watch the words hit my heart. My face felt smothered. My throat went dry; my neck and chest burned.

  “Yes, Cassie, I just called you pretty,” he said, still staring.

  “Go to hell,” I said, my hand to my stomach, ready to hit, but it was shaking. I was shaking.

  “Usually people say ‘thank you’ when someone gives them a compliment.” He ran a hand through his hair, a move that had probably worked on a lot of other girls. It would not work on me.

  None of this would work on me.

  “It’s not a compliment; it’s a line,” I said.

  “It’s not a line if it’s true.” He smirked, his lips open like they were waiting for something. “You’re welcome.” He touched my knee as he got up, so gently it made me sigh. I coughed, attempting to hide it.

  At least he left before I had to respond, because for once in my life, I was fucking speechless.

  He joined Patrick and Kurt on the field. They played a weird kind of tag, two of them chasing the other, and then once the two caught the one, they broke off and chased the other one. Troyer sat in the middle of the field, not even noticing them, her eyes closed, her palms facing up on her legs.

  I punched my stomach again and again, because Ben had touched me twice, and I had let him. Because his touch made my body react, even though my mind was telling me not to. I kept punching because I wanted to make myself remember that letting a boy in only ended in pain.

  25 Fucking Days to Go

  Rawe spent the morning giving us a big long lecture about how we should use our Assessment Diaries like road maps for our lives. Look at each choice and every decision that led us here and attempt to see where we could have veered another way.

  A better way.

  What’s weird is I wouldn’t change what happened on prom night. I know people would say, But if you hadn’t gotten arrested then none of this would have happened, and while that’s true, I’d pick another night to go back and erase until the paper ripped.

  The night I met Aaron and fell for his stupid crooked-toothed smile and I’m hot shit swagger. The night I let myself get sappy and fooled because I was so lonely, because I had nothing but a pizza-shop shit job and jail to look forward to.

  Because his blue eyes were so blue and his Zippo was so silver and shiny.

  I was working at Pudgie’s Pizzeria and was on dough that night. Covered in flour, I probably looked like a clown, white faced and silly. I also had that sharp, rancid smell of yeast in my hair and under my fingernails. And even though I was covered in flour, I still had to manage the counter because everyone else I worked with was in the back room drinking stolen beer from the cooler.

  I could hear them laughing while I rolled out the dough for a sheet pizza, a big white rectangle that I poked tiny pinholes in with a fork. I would have liked to be drinking stolen beer from the cooler, but after the arrest, my mother did a sobriety check every time I came home. Which was beyond ironic, considering my mother’s breath could have gotten me drunk.

  Before I was allowed to enter the house, I had to stand in the middle of our front yard and touch my finger to my nose. Then I had to say the alphabet backward and walk in a straight line like I was on a tight rope and stand on one foot. I must have looked like a human yard flamingo.


  When Aaron walked in, I remember it being hard not to look at him. He had long, sunset-orange-colored hair, wore a pair of jeans that were down to strings on his knees and fit him like he slept in them. He was extreme-sports cute. That kind of guy who doesn’t care if he breaks his cute face, who if he knew he was cute would try to break his own cute face.

  When he walked up to the counter all I could think was, Why the hell am I wearing a bakery? But then I wondered why I even cared I was wearing a bakery. I wiped the flour from my cheeks and the front of my shirt.

  “Welcome to Pudgie’s. Can I take your order?” I automated.

  “You can try.” He smiled. He had a crooked tooth. It poked out over his bottom lip like a fang.

  I stared at him. He probably wanted me to laugh and I might have, if it had been two months ago—before prom night. I might have if I were drinking one of those stolen beers in the cooler.

  “Large Pepsi and a slice of four-cheese with onions and peppers,” he said.

  I cut him a slice and filled a large cup and handed it to him, the ice clinking inside. He put his hand around mine as he grabbed it, left his fingers there long enough for me to know he wasn’t doing it by accident. Long enough for me to pull away, but for some reason I didn’t. Maybe it was because he was the first teenage boy besides my brother I’d talked to in weeks, or maybe it was because his eyes stayed right on mine like targets. Like blue, blue lasers.

  “You’re Cassie, right?” he asked.

  “That’s what my name tag says.” His hand was still on mine. I finally pulled my hand away like I had burned it, and I almost spilled his drink.

  “Cassie Wick?” he asked, bringing the cup to his mouth and taking a squeaky sip from the straw.

  “How the hell do you know my last name?” I asked, folding my arms over the pizza-sauce-stained apron that covered my chest.

  Instead of answering, he said, “I’m Aaron Chambers.”

  “Who the fuck cares,” I said. “How do you know my name?” Maybe one of the assholes I worked with was playing a trick on me. They always made fun of me for not being able to get wrecked with them, because I was stupid enough to get arrested for what they weren’t afraid to do in the break room every night while they were supposed to be working.