Dear Cassie

by Burstein, Lisa

  I turned on the cold water and cupped it with my hands. So cold it hurt. I splashed it on my face, once, twice. I gulped handfuls of it. It dripped all over the front of my T-shirt. My wet chest burned in the air conditioning. This was the end. I might have been able to deal with that if I wasn’t facing the beginning ahead of me alone.

  Without Ben.

  I was jolted by a male voice behind me. “What are you doing in here?”

  I turned and found a policeman standing in the middle of the bathroom, hand on his holster.

  My first thought: Oh shit, not again. My second thought: This is a women’s restroom and he is a man.

  My third thought: Maybe he will take me somewhere and I won’t have to go home.

  “Washing my face,” I said, indicating the running faucet, my wet skin and shirt.

  “Didn’t you hear the announcement over the loudspeakers?” he asked, glancing behind me at the still running water. I took that as a cue to turn it off.

  “Announcement?” I asked.

  He grimaced, which meant he wanted an answer, not a question.

  “No,” I said, looking up. There were no speakers in the bathroom that I could see.

  “You can’t be in here. The whole airport is being evacuated,” he said, staring at me with cop eyes—anger with a touch of superiority.

  “What?” I asked, still not understanding.

  “Get moving,” he said, not explaining, and waved his hand in a pushy scoot.

  “Why are we being evacuated?” I asked. This was too weird. Too much like what I’d wanted so badly to come true that I couldn’t even believe it.

  “Less questions, more moving,” he said, then added, “Don’t make me tell you again,” for emphasis, just like Rawe would have. I walked out into the terminal while he stayed behind in the bathroom looking for feet under stall doors.

  The large hallways that lined the gates were filled with people streaming toward the exits. They weren’t running but were definitely walking with purpose. It was organized chaos, people flowing out of the building, asking the same question I had with no answers. Policemen on megaphones and the overhead announcements were telling everyone to leave in an orderly fashion and that all their questions would be answered once they were safely outside.

  Safely outside?

  What was unsafe about being inside? I guess it wasn’t an earthquake.

  I couldn’t help thinking about those alien movies my brother loved. This was what they did when the space monsters came: rounded everyone up and forced them into pens like cattle. The thing was, unlike the scared and confused people around me, I didn’t really care what had happened. I was glad to be doing anything other than waiting for my flight.

  Other than thinking about Ben.

  Aliens?

  Sounds good to me.

  Lab tests?

  Sure thing, let me just bend over.

  I followed everyone else out into the sunlight. The policemen had us line up in the parking lot like we were at school and had just had a fire drill.

  Cops stood around the perimeter of the building along with TSA agents, their uniforms looking very navy and the emergency lights on their cars flashing very red and blue. Two officers were stringing yellow crime scene tape over the entrances. Two more had German shepherds on leashes sniffing around the passenger drop off area. Whatever had happened, it was major.

  Alien major.

  I heard two businessmen talking in line behind me, bitching about how they better not miss their flight because of this, something about a very important meeting with a very important client that would fuck up their very important life if they missed it. I could almost hear them sweating through their suits.

  “I’m going to ass rape whoever is responsible for this. I cannot miss this flight,” one of them said.

  The other one just said, Mmm hmmm. About as sad an agreement to someone’s statement as I’d ever heard.

  I was probably the only person in this whole airport who wasn’t thinking what the guy behind me was thinking. Who was instead thinking the exact opposite—well, minus the ass rape part.

  It was possible Ben was thinking it, too, or he could have finally decided he was so done with me that he wanted to get as far away as possible. I deserved it. He’d done everything he could to make things work and all I did was push him away.

  “We meet again,” he said, walking up next to me.

  I almost jumped, so freaked out that I had just been thinking about him and he appeared. Though I had really been thinking about him since he’d left me at the gate.

  “I already said good-bye.” I was trying very hard to be the old Cassie, but he’d seen the new me, the girl whose layers had been stripped away like onion skin, who kissed back, who smiled, who slept next to him under oceans of stars. Who couldn’t really say good-bye.

  “Not properly,” he said, tapping his thumb ring against my hand. “I really didn’t like the way that went down.”

  “So does that mean we’re saying good-bye again?” I asked, not telling him to move his hand. Liking the way the metal of his ring still felt cold from the air conditioning while his skin felt hot.

  “Well, maybe not,” he said, still tapping his thumb ring but not taking my hand, like he was testing me. Maybe he was. There was something about the way he kept trying. There weren’t many boys who could deal with my bullshit and still want more.

  “So what are we doing?” I asked.

  “Good question,” he said. “I guess we’ll find out.” His eyes moved to the front of the airport, scanning the nodding cops and the TSA agents standing like columns on a building.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  He whispered in my ear, his breath like the heat of an oven, “This might be my doing.”

  “This?” I asked, looking around me: the cops, the crime scene tape, the cars with siren lights blaring, every person in the airport lined up like they were giving away free donuts.

  He nodded, so imperceptibly that if it were a sports game, they would have needed a slo-mo replay to see it.

  “What the fuck did you do?” I whispered. If Ben really did do this, the guy behind me was going to turn him into a drummer who might never sit down again—not comfortably, anyway.

  “What I had to,” he said.

  I stared at him, at his brown, brown eyes, liked iced tea in the sunlight. “You didn’t do this,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Well, not for real.” He moved his lips so close to my ear I shivered. “But I might have kind of called in a bomb threat.”

  I pushed him hard, hard enough that he almost fell. “Are you fucking crazy?”

  “Hey,” the businessman behind me said, “the last thing we need is a riot.”

  His friend agreed with a more emphatic, Mmm hmmm.

  I pulled Ben to the back of the line, away from everyone else. “You are,” I said. “You’re fucking crazy.” I pushed him again.

  “Yes,” he said, rubbing his chest where I’d hit him. “I told you, Cassie, I’m as fucked up as you are.”

  “This is beyond fucked up,” I said, my words feeling like deflating balloons coming out of my mouth, shooting and flying around his head. “Why? Why would you do this?”

  “For you,” he said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “For you,” he said again, titling his head to the side like he couldn’t understand why I was confused.

  “That makes no sense. I don’t want this.” I indicated the chaos around me, the contents of a whole airport spilled out onto the parking lot and held like prisoners.

  “No,” he said, “but I knew I’d regret it if I let you get on that plane. And I know you’re more stubborn than anyone I’ve ever met.” He paused. “So I got creative.”

  “Letting a skunk into the airport wouldn’t have worked this time, huh?” I asked, not breaking his gaze.

  “No.” He smiled. “I needed something a little more dramatic.”

  “You coul
d go to jail for this for a long, long time. Longer than for whatever you didn’t do to get sent to Turning Pines.” I was still talking so fast, as fast as the lights seemed to be spinning on the cop cars. I tried not to stare at them, tried not to think that everything good in my life ended with the color red.

  “I just didn’t get caught for any of the things I’ve done,” he said, “and today won’t change that. I had my brother call it in—he owes me.”

  There was so much noise around us. So much happening around us, but I could only hear him, only see him.

  “I want to be with you,” Ben said, grabbing my forearm. “Even if it’s only for another couple of hours.”

  I let the words fill my ears, fill my chest. Let the warmth of his hand travel from my arm to my belly. It didn’t seem real.

  “What are you going to do, keep calling in bomb threats so I never can fly out of here?” I asked. It was totally crazy, but it was also totally, insanely romantic. I usually hated romantic, but maybe that was because romantic was perfumey flowers and sappy love songs and lame-ass teddy bears. It was never enough to put someone away for ten years.

  It was never someone who was willing to put himself on the line to prove he was “unworthy” of me.

  “If I have to,” he said. “Or maybe I’ll use the time I have left to convince you … or kiss you.”

  “You’re wasting time, then,” I said, my lips on his before the words were even out of my mouth. I kissed him once, gently on the lips, and pulled back like I needed to see him again to believe he was still there. There—like he always had been, and if I knew Ben, like he always would be.

  He held his hand out, stretching his fingers in a way that let me know he was asking for so much more than just my hand, than just a kiss.

  I knew I had to forgive myself. This was how to start. There was no better way than to do the one thing in this world that had the potential to make me happy.

  I wasn’t sure what choosing Ben would mean. I wasn’t sure how long it would last. I wasn’t sure if I would get hurt again, but for him I could try.

  For me, I could try.

  I took his hand. He tapped his thumb ring against the top of mine with a beat that was in his head. We walked away from the airport, away from the parking lot. I didn’t know where we were going. I didn’t know how long we had, but I followed him.

  He is the kind of boy who makes me feel, but he can also help me forget.

  The forgiveness will come.

  Acknowledgments

  First, I want to thank the publishing gods who found their way to giving me their blessing on a second book.

  Then of course there are all the people who made this possible:

  My tireless, genius editor, Stacy Cantor Abrams, who takes my words, my vision, and gives me the tools to turn them into something amazing. She makes me look far more talented than I am.

  My agent, Susan Finesman, who stands by me book after book, and who gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten by reminding me that I can never know what the next day will bring, in life or in publishing.

  My publicist, Heather Riccio, who is as much friend, psychologist, drill sergeant, and ninja as publicist. Her enthusiasm for my work is infectious.

  Kari Bradley and Alycia Tornetta, whose editorial notes were spot on and who were the best extra sets of eyes I could have hoped for, for Cassie.

  Liz Pelletier for her editorial wisdom, unwavering leadership, and the fact she admits that my work makes her cry.

  My publisher-sisters at Entangled and in the Entangled Teen Mafia, some of the best women and writers I’ve ever met. I can’t imagine this journey without you.

  My Twitter and Facebook followers, who are always there to help me with a line or an idea, with a special shout-out to Jennifer Iacopelli who provided one of the main plot points in Dear Cassie.

  The readers and bloggers who loved Cassie enough to think she deserved her own book and who have become my friends. Your support means everything.

  Finally, to my family, for listening, letting me write, allowing me to be crazy, and keeping me sane.

  Experience where Cassie’s story began with PRETTY AMY

  Amy is fine living in the shadows of beautiful Lila and uber-cool Cassie, because at least she’s somewhat beautiful and uber-cool by association. But when their dates stand them up for prom, and the girls take matters into their own hands—earning them a night in jail outfitted in satin, stilettos, and Spanx—Amy discovers even a prom spent in handcuffs might be better than the humiliating “rehabilitation techniques” now filling up her summer. Worse, with Lila and Cassie parentally banned, Amy feels like she has nothing—like she is nothing.

  Navigating unlikely alliances with her new coworker, two very different boys, and possibly even her parents, Amy struggles to decide if it’s worth being a best friend when it makes you a public enemy. Bringing readers along on an often hilarious and heartwarming journey, Amy finds that maybe getting a life only happens once you think your life is over.

  A Note from Lisa Burstein

  As a thank-you to my awesome readers, I held a contest in honor of Dear Cassie being an epistolary novel, where entrants would write a diary entry in the voice of their favorite fictional character. The grand prize was one lucky entry being published in the back of the book. I chose four finalists and then people voted online for their favorites.

  Read on for the the winning entry by Monica Fumarolo …

  Inspired by the TV show Doctor Who

  Amelia Pond was seven when a spaceship crashed in her yard and out climbed a time traveler: the Doctor. She was quickly taken with the man and crushed when he didn’t return like he’d promised. In his absence, people called her crazy for always insisting her “imaginary friend” was real. Twelve years later, he came back, bringing along danger and adventure. But that was two years ago, and he’d since vanished as quickly as he’d appeared. Now, the night before her wedding, Amy thinks of the excitement she experienced with the Doctor, not sure she’s really ready to settle down just yet.

  People have said I’m mad for fourteen years, but I never really started believing it until now. Because now, right now, I should be excited. Ecstatic. Over the moon and completely happy because they say tomorrow is the biggest day of my life.

  They would say that, though, because they also say I’m mad. That a man in a blue box didn’t really fall out of the sky and into my life twice, save all of humanity, change everything, then disappear again. If meeting the Raggedy Doctor and helping him save the world weren’t the biggest days of my life, then I really don’t think a wedding can top that.

  Even if it is my wedding. Even if it is to Rory.

  Amelia Pond became Amy Pond, and now I’m about to become Mrs. Amy Williams. I think I had an easier time accepting the fact that the Doctor landed outside this very house in a time machine that looks like a police box.

  And that’s the thing that makes me start to believe that everyone else really was right about me all along. I mean, Rory really is great. He is a good guy and he loves me and he’s all kinds of dependable and reliable and stable. He even put up with an entire childhood of my forcing him to play Raggedy Doctor with me, trying to bring my imaginary friend to life just to make me happy. If he was willing to do all that, even when we were just kids, then I know that he’ll do just about anything for me.

  I know that we’ll have a very nice life together here in Ledworth, with him as a nurse in hospital and me doing … something. I’m sure I’ll find something …

  Only that’s not true. I’m not sure. Because as nice as Ledworth is, it’s just Ledworth. Here I’m the crazy girl who was a kiss-o-gram and stayed up all night in the garden when she was a little girl, waiting for a time machine to take her away because an equally crazy man who ate fish fingers and custard promised he would come back.

  He did come back, technically, I suppose. He came, the Atraxi left, and there’s no longer an alien living in my house (I hope).

>   It was dangerous and insane.

  It was brilliant.

  And I want more of that. I want to have big adventures and do more impossible things and see more impossible places. I want to know who the Doctor is and why he came here and why he picked me and why he stopped and took the time for me and a crack in my wall.

  I want to see more cracks in the universe, whatever that means. It sounds like something that only ever happens once in Ledworth if you’re really lucky, and now that it has, how can I ever dream of something so big happening in my life again as long as I stay here?

  When I say it like that, though, it sounds all wrong. It sounds like I don’t even care about Rory, but I do. It’s just … It’s hard to say what it is exactly. I’m scared. I know I want to marry him. I do know that, but it’s tomorrow. Tomorrow. It’s really here. Years of dating, months of planning, and there’s nothing left to do but wake up in the morning, put on that dress, and walk down the aisle. It’s only a few hours away now.

  What I guess all of this comes down to, though, is a plea for more time. More time for something to happen. The first time the Doctor left, it was hard. I suddenly felt even more alone here than ever before, even more so than when I was just the Scottish girl trapped in an English town. I still refused to give up on him, though. I waited twelve years and then something amazing did happen. And now it’s been another two and I think if I had more time, I could keep waiting if I knew for sure that it would mean incredible, impossible things were in store.

  But wishing only does so much. It can’t make time machines show up or adventures unfold, so it’s probably just as well that I go to bed, because tomorrow it really is time to grow up.

  Or maybe not. Because I just looked out the window, and you’ll never guess what’s in the garden. Or who.

  Monica Fumarolo is a Chicago-area native, two-time University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign graduate, librarian by day, and aspiring writer by night who is thrilled to see her writing in print for the first time.