Chapter Four.

CHAPTER FOUR

↠ Cassie

"The best lies about me are the ones I told."

― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

SOPHIE Deneuve was a Paris native with dreamy eyes. I had long believed that if she possessed a talent it was that of being a great lover. It had been highly discussed in our corner of society how her expertise seemed to be limited to matters of men and manhood.

She was a woman of vulgar essence but classy ways. Men would come in and out of our lives often, almost weekly, all infatuated with her in an almost fanatical way.

That fragility that men found alluring often translated into a passiveness that made her one with the wind. She went wherever opportunity took her. Her ingenuity had been rewarded for as long as I could remember. Even as a child I often believed that when my mother spoke, it was a very poetic arrangement of nonsense.

"The purpose of humankind is to dance, that is the only liberation we will ever receive," she said once, and for some reason, my mind went straight to the Holocaust. Dancing must not have been liberating back then.

I still don't know why I found the news she delivered to me that Saturday morning to be so difficult to digest. It was typical for Sophie, if anything, to prioritise the wrong things. "What do you mean you're getting married? You've only known him for three months!"

Her reaction indicated how she believed me to be the irrational one in this situation. And perhaps I was. I could not be the judge of that. I had long lost the ability to dictate what was acceptable and what wasn't. I did not, however, see any faults in my belief that it was unconventional for her to find love in the reception area of the Little Huntington Hospital while I was being stabilised from an opioid overdose.

The obviously Polish Robert Piszczek was waiting for his diabetic mother to be released after being rendered unconscious by the mismanagement of her insulin. Nothing about that situation seemed to be the desirable route one takes on the journey to find love, but my mother was gullible and Robert was wealthy, so I suppose love is not so much about the circumstances as it is about the nature of people.

"Do not be like this, Cassandra." Her French accent was still present but not thick. And as she spoke, I understood that she did not care whether I approved of her decision. She had no intention of adding another layer of sweetness to her voice. Things were going to be the way she intended them to be whether I liked it or not. "You'll have the apartment all for yourself now. We'll send you money for the bills. You'll have complete privacy and complete liberty to do as you please."

It was a peculiarly tone-deaf thing to say, but I dismissed the insensitivity of her comment because Sophie had never really cared for me much. We were past the point of sentimentalism, really. You don't question a truth that is staring you right in the face. And she was right, in a way. Anyone my age would've been delighted to live on their own. I'm sure Sophie thought this only brought me closer to the technicalities of conventional adolescence.

But it was an embarrassing truth of mine that I did not want to be left unsupervised. It was my greatest fear, really, to not have someone to pull me away from the treacherous terrain that was my brain. I needed people around me. I needed a support system. A warm smile, a good morning, an occasional reminder that I was still alive and that maybe it was for a reason.

But I plastered on my most sardonic grin as I turned back to my room, saying only, "Sure, mum, do as you fucking please," because I knew she had never cared about my trials with addiction and was not about to start now.

There would be no use in telling her that I could not sleep. Could not control the way my body moved, twitched, spasmed. My life had been restricted to the nauseating sensation of being left to myself in the middle of the ocean. And it was okay. because that alone did not scare me. It was in the act of being continuously pushed back to the surface that I experienced fear.

It seemed to me like I had no depth, no roots, no core that made of me a fully functional sentient being. I could not feel, and what little I could feel I could not grasp.

I threw myself back on my bed and decided there could be many advantages to living alone. The main one being that I would no longer have to care about my mother on a regular basis anymore. Her existence was a common instigator of all sorts of unpleasant feelings. It got so bad that sometimes I wished she would die just so that I wouldn't have to worry about her.

It is a horrible thing to say, but my mind was a very distorted place at the time, and if I were to give you any of my thoughts in their adulterated version then I would be giving you a lie.

...

Lucile Reed was widely recognised for her tendency to dye her hair an unflattering shade of red. There was nothing that commanded the attention of an uninspired eye once it had made it past the fiery strands at the top of her head. Stout build, bland features, and an insincere smile that always stretched her lips.

Students openly suspected that a midlife crisis was to blame for her unapologetic desire to receive validation from teenagers with thin values.

She stood front and centre. "Go on, tell us about your summer," she repeated, her lips curving into a knowing smile.

Everyone knew I had overdosed. Word around Ridgeway was that I had tried to take my own life in an attempt to mirror my father's fate. "In honour of the anniversary of his passing," I can vividly recall hearing Marlene McGuire state earlier that morning. And although her voice had been a whisper, I don't think she really cared whether her words reached my ears or not.

This statement was outrageously false, but I knew my accident had been too much of a disruption in the lives of mediocre teenagers not to be sensationalised.

"Every single one of your classmates has already shared their thrilling accounts from this past summer. I don't see why you can't do the same. It is time you at least try to incorporate with your peers, Cassandra."

There were loads of things to talk about upon our return to Ridgeway. The murder of Lucy Mullingar's sister, Alice Mullingar, was one of them. It had occurred only a couple of weeks prior and was being a little too widely discussed amongst students despite Lucy's understandable disdain for the topic. We were also quickly notified of the arrival of a new girl in our year, which meant that a new character was to be added to the rotation of stories we knew all too well.

And, of course, "Well, I nearly died of an opioid overdose this summer."

Gasps bounced off the walls because people expect subtlety in this kind of scenario. They thrive off it. It leaves more room for speculation. When my eyes travelled over the sea of familiar faces that spread over the room I found a clear division between amusement and discomfort. James Olsen thought I was funny. Molly Laurent thought I was sick in the head. Etienne avoided the sight of me with all he had in him.

"Why are you lot being so dramatic? Have you never had a bit of fun before?" Sitting to my right, Ivy Edwards, Ridgeway's new girl, asked with distinguished mirth and a Yorkshire accent. It was only then that I took the time to truly study the face behind the voice I'd been hearing all morning.

My name is Ivy and I'm ambidextrous.

I'm Ivy Edwards and I just moved in right next door to the Rabiot Murder House. Don't stop by to say hello.

Name's Ivy and I lost my virginity to an older man in Italy who had lured me to this one place where apparently Monet used to paint but to this day I still don't really know whether that was true or not.

Her skin was evenly fair, almost as if she'd gone her entire life untouched by the sun. Her hair also edged on the lighter side of blond and it came to a clean end right above her shoulders. She was wearing red lipstick, a bold dark shade, one that called for attention and stood out over the paleness of her features.

It was her turn to share some vague account of what her summer had consisted of right after I did. The uneasiness that my admission had caused still lingered in the air, but she manoeuvred her way through it and not around it. "I was locked away in a mental hospital because I tried killing myself," she stated matter-of-factly.

She was leaning back against the back of her seat with utter nonchalance while the corners of her lips quirked into a smirk. The disinterest that had dripped from her words was almost alluring. There were whispers but she did not care for them. I felt myself becoming a keen enthusiast of her behaviour. My indiscrete gaze would return to her every other minute throughout the rest of the day, wanting to study how she reacted to every incident. I quickly learned she spoke and moved with the enchanting indifference of someone who took no notice of how her actions were being received. If she found me bizarre, she did nothing to show it.

She approached James Olsen's table during our lunch break but made no attempt to take a seat amongst the school's popular crowd. She simply delivered a message to the aforementioned boy whilst handing him a bag of some sort. A form of bickering ensued between the two but there didn't seem to be any hostility adhering to their arguments.

I could see hilarity brightening up the faces of Etienne and River Harrington, who could be found by James' side, while the rest of their peers remained visibly sceptical of Ivy.

"You are the worst human being on the face of the planet," she told James Olsen as if it was an irrevocable truth that slipped from her tongue with little effort and little doubt.

An easy smile curved James' lips, carving a sincere grin on his classically handsome face. "That is literally the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

I tried to lower my gaze and lessen its intensity to not stare at her while she made her way around the room with the confidence of someone who knew exactly where she was heading. It was almost bewildering to think that this was her first day at Ridgeway because she navigated these spaces with the assertive attitude of someone who had done this a thousand times before.

I was only just starting to pull my mind away from the thought of her when my lowered gaze caught sight of movement on the other side of the table where I sat alone on most days. It took me a couple of seconds to fully register that Ivy Edwards had come to sit with me.

"To be honest, when I first saw you I did not really peg you as an opioid type of girl," she admitted bluntly, making this her formal introduction. But I could see in the airiness of her face that there was genuine curiosity and no desire to be rude. She seemed like a beautiful arrangement of the wrong things to say.

"Leave the girl alone, Ivy!" River Harrington called out from the same table as James and Etienne. He offered me an apologetic smile after that.

"Don't pay her any mind, Cass," added James with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Etienne sat in between them, with his jaw clenched and a newfound interest in the fabric of his loosened tie.

Unbeknown to us, it was at that moment, through Ivy Edwards' curious arrival, that a bridge was finally formed. It wasn't anything blatant. It certainly wasn't steady either. But it was there. A path that could take us down many roads. A connection between his world and mine.

...

We rested side by side, tucked away in the comfort of my bed. The day had been successfully brought to a close. Our feet dangled off the edge. The space around us was a dimly lit heaven in which time and the troubles of life could not reach us. Serenading me were the sounds of my mother rummaging through her belongings and Etienne apologising for something Timmy Higgins did to me in school. He was apologising because Timmy was his friend.

"Are you okay? Did it hurt?" he asked, running his hand over my forehead preoccupied, feeling the small bump the impact had left.

I chuckled and swatted his hand away. "It's fine, Etienne. I'm not going to kill myself because a guy hit me with a ball. I've had worse things happen to me."

He slapped my forehead delicately and resumed his position next to me with a sigh, listening in on the sounds coming from next door. "I can't believe your mum's leaving."

"I can," I responded with indifference. "Kind of weird it's happening so quickly, though."

He turned his head to face me, and everything in the world was made well by the exquisitely mischievous glint that adorned his eyes. "Were you not invited to her wedding?"

We both giggled because the thought of Sophie bringing me along to this newest chapter of her life was quite frankly laughable. "Haven't received an invitation, now that I think about it."

"Bummer. Was kind of hoping I'd get to see you dressed as her maid of honour."

"So that you could make fun of me?"

"Obviously." But the playfulness of the moment abandoned him gradually. I could see how a nagging sense of discomfort took to clouding his already obscure blue eyes. "Who gives a fuck that she's moving away, anyway? I can come over to your place every day after school and we can watch movies or binge-watch shows or I don't know--do something fun," he suggested as he stood up and removed his jacket. My eyes closely followed the way his body moved and wriggled, and for a moment I wondered if that was what the girls he slept with saw shortly before the action commenced.

A teasing grin took over my lips. "Why? Are you afraid I'm gonna do something stupid again?"

He rolled his eyes and gently kicked my foot. "Dickhead."

There were good intentions behind his offer and yet guilt was eating him away. So much so that he could not bring himself to look me in the eye. He went to sit on the couch directly in front of my bed. My room was not that spacious so he couldn't really hide from my gaze.

He didn't need to, though. I was not accusing him of anything. It was his own conscience that was making him feel restless. He knew the gift of his companionship was limited and very conditional. But I enjoyed his company more than I enjoyed anyone else's, and I could bear to lose it for a couple of hours a day as long as I knew I would be getting it back.

"I can walk you to your support group from now on if you want," he said, looking at me through his heavy-lidded eyes as his head rested over the back of the dark green sofa. He kept trying to compensate for the fact he was embarrassed about being my friend. But it was okay, because if I was any good at dissecting my emotions at a more thorough scale, then I believe I had been in love with Etienne ever since I was twelve years old.

I did not have any life experiences that allowed me to better understand my affection towards him. So perhaps this was not love. Perhaps I was just very lonely and in desperate need of connection. But whatever it was, it felt good, and I could not afford to deprive myself of the luxury that was those little moments in which I was a little more myself and a little less what my mind was telling me to be.

"Ivy seems really fun," I said, changing the subject before my thoughts started to consume me a little too feverishly. "It was nice having someone to talk to in school."

His shoulders tensed but he knew I hadn't meant this as a jab at him. It was quite simply the truth. Ivy had kept me company for the majority of the day, and it was the very first time something of that nature had happened in years.

"You know she's James' cousin?" Etienne asked, which in itself served as an explanation for the playful back-and-forth between the two I had witnessed on a handful of occasions throughout the day

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah, she's from Charles' side of the family. She just moved in with their grandma. Remember Maeve? Maeve Olsen? Her. Don't know what happened to her parents."

"Did she really try to kill herself?"

I could see a slight furrow forming between his eyebrows as he looked up at the ceiling. "No? I think she did something stupid and it got her sent into a psychatric hospital. But I've never heard of her being suicidal. I think it was just Charles being extra careful."

I'd been very anxious to ask this following question, but I'd heard a lot of commotion coming from downstairs before he came over tonight and I wanted to make sure everything was okay. I wanted to make sure he was okay. "How's your mum?" I asked as I sat up, the words slipping from my lips relatively weakly.

He gave me a grateful little smile, letting me know he appreciated the gesture. Not many people could check up on him in that aspect. No one knew his mother wasn't all right in the head. "She started acting weird earlier today. But it was fine. She didn't hit me or anything. Can I stay the night, though?"

I nodded, perhaps a bit too quickly. "Sure. The sofa already stinks of you anyway."

It seemed to me, due to my proclivity to see the world as if I was not an active participant in it, that we were all a collection of sad stories. That the world moves and times flies and the universe favours no one. A sombre melody has serenaded humanity since the beginning of time, and we celebrate during those relatively scarce moments in which there is silence.

Happiness is not and has never been our natural state—it is a reward that is given to us in the form of sporadic interludes in our misfortunes. No one is favoured by all of the greater powers that make our existence a possibility. Balance is restored by an equal distribution of tragedy.

I did not feel guilty about the fact I was not really living. My being was wasting away. My existence had been brought to a halt. Everywhere I went I found myself standing, never moving, never a character in my own story, never a truly complete sentient being. Whether I was standing in my living room with the light of day progressing into shades of pink and orange and eventually a dark blue; remembering that I was alive merely out of coincidence because I would not have made it had Etienne not been asked to be there at precisely the right time. Or whether I was at school, having virtually no importance, no impact on a society that was eager to develop without me. Or whether I was sitting in bed, with my mother excitedly preparing to exit my life and Etienne snoring softly in the comfort of my sofa. With a small plastic zip-bag being aimlessly handled by my fingers, and four little pills inside.

I wanted my mother to die and I wanted to fall deeply in love with Etienne and I wanted to crush one of those little pills just to feel something.

I inhaled sharply before putting the clear bag back in my drawer, safely hidden beneath the clutter of unnecessary objects I could not bring myself to discard. Then, I hugged my legs close to my body and allowed this very odd wave of emotions to come over me. Tears escaped from my eyes with such desperation that my cries ended up muffling themselves, and whatever little noise I was making was not enough to disrupt the world around me. It never was.

And yet, I felt nothing, because there had been a severe miscommunication somewhere in my brain. As scary as this wave was, it did nothing but sway me. It never truly submerged me.

I would have preferred to drown in my sorrows than to swim in my nothingness.