Chapter Nine.

CHAPTER NINE

↠ Cassie

"It had flaws, but what does that matter when it comes to matters of the heart? We love what we love. Reason does not enter into it. In many ways, unwise love is the truest love. Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect."

― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

LOUIS Pickford had offered absolutely nothing to me in the eleven years we’d known each other. No animosity and no friendship. But he had messaged Etienne to inform him of a party taking place at his home, and in the absence of a more promising offer to busy ourselves with, the five of us jumped in James’ car and headed to a gated community I had never heard of before. I sat in between Ivy and James while Etienne occupied the passenger seat and River took to driving.

Louis’ three-story home probably took as much ground space as the brick building in which Etienne and I lived. I worried that we were not going to be allowed in because none of us looked like we belonged. We were a graceless group of teenagers that lacked decorum, but I soon found out that so did everyone else at that party. But then I worried about whether it was safe to make myself a drink in the crowded kitchen that wrapped around me with its high ceilings and its palatial decor. And then I worried about how stiff my arms were as I struggled to find a use for my hands.

And worried and worried and worried and worried.

The place was far more crowded but considerably less hectic than I’d expected. I recognised a couple of faces from the corridors of Ridgeway, and although some were stunned to find me there, they were all quick to move on to matters they deemed far more important than me. The fact that the world did not revolve around me was groundbreaking news to my anxiety.

We ended up sitting on one staircase. In my hand, there was a red cup that contained an intricately odd mixture that I had quickly put together in an attempt to make it seem like I knew what I was doing. I could taste vodka upfront, followed by a hint of apple juice, and then an aftertaste of an oddly acidic cranberry. It looked like vomit.

River was sitting one step above me, his presence so gently felt that it soothed at the very least half of my concerns. The world felt a little less intimidating when River was around. He was not an imposing person and did not bring with him the sensation that you would drown in his company. On the contrary, River reminded me of the better things in life. Kind eyes, a soul-touching ballad, a squeeze in your hand when you most need it. Above all else, he reminded me of autumn. Of yellowing leaves and steaming beverages and a book that brings comfort. That was River.

“I’m happy you decided to join us tonight,” he’d said earlier that evening with a sincere smile curving the corners of his rosy lips.

James and Ivy were bickering by my side, their interactions reminding me of what I’d always imagined having siblings would be like. “I would throw you off a bridge if I could,” I could hear Ivy telling him.

“What’s stopping you?”

“The murder charges.”

James had a fairly similar disposition to River’s, only he was a bit more light-headed and self-indulging than his friend. He was a good-natured boy, there was no denying it. But his personality was more intense, more vivid and wild and at times unhinged in all the right ways. He was a fast car, the echoes of thrilled howls, a fit of laughter that was almost painful to live through. He was an exquisite form of mischief. He was handsome, too. Brown curls, vibrant green eyes, and an athletic build similar to Etienne’s. My mother had wanted me to date him early in my teenage years but that had been wishful thinking on her behalf.

Etienne’s entire body remained tense, from his shoulders up to his jaw. To an unsuspecting eye, he was simply in one of those foul moods everyone had already familiarised themselves with. Etienne was never known to be a ray of sunshine even in his better days. But it was clear as day to me how he was still bothered by the fact our worlds had collided outside of the guidelines we’d learnt to follow.

This was only made worse by Peter’s arrival, which had been celebrated by absolutely no one. He patted Etienne on the back and it left a bitter taste in my mouth that my acidic drink could not wash away.

Etienne had been ashamed of having any relation to me for the longest time but had no problem parading Peter Perelman as one of his dearest friends for years. It pained me to admit it, but it was small actions such as this one that revealed a dark side to him that I never liked to admire. I didn’t like to even acknowledge it was there. To me, he was free of fault most of the time.

But there he stood, with Peter Perelman by his side while his repentant gaze still avidly avoided mine. And something in my chest twisted because I wanted to believe we were both better than this. But willingly being in the company of someone as vile as Peter said a lot of what Etienne could be like as a person. And only the strong flavour of the vodka could bring balance to my unsettled mind.

Just as I’d expected, Peter was mightily amused to find me there. I’d tried to shrink into myself hoping I’d go unnoticed, but not only had my efforts been in vain, but they’d also been silly. His eyes travelled down to me after having greeted River, and then he momentarily froze.

I knew him to be a spiteful individual who found amusement in the wrong things. He found humour in vile bigotry and the torturing of animals and in individuals who were very clearly in despair. And I knew he was going to attack. The silence that preceded his words came as an opportunity for me to brace myself.

“Keep her away from the drugs, will ya? No one’s gonna be stopping the party to rush her to a hospital,” he said with a cynical laugh spluttering from his thin lips. The smile that twisted his mouth was so repulsively wicked that for a moment I did become nauseous.

But his words did not hurt. I was clean. It did not hurt. If anything, I truly pitied Peter and whatever it was that had led him to be such a rancid individual, maybe even past the possibility of redemption at only seventeen. Had he been assaulted? Abused? Neglected? Perhaps he had a riveting story that had been sewn together by moments of tragedy, but I did not care for the details of his afflictions as he clearly did not care for mine.

I had not given him what he’d wanted. My expression had contorted to one of disgust, and the intended hurt that he had hoped to inflict had missed its target quite severely. He was not happy about this. To be unmoved by his taunting was to be defiant of his tactics. And no one else had laughed, which had made him feel humiliated.

He inhaled sharply through his nose as he fidgeted in place, and the mechanics of his body were actually scary to witness. “Heard your prostitute mother went on to marry some lowlife. Who did you say he was, Etienne? Some dope pusher? Were you getting your drugs from him, Cass? Bet it must be nice to not have her clients barging into your home now, right? Like the guy who broke in to try to rape her. Remember him?”

“For fuck’s sake, man,” Etienne groaned, turning away as if he could not stand the sight of Peter for a second longer. I could tell he was angrier than he was leading on. It was written in the flow of his body, in the dimensions of his face. Not outright. Never outright, no, always safely concealed.

“You’re sick in the fucking head,” River uttered as his features displayed a level of outrage I’d never witnessed in him.

“Piss off, yeah?” James said, waving his hand as if motioning him away.

I felt Peter was rather proud of the reactions he’d received. When he did go away he did not seem defeated to me. If anything, he appeared quite accustomed to getting this type of treatment from the boys.

I shrank into myself even more. I could feel the back of my eyes burning with hot tears. Embarrassed ones because of course this had happened to me on my only social outing. But I refused to let the dampness behind my eyes reach the surface. Instead, I kept my hard gaze on the ground and buried my hands beneath my thighs to hide their shaking. It had been a mistake to come to this party, and I got what I deserved for wanting to test my limits.

“Murder charges don’t sound so bad now,” Ivy muttered under her breath.

James nudged my shoulder. “What are you drinking?” he asked in a beautifully nonchalant way, partly as an attempt to push away Peter’s words from our minds, and partly because he simply could not be bothered to dwell on the incident for long. He was used to not giving Peter too much power.

I wordlessly handed him my cup and he took a swig from it without hesitation, certainly employing too much trust in me.

“Tastes like shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Wait here. I’m going to go make you something nice.”

“I have a feeling something nice consists of at least seventy per cent alcohol,” River commented jokingly. His features then softened into an apologetic expression that fit strikingly well on his face. “Sorry about Peter. He wasn’t supposed to be here. Apparently, Timmy’s party died down pretty quickly so they all came here.”

I scratched my arm some more. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine and if you lot don’t grow some balls and beat some sense into him then I will,” Ivy said harshly, pointing at both River and Etienne using the same hand she was holding her drink in.

Etienne leaned against the staircase railing with a disarming smirk lighting up his beautifully sculpted face. “So you’re gonna fight him?” he asked with a quirked eyebrow that perfectly exhibited his amusement.

“No,” Ivy muttered before taking a long sip from her drink. “I’m gonna smash a bottle in the back of his fucking head.”

River nodded. “Got it. We’ll handle it.”

“So.” Etienne cleared his throat and wiped the palms of his hands down his jeans. He was trying to feel more at ease and was somewhat succeeding, but there was still something uncharacteristically stiff about him. “How are you liking the party?” he asked me with a nervous little grin, looking anxious about having possibly chosen the wrong words.

That was what Etienne did—he drowned in shallow waters, over-analysed that of feeble meaning.

I’ll have the world know now that having Etienne speak to me in public for the very first time gave my brain the same sensation that several lines of cocaine did. It felt like the ground opened beneath my feet, only I did not plummet to my death but floated. I could feel my face lighting up with unrestrained hope that ran wild. My heart was beating with a purpose for once in my dismal life, and it made everything feel a little more beautiful, a little more felt.

“It’s not all that bad,” I responded in an airy voice.

But it was monumental, in a way, for the two of us. Twelve words, a simple back and forth, an unprecedented ability to coexist unapologetically in the same space. A bridge formed itself when he looked at me and did not look away.

…

Ivy had set out with the intention of vandalising the property, and River went after her to stop her from doing so. Etienne and James had gone on to speak to a group of girls from our year. The pretty and popular ones. The likes of Molly Laurent and Rachel Finnegan and Kristen Johnson, among a couple of others. Petite and pretty and pale. The ones who would make fun of the dark circles under my eyes and would purposefully mispronounce my surname and call me any variation of freak they could think of.

I hated seeing him there. I hated watching him socialise with them. Seeing it at school was one thing, but knowing that he enjoyed their company outside of the confinement of Ridgeway stung a lot more.

I had a new drink in my hand that tasted of alcohol and bad decisions. It tasted fine. It could do with something a little sweeter. Although maybe I was to blame for the bitterness that plagued my senses. Was this allowed? Were the people at the support group going to be upset with me for taking up space in a place that stood for the opposite of what I was? That stood for goodness, for the promise of stability, for the hope of a better tomorrow?

I had been drinking too much. This was not my scene. I shouldn’t have been there. The walls came and went even though I could not feel myself moving. And for a moment nothing was how it was supposed to be, or where it was supposed to be. I, for instance, was not supposed to be alone in a room with Peter. But I was alone in a room, in the kitchen of all places, with Peter.

He entered the room with a sadistic laugh to fill the air, and although he was the smallest in size when compared to Etienne, River, and James, he still had several inches over me. It wasn’t his physical frame that intimidated me, though, but his personality. He was unhinged, like James, but in all the wrong ways.

Peter had a drinking problem but nobody ever called it that. He was just a young man who enjoyed having a drink. A boy being a boy.

I just stood there, desperately trying to look for the easiest way out. My shoulders were tense and I was awkwardly sipping from my cup to feign indifference. He was aggressively pouring himself a drink but would look up at me on occasion and would nod to himself as if to confirm that he indeed detested me as much as he suspected. He grabbed a handful of crisps and shoved some of them in his mouth, and then proceeded to walk menacingly towards me whilst staring me down.

I one hundred per cent thought Peter was capable of committing murder or some other atrocious act, and so my inebriated brain knew to be careful with my actions. More guys walked in for drinks and snacks and snickered when they saw the predicament I was in.

A drunken Timmy Higgins stuffed his face with crisps and lazily stated, “Leave her alone, Perelman. You’re obsessed with the fucking girl.”

“Obsessed?” Peter’s attention turned to Timmy as he spat out that word with disgust. An angry humourless chuckle escaped his lips right as he turned back towards me and placed his right hand around my neck. With a subtle but growing emptiness in his eyes, he began to squeeze tighter.

“Leave her alone, Peter.”

Etienne’s voice was firm. Unwavering. It sent waves of relief washing over my body as if I’d been submerged by a merciful ocean. There was an obvious physical and power advantage here. Still, Peter was not as quick to let go as I’d imagined he would be. Instead, he dragged his hand upwards and roughly pressed my face, forcing a small cry out of me.

“Or else what?”

“Or else I’m gonna punch your fucking face in.” His voice was effortlessly smooth and devoid of any strong emotion. He was leaning against the door frame, his stance a cool and collected one. But everyone knew that Etienne could put up a good fight and that his hobby at one point had been to get into fistfights with the boys at our school. His threat was not empty and Peter knew that. “I’m not going to ask twice, Pete.”

It was with a lot of sorrow that Peter finally released me, making sure to give my face one last tight squeeze that I was sure would leave some deeply unflattering bruising. Etienne tilted his head to the side and offered him what I believed to be his best sardonic smile yet. “Good boy.”

Peter stared Etienne down with a defiant glance that expressed just how much he abhorred having to comply, and then he spat at my feet in what he believed would be the final word.

He was, of course, not counting on Etienne to take this as a sign of disrespect, and was left completely dumbfounded when he was at the receiving end of a cautionary punch.

I don’t think Etienne wanted it to turn into a fight. This was quite simply a short but effectively delivered message: leave her alone. The other boys whistled. The look of betrayal on Peter’s face was one I could easily see myself hanging up on a wall and admiring for the rest of my days.

How silly we all were. How easily moved.

…

We were sitting on my living room floor, in the same position we’d been in only a couple of days earlier. The space around us was brought to light by soft yellow hues. Now it was I who wanted to pull away. I didn’t want him to take notice of the dried tears that had already run their pitiful course down my cheeks even though he’d definitely seen them already.

I was desperately embarrassed. The only time I’d dared to go out I had ended up getting publicly humiliated and he’d been around to witness it. I felt pathetic. I felt undeserving of his attention. I felt worlds away from Molly Laurent and Rachel Finnegan and Kristen Johnson.

“It hurts,” I said, my voice breaking, my eyes on the carpet.

His eyes studied my face with an intensity that suffocated me. “Where?”

“My cheeks. My jaw.”

His thumb gently caressed the sore spot on my right cheek before he brought his face closer to mine and planted his lips over the bruises that Peter had left. “I’m sorry I didn’t do more. I’m sorry I never do.”

“You didn’t have to punch him.”

“He was hurting you, Cass.”

“But now people are going to tease you for standing up for me.”

He knew I was right. People at school didn’t have a sense of morality. They only cared about being consistently cruel to me, even if it was unfair. His act of kindness was going to be frowned upon because it was considered acceptable for people to harass me. He shouldn’t have intervened if he wanted to maintain his social status and he knew that.

He closed his eyes. Pressed his forehead against mine. “You deserve better than this,” he muttered in a husky voice that came coated with remorse. I don’t think I’d ever witnessed him loathe himself this freely. “Just know that nothing they say is true. And that I love you even if I’m not good at showing it.”

I was not going to let him slip away this time. Not again. I rearranged my sitting position so that I was now on my knees, and placed both hands on the back of his neck to pull him in a little bit closer. His shoulders tensed. He was freezing again, getting caught up in the technicalities of right and wrong, unaware that the true beauty of love is that it functions without guidelines, that it is whatever it wishes to be. Love is reckless, inconsiderate, and selfish in its pursuit of all it believes in.

It believed in us, Etienne. How could it not?

“I’m scared of doing this, Cass,” he confessed, sounding sincerely fearful. His hands wrapped around my arms. He was not pulling away anymore. “I’m scared of screwing up.”

“What do you mean?”

“It feels like you’re the only stable thing I’ve ever had in my life. I can’t lose you.”

I leaned forward, detesting the distance between us with a passion that felt foreign to my soul. “You’re not going to lose me.”

“What if this doesn’t work?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper that came laced with concern.

“For the love of God,” I whispered with desperation, “just fucking kiss me.”

He closed his eyes. Squeezed them shut as if wanting to make any and every passing thought disappear.

And then he kissed me. With everything he had in him. With the desperation of a thousand desolate men. His lips pressed over mine with a yearning that could nearly rival my own—nearly, but not quite. His mouth was hungry and delirious, his tongue warm and tentative. He left little room for thought, and the one thought that managed to sneak its way in was that I would absolutely die for him if he asked me to. His hand slid underneath my sweatshirt and pulled me in closer. My body was set aflame.

And then it all started to make sense. Why our paths had been so intertwined in a world that moved solely out of coincidence.