Chapter Eighteen.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

↠ Cassie

"It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment."

― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

PEOPLE reacted poorly to the news of Etienne and me being an item. It was worse than I expected. But in all fairness, I did warn him. It's not necessary, I said to him. What we have can stay between us. I didn't need the rest of the world to validate something that, to me, was as certain as the very air I breathed. But he simply smiled at his reflection in the mirror as he finished fixing up the dark navy blue tie of his uniform. Those dark grey pants and white button-up shirt did not look good on virtually anyone other than him and sometimes James, and that's because they always took their liberties with the styling.

"It is absolutely necessary, ma chérie," he responded. "Everyone must know that I'm dating the most beautiful girl in the entire fucking world."

He walked past me and playfully smacked my bum, muttering something about waiting for me in the car. He looked so untroubled, so light on his feet. This level of confidence was not uncharacteristic for him, although sometimes it could be shallow. But he knew how to wear it over everything else, over his worries and insecurities even, and that made his conventional beauty all that more appealing. I took one last look at my reflection as he exited the room and couldn't stop myself from pulling a face.

I could be pretty if I tried really hard. If I made sure my hair was neat and there were various makeup products piled over my face. But the uniform's grey skirt looked astoundingly unflattering on me and in a moment of extreme generosity I deduced that I looked average. So when I climbed inside the passenger seat of his mum's car I already had a tickling sensation on the back of my brain that whispered the precise words people would say about us. They went somewhere along the lines of: how can such a beautiful boy be with such a pitiful case of a girl? An age-old question we will maybe never find the answer to.

He held my hand all the way from the car to the hallways of Ridgeway. The scrutiny was immediate and so intense I sort of expected him to drop my hand and smile a nervous smile that could lead others to believe this had been some sort of elaborate prank. It took me a couple of minutes to muster the courage to look up at him, fearing what I would find in those beautiful features of him that could house so much yet so little.

My heart did a weird sort of thump when I realised that he was carrying himself with the nonchalance that a regular Monday called for.

If anything, he looked happier. Ridgeway had never seen this radiance on him. He had never been so lively when walking these corridors. That sullen image of him that had lived inside these walls for years had left one day to never come back. I knew he couldn't be completely oblivious to the stares and the whispers, but he carried himself as if he were, as if his senses were only capable of feeling his fingers intertwined with mine and absolutely nothing else.

A lot of people seemed to have taken personal offence to us being together. The taunting from his former friends never came. I'd been bracing myself for their blows thinking they would be the most unpleasant part of this entire endeavour but it had been in vain. They were not amused as much as they were insulted.

"You look constipated," he said to me, his lips quirking into a humorous grin as he pulled a couple of books from his locker.

I stood on the side with awfully stiff limbs. I'd been invisible and I'd been despised, but I'd never existed in other people's attention the way I was doing at that moment. "Wow. Is that why I'm getting so many funny stares?"

"Loosen up, ma chérie. It's not the end of the world." He had taken the advice I had given him on New Years a little too well and had been incandescently happy since. The days had become a blur of happy memories I could not pull away from each other. We were making the most out of borrowed time. When he closed his locker and reached for my hand again I found that there was a statement in there. I'm going to enjoy this moment right here so that it can absolutely haunt me in the future. At least I won't regret the things I did not do.

I looked up at him with a gleam of mischievous amusement bringing light to my eyes. "You're one to talk."

"My assholery has been discussed at large. Let's please move on to more important matters. Like the fact we should go to the benches during lunch."

"Isn't that the designated spot for girls to get fingered?"

"Exactly."

I think what made me uncomfortable was not so much that I was now on the receiving end of Etienne's public regards, but rather that I was unapologetically existing in a place where I had always been a secondary character. It destabilised me and the people around me because the roles had been assigned a long time ago and I was not supposed to break the status quo at this point in the story.

When Molly Laurent sat in front of me I knew that her discontent stemmed from the fact I had intervened with something that was meant to be linear, unchanging. She was not delusional enough to think that Etienne was hers to claim, but he was supposed to be and it never came to that, and that bothered her.

We were the only two people in the classroom. I'd been the first to arrive, hoping to use these quiet minutes of solitude to finish a drawing I had started the week prior. I was only given approximately three of the ten promised minutes. I did not look up when she walked in and took the seat in front of me.

"What have you done?" She asked as if the question was redundant. As if I was bound to have an answer at the tip of my tongue. The hostility in her voice was subtle, but there was something about her body language that betrayed the cool and composed facade she wanted to keep up. There was an intensity hidden somewhere beneath her skin.

I did not lift the pencil from the sketchbook. My eyes never abandoned my lines. "Hm?"

"To him. What have you done to him? I have two theories. One, the rumours about you being into witchcraft are true and you've done something to get him to fall for you. Or two, you learnt a thing or two from your mother and you're a spectacular lay."

The witchcraft rumours had come from the fact that every freak at Ridgeway had to be tied to something far more ominous to entertain those who were higher up in the social hierarchy. The kids who played fantasy board games were actually in a satanic cult and I was actually a witch. "Flattered by both options, really."

"It will pass, you know? If you did witchcraft or if he's pussy-whipped, he'll get over it. Etienne doesn't like being tied down."

"You don't say," I muttered.

"And once he gets bored of you, which he will inevitably do because you're irreparably boring, he'll come back to me."

"To you?"

"Yes. He always does. Hell, maybe I don't even need to wait that long. Maybe if I go and talk to him right now I can get him to fuck me in the broom closet the way he always used to. You don't have to find out, of course."

I looked up then, with curiosity rather than any degree of outrage. "That's a little embarrassing for you. I always imagined you wanted better than some guy who's already taken and only wants to fuck you in school closets but won't even ask you out on one measly date."

Her vexation was only made visible by the fire in her eyes and the somewhat twisted ways of her crooked smile. "You're a stupid fucking whore, just like your mother. Hopefully you'll overdose again sometime soon and actually die this time. We won't have to worry about you, then."

"You worry about me? How nice of you."

Other people were starting to come in, and this bizarre interaction was brought to a close by Ivy, who arrived with utter indifference and stared Molly down with disinterest. "Warning. I'm holding a hot beverage and experiencing a striking urge to pour it on someone, preferably a slag who's in my seat."

That's how the weeks trailed on. We became a common sight for most people, but there were a couple of characters whose outrage did not seem to simmer. We ended up becoming somewhat of a driving point in their stories. Peter was drinking more than ever. Molly dyed her naturally dirty blond hair a red shade and started going out with a man ten years her senior. Mary McGregor cried senselessly and continuously. She pulled Etienne aside in the corridors to cry. She followed him home to cry. She called him in the middle of the night to cry.

Little did she know that her tears meant nothing to him. It was harsh but it was the truth. Etienne did not pity her in the slightest. His heart was never warmed by her theatrical displays of anguish or by the slobbering mess she had become. You could not find sympathy in his eyes even if hundreds of people gathered for a search party. I felt him become irritated even. It was Mary's luck that he would be deep inside of me every time she called at nighttime.

The phone would ring. And it would ring again. And again. It would become background noise, barely audible over our moaning and shameless screaming. But he ended up growing tired of Mary McGregor's pity party, and with his hips still coming down on mine and my moans still filling every inch of the room, he answered. "I'm having sex with my girlfriend right now. Do you mind?"

I could hear her cries intensifying on the other side of the phone, but her story was not mine to tell.

...

Emma was the name of the young lady who had recently started working as a maid at a lavish property somewhere in the heart of Chelsea in London. The exact address I had not been made aware of. She was the one in charge of telling me that Sophie was either not around or unable to come to the phone for a reason that was never disclosed. She delivered that tired line that afternoon after having recited it that same morning. I'm afraid your mother is tending to one very important matter right now and cannot be reached.

"Oh, okay. Can you tell her I called?"

I felt silly even asking.

"Sure. I'll let her know."

I understood that I'd severely misinterpreted my relationship with Sophie on the ride home from the hospital after I'd overdosed. She was not as passive and non-confrontational as I'd always believed her to be. She quite simply did not like me and feared that the unfiltered truth would present itself if we were to start an argument.

I had not yet taken in the severity of my actions at the time, nor believed that my unintentional brush with death would instigate a series of unpleasant events. I'd always known that overdosing was in my realm of possibility, and so when it finally happened I did not believe it would be of anyone's surprise. I did not die, so why dwell on the possibilities of what could have been? I was alive. I could not read the tone inside the car. I could not give any depth to my mother's emotions because I could barely find any within myself.

"Can we stop at Lizzie's for some ice cream?" I asked her ten minutes into our drive. The first words we'd exchanged since the accident. I received my response in the form of a car that kept on driving past the small yellow-coloured building on the right side of the road. When I turned I came across the stony expression on Sophie's face, which alone had been enough to remind me that life had never been much of a castle in the sky. That is why I had never treasured it in the first place. "I told you I was not well. I told you I needed help. How many times did I tell you? Like three fucking times! I told you three fucking times that everything was going to shit and I needed help! I told you I wanted to see a therapist or—"

Sophie shook her head and brought her fingertips to her temple. "I don't want to hear it, Cassie. I really do not want to hear it."

"You never do! You never fucking do! That's why shit like this happens!"

"This is why shit like this happens? Now I'm to blame for this? How am I to blame? You're such an angry, such a spiteful young girl. Always have been. You're angry at the world. Angry because your father killed himself. And now you're taking it out on me as if I was to blame. It's not my fault that he did not want to be with us anymore. It's no one's fault. So what do you want me to do now?"

Although her comment might have been correct when following the principles of the circumstances without context, there was not a doubt in my mind that my mother had driven my father into committing suicide. And so, in my defence, my anger was not misplaced.

"I want you to go to hell!"

A couple of seconds hurried by after Emma hung up the phone. Seconds that appeared to an unsuspecting eye as stale and empty. Then I slammed the landline phone against the table once. Then again. Then again. Until tiny black pieces of plastic broke loose and scattered to different sections of the table and my hands ached from the impact. Etienne watched from the bedroom with his shoulder pressed against the doorway.

"Sorry," I muttered. "That was a bit dramatic of me."

He smiled an easy smile that took up space in his face ever so effortlessly. "Not at all," he said.

It was almost astounding how he had me wrapped around his finger. He could've asked anything of me. Anything. And I would've conceded in the blink of an eye, without thinking it once, as if my sole purpose in life was to please him. My lips quirked in a way that tried to mirror his. My body melted at the thought of contact with his skin. I had moulded myself to fit him perfectly. And even if it wasn't a healthy thing to do, because it certainly wasn't, I'd had worse and deadlier vices. This was the thin line between heaven and hell that felt like paradise to someone who knew only torment. This was an addiction worth having.

He raised his hand and his mother's car keys jingled from his fingers. "Come on. We're driving tonight."

He didn't need to tell me twice. I didn't need to ask for a destination. I was already on my way out the door by the time he'd finished his sentence. "You're driving."

"No. We are driving."

A vehicle had never felt like such a confined space even though it had been just that for the entirety of its existence. I was aware of every tiny detail that had always been there but I'd been too blind to see. The steering wheel felt strange beneath my fingers. The empty Ridgeway parking lot looked as if it had been taken from a different dimension. Etienne's mum's car felt divinely foreign as if it had submerged us in a little world of our own making.

"You know the drill. I explained it to you the other day. Brakes, accelerator. That's all you need right now. Put on your seatbelt, check your mirrors, all that stuff," he said to me as he made himself comfortable in the passenger seat.

We weren't striving for a lesson well learnt. This was a moment that needed to be lived and remembered, with the night sky extending infinitely over us and the scattered but thick clouds that promised a storm and a beautiful view. This brief period was drenched in a melancholy that neither of us could understand. We just knew that this was the burning car we would be getting out of at some point, and so we rooted ourselves in this moment so that it would not pass us by. We wanted it to leave a mark.

A ghost of a smile crossed over his face but failed to alter the beautiful blue of his eyes. "Your dad used to let us drive his car around the dirt roads by Margaret's house, remember?"

I stepped on the accelerator, hit the brakes, and did it all over again while my mind began to wander down different roads. Specifically the dirt road by Margaret's house. "I remember. We were what? Nine?"

"He definitely trusted us a little too much. Can you not hit the brakes like that? Be more gentle."

"I'm being gentle."

"My head literally just hit the dashboard."

"You'll live."

The night sky lit up with lightning and groaned with thunder. The car's radio kept losing the signal. It has been reported that a young woman—and then static. Etienne turned it off. "Alright, stop the car. It'll start to rain soon and you're enough of a menace at the wheel as it is." But he made no effort to step out of the passenger seat once I'd killed the engine.

There was something about beautiful nights and thoughtful trances that went along so well. I could tell that there was a particular string of thoughts that kept pulling him in. He turned his head to look at me with a shy little grin playing on his lips. He looked boundlessly beautiful and for a moment I mourned how I would never be able to immortalise his beauty and have it last me a lifetime. No photograph or portrait made him justice.

"Can I tell you a secret?" His words were soft, they travelled gently through the air. "I'm completely in love with you and my biggest regret is not telling you sooner."

He reached out a hand to caress my cheek and I melted and melted and melted. I wanted to sink into him. To cease to exist and live only through him.

"I nearly did, you know? I nearly told you before. When I was like thirteen I fantasised about stopping by that bakery right there, getting you some pastries, cutting some flowers on the way home, and showing up at your doorstep like a fucking idiot who couldn't take it anymore. And I've always wondered whether that's what I should have done. Maybe you would've been my girlfriend by the time you made it to Ridgeway. Maybe we would've been together all along. Who knows? Maybe you would've never experimented with drugs in the first place. Maybe that was the right timing, the way things were supposed to go, but I fucked up."

"You're too hard on yourself," I said as I snaked an arm around his neck and brought his lips to mine for a fleeting kiss. "Stop going back and thinking about what you should've done differently. There's no point in doing that. Is right now not good enough?"

He went for a deeper kiss the second time around. His fingers twisted into my hair. We both knew the answer to my question. Right now was perfect, but it could've been better. And that ignited a distressed passion that had us going deeper and deeper until his tongue was in my mouth and his hand was underneath my shirt and it felt as if the only sensible thing to do was for me to climb into the passenger seat and straddle him because the distance between us had suddenly become the most arduous challenge we'd ever come across.

It was an unceremonious business, the pulling down of pants and the frantic kisses and the uncomfortable limbs. But I saw grace where there was vulgarity, I saw love in lust, poetry in the breathless words that escaped from his lips in the company of those low moans.

"It never stops, the wanting you. It never goes away. I want to be with you always."