I woke up happy.
No reason in particular. Sun hit the blinds different, or the Hellcat was still doing laps in my head, or my brain just decided to give me one for free. Either way I was up before my alarm, ate, and out the door before anyone else in the house was moving.
I needed a Hellcat. My own. I was going to figure out how.
* * *
Saw Cassie in the hallway before first period.
She looked better than she had earlier in the week. Still a little behind her eyes, the way people look when something heavy just happened and they're deciding whether to carry it or put it down. But she was dressed, hair done, moving through the hall like she remembered how.
I fell in step next to her.
"Hey, sexy."
She looked over and smiled. Real one. "Hey, Jordan."
"Let's hang Saturday."
She slowed a little. That hesitation where someone's weighing something you can't see.
"I'll let you know," she said.
"That works."
I let her go. Didn't push it.
* * *
Tried to keep an eye on Maddy the rest of the day too.
Emphasis on tried. Maddy was in a mode I couldn't read. Not sad, not performing, not anything I had a name for. Just present in a deliberate way, like she was conserving energy. Every time I thought I had a read on her she shifted. I let it go. Some people you watch from a distance and that's the whole relationship.
* * *
Came home and Rue was in bed. Mom said she had the flu.
I didn't say anything to that.
Gia came into my room around eight, sat on the floor with her back against my bed, and we talked about nothing for an hour. School drama, dumb videos, some girl in her class with a grudge from a sleepover two months back. I didn't have to track it hard. I just had to be there. That was a Gia thing. Sometimes she just needed a room that wasn't tense.
* * *
Few days later Cassie texted.
Cassie: ok im down. what were u thinking
Me: whatever it takes
Three dots. Then:
Cassie: lol ok. pick me up at 7
* * *
She came out in a cropped top, tight pants, sneakers. Hair down. She looked good and she knew it and she wasn't doing anything special about it, which made it better.
"You're sexy asf," I told her when she got in.
She laughed and looked out the window. "Shut up."
We hit the arcade first. She was competitive in a way I didn't expect. Got genuinely upset when she lost at air hockey, demanded two rematches, won the second one and didn't let me forget it. We ate after, a spot downtown, nothing fancy, just good. Then I took her to the mall and told her to pick something.
She looked at me. "You don't have to do that."
"I know."
I was tricking, no question. But I was young and I had money and watching her light up in a store was more interesting than whatever else I would've spent it on. She smiled the whole time. Not the performed smile she used at school. Something smaller and more real.
* * *
We were eating in the food court when she brought it up.
Just dropped it in between bites. Casual, like she'd been carrying it for a while and finally found somewhere to set it down.
"I had a pregnancy scare."
I looked at her. "That's insane."
"Yeah."
"McKay?"
"Yeah." She poked at her food. "He freaked out. Like, understandably, but also."
"How bad?"
"Bad enough." She shrugged. "He kept saying he wasn't ready. Like I was asking him to sign something."
"You okay?"
She considered that for a second. "I think so. I just wanted to dream about it for a minute, you know? I wasn't even saying I wanted to keep it. I just wanted a minute."
I nodded. Didn't say anything else. Let her talk.
She was actually smart. Like, moved-through-the-world smart, the kind that doesn't need a classroom to work. She noticed things. Read people well. It was sad in a specific way, how nobody had ever really pushed her to do anything with it except be pretty and available. But that wasn't my problem to solve. It wasn't my job.
* * *
We were parked outside her place when she kissed me.
No lead-up. Just turned and kissed me, slow, one hand on the side of my face. I kissed her back. She tasted like the Cherry coke she'd had at dinner and she was warm.
Her hand moved down. Found me through my jeans and held.
I was already getting hard. She felt it and kept her hand there and looked at me, not asking permission exactly, just checking.
I pulled her onto my lap.
She laughed a little, the car being what it was. Low bucket seat, center console in the way, not exactly built for this.
"You know this is a small car," I said, between her mouth and mine.
She didn't answer that. Just reached down, worked my zipper, and pulled her pants to the side, and then she shifted her hips and found the angle and sank down slow and both of us went quiet.
"Fuck," I said.
Her eyes closed. She had one hand braced on the headrest behind me and she just moved, unhurried, doing exactly what she wanted. Not performing. Not thinking about me, honestly, which was fine. She was somewhere else and I was just there, hands on her hips, engine ticking as it cooled down outside.
She came with her forehead pressed against mine, quiet, just a sharp breath and then her whole body going still for a second.
Then she sat back. Fixed her pants. Pushed her hair out of her face.
Looked at me like nothing had happened and said, "Thanks for tonight."
"Anytime."
She got out of the car.
I watched her go inside and then sat there for a minute in the dark.
* * *
I got home late.
First thing I saw was the bowl of cereal still sitting outside Rue's door. Same one I'd put there that morning. Untouched.
I picked it up and took it to the kitchen and stood at the sink.
Then I heard it.
From the hallway. Soft at first, then not. Rue, on the floor of her room, crying. Not the kind you do when something specific happened. The other kind. The kind that comes from somewhere underneath everything, the kind that's been waiting.
I set the bowl down.
I went and sat on the floor in the hallway with my back against her door and didn't say anything. Didn't go in. Just put myself there so she'd know she wasn't alone on the other side of it.
She cried for a while.
I stayed until it stopped.
END OF CHAPTER FOURTEEN