Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Maybe it’s as simple as being able to see that she was exactly what I wanted. Her capacity for love and warmth, even forgiveness and understanding. She feels more than I do for most people in this world, but I enjoy being near her warmth even if I don’t feel it myself. Cassie brings the coziness of an inferno to someone whose inner world has always felt much cooler.
It’s probably no coincidence that she’s the only person capable of throwing me off my game. She’s the only one who has ever made me feel so much.
I don’t know if it’s because of who she is as a person. Because she feels so much so deeply, and we’re so connected that her sensitivity somehow rubs off on me.
My darkness touches her, too. Like a vampire obsessed with turning an unwilling partner, I injected it straight into her veins last summer. She wasn’t meant for darkness, so she struggled with it at first. She drowned in it without me, transforming alone into something she didn’t want to be. Now that I’m with her, helping her dispel what she doesn’t need and harness what serves her, I think we’ve twisted the poison and the scar tissue into something beautiful. Something that no longer dulls her light, something she can shine through.
Cassie thinks I’m romantic, but the truth is, I’m only that way for her. Being alone doesn’t bother me. I’ve never dated just to date. I only tie myself to someone I want to be tied to, and I’ve known I wanted to be tied to her since I was old enough to understand attraction.
I’m not sensitive to much else in this world, but since the first time Cassie sat down next to me in seventh grade art class and I caught a whiff of her peach-flavored lip gloss, I’ve felt her.
Cassie is my person, and she’s the only one I want or need. I loved my brother, but felt no hesitation in burying him to save her. I love my parents, but even after a lifetime of being taught it was the ultimate sin, I was willing to betray them to give her the life she wanted.
And I would do it all again—for her.
I don’t regret anything I’ve done to make Cassie mine, though I do wish I could have spared her the pain of going through it alone.
I’ll never let her face anything alone again.
I was programmed for family loyalty, but what my father never anticipated was that I would consider someone else my family.
They were the family I was born into, but I had no say in that. I want a family I get to build myself—and she’s the only person I want to create it with.
Most people I can live with or without, but Cassie is irreplaceable to me.
So I’ll do what I have to do to ensure I don’t lose her, even if that means rewriting this chapter of our history. Even if it means I never get to tell her the truth about this one thing.
“Fix your top,” I tell Nina as she squeezes water out of her hair back into the lake. “I’m going to tell you all the details you need to include when you talk to Cassie, so make sure you’re paying close attention.” I say it with enough menace to draw her gaze—now wary—back to mine. “It’s very important that you get this right.”
CHAPTER 42
CASSIE
Since I don’t believe in repeatedly making the same mistake, I spend the next two days camped out at Shaley’s house.
On the second day, we engage in our own separate creative pursuits, but together in her living room and kitchen area.
It’s a stormy day, and Sprinkles only likes thunder slightly more than he enjoys fireworks, so he spends a lot of time pacing, whining, and panting until Shaley scoops him up and snuggles with him on the couch. She gives him calming pets while she reads a Little Red Riding Hood retelling, and sitting at her kitchen island on that rainy, dreary day, I decide for the first time in a very long time to do some journaling.
So much has happened, and since I used the first page of my new journal to brainstorm personal essay ideas, I already had a jumping-off point.
I have to work later, but in the meantime, it’s nice to find a safe haven that’s a little less greasy. It’s nice to be with Shaley, too. I haven’t asked her if she’s in the market for a roommate yet, but I’m definitely going to when I work up the nerve. I don’t want to make her feel awkward if it’s a no, but I’m hoping she’ll say yes.
I haven’t talked to Shaley about what happened with Tor. Mostly because I don’t think I ever can. I would never want to put her in danger, and I know what happened to Russell when he inadvertently stepped into Tor’s business. I know Tor was looking for a solution to our problem and likely would have come across that on his own anyway, but I don’t like knowing I played a hand in it. I have to believe he only killed Russell because it was the practical thing to do, but I’m still not going to give him any excuse to come after Shaley.