Past
Cass: Age 12
Paxton: Age 14
“Jump Cass, jump!” Delaney shouts, her voice barely recognizable over the sounds of the waves crashing along the shoreline.
Wide-eyed, I shake my head from side to side, my heart racing. As I look up in the direction of where we both crawled our way down the cliffside, my breathing feels a little labored. I wipe my sweaty palms down the front of my shirt and when I glance back down at Delaney standing three feet below the ledge I’m standing on, I realize I didn’t think this through so clearly. With my back pressed firmly against the wall of dirt and rock behind me, I don’t even pay attention to the sharp point sticking into my shoulder blade. The ledge is smaller than I anticipated, the distance to the ground below farther. How many times have our parents told us to stay off these paths? They warned us about the fact that these areas can give way at a moment’s notice and now, as a lone tear drifts down my cheek, I wish I had listened.
“Seriously, Cass! It’s not that far, and you won’t be able to climb back up the way we came. You can’t stay there forever. Jumping is your only option,” Delaney insists. “I did it and look”—she holds her arms outstretched and spins in a circle—“I’m all right.”
I know I don’t have a choice, but I have a hard time imagining anything other than my twisted body lying on the hard sand beneath me.
Putting her hands on her hips, Delaney huffs out a breath. “Fine. I’m going to find Paxton. He’ll help you down,” she suggests as she spins on her heels.
I step forward without thinking, calling after her, “Laney, no!” My foot slips a little and I let out a scream, grasping for the wall behind me. It was a close call, but I remain on my feet and back up against the cliff once again. “Please don’t. He’ll know we followed him,” I plead.
She rolls her eyes. “Who cares?” Her voice echoes around me, drowning out the seagulls flying above. “It’s better than our parents finding out we came down here. If you don’t jump by the count of five then I’m going to find him.”
Delaney begins counting, cupping her hands around her mouth as she yells out as loud as she can, pausing a moment between each number. I can still barely hear her above the sounds of the ocean, but when she calls out four, I take a step forward again, closing my eyes. As five leaves her lips, I hesitate, open my eyes, and scream, although my body remains frozen on the narrow ledge.
Shaking her head, Delaney turns without another word. I want to shout out and plead with her to find another way, but I know she’s right. Paxton is my only hope of getting down without getting into trouble.
Paxton Luke is Delaney’s older brother and the boy I’ve loved since the first time I laid my eyes on him at the age of seven. Every time I’m around him, my heart flutters. Of course, he’s not thrilled about having a couple of sixth graders following him all the time. He’s not grown, or even much older than us, but as the coolest eighth grader around, he thinks he’s far more mature than we are. I don’t care that he hasn’t noticed me. My boobs are starting to come in, and as reluctant as my mom was to allow me to wear a two-piece swimsuit, I’m beginning to fill it out, which is everything a fourteen-year-old boy like Paxton Luke notices—or so I think because he has seemed to enjoy watching Cara Halloway prance around in her bikini for the last two summers.
I want him to notice me.
See me.
I’m a young woman, not just his baby sister’s best friend.
It’s the reason I agreed to Delaney’s plan of following the guys and hanging with the older kids on the beach tonight. I agreed because I’m positive he will notice me, will finally recognize that I’m not some silly little girl anymore. I wanted him to notice me, just not this way.
As soon as the thought passes through my mind, I hear Paxton’s deepening voice. “Laney, what in the hell were you and Cassandra thinking?” My attention follows the sound, and I notice them hurriedly walking toward me down the beach with a group of his friends following closely behind.
“We were thinking a bonfire sounded fun,” Delaney states defiantly.
“Dude, she looks scared,” someone says from behind Paxton and Laney. That’s the moment his eyes meet mine, and I see a flicker of tenderness flash in his gaze before he shakes it off.
He stands below me and the small ledge. Raising his arms in the air, he shouts, “Cassandra, I want you to jump to me, and I’ll catch you!”
“You can’t!” I yell back down to him.
“I can and I will! Now, dammit, just jump Cass!” he urges me.
I slowly move to the edge and stare down at him. I hesitate.
“On three,” he says. “One…two…three!”
I do it. I fall forward, eyes closed, arms out, screaming. It’s a relatively short drop and our chests thump against one another before I have time to even think about falling. Paxton tries to hold his balance, but it’s hard with the momentum of my fall and the shifting sand below his feet.
When I open my eyes, we’re face to face, my mouth inches away from his, and I lick my lips. I’m about to actually kiss Paxton Luke. My first kiss. My brain is obviously not functioning, and I see the moment he realizes exactly what I’m thinking of doing. He quickly pushes me off him and stands, causing my face to hit the sand, and tiny grains stick to my lips and face.
As I lift my head and look up at him, his eyes are wide with shock, a little angry and a lot of embarrassment filling them. Matt and Zack are laughing behind him, and all of them are staring at me.
“Dude! She was going to kiss you,” one of them says—I’m not sure which one because I’m still staring at Paxton.
“What the hell Cassandra? This,” he says, waving his hand between us. “This will never happen. You’re just a kid.”
At that moment, I decide I won’t hold back any longer.
I push myself up and shout, “I am not a kid! I…I love you!”
His face turns a dark shade of pink, Matt and Zack laugh louder, and Delaney gasps from somewhere behind me.
Paxton takes a step away from me and starts laughing, even though his face doesn’t look like he finds humor in this situation at all. “Cassandra, you’re a little girl. I could never love you. You’re too silly and childish.” He turns and starts to walk away before he shouts over his shoulder, “Go home and play with your dolls or something.”
It’s like a punch in the gut. He called me a little girl. He called me silly. Paxton said he’d never love me. I know love. I want to fall in love.
I, Cassandra Porter, love love.
The punch he just delivered with his words is so hard, it knocks the love for Paxton Luke right out of me. My eyes narrow and I know in that very moment, I don’t love Paxton after all.
I hate him.
The look on her face when I called her a silly little girl causes my stomach to turn. It hurt her. I didn’t mean to hurt her…well, actually, that isn’t the truth. I knew what it would make her feel before I said it. I may have meant to do it, but I didn’t want to hurt her. I’m not sure why I did it…okay, that’s a lie too. I know why.
It’s because I hated seeing her scared. That funny feeling in my gut took over when I saw her, a feeling I don’t want to have because Cass is twelve and my sister’s best friend, and I’m fourteen and in eighth grade. So, I said it, and I laughed in her face.
I’m such a jerk, but Matt and Zach were standing there and they heard her and laughed. I was right to think they’d give me crap over it. Plus, I have other plans. I’m getting out of this town. I’m going to make something of myself. I have big dreams. I want to be an architect and design buildings. I can’t think of anything I have wanted more since my grandfather gave me a book about the greatest architectural designs in the world. I was fascinated, and that’s when I knew. He told me I could do anything I want as long as I have focus and work hard. So, I need to focus, and everything about Cass Porter makes my focus blurry.
It’s the reason I laughed at her confession of love and said what I said to her. It’s the reason she looked at me for one brief second like she might cry, but then instead gave me a look I’ve never seen from her.
I walked away feeling like I would live to regret being cruel.