5
In the attic, she ignored the old four-poster bed with its handmade plaid quilt, and crouched next to the boxes that Will had hauled out of storage for her. For days, she’d been delaying this moment. All of her former possessions were in these boxes—most of her clothes, her cross-country trophies, her old posters and drawings and, most importantly, her journals. She’d always kept journals, and she’d always locked them away from her nosy brothers. When she’d left with Mom, Will had packed them all into a lockbox in a storage unit, along with everything else they’d left behind.
It was the kind of thoughtful thing Will would do. He knew how much her privacy meant to her, and how painful it would be if someone unauthorized read her journals.
Taking a deep breath, she dug out the lockbox of journals and inserted the key. Running into Deirdre at Barstow’s had gotten her thinking. Maybe it would be better to re-read her own account of what had happened back then. Deirdre didn’t seem to think there was any big reason for her to carry a grudge. Maybe her imagination had exaggerated the situation over the years.
Her heart skipped a few beats as the stack of old notebooks came into view. She’d chosen a different style each time, deliberately, to represent her mood at that point in time. Sunshine yellow when she’d first gotten into cross-country running. Red when she’d developed her first crush. A Hello Kitty cover when she’d adopted a cat. Deep purple when she was going through an especially meditative time. The last journal in the batch had a black cover.
And that was before the murder of her father and complete shattering of her life.
Gingerly, she pulled it from the box and flipped it open to a random page. She scanned her younger self’s handwriting.
T blew me off again. We were supposed to train together after school but he never showed up. I don’t want to keep bugging him all the time, but come on. That’s not how a friend should act, or a training partner. Let alone a boyfriend. So is he my boyfriend or isn’t he? I wish he’d just tell me the truth. He says he likes me, but then he says other things too, like I get too upset about things like this. Isn’t it normal to not want to be stood up? I don’t think that’s too much to ask. But when I bring up things like that, he looks at me like I’m crazy, like some kind of bitchy mental patient. I wish I could talk to someone about all this, someone I can trust. Not Mom, of course. She’d go bonkers. She can’t handle “problems.” She’d get that look on her face, that deer-in-the-headlights panic. I’d have to find a paper bag for her to breathe into.
My brothers are completely useless, of course. Maybe Julie? Julie’s a little older, and she’s pretty nice. The only problem with Julie is that I don’t think she knows what it feels like to get your heart broken. She has Ben, who acts like she’s the queen of the world. I don’t think she’s ever had to wonder if her “boyfriend” likes her. Ben makes it completely obvious, even to me, almost too much, to be honest. It’s kind of sickening. I don’t want that from T. I just want him to be nice to me. Not blow me off all the time.
Oh. My. God. Cassie cringed as she read her sixteen-year-old angst. She’d forgotten all about the feeling she’d lived with back then—that constant worry about Travis.
Travis Drake! So gorgeous, with his shaggy blond hair and bedroom eyes. So heartless. That last text, in which he’d dumped her…
Sorry babe gotta move on. U kno how it is. C U at school.
Her younger self had no idea what was coming. It almost hurt to read this. She leafed to a later page.
D is such a raving b-****.
And there she was. Deirdre Sullivan.
I don’t know why she hates me so much. I’ve tried to be nice to her, well mostly. There was that time in Chem when I screwed up her lab results. Aka sabotaged. *Evil grin.* But I apologized afterward. That’s what we’re supposed to do in our family. Come clean and apologize, then take your consequences like a Knight. It would be “like a man” except for the inconvenient fact that I’m a girl.
But D didn’t care about my apology. She just glared at me like I was a literal piece of shit. If my life was a fairy tale, she would definitely be the evil queen. She’s in half my classes, and she has a million friends, and I feel like they’re all judging me all the time. D’s latest thing is telling people I might be gay. If she tells Travis that I’ll die. I know D likes T. Of course. He’s such a babe.
T says I’m no fun because I won’t smoke weed with him. He doesn’t get it. Dad would ground me for the rest of high school if I did. I have to prove to him that I’m fun. Am I really boring? Ben says I’m funny, that I have a great sense of humor and making people laugh is one of my talents.
I don’t think T cares about my jokes. He wants something else. He says I can prove I’m not gay by giving him a BJ. I’m not sure what to do. Should I do it? I’m afraid he’ll dump me if I don’t.
What a disaster! I finally told Travis I’d meet him after shop today for the BJ. I mean, I’ve never done it before but how hard could it be? Guess who walked in? D!!!!!
Deirdre told everyone. Along with some lies too. I’m so mortified. T hasn’t said anything about what happened yet. I don’t even want to go to school tomorrow. I’m trying to do what Julie says—she says focus on doing the things I like and don’t react to bullies or rumors. So I’m running a lot, working on a Trans Am with Dad, and writing in this journal. While crying. In case you hadn’t noticed. Hi, journal. You might be my only friend. I seriously don’t know what I’d do without you, which is pretty ridiculous considering you’re an inanimate object. I guess I’m just that pathetic.
Cassie put down the journal and realized that her cheeks were wet. She wiped away the tears with her fingers. Nope, she hadn’t exaggerated. That time had been a nightmare.
She shoved aside the box of journals and grabbed her iPad instead. She pulled up a map of the United States and studied it. Montana? Wyoming? Maybe it was time to explore Canada. Or maybe the other direction was the way to go. Baja. Beaches. Total strangers. Sounded good to her.