Be there in ten.
I actually laughed out loud. Only Harrison would miraculously find time in his busy schedule to come and demolish a pizza. Looking down at my yoga pants and tank, I figured that I looked fine enough, not even feeling compelled to change out of my fuzzy slippers. It was just Harrison, and I was confident that he only had eyes for my pizza.
My phone notified me that the pizza was being delivered as I heard the bell ring. Heading to the door, I peaked through the peep hole and saw familiar dark eyes and a white tee. Smiling, I disarmed our home alarm and unlocked the door, swinging it open to my friend…who was holding a very big pizza box.
“Did you get a second job?” I asked, as Harrison smiled broadly at me, all white teeth and self-deprecation.
“Funny. The guy was dropping it off as I got here so I just brought it in with me. You should be glad that I didn’t bounce with your pie,” he said, his eyes twinkling.
“Come in, I’m starving,” I said as I waited for him to enter, locking the door behind him. “Take it to the kitchen, will you?” I asked, although Harrison was already on his way there. By the time that I’d gotten us plates, Harrison was already eating a slice, suspending it midair as he brought it to his mouth.
“I guess I’m not the only one,” I muttered, pretending to care about his manners.
“What?” he asked, but it sounded more like “Waaa” through his mouthful. I laughed.
“Ok, heathen, at least sit down. Actually, let’s go watch TV and do some damage on this thing.”
“This is not a thing, Cass, this is a masterpiece,” Harrison chided, as he scooped some slices onto each of the plates and started carrying them back to the living room. I grabbed him a coke and a glass of water for myself, then a giant stack of napkins, before joining him. Harrison was already spread out on the couch, the TV on, when I placed the coke in front of him.
“Thanks,” he said as he flipped through the stations.
“Switch it to HDMI if you want to access the streaming stuff,” I said, then immediately felt stupid. Obviously Harrison knew this, but he didn’t say anything until he’d determined that there was nothing on and switched it over like I’d suggested. We ate as he browsed, not seeming interested in anything, and could I blame him? Most of this stuff either sucked, or was definitely not Harrison approved.
“You probably want some girly show, or a romantic comedy or something,” Harrison said, smirking.
“Right. I don’t do romantic comedy. Find something funny or like, aliens,” I suggested.
“All girls ‘do’ romantic comedies, Cass. But, you’re not like other girls so I guess I should have known that. I also don’t do romantic comedies,” he clarified distractedly, as he picked a movie about some astronauts who unknowingly breed a deadly alien race aboard their spacecraft. I also didn’t do dramas that involved human on human violence, but I left that part out. Because, like he said, I wasn’t like other girls.
“Oh, did you want ranch or something?” I realized that I kind of sucked at this whole host thing. I hadn’t even asked if he'd wanted the coke, I’d just grabbed it for him because he liked coke.
“Nah, I’m good. I will be getting more, though,” he said as he pointed at his now empty plate. Guys. Harrison disappeared back into the kitchen and returned with like half of the pizza on his plate, smiling like he’d won a big hand at poker.
“Have you like not eaten for the last week?” I teased as he sat back down on the couch next to me. I had automatically sat where he’d put my plate, apparently forgetting that I only sat in my brown armchair.
“Yeah, it’s been like three whole hours,” he said laughing. It was my turn to smirk. We settled in, eating and just watching the movie, making random comments about the characters and making fun of each other.
“What’s with the scars, Cass?”
For a moment I thought that Harrison could see inside of me, see the scarred ruin that had come out on the other side of my attack. Then I got what he meant. My arm. I’d forgotten to put on a sweater, something that both shocked me and made me feel weird. I was always conscious of whether my surgery scars could be seen, and adjusted appropriately. But I’d just waltzed around Harrison like ‘this is me, take me or leave me,’ without giving it a thought. Maybe he was rubbing off on me.
I wasn’t surprised that Harrison had noticed, always the constant observer despite acting like he was aware of little; I was a little surprised that he’d asked. Harrison didn’t ask hard questions. Then I realized that he obviously assumed that it wasn’t a ‘hard’ question, which actually helped me to formulate my answer.
“My arm was broken. I had to have surgery,” I said, feeling like that was the simplest explanation for something that I had no ability to explain, no interest in exposing, and no motive to lie about.
“Oh. Must have been a hell of a break,” he said and I looked away before he could see the tears that were threatening to give me away.
It sure was, I thought bitterly.
“Sorry I asked,” he said, always upfront and speaking his mind.
“You never cease to surprise me, Harrison. I was blown away that you knew the meaning of ‘please,’ but ‘sorry’? Are you sure you’re the same Harrison?” It felt good to change the direction of the conversation. I was not ready to relinquish my secret, and up until recently, I’d assumed that I’d never be ready. But I was changing; Harrison was changing me, and it both unnerved me and comforted me at the same time.
“Well, wonders never cease,” he said, turning back to the TV and letting me know that he was done with the topic. It felt good to be in the company of someone who didn't feel the need to constantly probe. AKA everyone else.
“So what was the occasion?” Harrison finally asked, gesturing at the almost empty pizza box that I had finally gotten from the kitchen and brought into the living room, so he’d stop having to get up.
“Oh you know, I was hungry,” I said.
“Never a better excuse, Cass,” he responded. “And I appreciate being your go-to garbage disposal,” he added, as he patted his stomach.
“Who better?” I asked as I thought, “Who else?” Because sadly, Harrison was about it when it came to people that I could, and wanted to, hang out with.
“Alright Cassie Cass, I gotta hit it. Thanks again, you definitely know the way to a man’s heart. I’ll catch you later,” he said as he got up and took his plate and mine into the kitchen. Reappearing after a few minutes during which I’d just sat like a lump, feeling weighted down with pizza and the impending loneliness that Harrison’s departure would bring about, he smiled at me.
Getting up to walk him out, Harrison said, “You really made Ben’s night the other day. Thanks again for that. You came through in the clutch.”
“What are friends for, Harrison?” I said, laughing. “Thanks for helping me out with that perfect exemplification of ‘my eyes were bigger than my stomach.’” I unlocked the door and Harrison gave me a mock solute before walking outside.
“I aim to please. Later, Cass.” And with that, I watched as Harrison got into his car and left.
Immediately shutting and locking the door, arming the security system, and double-checking that I had my phone, I took the pizza box into the kitchen and put the couple of remaining slices in the fridge. I should have just sent it with Harrison, I realized, but it was too late now. Going to the sink to refill my glass, I saw that Harrison had washed our dishes and I smiled. Miranda would be proud, I thought, laughing a little.
After making sure that the evidence of our pizza party had been cleaned up, I headed upstairs and into my room, right as my phone buzzed.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it looked like you had a parking ticket on your car. Weird considering you were parked in front of your own house, but the city is always out for a buck, I guess. Thanks for the pizza, Cass
Harrison must have noticed it when he’d driven off. But a parking ticket? In front of my house? Bummer.
There was this time during a break Freshman year, the first time around, that I’d gone on a road trip to visit a girlfriend that I’d met in the dorms. Her parents lived a few hours away and I stayed with her for a couple of days, parking my car down the street from her house. When I was leaving to come home, not having needed my car while I’d been visiting her, I’d found not one, but FOUR parking tickets on my windshield. One for each day that I’d been parked there.
There had definitely not been a two-hour parking sign when I’d parked, I was almost certain, but my dad refused to believe my theory that it had been put up while I’d been at my friend’s. I didn’t blame him, but I honestly thought that this had happened. Needless to say, it was a family joke for a long time, Cass and her parking tickets…those may not have been my first. But regardless of what had actually happened, and no Dad, I hadn’t been high when I’d parked, I still had to pay off those tickets and several more to come, so I was a little sensitive about the whole issue.
Not wanting to go back downstairs now that dusk was setting in, but definitely not wanting Kara to come home and see the ticket, I decided that I needed to just retrieve the evidence. I pulled on a hoodie, but left the hood down so that I had full access to my peripheral view, and went downstairs, keys in hand. My cell was in my front pocket, and I disarmed the alarm. Taking several deep breaths, I unlocked the door and practically flew down the walk.
Sure enough, there was a little white rectangle on my windshield, which I grabbed and booked it back to my front door, slamming it behind me. Locking all of the locks and arming the alarm system, I caught my breath. Forcing myself to slowly walk upstairs, I went back into my room and closed my door, whipping the white paper onto my bed. I hadn’t had the time, or the inclination, to look too closely at it during my dash and grab, but now that I was alone in my room, I figured I’d check the damage. I was actually much more curious as to what I was being cited for, than what I was responsible for paying…actually I was quite disinterested in discovering the latter.
As I looked at the ticket, I realized that something about it didn’t look right.
Reaching toward what was now clearly not a ticket, I couldn’t even be happy about that fact as I took in the handwritten, “Cassandra” on the outside of the folded paper. Not wanting to see what was inside, I was still compelled to open it, taking in the handwriting that was instantly familiar, as it was the same hand that had left comments on my coursework this semester.
Cassandra. Cassandra. Cassandra. There’s just something about your name that makes me want to whisper it to you. A beautiful name for a beautiful girl. I feel like we were just getting started, and denying me is denying yourself the chance to explore what we could have. The longer I wait, the harder it gets for me…I feel like I’ve only had a taste and I want more. You can’t claim not to feel the same. Cassandra, we could be something great. Don’t settle for less than you deserve, because you deserve me as much as I deserve you. I’m growing impatient, but I tell myself that the best things are worth the wait. I don’t want to wait forever. Let me take you out, let me show you all that life has to offer. I feel confused by your reluctance, but I know that you feel confused as well, so I have given you time. All you need to do is let go and be with me.
I’ll be seeing you,
Charlie
What in the fucking fuck.
I threw the note away from me, as if touching it any longer meant that somehow Charlie was getting closer to what he wanted. Because now it was only too clear, Charlie wanted me, and was not going away. I had thought that not hearing from him was a good sign, an indication that he had moved on and I had been worrying needlessly.
Apparently not.
And he knew where I lived, I realized, since he'd picked me up for our date.
The note hadn’t been there when I’d last driven the car, and my mom and Kara and James had come and gone, as recently as this morning. They would have seen it, especially since it looked like a ticket. And Harrison…was it there when he’d gotten here and he just hadn’t noticed? Or worse, had Charlie hand-delivered his terrifying love note while Harrison and I had been relaxed and laughing inside of my house, this afternoon?
And what was I supposed to do with all of this? I was home alone, my mom wasn’t due back until tomorrow, and Kara and James might be staying at his apartment. I never required them to keep me apprised of their plans, but it had never really been an issue before. My mom’s conference wasn’t something that she did often, and I couldn’t remember the last time that I was alone in my house for the entire night.
I sent a silent thanks to my mom for being so aggressive with our security system and overly abundant outdoor lighting, but it didn’t change the fact that I was here and Charlie knew. And Charlie wanted me, apparently regardless of what I wanted. I wanted to be brave, to not allow him to terrorize me, but I'd had too much trauma to believe that I was safe. I had felt safe the day that I had gone for my run, like I had on so many other days, and I had not, in fact, been safe at all.
I felt like the walls were closing in, like I couldn’t breathe and all I could smell was cinnamon and sweat, and all I could taste was blood. I felt it dripping into my eye, I smelled the metallic tang as it seeped into my mouth from my torn lips, tasted it as it joined with that from where I’d bitten down on my tongue. I felt the rocking, someone else’s rhythm, as my side screamed and my arm lay in a contorted position limply beside me. The pebbles as they pressed into the unbroken half of my face, as if that side felt like it had to sacrifice itself in order to protect what had already been so damaged.
I was screaming, I was thrashing, I was giving up. Except that I wasn’t giving up, I was biding my time, I was relinquishing a portion of myself in order to save the whole. To save me, Cass.
Except this time, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to survive.
FORTY-NINE
I must have blacked out. Reliving my attack, with more detail than I’d ever remembered in the past, must have pushed me over the line of sanity and my mind had shut down. My brain had tried to save itself, protecting the tenuous line between life and lunacy, and I slammed closed. Unfortunately for my mind, had I actually been in danger at that moment, this tactic would have failed. Fortunately for it, I was not. At least not in the literal sense. I hoped.
I was lying on the hardwood floor of my room, face turned, as I blinked slowly. The offending note that must have fallen to the ground was lying next to me, and I tried to scramble away from it, but I was a bit dizzy so I only managed a few feet of an awkward crab-walk. Reaching behind my head, I felt a lump, probably from when I’d struck the floor, and absently thought that I should buy a rug to place over the wood.
Finally pulling myself to a sitting position, I assessed myself as best I could, deciding that I could attempt to stand. Walking slowly to the bathroom, I looked in the mirror once there. Dr. McElhatton would have been pleased; it appeared that my face had managed to remain unscathed, aside from a split lip. Wetting a washcloth, I gingerly dabbed at the dried blood on my lip, wiping away the bit that had trickled down my chin.
Turning on the shower, blasting the hot, I undressed and climbed in, doing as I always did, which was making a point to avoid seeing my body naked in the mirror. As much as my face had been improved, the rest of me had not faired so well. My arm was a mess of scars, and while I knew that the surgeons had worked with precision and a conservative hand, there wasn’t much to be done about the evidence of their reconstruction. And the rest of me, well I saw what no one else saw. I saw the broken ribs, the bloom of black and purple that encompassed my entire right side, I saw the scratch marks and the dark banding around my throat, I felt the near impossibility of taking a deep breath, heard the crunch of bone, felt the impact that had proceeded it.
So I never looked at myself unless by sheer accident, from the neck down.
Standing in the hot spray, my eyes closed, I wanted the water to cleanse me from the inside out. He had left su
ch a mark on me, such an imprint, and I wondered if I had been in outright denial that I could ever get past it. And last night, I’d finally admitted the one thing that I had never dared to admit even to myself: maybe things would have been better if I’d not lived. Questioning my bargain, examining what I’d exchanged for my life, was pulling the final thread to unravel. Because if what I’d chosen to save, what I’d exchanged so much for, wasn’t worth it…well who could live after that?
As I stood frozen in the shower, my mind racing but unable to focus on anything for too long, I’d never felt so alone. Even during my recovery, when I’d wanted nothing but to be left alone, I’d had Diane and Rachel. But here I was, incapacitated because another man had brought me back to where I never wanted to be again. I was scared and I was frenzied and I was uncertain…
And then I was mad. How dare Charlie frighten me like that, how dare he leave such a threatening message in the form of an innocuous love letter? And on my car, in front of my house, as if to let me know that he was here, that he could be here at any time. Because that was the effect. By coming to my domain, he’d crossed a line. A few messages were one thing, but to let me know in no uncertain terms that he knew where I lived and had in fact been here, well there was no mistaking that added level of intentional terror.
A normal person might feel sorry for herself. A regular human might question why this was happening, what she’d done to invite this. But I had lived through all of those pointless speculations only to end up with the final conclusion that sometimes bad shit happened. Sometimes nothing was done to provoke evil, and more disheartening still, the concept of deserving or not was inconsequential. So instead of focusing on futile contemplation of the abstract, I returned to the concrete.
I’d been sexually assaulted and brutally attacked, but somehow I’d lived through it; by some chance I’d fought through the darkness. My life wasn’t wonderful, it wasn’t exciting and it was irrevocably altered, as had I been. I would forever live with the psychological repercussions of what I’d experienced, and I may never have a chance at what should have been mine.
TWELVE MINUTES Page 26
