Chapter 192
Lucy’s words lingered in my mind such that I wasn’t paying too much attention to anyone around me as I grabbed my books between third and fourth period. So I didn’t realize Liam was behind me until I turned around and bumped into him. “Sorry,” I muttered, hoping to hurry on my way.
He grabbed my upper arm a little more tightly than I was comfortable with, though I don’t think he meant to hurt me. “Hey, Cass,” he said. “I just wanted to talk to you for a minute, if you’ve got a second.”
I could tell by his poorly crafted sentence that he was nervous, not that he is usually a wordsmith. “What is it?” I asked. I hadn’t really talked to him since the day he’d asked me to the dance, and I’d laughed at him. I mean, I hadn’t been rude to him, but I certainly hadn’t sought him out. That was last March, over six months ago, and I felt like maybe he could’ve grown up a little since then, so perhaps I should at least show him the decency to see what he wanted to say.
“Well, you know, uh, Holt Winsor’s having a party tonight after the football game. And I was just thinking, if you don’t have plans….”
“If I don’t have plans what?” I asked, wanting him to have to say it. I couldn’t believe he was actually asking me out again after I had humiliated him last time. I had to give him a little credit for persistence, even if it had taken half a year for him to approach me.
“Maybe… you’d want to go with me?”
“Oh, uh, thanks, Liam, but no thank you. I’m not planning on going out after the game tonight.”
“Come on, Cass. What’s up with you? You used to be a lot of fun. Now that you’re sister’s gone, you’re acting all weird.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “How I’m acting has nothing to do with my sister,” I said. “Look, I don’t have time to talk to you about it right now, Liam, but believe me, I’m saying no because I don’t want to go to the party—and certainly not with you.” I took a few steps toward class, and he grabbed me again, spinning me slightly.
“What did I do, Cass? So I asked Lucy out. Big deal. It’s not like she even said yes.”
A million reasons as to why that wasn’t cool filled my head, but none of them mattered at the moment. “This has nothing to do with the dance or Lucy, Liam. I just don’t want to go out with you.”
“What changed?” he asked, holding on to me so I couldn’t take another step toward the adjacent hall without breaking away from him first. “It had to be because I asked her out. I made a mistake, all right. All along, you’re the one I wanted to be with.”
Exasperated, I pried his fingers off of my arm and saw that I had marks there, which didn’t make me very happy. Since when did he have the right to put his hands on anyone? “Liam, initially, I was upset at you because of that, but then I realized, you’d done me a favor. You and I do not make a good couple. I know that now. I’m just glad you helped me discover that before I made the mistake of actually dating you.”
That seemed to stun him enough to let me step away. “Whatever, Cass,” he finally called after me, making a few heads turn in his direction. “You’ll be wishing you’d made a different decision soon enough.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but I assumed it was just an empty threat, or his way of saying I’d be missing him, but I knew for certain there was nothing he could do to physically hurt me. The energy pulsing in my veins had told me I could’ve literally ripped his fingers off if I’d wanted to instead of just removing them from my arm. I turned and looked at him for a second, and he spun around and headed in the opposite direction.
The rest of the morning, I was thinking about the situation with Liam. I honestly felt sorry for him. He had no idea what he didn’t know. All of these things he thought were so important were so meaningless to me now. The last place in the world I’d want to be was a party at Holt’s house. I didn’t want to go to a party at anyone’s house, for that matter. I realized, there wasn’t anywhere else on earth I wanted to be except for at headquarters with my sister, Brandon, and the rest of the team, which made getting through the rest of the day almost unbearable.
At lunch, everyone was quiet for the first five minutes. I thought Lucy and Emma were probably just anticipating coming over to my house after school so I could tell them everything. I wondered if Lucy had told Emma about our conversation on the way to school. But that didn’t explain Wes and Milo. Wes was never quiet. It seemed like something fishy was going on.
A peal of laughter came from across the cafeteria, and we all turned and looked in that direction. It seemed like someone at Liam’s table must’ve said or done something hilarious, and they were all looking over toward us. That’s when I noticed Liam had his arm around Jessica, a girl from my cheerleading squad, the one who used to have a huge crush on Lucy’s sort-of-boyfriend Jason, who didn’t have the same lunch period as us. The rest of the people at that table were football players and their cheerleader girlfriends, so I wondered what in the world they could think was so funny and what it had to do with us.
“Bunch of jerks,” Milo muttered under his breath as he turned back around and dropped half of a taco back on his Styrofoam tray.
“What’s going on with them?” Lucy asked, nodding in their direction.
“Who knows?” Wes asked, not dropping any of his food as he spoke between bites of a double-cheeseburger. He could eat almost as much as Elliott could, which was saying something. “After what happened this morning, I’m sure Liam’s just showing off with his new girlfriend. Sorry, Cass.”
He looked at me sincerely, and my forehead crinkled. I set my grilled cheese aside. “What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing, it’s just… we all know how badly you wanted to go to Holt’s party with Liam,” he replied.
