Page 98 of Hot Summer

“Like hell?” Aisha guessed, and Cas laughed.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Look.” Aisha slid across the duvet and put her hand on Cas’s thigh. “I’m not saying you need to pick yourself up right now. Wallow for a few days. A week, hell.” She squeezed Cas’s leg and gave her a bracing smile. “But figure out what you’re going to do. Even if you don’t want to get back together with her, you can’t just leave this forever.”

“Especially because you’re going to have to see her at the reunion,” Skye added.

Cas hadn’t even thought about that. She groaned and fell back onto the pillows, careful not to slosh her tea.

“Great,” Aisha said, “you killed her.”

32

Cas took only one part of Aisha’s advice seriously at first—she wallowed.

She didn’t watch Hot Summer, didn’t go online, barely even looked outside. She put her phone, her whole life, in metaphorical rice. If she didn’t turn it on or look at it or even think about it, then maybe all the poison would get sucked out.

It was wishful thinking, and she knew it, but she’d rather engage in a bit of delusion than face up to the reality of her situation. Especially in those first few days.

Eventually, she mustered up the courage to drag her laptop off her desk and, after wiping the dust off it, switched it on. She was tempted to check her social media, but she forced herself, instead, to just log on to her work email.

Only to find twelve hundred emails sitting in her inbox.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Cas scrolled through her emails, glancing at the subject lines, deleting any that looked suspiciously hateful without even bothering to read them. Far fewer people than she expected had found her work email—a relief, to be sure, but it also made her nervous for the state of her DMs.

She’d just finished scrolling through her email when her inbox pinged with a notification and Cas swiftly jumped back to the top.

From: Robert Doding

Subject: Meeting—Wednesday, 7 August, 11 a.m.

Cas sighed. “Great.”

Just what she needed. Another meeting with Robert.

Dear Cas,

I sent you a message via WhatsApp, but it doesn’t appear to have delivered. Assuming you still have your phone off, so thought I’d try here. Please come in on Wednesday the 7th at 11 a.m.—I’d like to have a quick chat with you about next steps.

Hope you enjoyed your time off in Cyprus.

See you then,

Robert

Her time off?

Cas took a screenshot of the email and pasted it into her group chat with Aisha and Skye:

Cas: HE HOPES I ENJOYED MY TIME OFF!!!!!

Cas: TIME!!!! OFF!!!!!!!!!!!

Skye:... you’re kidding

Aisha: be SO ffr

It was the first time since she’d come home that Cas was frustrated about something other than her collapsing personal life.

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