Page 108 of Shattered Veil

What? No.

Are you insane?

Stay the fuck put.

His brief aggravation, which always ran parallel with his protectiveness, would calm me. I would explain my last message away with all the honesty I had, saying that his uncharacteristic curtness had made me nervous. That his responses truthfully didn’t seem like him. That the wild skyrocketing of my anxiety had caused me to jump to conclusions, and I truthfully considered if it wasn’t him on the other end of the line. That I didn’t know who that someone would be…and that their reasonings for hiding his location and responding on his behalf were of ill intentions.

James would find my concern endearing, of course. When he would return home tonight, he’d look at me how he always does when I speak or show my affection for him—with hearts in his eyes that made mine skip a beat. That was what I told myself while I was waiting for the message in reply to my testing one, anyway.

The wait had me nearly hovering in my seat, and the moment that I felt the buzz in my hand, I read:

James 9:53 A.M.: Yeah, I’ll be beat tonight. I’ll hit you up later.

The only thing that came to my mind was the indisputable fact that whoever this was…was not James. And if we were under normal circumstances, the notion wouldn’t have caused my skin to crawl, my pulse to rise, and my hand to drop my phone to the table with a dull clatter.

I stood quickly enough for Zoey to alarmingly exclaim, “Whoa!” Her vibrant eyes were on me, wider and more inquisitive than ever, and she shot to her feet with me. She watched as I raced to the left—to the kitchen island. I snagged my keys off the marble, and they clinked together madly as Zoey asked, “What’s going on?!”

I rapidly told her, “I’m going for a drive.”

If I were being honest, I assumed that she would argue my announcement—that she would try to stop me or demand answers to her questions. My assumption was proved wrong when I looked at her, she saw whatever damning expression was on my face, and she immediately responded in an act of ardent solidarity:

“I’m going with you. Where are we going?”

Chapter 20

Cassie

Zoey followed me expeditiously. There was no hesitation in her quick steps as she grabbed whatever she could to protect herself from the cold. She sat beside me now in the passenger seat of my vehicle—silent, alert eyes behind her glasses peering every which way as I pulled out of my parking spot on the street. One of Liam’s sweatshirts haphazardly pulled over her head and draping down to her mid-thigh, the black fabric offset with the winter pallor of her skin, and at first glance, she looked small—pale—meek.

However, on par with all things Zoey, she was anything but, for her presence was large.

All I had managed to say before she rushed out the door with me was, “Talk about it in my car?” and because we had said nothing since, she had close to no details on the source of my nervousness. Not knowing where we were going or why and racing alongside me, her appearance of meekness was a falsity. Her silence was a choice. A bold one that solidified what I already knew about Zoey and encapsulated the definition of ride or die.

I glanced her way as I turned onto the main road and headed for the highway, her focus locked on me, and though I knew that now was the time to explain my panic away, the words were caught in my throat. One would imagine that my inability to speak on the subject was due to my hesitance to admit my relationship with James, but that concern was long gone. I just…didn’t know where to start. How to start. And when I had realized that Zoey was adamantly sticking with me, I knew that I would have to confess it all. It was…unideal, to say the least, but I had thought that if it were up to me, I could manage to do so delicately.

The thought of anything delicate was impossible now, and all I could do was cut to the chase.

“I’m gonna tell you something that’s gonna feel like the main part of this story,” I admitted rapidly. “I mean, I fucking wish that it were the main part of this story, but it’s not—it’s background information that you’d end up getting anyway with all the bullshit that’s happening, and I…” My words began to meld together. “I want to be-straight-with-you, and it feels weird to have you grasping at straws about why I’m so goddamn nervous, how-I-know-certain-things, and where-we’re-going-and-why—”

“Cassie, whatever it is, I’m fine,” Zoey interjected sharply. “Stop being so considerate of my feelings and just spit it out.”

“Try not to react or—or focus on it ’cause it’s not important.” I rephrased, “I mean, it’s important—it is. It’s just not important right now—”

Zoey exclaimed, “For the love of—spit, Cas!”

“Me and Jay have been seeing each other.”

Her eyebrows shot up above the rim of her glasses. “Seeing each other as in…” My hesitation to answer made her squeak an alarmingly high-pitched, “Oh my GOD!”

“Zoey.”

She smacked a hand over her mouth. “Not reacting—totally not reacting.”

Due to the circumstances of the anxious undercurrent surrounding us, I would have thought that her tone being downright muffled glee would have been impossible. She let her fingers fall away from her face, delicately placing them in her lap, and I realized I was wrong as she seemed to be struggling to contain a large smile.

And, yes, I did feel as though we were on the precipice of…something. But because I couldn’t tell what exactly that something was and there was no tangible proof for the reason of my nervousness, I allowed myself to ask:

“I’m sorry, are you…happy?”

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