Page 216 of As the Rain Falls
She blinks, wide-eyed. “But it’s totally hypothetical!”
“Even so.”
“If you liked me, but someone else came along,” Cassandra continues, frantically speaking every word. “Someone as good as she is, I mean. I can see why you wouldn’t go for me, but—”
“There wouldn’t be someone else, Cassandra.”
My words come out quiet, silence stretching between us. Slowly, I feel that certainty blossom, taking root somewhere deep inside of me. Somewhere I can’t reach easily or alone. This feeling tugs my heart, making it stir in my chest.
There’s never a specific reason why you fall for someone. Sometimes, it’s not even a result of work and effort. You just do. But once you’re there, nothing can shake that feeling off. It’s a permanent fixture, something that changes you to your very core.
You are who you love, who you surround yourself with. And for as long as I’ll have Cassandra by my side, as my friend or anything else for that matter, I will never ever hurt her like that. If this is the betrayal she is expecting far ahead, it won’t be coming from me.
“If I fell for you, I’d love only you,” I say, hearing my heartbeat pounding in my eardrums. “There wouldn’t be eyes for anyone else. I… I wouldn’t do things halfway. Especially not with you because I care, you know?”
Her face falls, lips wobbling.
“Why can’t I believe you?”
My heart shatters at the question.
With the way she starts avoiding my gaze, shrinking into the passenger seat the longer I stare at her, it’s easy to tell that Caleb hurt her badly. She has no confidence in herself anymore. Heshattered it, shatteredherso quickly, like it was nothing. Like she meantnothing.
“You think she’s better than you?” I ask, trying to understand.
“Sometimes,” Cassandra admits, her gaze lost.
It makes me want to scream.
“She’s not,” I affirm, because she can’t be. “I’m not saying this just to say it. Any guy would be lucky to have you.”
“But I think she could give him something I couldn’t,” she explains.
“Like what?” I blurt it out.
“I don’t know,” Cassandra pauses, considering my question. “I couldn’t go all-all the way, and I always made things more difficult than they needed to be, looking back.”
“You’re looking at this the wrong way,” I cut her off. “If you couldn’t go all the way with him, it’s not as much your fault as it is his.”
What did this guy do to her?
“Trust me,” I repeat my previous words. “Caleb doesn’t love Maria.”
“He told me he loved me.” She dries her tears with the back of her hand. I scoff, and she quickly adds, “I didn’t believe him. I thought it was just something you say to a girl to get her to take her panties off.”
“It is,” I agree, hearing her breath catch right after. The sound makes me regret being so blunt. “Wait, no. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t be more careful.”
Cassandra asks me again, avoiding my gaze this time around, “But what do I do?”
I let my shoulders drop, considering what might happen next. The chirping of the crickets outside quiets down as the first few drops of rain start to fall. With how quiet it gets sometimes, itfeels like nothing bad could ever happen in Le Port. But I’ve watched people I love getting hurt badly over and over again. It’s like everything is fated to… fall apart one way or another.
I could die here.
Iamdying here.
