Page 258 of As the Rain Falls
Antony eventually is the first to agree. “I’ve never seen anything like it happen before.” He shakes his head, disgusted. “Caleb tells everything in detail. It’s like… he gets off of it or something. Dude’s got no shame.”
“I think the fucker is doing it on purpose just to embarrass the shit out of her.” Mateo leans back, rubbing his jaw. His next question is directed to me. “You think she’s okay at home?”
I sense that there’s more that’s bugging him.
“What do you mean by that?”
The two boys share a look.
“We aren’t supposed to tell other people,” Antony starts to speak, then hesitates.
Mateo cuts him off. “Yeah, sure. It’s against the principle of it all. But what if something happened to her?”
“Right. Good point.” My best friend leans forward, considering what to do. I roll my eyes at him, ready to snap, but he nudges me to calm down, speaking more quietly. “She… might’ve mentioned not liking her brother to Mateo and me once. It wasn’t anything terrible, but she did call him mean.”
“Here we go again with the conspiracy theories.” Angelina sighs, swirling her milkshake with the straw. “A lot of people are mean. Maybe she meant it like, Nathaniel is mean with his words.”
Antony rolls his eyes. “Oh, come on, Angelina. You don’t even believe in that yourself!”
“I’m just saying!” Angelina insists, waving a perfectly manicured finger at him. “We can’t read too much into this. I don’t want to badmouth her or her family.”
“But that’s not what we’re doing,” Antony counters, flicking his braids back. “We’re just pointing out the obvious about this situation. The Riveras were always weird as fuck, and even Lucia thought so back in the day.”
Angelina shakes her head, still unwilling to admit that he has a point.
“Lucia listened to gossip. Sometimes, she even created them. Why the fuck would I take that into account? It’s hard to tell what’s true and what’s not. And besides, I don’t know. What happened with Caleb…” She hesitates, choosing her words very carefully. “It leaves a lot of room for interpretation, because her father seemed really upset on her behalf. I actually think he cares about her.”
Mateo winces, seemingly disagreeing with Angelina, too. My eyes flicker to Antony, who only gives me a bewildered look before shaking his head.
“Okay, Ms. Diplomatic. We’ll just pretend he wasn’t upset about losing his job, I guess.” He raises both his hands. “I don’t want to keep pushing you to play devil’s advocate. Cassandralooked like she was about to have a mental breakdown all week in class, but whatever you say.”
“I’m not saying she’s okay, though. I’m just trying to say we should talk to her first before making any assumptions,” she groans, looking at me for support. “Look, Beckett. One thing is true, and we can all agree on that. She always has that look on her face, you know?”
Mateo strongly bobs his head. “Yes! That fucking look! God, it’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Angelina glances at him, a small smile slowly curving her lips.
“I’m glad someone else knows what I’m talking about. I’ve talked to Kayla about it a few times. She told me Cassandra has been acting a little depressed since before I came back, but Kayla doesn’t know any more about it than we do.”
“Cassandra doesn’t confide in her?” I frown, finding it strange that she wouldn’t.
The brunette girl shakes her head from side to side. “No, she doesn’t. And that’s, like, herbest friendI’m talking about.”
A heavy silence falls over the group.
“You’ve known her the longest out of all of us, Beckett. Has she ever—” Mateo hesitates, choosing his words carefully. “Has she ever talked about her family? Like, in a bad way, to you?”
My jaw clenches.
“I’ve never really asked. I mean, her brother is just so…”
Useless. Irresponsible. Selfish.
I trail off, shaking my head side to side. “But it’s the number one rule around here, right? You don’t ask any questions. Maybe… Maybe I should have been more curious.”
“You can’t blame yourself for not knowing,” Angelina adds, reaching out to grab my hand. “If it involves family, then it’s truly personal. No matter how close you two are, she might feel some type of way about telling you everything, you know?”
Still.
