Page 363 of As the Rain Falls
The moment began to replay in my head like a supercut while I lay in the dark, glitching, getting stuck on the same frame. Her voice, her sad green eyes, the way she clung onto me so tight. Cassandra was silently begging me not to let her go.
Tragedies are like rain, though.
Once the pieces start to fall apart, there’s really no use in stopping them.
DISCONNECTED FRIENDSHIPS
Cassandra
MARCH, 2017
Nobody embodied the meangirl archetype like Lucia Evans did.
She spent her most pivotal years building that armor, fortifying herself against Le Port in every way she could. And honestly, I can’t blame her for it. But that same role, that samearmor, made her deeply vulnerable in ways she probably never saw coming.
Men like Nathaniel will stop at nothing to break girls like her. And girls aren’t easy to like to begin with, but out of anything a girl can choose to be,meanis definitely the least favorable path.
The thing is, mean girls are untouchable, and nobody likes an untouchable woman. Quiet, soft, friendly, agreeable, and forgiving—those are words that sit easier on a young girl’s shoulders. But Lucia Evans was none of those things.
She had the audacity to want to bemore, and for that, she was envied.
Admired.
Hated.
Chased.
And no one would admit it, or give her that honesty, because they were waiting for the moment she’d fall.
I wouldn’t call her mean today.
It’s too redundant of a word, and it would feel like cutting at my own skin. Zachariah’s words echo in my mind, making me dizzy.I’d expect this from girls like Lucia, but not from—
Not fromme.
I let out a slow breath and settled down the flowers over her tombstone. Pink peonies, because Beckett swears they were her favorite. I hope he’s right. It’s the kind of information I had to pry out of him because he wasn’t willing to give it freely.
I can tell he thinks something’s up. I can also feel the truth catching up to me, no matter how fast I try to run from it. So many questions are being left unanswered, but I don’t know anything other than the fact that I’m way in over my head.
How often did Nathaniel hurt her?
Did he ever try to slap her?
Kick her?
Punch her?
Or did he reserve all those things for me because I was always his favorite?
Did he just make her stare at the ugliness that’s out there, leaving her in the dark for too long, until she started to spiral?
It’s a thing calledsurvivor’s guilt,the Internet says.
I don’t know whether I believe it or not.
“I don’t know how you found out.” I shake my head side to side, thinking about how smart Lucia was. She had such a bright future ahead of her, if only he hadn’t stood in the way of that. “But I’m really sorry you did.”
The breeze shifts, brushing one of the petals away. Nobody in this town will believe me, but she did. And I didn’t even have to ask her for it, for anything, ever. Not really.
