Coming Home

Considering burning up the fucking letter. It’s like he did it on purpose, to make me not hate him.
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Derrick watched Cassadee down a glass after another of champagne. That girl had really learnt how to take her alcohol. She was on her 8th cup by the time the party was ending, and Derrick only noticed how she was getting the flush that most people got on their 3rd or 4th cup. By the time the party ended, he noticed Tobias getting closer to her, her attempts to ward him off growing more and more feeble.

Her smiling placidly as Tobias inched towards her, whispering into her ear made Derrick seize up inside.

“Who’s that?” asked Angela as she rummaged through her purse after a visit to the ladies.

“Some idiot from the FF,” snapped Derrick. He heard Angela snap her pouch close, look at him once, then look at both of them again.

“He’s very cute,” she commented idly. Derrick shot Angela an amused look, just as Caleb sidled up to them.

“Who’s cute?”

“That guy.”

“Tobias Summers?” Caleb asked.

“You know him?”

“Yeah I mean, I’ve been trying to sneak in political jokes into my comics, but this dude is always emailing me and like pissing me off,” Caleb shrugged. Caleb looked at Derrick once, then exchanged a wary look with Angela.

“You look like you need to cool off,” Caleb finally said.

“I don’t like him,” Derrick muttered, watching Tobias as he said something which made Cassadee giggle.

“I think you just don’t like him next to a drunk Cass,” Angela replied. Derrick wanted to reply that he didn’t want anyone near a drunk Cass, not just Tobias. He didn’t tell anyone about what happened between them in the garden, it was such a painful memory to go through. Seeing her suck off Tobias’s face before their terse conversation.

“Well I’ve been to company parties with Cass, she holds her alcohol well,” shrugged Caleb, as he stood up, ready to leave.

“I mean one time she did get a little tipsy, but when our intern tried to get close to her, she emptied the whole punch bowl onto him,” commented Caleb, earning a laugh from Angela. Derrick didn’t like the idea of anyone getting close to her, so he kept a straight face.

“Look Derrick, go home, get your head straight. Jared’s still frolicking in caviare heaven, just get him to text you if anything funny happens,” sighed Angela, before slipping her hand into Caleb’s.

Derrick looked in the direction of Cassadee, and noticed Tobias leaning in and giving her a peck on the cheek, before she carelessly waved him off. Smiling, Tobias stood up and left the garden to his car. With Tobias gone, Derrick felt a stone lifted off his chest.

“Alright,” he said before leaving with both Angela and Caleb.

~

“I told you not to get drunk,” Dave sighed as he literally hauled Cassadee to her feet. She somehow ended up sitting by the fountain, aimlessly talking shit to Wendy’s younger friends until the party ended.

“I’m not that drunk Dave,” she replied, rolling her eyes. She did feel slightly tipsy, but that was it. After her conversation with Derrick, she just felt tired. The alcohol just made her head buzz a little, removing that shrapnel of pain embedded in her heart, just for a while.

“Your face is so red,” Dave sighed as Cassadee walked with him back to the cleaning up crew at the garden.

“I’m not drunk Dave, jeez,” she sighed, pulling out her phone. She hated how her family kept such keen watch on her, like she was fragile, like her body was still a piece of stainless glass.

“Did you drive here?”

“Nope, took a cab.”

“Good, I’m going to Wendy’s. You get home safe okay?”

Cassadee nodded, giving her brother a kiss on his cheek before walking out to hail a cab. Home sounded like a great idea all of a sudden.

~

“What are you doing here?” Cassadee asked, her voice hitching up her throat. She had just left the cab when she saw Derrick sitting at the kerb outside her apartment.

“I just wanted to make sure you made it home.”

“Without Tobias fucking me?” Cassadee snapped back, running her arms across her skin as the night invited in gusts of wind.

“Don’t-“

“Don’t what Derrick,” she asked again, her voice shaking a little from the cold. She was so tired of seeing him around, like he was guilt-tripping her.

“Don’t talk to me like that Cassadeee.”

“Seriously?” She asked, flinching slightly when he said her full name.

“I’m not fragile, I don’t need you to take care of me anymore,” she replied again, feeling ridiculously childish as his gaze permeated her.

“Sleeping around and drinking like you did just now isn’t exactly the mark of maturity.”

“Jesus Christ Derrick,” she yelled. Her voice raw and sore from the cold, she didn’t care if her doorman was staring at both of them, as if he was watching a rare episode of his favourite sitcom.

He stepped closer to her, bridging the gap between them easily. Up close she could see how his golden lashes framed his eyes, eyes that once meant so much to her.

“You’re cold.” He stated, as if he didn’t hear what she said.

“We’re not going back into my house together Derrick. Not after what happened last week, not after what happened just now,” she replied back, rubbing her arms together. Her stomach burned, her chest shivered- from both the heat of the moment and the harshness of the wind.

“I think we are,” he replied gently. Stepping into the lobby as if he owned the place, he pressed the lift button and somehow managed to drag her to the door of their house. Cassadee glowered at him, both amazed and irked at the fact that he had managed to remember where she lived and what floor her house was on.

“You don’t have to open the door. It’s just really fucking cold out there.”

“What do you want Derrick?” Cassadee asked, her voice cracking a little as she looked up at his face.

“To apologise, for just now.”

“When you asked me if I was a virgin? Why did you ask Derrick, does it even mean anything?” Cassadee asked softly, looking away from him. She knew she was stepping on fragile territory, if they proceeded any further, she knew she wouldn’t be able to handle him.

She looked at him when he didn’t reply. Wondering why a woman's virginity always seemed so serious and precious compared to men's. Was it just another factor of showing the vulnerability and softness that a girl had?

“Is a girl’s virginity so important?” She asked again, trying to brush the nervousness from her voice.

“Cass, we aren’t having this conversation now. But if you really wanted to know, yes it does. Especially yours,” he spoke directly. His honesty felt like a low blow, gutting Cassadee right where it hurt. She did, for a moment in her teenage years, wonder when Derrick would pop her cherry and how it would feel like to lose your virginity to someone you would gladly trade a million days just to be with. Apparently he had plans too.

But it was mindless romance, now Cassadee knew that a woman's virginity was up her own discord.

She fell silent, desperately searching in the dim door light for some kind of hint on how to carry on. There was a strange tearing feeling starting in her chest, and Cassadee didn’t want, at any cost to unravel, especially not now.

“I’m sorry, for what I did to you.”

When he finally spoke, it was like a wave of electricity washed over both of them. Only this wasn’t pleasant, neither was it passionate. It was painful, jolting- leaving a trail of destruction behind.

“I-I don’t know what to say to that,” Cassadee said, hating that the tears were starting to form. She wouldn’t cry over a boy, wouldn’t blame him for what she did to her own self.

“5 years Derrick, you left me for 5 years. If there’s a way to break the stupor of a dumb lovesick girl, you did it perfectly.”

“I know and I never stopped hating myself, but I had to do it.”

“No you didn’t,” she said softly. Gripping her door knob tightly, wanting more than anything to just run away and hide under her covers.

Derrick looked at her, reminding himself again that it was him that left behind this broken shell of a girl he once loved. He had often wondered if he would ever love Cassadee if she weren’t who she was before- that innocent, selfless girl. But here she was, hardly innocent, and so recklessly selfish. And he still loved her, there was still that glimmer of care in him- a part in him that would have Cassadee permanently inked into him.

There were no words, just no words, to describe how both of them felt. That jarring emptiness that defined their relationship now, both clueless and fumbling carelessly in the dark to desperately fix themselves. But the truth was that it was hard, and it would take time. They would have to start over.

Derrick raised a finger to brush a stray tear from Cassadee’s face. It slipped carelessly onto his fingers.

“I’m going to hug you now, don’t push me away,” he whispered before wrapping his arms around her shoulder. Pushing her tiny frame against his own, feeling her bony shoulder blades press against him, missing the heat and softness of her body. She pressed her head against his chest, feeling the drum of his heartbeat- just like she had dreamed of a million times. Gently pressing her head to him, Derrick wanted this to last forever.

But the unspoken words, and the buried sorrow could not be fixed. It couldn’t even be filled. A hug was temporary, just a show of how the past could still fit so tightly and snugly into your present. It was as if nothing ever changed.

Breathing each other in, Cassadee didn’t push him away- she accepted him. Just like she had always done, achingly knowing that she always would. But she couldn’t return her love, and she was afraid that she could never return it. She felt his arms around her, locking both of them into place. She would have followed him off the edges of the earth last time, as long as he promised to keep her in his arms.

But he never did. And she never recovered.

Removing herself from him, the way Velcro painfully removes itself from its hold- Cassadee looked up at him. There was so much pain, so much terror in their dismal and childish relationship.

“Thanks for not pushing me away.”

“No problem. But it doesn’t mean that I’ll come back.”