Coming Home

All I remember was walking up in a dark room, and seeing her. Her insane face, just clouded with everything that wasn’t meant to be human. We talked for a bit, she was angry. Then she started stabbing me. It was only twice, but it seemed to last forever, again and again. The pain lasted for such a long time. Such a long time.

------------------------------------------

“Hey Cass, what’s up?” smiled the girl who worked at the coffee shop that Cassadee visited frequently. She was in college, trying to earn some extra bucks.

“Nothing much Pam, feeling like having a green tea thing today.”

“You mean a Macha frap?”

“Yeah that.”

“Who’s that? A date?” She smiled. Cassadee forced a smile back. Pamela was from Holland, thank god, so she didn’t necessarily have to know about anything.

“Just an acquaintance,” Cassadee replied.

“An Americano as well, no sugar, no anything actually,” Cassadee told her, while handing over a five dollar tip along with the bill.

Cassadee realised, while waiting for their coffees that she hadn’t forgotten Derrick’s coffee preferences. Always bitter, with nothing in it. She used to think it was so mature, and so sophisticated until she realised that there was really no point in going to a coffee shop and judging people based on their orders.

She knew that she would have to meet him eventually, but the thought of how, who, when and why never occurred to her until he was a few metres away, studiously studying the coffee menu while waiting for her. Coffee sounded like the mature, adult thing to do when in all reality, she just wanted to throw the letter back in his face and scream her head off at him.

“Order’s up!” She grabbed the two orders, one frozen and chilled against her skin, and one warm and steaming.

She didn’t deny that there was still that part of her that wanted to jump his bones and make out with him like they used to. But the thoughts were unclean, and tarnished. Affected by her perverse mind and the things she had seen and had felt. As she approached their table looking out at the highway, the cars blinking and teetering as they raced down the road, she took a moment to look at him.

He still looked the same, that same face- distractingly good looking. Only this time he seemed a lot more open and unguarded. There was different sort of beauty in the way he moved, one that was free and learned.

Setting the cups down on the table she busied herself by sticking the straw into her drink and sucking, looking out at the car.

“My treat,” she told him as he fumbled for his wallet.

Then there was that awkwardness again. The feeling that things were so wrong and broken. She looked at him, thoughtfully sucking on her drink.

“So,” he started, before breaking off.

“So.”

“I guess it would be cruel to ask you how you’ve been.”

“What makes you say that?” She challenged, staring him down. She wanted so badly, to be bitter, to be that broken but forcefully upright girl she had trained herself to be. But her reply came out thoughtful, almost as if she were really curious to hear his answer.

“You look different.”

“Sorry about just now by the way,” she interrupted. She didn’t need to hear him comment on how different she looked, him and a million others. Especially since she didn’t have a reply to that question that didn’t involve just her screaming “IT WAS ALL YOUR FAULT” at his face.

Then they fell silent again. Cassadee wondered why she was wasting her time here, engaging in a sort of wordless conversation with the boy she once loved so much.

“Were you two dating?” He asked. She blinked at him, his question didn’t necessarily demanded an answer, but it was pretty clear from just now that they weren’t.

“I appreciate your courtesy, but it was pretty clear we weren’t dating,” she replied.

“Just wanted to make sure.”

“That the rumours were true? That I’m no longer the nation’s sweetheart?”

He stopped talking and looked at her for a long time.

“Yeah, basically that.”

“Well, congrats on getting your answer,” she replied sarcastically, leaning back heavily, wanting to put as much distance between him and her as possible.

“Look I’m sorry-“

“If you wanted to apologise, you could’ve just told me instead of asking me out to a public place.”

“Where do you suggest we go?”

“My house. Let’s go.”

~

Derrick watched her back as she unlocked the door to her apartment. He had been trying hard not to stare at her. She had been pretty before, but now she was just gorgeous. Because of the way she walked, of the way she commanded the air around her.

He hated to say that he was more attracted to her than he was before because of how she looked because it was a shitty thing to say, but he couldn’t help it.

He followed her into her apartment, feet ringing against the wooden floors. There was one colour, white, and another, which was wood. She was no longer poor, quite successful actually, considering that she had only been working for 1 year.

“Royalty perks,” she replied to his wordless questions, casting him a look as she dumped her bag on the marble kitchen counter.

“What?”

“Why I’m no longer poor? Because I used to be around you and Caleb,” she replied, shrugging off her jacket and peeling off her heels.

In school, Derrick used to refer to these people as ‘client-states’ even though he was sure that there were other better phrases to use than his amateur definition. People who benefited and depended on those who were more influential because of their dealings with each other. He realised suddenly how superficial Cassadee and Angela’s relationship was with the royalty. They were sort of like those birds who sat on top of Rhinos, ridding of the ticks while gaining protection and food.

It was a mutually beneficial relationship, but it tipped the social scale unfairly.

“A parasite,” she muttered again, settling her coffee on the counter as she used a rubber band to secure her hair into a messy bunch at the back of her head.

Derrick hated to agree with her, but that was how the public probably viewed her and everyone who hung out with him and Caleb. He stared at her back, standing awkwardly near the kitchen island and her living room- perhaps a little distracted by her slender shoulder blades, wrapped with her pale skin, almost glistening under the orange lights.

“You look awkward, I’ll show you around,” she said again, turning to him, reaching out for his cup to set it down next to hers. Finger brushing, Derrick wondered if she felt that familiar jolting sensation he did, but if she did, she never paid any attention to it.

“Living room, where you know. T.V and stuff,” she pointed to a couch in front of her open kitchen with a coffee table set beside it.

“Windows let light in, never been a fan of the dark,” she said again. Sure enough, large panning windows framed most part of her wall, and were sheathed with plain ivory coloured curtains.

“Bedroom,” she jerked a door open and Derrick saw her room- stark and plain, except for two shelves which filled up the corner of the rooms. There were 3 small steps leading up to a gigantic mattress on the wooden floor.

Then she opened another door next to hers to reveal a room filled with tacked articles, quotes, strings, pictures and letterings, while a long work table faced the wall with a single laptop attached to the wall.

“And this darling, is my work space,” she said. And his eyes flicked from the wall to her. There was that glint in the eye that he had missed, that glint that insinuated that she felt comfortable. He tried to imagine her, working while being lost in a deluge of words and phrases.

She left the door open, inviting him into her world of lost treasures. He studied the wall carefully, there was poetry, random torn out pages from books- filled with highlights and underlines. Then there were post-its scrawled with her writing, chunky and messy.

As they stood in silence in her room, Derrick suddenly noticed that Cassadee had been leaning against a metal cabinet, eyeing him warily. There was a dark blossoming of something unknown and strangely addictive in her eyes as she stared at him. He felt her eyes skim his lips, then his hands, then his whole body.

“I’ve missed out,” he said, suddenly aware of a thick and unsettling atmosphere around them.

Snapping out from her trance, she looked up at him again, head jerking upwards suddenly. Her hair escaped her rubber band from the sudden motion.

“Yeah,” she shrugged, unaware of the effect she had on him. He wanted to touch her, but he couldn’t. Wrong, he shouldn’t.

It was like him coming back ruined things, like someone had reconnected the wire to an electrical socket. Lights were blaring and flashing at them, memories were dug up, and emotions were stirred.

Without a word, he crossed the room to stand in front of her. Taking her in, her eyes, her nose, and her mouth. He was so close to her, he could smell the aromatic scent of green tea escaping her mouth as she let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Bringing his hand up to sweep away the strays of hair that escaped her rubberband, he felt both their breaths hitch. His heart beating strongly, blood rushing- aware that her slender body was just inches away from his own body.

As he reached in to tuck the hair behind her ears, she reached up and grabbed his hand. He thought she was pushing her away, he expected this. After all he had done.

Then suddenly they were kissing. Not the slow and sweet kind they shared before, but a painful, jaw-crushing kind. The kind of kiss you would expect from a night of staring and teasing, not from just coffee. She wrapped her hands around his neck, bringing him down to her- the sounds of their lips clashing filling the air. He held her chin towards him, breathing heavily, almost panting into their lip lock.

She didn’t stop, didn’t hesitate. There was a fervour in her that she had developed over years of not seeing him.

Fingering his shirt buttons, Cassadee started to undo them, feeling his hands trail back to her dress, lingering over her zipper before pulling it down. It was all going so well, it was all feeling so good and discrete, before she realised what the hell was going on.

Pulling back abruptly, breathless and in shock, Cassadee slammed into her metal cabinet. The pants had stopped, smacking lips had stopped as the metal crash overtook all emotions. She looked at him in the dull light entering her work room. His eyes were unreadable, hair was a mess.

As much as she needed it, she knew that sex was a distraction from him. And now he had presented himself to her, in the form of sex. The paradox of it was killing her, but she wanted him so badly.

“I’m sorry,” he started again, stepping away from her, like they had committed a felony.

“Me too,” she whispered.

Then he turned, grabbed his coat and almost stumbled out the door. And unlike 5 years ago, this time Cassadee was glad that he had left.