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Not gonna make it 2nite. Last min practice. Sry babe ):
So maybe it’s not the first time Conner’s ditched her. So maybe it definitely won’t be the last time, either.
Cassie feels the pang of the knowledge like an ache in her chest all the same.
Alone in a bar and glitzed up like some fucking frat boy’s wet dream isn’t her idea of a good time, and she’s had just enough of whatever beer’s on tap to feel that familiar phantom itch in her fists that screams for something physical to match the weight in her chest. She crushes her phone in her hand just hard enough for the bite of the plastic into her skin and stands for the door, bar stool scraping on the wood of the floor and backing hard into someone behind her. There’s an apology on Cassie’s tongue that’s sincere enough but the girl she bumped into beats her to it, all heavy bite and reeking of cheap tobacco and whiskey.
“Better watch where you’re walking there, princess.” She leans forward with a drunken sway, leering with a grin like an open wound. “Not everyone around here’s as nice as me. How about I let you buy me a drink to make up for it, huh?”
Cassie burns. Bites her tongue for the way it stings.
“I think it’s you who needs to watch where you’re walking.” With a sneer, she turns to leave. “And it seems to me that you’ve had more than enough to drink already.”
The girl grabs ahold of her arm, tight enough to bruise, and Cassie --
Cassie burns.
“I get it. Act like you know me, right? Like you’re not transparent as hell yourself. What happened? Your meathead boytoy stand you up again?” The girl’s smile is mean. “Yeah, I got your number. Second time this week. Get off your fucking high horse.”
Cassie burns until her cheeks flush with it, until the edges of her vision go ugly and sharp. “Shut up and get out of my way.”
The girl’s fingers tighten around Cassie’s arm and she leans in like she’s got a secret -- like they’re fucking friends, like she does know Cassie. “Or what?”
Cassie knows there’s nothing better than landing a punch that you really mean. She fucked her way through grade school with her fists, with her anger -- got pulled out of two public schools and suspended from a private one.
The girl’s still smiling, even as blood drools from her mouth, even as she spits it and jerks a knee up into Cassie’s stomach.
Cassie goes down hard, pushes back harder, dragging the girl into one of the nearest tables, the sound of glass crunching underneath her back satisfying.
They get broken up before anything else can be thrown, but Cassie comes away bruised, comes away bleeding, comes away feeling --
Lighter.
Stupider.
Stupider and emptier, like she always does after this kind of shit.
They get thrown to the alleyway behind the bar and the girl just snorts for it, pulling a cigarette from her jacket pocket to flood the alley with light. Cassie wonders, for a minute, if she’s gonna try to throw another punch, but she doesn’t, just looks at Cassie from beneath a wave of silver hair and blows a stream of smoke out the side of her mouth.
“You wanna get out of here?”
Cassie looks at the stars and wonders why the idea doesn’t sound as crazy as it should.
Her name is Rose and she owns a tattoo shop three blocks from Cassie’s dorm. It’s the dimly lit, shady kind of place that she’d normally avoid, but she supposes that makes sense, given the kind of person who runs it. When the door swings shut behind them, Cassie feels so suddenly out of place that it rocks her to her core, brings her arms up to her chest.
Rose looks -- terrible, black eye, busted lip, bruise on her cheek.
“Can I--” It’s a weird question, Cassie knows, too weird to finish. “You’re bleeding.”
Rose snorts. “Yeah, you’ve got kind of a bitch of a right hook.”
Cassie sighs. “Do you have any ice? Let me fix you up, at least.”
And now it’s Rose’s turn to look out of place. She nods, though, after a moment, and leads Cassie to a cabinet in the back with a Hydrogen Peroxide and a roll of butterflies.
Rose is still under Cassie’s administrations, too quiet for Cassie to handle.
She lets the frustration bleed with the guilt underneath her skin, eyebrows furrowing. “You -- I don’t know why you didn’t just let me go.”
Rose snorts.
“Sometimes you just need to.”
Cassie’s mouth falls open, but Rose is glancing up at her before she can ask.
“Get hit, I mean. Start a fight. Sometimes you gotta bleed it out of you.”
Cassie swallows, letting her fingers rest light on Rose’s lip for a second too long. “That’s crazy.”
Rose laughs, too knowing. “So’s waiting on a guy who doesn’t even know what you need.”
She should bristle, should be angry, but instead she just feels -- warm. Comfortable. Like she’s gossiping with a girlfriend. Typical fucking Conner, her terrible boyfriend who she needs to dump, that she will dump, swear to god, maybe next time. She manages to roll her eyes, dropping the cool cloth on a nearby table. “And you do?”
Rose moves to grab a marker from the table beside her, drags it across the skin of Cassie’s palm until there are ten, neat little numbers on Cassie’s palm. After a breath between them, Rose drops her lips to the writing, smudges what’s left of her lipstick next to it -- a memento.
“Baby, I think you and I got more in common than you know.”