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Cassandras are meant to die. Or, at the very least, suffer a tragic, agonizing fate. They’re always right about everything, but they can never take any credit for it. All they can do is accept their miserable lot in life. It’s pure mythology.
So why the fuck is she waking up?
When Al had his sweaty paws around her throat and she’d exhausted all means of fighting him off, she thought she heard Nina’s voice in her ear, whispering lovingly, come with me, Cas, they can’t hurt us here anymore…
It had sounded like something worth clinging to.
But what she hears now doesn’t sound like Nina at all.
“Welcome back, psycho.”
Cassie blinks and the white blur spins into a room, finally.
Then a face emerges from the white background. The tousled, dirty-blond fringe is familiar. So is the long face and sad blue eyes.
Or maybe not sad. Definitely not sad, now that she can see him better. He looks pissed.
She parts her lips, but what comes out is a thin whistle. “Ryan..? Why…”
“Why are you in a hospital bed? Take an educated guess.” He sounds harsh. He sounds rattled.
She has this sudden flash – a fragment of a memory of him in med school, cramming for exams like a good boy, spending many sleepless nights in front of the vending machine, textbooks on his knees. He looks like that right now.
It’s sort of funny. She’d laugh if she had the strength.
“Fuck…off…” she manages to say, before her head falls back on the pillow and she closes her eyes.
When she opens them again, it’s night time and the room is empty. The blinds have been pulled and she can see the night sky through the window. She thought she’d be happy to see the few twinkling stars in the distance, but she’s just okay about it. Coming back from the brink of death hasn’t changed her outlook that much, it seems.
Cassie lifts a bandaged hand to her bruised neck. They’ve placed a small cast around it. Still, the bruises pulse angrily, making themselves known to her. She scratches a little under the bottom of the cast, even though she knows she shouldn’t.
“Hey, you shouldn’t do that.”
Someone is standing in the doorway. Coming in, to be precise, holding a cup of coffee. It’s Ryan. Ryan, the mealy-mouthed motherfucker. The coward. The by-stander. Always watching from the sidelines.
“Your parents were here earlier. They’ll come back in the morning,” he informs her, coming close to the bed. He rests his knuckles on her forehead briefly. Cassie turns her head to avoid his touch, but his knuckles move to her jaw, then under her jaw, clinically.
“Your fever’s down, at least,” he says, sitting down in the vacant chair. “The nurse said you ought to sleep.”
Cassie wets her lips. She feels feverish anyway. She tries to speak. “What happened?”
“Good question,” Ryan replies, none too friendly. “I’d like to know what happened too, seeing as the police found Al on top of you, trying to choke you to death. They thought you were a stripper at first, since, you know, that was the Halloween costume you chose for the occasion.”
Cassie resents being lectured by fucking Ryan, of all people. But her curiosity takes precedence. “Why…how did the police find me?”
Ryan looks down, embarrassed. “I called them.”
“You…called them,” she repeats, as if the words are part of a made-up language.
“You were annoyingly vague with your threats the last time we talked. I had a feeling something really bad was about to go down, so I sent an anonymous tip about physical violence at a bachelor party. Gave them the address and everything.”
Cassie feels something queasy in her stomach, the prelude to dry-heaving.
Fucking Ryan saved her fucking life. Fucking fuck.
Her face must show her absolute disgust, because he scoffs. “Don’t worry, I don’t expect a thank you. I know I’m still a sack of shit in your eyes. If it makes you feel better, I didn’t go to that much effort. I just called them from a payphone near my house.”
It doesn’t make her feel better. She doesn’t know how she feels about this “honest” version of Ryan.
“Al?” she asks wearily.
“Was charged with attempted murder, but his lawyers have already changed it to assault, claiming it was just a bachelor party that got out of hand. Guys apparently choke hookers by accident all the time, especially during BDSM routines. See, they found your fun little nurse kit, so they assumed it was all part of the act.”
Cassie hates him for narrating the details of her failure.
“He’ll have to pay his dues,” Ryan continues remorselessly, “but I don’t think he’ll do any jail time. The wedding’s off, though. The bride wants nothing to do with him. So…in terms of things you’ve accomplished, you can take that win.”
“Fuck you,” she manages to spit.
Ryan almost laughs. “Fuck me? Jesus, Cassie, you almost got yourself killed playing dress-up!”
“No. He almost killed me. There’s a difference.”
This time, he does laugh. “Really? So, your actions had nothing to do with it.”
She speaks slowly, but there’s vitriol in her voice. “No. I just baited him. He’s the impotent dick with rage issues. It’s pretty common among men.”
Ryan shakes his head and scoffs. “Sure. He's a fucking animal, but you weren’t just baiting him. You were going to kill him.”
It shocks her a little, how nonchalant he is about that last statement. What kind of person does he think she is?
A psycho, she answers to herself.
“I just…I just wanted to carve Nina’s name into his chest, so he’d always have the memento.”
Ryan parts his lips, but can’t seem to find the right words. After a while, he does. “You’re really fucking something.”
It almost sounds like a compliment, except he looks like he wants to finish what Al started. But no, she’s not afraid of Ryan, not in the same way. Because he does mean it as a compliment, in a way. A really scathing way.
“What are you still doing here?”
Ryan leans back in the chair. “I know it sounds outlandish to you, but I do actually have a conscience. You think I’d just call the police and enjoy the rest of my weekend? I had to see if you were still breathing, at the very least.”
Cassie regards him. “I’m breathing. I’ll probably survive. You can go.”
Ryan glares at her.
“You said you didn’t expect a thank you,” Cassie reminds him.
They stare at each other in silence for a few uncomfortable moments.
At length, he speaks. “I can’t go yet. I feel guilty. Responsible. I don’t know. You dragged me into this.”
“Oh, poor you.”
“Fuck you,” Ryan returns. “I’ve been re-playing our last conversation in my head every night since then.”
“I’m sure you had a very hard time. Nina did too. Maybe now you can sympathize.”
Ryan pinches the bridge of his nose. “Could you stop milking your friend’s tragedy for one fucking second?”
That stings. Of all the things that have happened to her, of all the bruises, of all the disappointments, that probably stings the most.
“What did you say?”
Ryan swallows. “Look, I know I’m a fucking shit. But can you admit you’re also kind of a fucking shit, because you’re using your friend’s tragedy to cope with your own baggage?”
Cassie wants to hurt him in this moment more than she has ever wanted to hurt Al. “You don’t get to talk about this. You just watched.”
Ryan looks away. “Yeah, I did. Guess that makes me a sociopath, or a really dumb fucking kid. But do you think Nina would’ve appreciated your crusade? Do you think she would’ve liked to see you like this?”
“I don’t know. She’s dead.”
Ryan kicks back the chair and gets up. He stares her down. “Sometimes, you act like you’re the one who died.”
Cassie feels tears well in her eyes. She feels betrayed by her body. Why did he have to say that, of all things? Why does he get to do this to her? He has no right to see this much inside her.
Ryan gives a depleted sigh. “You really should sleep. I’m gonna grab a stronger coffee.”
Cassie watches him go. She feels like crying, like letting loose those tears stuck at the corners of her eyes. But she doesn’t. If she started now, she’d never finish. Instead, she focuses on spite, which has always served her well. Like this, spitefully, she falls asleep.
Her parents are really upset, but her mother is more enraged about her “moonlighting as a stripper-slash-hooker” than anything else.
“So, is this your new choice of career, Cassie? Is this how it’s gonna be from now on? Getting calls in the middle of the night about you being in the ER dressed like a slutty nurse with bruises on your body? What did we do to deserve that?”
This is what she hears in the car on the way home.
Her father doesn’t ask her about stripping. Instinctively, he knows this isn’t her new career. He’s upset about “that asshole kid”, Al, who almost killed his baby girl.
Cassie is glad she’s still his baby girl. She’s glad he doesn’t know the rest of it. She’s relieved her parents think this was just a terrible mishap. Ryan did not tell them otherwise.
She thought she’d seen the last of him at the hospital, but he shows up at her house with lunch and pain meds.
She’s lying in her aquamarine PJs on top of a float of pillows in her childhood bed with a tray full of junk food next to her and there’s fucking Ryan at the foot of her bed and he’s brought her fucking broccoli and kale.
“I’m not eating that.”
“It’s seasoned with melted cheese,” he says, unwrapping the casseroles. “I know that’s the only way you’ll eat your veggies.”
God, she can’t believe there was a time when they lived together and he cooked for her.
“Okay, you’ve got a conscience, you’ve convinced me. Can this good Samaritan act end already?”
Ryan sits down on the bed. “Don’t worry. I’m only doing this to get in your pants again.”
Cassie looks up sharply.
Ryan snorts. “Sorry, couldn’t help myself.”
Yeah, that’s what they all say, she thinks. But it is oddly refreshing to hear Ryan be a legit shit instead of a pretend nice one.
“I do like melted cheese,” she mumbles, picking up the casserole.
They watch two episodes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on her laptop. He’s sitting at her feet, keeping a respectful distance. Cassie kicks him once or twice. He doesn’t seem to mind.
By the third week, they’re taking short walks in her neighborhood. Cassie feels stronger every day. But there’s a growing weakness too. It eats at her, like a cancer.
“Are you watching me in case I try to do something dangerous again?” she asks, as is her wont, out of the blue.
Ryan rubs the back of his head. “Are you? Going to try something dangerous again?”
Cassie smiles a sinister little smile. “What, you afraid for Al’s life?”
He returns her smile, though his is sad and weird. I’m afraid for yours, it seems to say.
Ugh, she thinks. Fucking Ryan who’s still fucking in love with her.
On the next walk, she tackles the issue head-on.
“You’re not by any chance still in love with me.”
Ryan makes a weak sort of clownish face. His face is quite clownish, she decides.
“Uhh, no. Obviously not. No, I – I’m just trying to be a friend.”
Cassie snorts. “Why would you want to be my friend? You called me a psycho repeatedly.”
“I was angry at you. I exaggerated. You – you scared me.”
“I’m still a psycho, you know. And I liked you better when you were honest.”
Ryan looks like a Labrador who’s figured out he has to go to the vet. He kicks a few leaves with his shoe. “I’m not not in love with you.”
Cassie folds her arms to contain herself. She feels ridiculous. “Well, that sucks for you.”
Ryan laughs. “Yeah, tell me about it.”
“For one,” she begins in earnest, “I’ll never touch you again. Two, I’ll keep insulting you forever. Three, –”
Ryan turns and stops before her. He looks angry and lonely and resigned, and a little happy too, weirdly.
“I get it. Can we just keep walking in peace? It’s a really nice day outside.”
Cassie grumbles under her breath, but she relents.
Yeah, it’s a nice fucking day, she’ll admit.
It happens in his office, where, last time she was there, she showed him that awful video.
It’s almost like she wants to punish herself. Scratch that, of course she wants to punish herself. She’s a Cassandra, after all.
She lifts her skirt mechanically, bends over his desk and tells him, “okay, you can fuck me, but don’t touch me.”
Ryan swallows hard, looking at her bare ass sticking out like an invitation. She didn’t wear any underwear for the occasion.
“You know fucking does involve some touching, right?”
“Use gloves.”
She’s already wearing a pair, he noticed. Not surgical, but the classical, elbow-long kind. Aren’t they called opera gloves? He’s not sure.
He only has surgical.
“Put two pairs on,” she instructs coolly. “And a condom.”
Ryan obeys. His gloved fingers rustle as they trace the freckles on her ass. His synthetic palms tickle her thighs. Cassie shifts, bracing herself.
Ryan caresses her tailbone. “I gather normal touch is more intimate to you than sex. Sex doesn’t scare you, but touching does.”
“I don’t need the therapy session. You’re not good at it, anyway. So just do what you are good at.”
“Are you saying I’m good at sex? Because that is pretty validating–”
“I’m saying we’ve had sex previously enough times that you’ve learned what I like. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Ryan takes it. He’s hungry for scraps.
His gloved fingers part her legs and slide probingly from her clit to her entrance, back and forth, building moisture.
It’s a weird, clinical feeling. Just right.
“Could you keep talking, though?” he says, a little breathless, positioning himself.
“Why?”
“The near strangulation affected your vocal cords. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but your voice is even lower now. It’s pretty fucking hot.”
Cassie looks at him over her shoulder. There’s a glint in her eye, something close to appreciation. Yeah, he does know her pretty well by now. And he knows he won’t get more than this acknowledgement.
He plays with her clit for a bit longer, until he feels she’s wet enough, which is hard to tell with two pairs of gloves, then sinks inside her slowly, relishing the way she tightens around him, pushing his entire length, inch by inch, until everything about them is only about this particular act and nothing else.
Cassandras everywhere must suffer.
She rests her head on the desk as it if were the chopping block and she lets herself feel the torment. It’s pretty good, as tortures go.
He hovers above her, buckles and leans down. His hot breath warms her bare waist and his gloved hand touches her gloved hand, asking for something more, so Cassie starts talking again, and that is how she comes, and that is how he comes too.
Later that evening, they’re eating ice cream in the park.
“You know, I saw Al the other day.”
Cassie sort of freezes, spoon in her mouth. She looks at the children playing in the sandpit and bites down on the metal.
“Yeah,” Ryan continues, unfazed. “I almost ran him over with my car. He got angry at first, but when he saw it was me, he just walked away, scared.”
Cassie licks the back of the spoon. She sneaks a glance at him. “So what, you’re gonna murder him for me?”
“No. But I think having him live in constant fear of you is pretty sweet.”
“You live in constant fear of me,” she points out dryly.
Ryan takes the spoon from her fingers. He licks it too. This is the closest he’ll get to kissing her again.
“Yeah, and like I said, it’s pretty sweet,” he adds with the smile of the recently condemned.
Cassie takes the spoon back.