“Come on,” I tell her, taking her hand and tugging her toward the car. “Get in. Let’s go back home and we can talk about this.”
“Really?” Cassidy gazes up at me, wiping at a fresh tear. “You mean, you don’t hate me?”
I laugh. “Cassidy. I could never hate you.”
Her lower lip quivers. But then, slowly, she nods. “Okay,” she murmurs. “Let’s go home.”
30
Lark
Somehow, Cassidy looks even more attractive when she’s dressed in my clothes. She’s curled up at the far end of my couch in a pair of my sweatpants and a baggy T-shirt. It should not make me want her, and yet, every time she glances in my direction, catching my gaze over the rim of the mug of steaming tea I made her, all I want to do is pull her off this couch and strip her back down.
But that’s not what we’re doing here. Yet.
“So,” I say, my voice quiet and yet still somehow startling in the silence.
“So,” she agrees. Her hands tighten around her tea mug. “Um. Thanks for the clothes.” She gestures at herself with a shrug. “And… the… tea.”
I stare.
She swallows hard. “I’m not getting out of this, am I?”
“We said we were going to talk, Cassidy,” I point out. “I think it’s well past time that we do.”
She nods, her gaze dropping back to the tea cradled in her lap once more. She takes a few breaths, and I think she’s going to go quiet on me again, but after a moment, she clears her throat. “My mom has spent her whole life living off of other people. At first it was the guys she dated. And I never wanted—I swore to myself, I would never be like that. I wanted to make my own way in life. But after I graduated, in between breakups, she started coming to me for money too. And… I mean, it’s my mom. What can you do? She’s family. So I supported her when she needed it. I pretended to believe all the lies she told me, about various debts that weren’t her fault, or overdue loans that didn’t exist… I guess I humored her.” Cassidy worries at her lower lip.
It makes me want to lean over and kiss her until she stops biting her own skin. But I resist. Because I need to hear this.
“And, look, I know I should be talking to my therapist about all this—and don’t worry, I have been. But you deserve to hear it too. My mom just… she made me never want to rely on anyone else. Or even ask anyone else for help. Because I look at her, and I just… never want to be that desperate. And then, when I was dating my ex…”
Heat flares in my gut. I restrain myself, because this is Cassidy’s past. It shouldn’t affect our present. It doesn’t.
“He was so controlling.” Cassidy’s voice drops lower. “He made more money than I did, so he wanted control over my whole bank account, everything I did… He said it was to help me, to ensure I didn’t wind up like my mother. But for him, it was just another way to control me, to ensure I could never leave him, even if I wanted to. Which I didn’t for way too long, because I had no idea how to recognize emotional abuse. I didn’t understand what a healthy relationship should look like.” Cassidy squeezes her eyes shut. “Until you.”
I breathe out slowly. “Cassidy…”
“No, I know. That’s pathetic. And I know it wasn’t healthy how I asked you for money earlier, but my mom really scared me this time. I don’t know if she’s lying again, if this whole hospital thing is another scam, but on the off chance that it’s not—”
I reach over to catch her hand, which silences her almost immediately. “If your mother needs help, then we’ll help her,” I say. And it makes my chest ache, the way relief and shock flare in her eyes at the same time.
It makes me realize that Cassidy has never been treated like this before. With simple, basic respect. I want to go back in time and throttle her ex. Fight everyone who ever made her believe that she’s less than worthy of all the love in the world.
“I don’t want to make you feel like I’m using you, or—”
“Cassidy.” I squeeze her hand. “You don’t. Look, I was projecting some of my shit with Sheryl onto you. And I get that you have a complicated past. I understand—so do I, obviously. But it’s understandable to want to help your mother through a difficult time. And it’s equally understandable to be cautious about that, if you’re not sure about your mother’s motivations yet. That’s all normal.”
Her breath hitches. “It’s definitely not normal,” she starts.
She breaks off when I lean in to kiss her, hard. “Fuck normal, then,” I whisper. “I don’t care about normal. I care about you. About what’s best for you, Cassidy Marks.”