The Weight Of A Schoolgirl Crush
I just want someone to walk in front and I'll follow the leader
Like when I fell under the weight of a schoolboy crush
- Bright Eyes, "Nothing Gets Crossed Out"
I think we should hang and black out together
He's sixteen. Cassidy's been doing this long enough to know how to pick up the pieces. When Dick calls Veronica a bitch for dumping Logan again, Logan slams him up against his Xterra, denting the passenger-side door. Cassidy retrieves the bottle of whiskey that's pouring its contents onto the sand and hands it back to a pouting Dick. Nobody says anything for a while as they sit drinking on the beach in the dark, their backs up against the side of Logan's truck. Eventually, Logan gets up to chuck his empty bottle into the black ocean.
"Dude, did you tell her that the pool was our idea?" Dick says almost hopefully when Logan makes his way back from the water's edge. "You shoulda just said you were along for the ride."
"She wouldn't have heard it," Logan answers sharply, like he doesn't want to talk about this anymore, and settles back down next to Cassidy. Dick grows quiet, drains his bottle, and soon Cassidy can tell by the way he's breathing that he's passed out.
Cassidy doesn't know why he says what he says. Maybe it's because if Logan's not blaming Veronica, then he's blaming himself, and Cassidy would rather have Logan focusing his anger elsewhere. Maybe this silence is too pregnant. Either way, Cassidy takes a deep breath and keeps his eyes on where he thinks the horizon would be, during the day. The words fall out of his mouth, like a flood.
"I'm the one who told Veronica that you came back from Mexico early, that day Lilly was--" he stops abruptly. After all this time, he still can't say it.
Logan only sighs, as if he doesn't want to deal with Cassidy's girly apologies right now. "On the list of shitty things that have happened to me, you're not even in the top ten." He grabs the half-finished bottle out of Cassidy's hand.
It's not exactly forgiveness, but that's not what Cassidy was looking for anyway. He steals a sideways glance at Logan and sees that he's on the verge of tears. Logan's crumpling in on himself, and Cassidy feels everything moving backwards. He's fifteen again, and his best friend is a murderer. He's fourteen, and suffocating in his own house. He's twelve, and his brother has just stolen his name. He's seven, and has no voice.
When the sun starts to come up and Logan has wiped away the last of his tears, Cassidy helps lift Dick into the car. They drive back home in silence.
it's hard to focus through all this doubt
He's fifteen. Abel Koontz couldn't have killed Lilly, and Cassidy can't sleep. He tosses and turns and finally comes to a decision.
When he corners Veronica in the hall the next day, he feels like a traitor. But a girl is dead, and there's a world outside of Neptune. One where justice still exists and has no price.
And that has to be bigger than his friendship with Logan. It has to.
He takes a deep breath, opens his mouth, and tells her everything. But even as he's saying it, he wonders what will change. His words have no power. They'll fall dead to the floor.
my head's a carousel of pictures
He's fourteen. Lilly's dead and Logan's been sleeping over almost everyday. He hasn't stopped playing the new Mortal Kombat since he's gotten here, and Cassidy can't bring himself to leave Logan alone in the rec room.
Dick pulls Cassidy aside during a piss break and makes him swear that they'll never reveal Logan's secret.
"To the grave, Beaver," he says while clasping the back of Cassidy's neck with one strong hand. "'Cause we're brothers." Cassidy thinks that their being brothers has nothing to do with Logan's secret, but Dick wouldn't understand that kind of logic, so he keeps it to himself. He agrees for Logan's sake, and Dick slaps him on the back, hard, like he's proud of him.
Cassidy knows, from what Logan has told him, that Lilly hated her life -- or at least the home part of it, and Cassidy can relate to that. He wonders if dying was Lilly's overdramatic way of making an escape, and what it would take for Cassidy to make his. He would turn to his father and say, Dick, I don't need you anymore; and then to his brother, Dick, I don't owe you anything. He'd fling open the front doors to leave, move his body across the threshold, but never get any farther than that. He'd be stopped in his tracks by the blinding California sunlight -- he can't see beyond it, there's nothing out there for him, he doesn't have anywhere to go -- and he'd be stuck.
Cassidy snaps back to reality when he loses the game by getting decapitated, and Logan gives him a sidelong glance from his crouched position in front of the television. "Where the fuck did you go, man?"
Cassidy doesn't answer, and let's Dick grab the controller out of his hands.
all those summers singing, drinking, laughing, wasting our time
He's twelve. They're out by the pool, and Logan and Dick are drinking the beers Logan stole from the fridge. Cassidy takes a sip but he has to spit it back out, and when they laugh at him, his ears turn red. He jumps into the pool to cover up his embarrassment.
Logan is drunk by noon. He calls Cassidy over by saying, "Cassidy. Cassidy Casablancas. Cass Cass Cass Cass." He can't stop laughing.
"That's my name, Logan," he says sullenly as he squints against the sunlight.
"No, it isn't," Logan announces. "Nobody can have a name as stupid as Cassidy Cass Ass Casablancas." He jumps up on the deck chair and points straight down at Cassidy. "From now on, you will be known as… Beaver."
"Dick and Beaver!" his brother yells out like it's a great revelation, and spews beer all over himself, laughing. Cassidy doesn't know what that means exactly, but from the way Dick's screaming at the top of his lungs, he knows it can't be good. Logan almost looks sorry when he says it's just a stupid joke, and finally pushes Dick into the pool.
But afterward, his brother starts calling him that all the time, introduces him as that to everyone, no matter how many times Cassidy tells him to shut up.
And it's been that way ever since.
when the world ends, who's gonna hear it
He's seven. Cassidy sits in his room alone, scratching at his neck because they've made him wear his itchy suit. He can hear Dick sobbing in the room next door, big gulps of air and choked wails, but Cassidy hasn't said a word in three days. This worries his father, he knows, but he doesn't know how to stop.
"Cassidy, say something."
He looks up from his reflection in his patent leather shoes and sees his father standing in the doorway. His father is a big man, bigger than most of his friend's dads, but right now Cassidy feels like the biggest person in the room. He opens his mouth, and let's the only word he can think fall out.
"Mom."
He sees his father wince as if somebody's hit him, and this is why Cassidy hasn't said anything since that night at the hospital. His father is at his side in two long strides and holds him so close that Cassidy's finding it hard to breathe. He doesn't feel so big anymore.
"Mom's gone, buddy. Do you understand that?" Cassidy has his ear pressed up against his father's chest, and he hears his voice as a low rumble coming from all directions. Cassidy doesn't answer. It's easier to stay quiet.
"I don't know how to talk to you," his father continues in a low whisper.
Cassidy thinks, You're talking to me now.
"You're your mother's son."
I'm your son too.
He's cradling Cassidy as if he was a baby again, and later, when he's older, Cassidy will think back to this moment as the last time he can remember his father holding him.
They go to the funeral. His father doesn't cry, and neither does Cassidy. When they lower the casket into the ground, his father squares his shoulders and looks around the cemetery with a long, hard stare. He has the same look on his face whenever Cassidy visits him at the office, and he can tell that his father has just come to a decision.
A month later, his father brings home one of the young tennis instructors from the club, all white shorts and blonde pigtails, and soon after the pictures of his mother disappear from the house. Cassidy sits cross-legged on the carpeted floor in front of the empty wall, staring at the squares of faded paint the frames have left behind, and he thinks he should scream. He opens his mouth to yell, to say something, but his voice is caught in his throat and all that comes out is a whimper. There's nothing to say.
He moves away, and goes up to his room.