Look - Zan Romanoff Page 0,71
empty at hangover o’clock on the first day of the year. It’s been a long time since Lulu ate anywhere like this: a place that wasn’t trying to be cute, or stylish—that just, like, was. They don’t list a provenance for the coffee on the menu, or explain to her how it’s been brewed. She sits in a booth drinking a cup, black, and worrying.
Lulu expects Cass to show up looking wrecked, but when she arrives she’s just subdued. She doesn’t look broken, but she doesn’t look entirely like herself either. It takes Lulu a minute to work out why: She isn’t wearing mascara. Her eyelashes are pale ginger, faint and delicate against the cream of her skin.
Lulu was ready to comfort Cass while she cried. She has no idea what to do with the stoic, steely-eyed Cass who’s sitting across from her.
Cass breaks the silence. She says, “Hi.”
“Hi,” Lulu repeats.
The waitress tailed her in, so she takes Cass’s coffee order and they’re spared the pressure of making conversation for a minute more.
Then she bustles away, and it’s just the two of them.
“I—” Lulu says, but she can’t get the rest of the sentence out of her throat.
Cass asks, “So where did you go last night?”
“To Bea’s.”
“Oh.”
Talking to Cass has always been almost too easy. Now Lulu feels like she’s sitting with a stranger. “How did you— Did you end up staying long? At the party?” she asks.
“No, Lulu.”
“Did I miss something?” Lulu asks. “Something else?”
“No, Lulu.”
“Okay.” Lulu wishes she had done something right—with Bea, with Cass—so that people wouldn’t keep being so mad at her, but it’s too late for that now. “I’m sorry I left without you. I wasn’t thinking straight. I wasn’t thinking at all. I just had to leave. I felt like I was gonna die if I didn’t.”
Cass’s coffee arrives. She takes a long swallow and looks out the window. She doesn’t say anything. Then, after a while, conversationally: “He broke my heart, Lulu.”
“He what?”
“My heart, Lulu. He broke it.”
“I thought you guys weren’t—”
“He was my best friend. For a while—before you—he was one of my only friends. I trusted him, and I loved him, and he got pissed that I wasn’t paying attention to him and he betrayed me. He took something that he knew was important to me and made sure everyone could see it. He exposed me, even though he knew it was the last thing I’d be able to stand. He broke my heart last night, Lulu.” Cass can’t keep the emotion out of her voice anymore. “And you just left. You went to hang out with Bea. You didn’t text. You didn’t call. You didn’t ask if I was okay—”
“I know.” There’s nothing Lulu can do to change it. “I know,” she says again. “I couldn’t bear to look at you, Cass. It felt like it was going to make it too real. It was selfish. That’s the truth about me: I’m a very selfish person.”
“Don’t ask me to feel sorry for you.”
“I’m not,” Lulu snarls. God, she’s angry. All of the rage she’s been suppressing comes roaring to life, and before she knows it she’s saying, “He did this to me too, you know.”
“Not like he did it to me.”
“Oh, because of your special friendship?” Lulu couldn’t let herself be angry with Ryan, not the way she wanted to be. She couldn’t let herself scream or curse, get ugly and wild. But there’s nothing and no one stopping her from dumping the fury that’s been simmering in her blood—at Ryan, but also at her stupid, stupid self—onto Cass.
“Or,” Lulu continues. “Do you mean, because I’ve already exposed myself on the internet? That it just shouldn’t bother me as much? I was always going to be damaged goods, I guess.”
“That’s not what I said. That’s not even remotely what I said.”
“What are you saying, then?”
“I’m saying that I get the sense you disappeared on Bea when you met me, but when I stopped being easy, you went back to Bea. I’m saying that I thought there was one person I could completely, totally trust, and he fucked me over, and I’m scared. I’m scared of him, and I’m scared of you too. I’m scared that I’m gonna keep falling for you, and you’re gonna abandon me when I stop being convenient.”
“I didn’t do anything!”
“Exactly. You don’t do things. You let things happen to you. You waited for that Flash to break you and Owen up; you were never gonna tell