handling all this, Pres.”
“It’s like, when you’re panicking, I feel less scared. It’s nice to be the one helping you for once.” He fiddles with the hem of his shirt. “You still haven’t told Grace what’s going on either?”
“She doesn’t need another reason to worry about me.”
“You ever think maybe she worries about you anyway?”
“I don’t know anything that goes on in her head anymore,” I say.
Everything at school the next day is bright. Yellow light and noise and plastic food smells. I smile and nod when November stops me by my locker after first period and asks if I’m okay. I don’t trust myself to open my mouth.
I don’t go straight to the supply closet at lunch. There’s somebody I have to find first. But he’s not in the cafeteria or any of the upstairs classrooms. When I finally track Cassius down, he’s alone in the art room, tearing down his paintings in jagged strokes. Tacks fly off the wall, pinging off the paint-stained sink. The paintings drift to the floor, edges ripped. I’ve only ever seen him touch things like they were made of feathers. The same way he touched me that night.
“Can we talk?” I say.
He freezes when he sees me. “Why?” His voice sounds so fragile. I can’t believe I ever thought he was the blackmailer. “I mean, about what?”
Being near him used to be enough to make my heart pound. Now it makes my skin crawl. No wonder he acts so scared around me. I must make him feel the same way.
“I was hoping you could do me a favor.” I try not to imply that he owes me one. “I need you to keep Nov out of the auditorium during her dad’s presentation today.”
He lets this thaw between us for a few minutes. “How come?”
I might as well tell him. He’ll figure it out no matter what.
“I’m going to publicly shame Officer Roseby.” It sounds almost badass. Maybe this will make up for everything between Cassius and me. “I have a video of him. Police brutality. I’m gonna show it to everyone. He deserves it, after how he’s been treating you.”
He stares at me. “Am I supposed to say thank you?” There’s a little lightning in his dreamy voice. “Like you’re saving me from him or something?”
“No! No, not like that.”
He looks down again. I can’t understand how I saw him as a sex object. He holds himself like Grace.
“I’m sorry about this summer,” I explode. “I’m sorry I never called you afterward.”
“I didn’t call you, either,” he says quickly. I hadn’t even noticed.
“Right, but I was the one who climbed all over you, and kissed you first, and just generally instigated things, so it was my responsibility to call. And I probably justified it by being, like, well, the guy is supposed to call, but it was on me.”
A fraction of the tension dribbles out of him. “It’s okay.”
“No, it sucked. I was using you, and that was gross.” I twist my hands together. God, this is hard. “You didn’t deserve that.”
“It was a messed-up night,” he says. “I think we were both kind of using each other.”
Which hurts some past version of me that I guess I’m still carrying around, but I let it go. His eyes are on the door. We’re not having the heart-to-heart I thought we’d have. What if all his avoidance is more than just awkwardness? What if he is scared of being near me? A possibility crashes into me.
“Cassius . . .” Real fear isn’t hot or electric. It’s deep, outer-space, never-ending cold. “That night . . . I didn’t . . . You were okay with what was happening, right?”
His eyes widen. “That’s not why it was a messed-up night. I definitely consented.”
“Okay. Okay. Just making sure.”
“Right.” His gaze softens a bit. “Don’t worry about that.”
One of the paintings on the floor is of the quarry. There’s a shadow splashed across the center of the page, a flare going up in the middle, a pillar of yellow.
“I’m leaving,” he says suddenly.
“Oh. Bye . . .”
“No, I mean I’m leaving this school,” he says. “Savannah and I, and Mom. We’re moving back to the city with our aunt. Savannah doesn’t want to come back here, and people think . . . people think some things about me now.”
“They’ll get over that,” I say because I’m supposed to. It sounds weak.
He shakes his head. “Everyone here’s already decided what they’re going to see when they look at me.