Fire & Ice

fourteen

Cassie and I didn't really speak for the rest of the night. After our kiss I pulled Cassie's body into mine and we finished watching that episode of American Horror Story before we went our separate ways to bed, not without a kiss though. The next morning when I woke up, Cassie left already for her classes and I made my way through my own day. 

            All I wanted to do was come home and talk to Cassie though. Slowly I made it through all my classes and as I got back to the dorm, Becca tried to stop me at her door. She said she wanted to go over something for the class we have together but I wasn't having it right now so I told her to just text me what she needed and we could talk about it after practice tomorrow. With Becca sated, I finally was able to push open my dorm room door and found Cassie inside sitting at the kitchen table with a few textbooks open in front of her. When she heard the door shut she looked up and gave me a smile before looking down at her books again.

            I took a few moments for myself in my room to decompress from my classes before joining her at the table. When I got to the table, three out of the four books were closed and stacked up and it looked like she was finishing up with what she was doing in this last book.

            "Just give me a few minutes to finish this and I'll meet you on the couch okay?" Cassie asked.

            "No problem, take all the time you need." I said not wanting to interrupt her work.

            "I just need five minutes and I'll be good." Cassie said and gave me a smile before returning to writing a few notes in her notebook.

            I left her alone at the table and made myself comfortable on the couch. I quickly pulled up Netflix and started up a new episode of American Horror Story and hit pause so that when Cassie was done we could watch it together. Since that only took me a few seconds I ended up pulling my phone from my pocket and scrolled through my emails to double check my work schedule for this week. I did pick up a shift tonight at the rink that I needed to get to in about an hour but it would give me some time to talk to Cassie.

            After double checking the schedule I saw the text from Becca asking about the homework for our microeconomics class. I got up off the couch and got the information she needed and when I returned I saw Cassie sitting on the couch under another blanket waiting for me. She gave me a smile and I sat down next to her.

            "Last night was a lot, I never wanted to force anything on you and I just wanted to say if you don't feel the same way in the day light I'm not going to hold you to anything." I started wanting to make it clear that if Cassie doesn't want this, doesn't want me, there is an out.

            "You are right, last night was a lot, you laid a lot on me and I laid a bit on you. I did kind of wish you kissed me the other night at the game but I don't think either of us were ready for that in front of everyone else. I'm happy it was here on our couch in our dorm. I did want to show you something though if that's okay?" Cassie asked and looked really nervous.

            I just nodded and clenched my jaw. With no clue what Cassie wanted to show me I just took a deep breath and tried to let go of my rising anxiety. Cassie backed away from me and I looked at her confused. Before I could get a word in Cassie pulled the blanket off her legs. I watched as she folded up the blanket and once it was gone I saw that Cassie was actually wearing shorts. Something I've never seen her wear before, but that's when I noticed it.

            Her left leg is scarred. From her foot to her thigh and it disappears under the leg of her shorts. The lower portion of her leg is definitely more severely scarred then the top of her leg but it's still enough to know that whatever happened was horrific.