Sat down on the steps at the side of the building where nobody went and put my head between my knees and waited for it to pass.
It did, eventually.
They always did.
But I missed two classes and by the time I texted my mom she was already on her way and by the time she got there I was fine — or fine-adjacent, the wrung-out version of fine that comes after — and she held my face in both hands and looked at me for a long time without saying anything.
On the drive home she called Cassian.
I didn’t ask her to.
She just did.
• • •
He was sitting on my front steps when we pulled in.
Just there. Like it was obvious. Like there was nowhere else he’d be.
He probably snuck out of school. For me.
My mom squeezed my hand before I got out of the car.
I didn’t look at him right away. I was still in that raw, embarrassed place that comes after — the one where existing feels slightly too loud, where your own skin feels like it belongs to someone else.
Where I’m embarrassed I felt too much.
And couldn’t handle being a person like everyone else.
He fell into step beside me without a word.
We walked past my front door.
Past the side gate.
Into the backyard.
• • •
We ended up by the pool.
The garden was in full bloom — my mom’s daisies everywhere, messy and bright and completely indifferent to everything that had happened today.
Maybe I should have been raised a daisy. Maybe that would have been easier.
We sat at the edge with our feet in the water. The afternoon was golden. The kind of late September day that feels like summer making one last argument for itself.
Neither of us said anything for a while.
That was the thing about Cassian. He never rushed it. Never tried to fix it or reframe it or tell you it wasn’t a big deal. He just sat in it with you.
I’d learned that from him.
He’d learned it from somewhere I didn’t know about yet.
Eventually I told him what happened.
Not dramatically. Just — the facts of it. The hallway, the steps, missing class, my mom coming.
