He calls me Cassie. Everyone else insists on Cassandra; my parents, teachers, even the others on the team. But not Jake. He calls me Cassie…and I love it.
It rolls off his tongue, smoother than honey, and he makes it sound all at once like the sweetest endearment and the most beautiful line of poetry. No one else can bring me back to Earth like he can. His simple words "Cassie focus" ring like the clearest bell above all the chaos that plagues my mind.
And he has a smile…oh my goodness that smile. And the way he catches me when I fall…like literally fall. Stupid brain grape. But when he calls me Cassie, everything is better. He calls me Cassie.
Cassie
Cassie
"Cassie!"
"Oh! I'm sorry, what?"
"You zoned out a minute there Cassie, you okay?" Always with the concerned eyes.
"Yeah, sorry Jake, I'm fine."
He glanced down at her notebook. "So what have you been working on?"
"Umm, trying to see how many digits of pi I can recall."
"Got pretty far I see," he observed with a grin.
"Ha, yeah," she replied, uncomfortably shuffling her feet and brushing back her hair. "Um, Jake, Can I ask you something?"
"Sure"
"Why, um, why do you always call me Cassie?"
"Does it bother you?"
"Oh, no. Of course not. I kinda love it…actually. It's just…you're the only one that does and I always sort-of wondered why." I finished, wringing my hands.
He sighed and leaned his crossed arms on the table.
"A couple different reasons I guess. Where I'm from, you give nicknames to the people you care about," he said with that charming slow smile.
"And the other reason?"
His smile dropped and he looked away. "I'm not sure if you want to hear the other reason."
I laid my hand on his arm, bringing his focus back around.
"Tell me," my voice was soft, but surprisingly confident.
He took my hand, but stared at the wall across from us instead of looking at me.
"There's a Greek myth about a princess of Troy named Cassandra. She was beautiful; so beautiful in fact that she attracted the attention of the god Apollo. She refused his advances and because of that he cursed her. Apollo gave her the power of prophesy but her curse was to never be believed. She was eventually killed by the adulterous wife of Agamemnon, presumably because she foretold her affair. Cassandra's story is one of the most tragic I've ever read."
He finally turned his head to look at me.
"So when I met you and learned your name and your own tragic story, "he gestured to my head, "I couldn't bear to call you by the same name. I thought, you know, maybe if someone called you Cassie instead, you'd have a better future than the other Cassandra did. Kinda silly I guess, but there ya go."
I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. I picked up the hand that was still holding mine and kissed the back of it.
"That is the most beautiful reason for a nickname that I've ever heard. Thank you."
I looped my arm through his still crossed ones, kissed his cheek, and laid my head on his shoulder, content to stay that way for as long as he'd let me. The fact that he kissed my head before saying "You're welcome Cassie" made me believe that he was content to stay that way for a while too.