Corollary
Summary: Post-episode 17 from Adam's perspective.
I feel like I've awakened in a strange place, after a long sleep.
The rest of the world has left me standing still, and I feel like shit.
Like Cassie, for instance.
I know we are supposed to be friends, but she crosses the hall to the other side when she sees me.
When the Circle gets together to study Chem at the coffee shop, she never shows up.
"Where's Cassie? I thought she always worked this shift."
Melissa finally says, "She quit her job."
I know something went down, but nobody is talking. They all look at me with pity, and it feels like something precious has been ripped out of me.
It's Jake who finally lays it out from start to finish, and I nearly fall over when he gets to the part about hooking up with Cassie. His usual smug satisfaction is missing as I stand up, hand to my mouth in shock. How could I forget something so profound?
It cannot be true.
But something tells me it is.
I have to see her, but I don't know why. Maybe it's the continued silence, or maybe it's the way she looks at me when she thinks I don't notice.
That stays on my mind when I find her counting crows, so lost in her daydream that she barely acknowledges me.
Her voice is so distant that I wonder if she's even on this plane of existence.
I mount the stairs to her room and something flashes in my head for a second. It's an image of joined hands and then it gets away from me. "It happened," I say to myself as I fetch her book.
The old leather seems to curve into my hands and I hold it before me, willing it to bring it all back.
But nothing happens, and I am the same empty vessel as I trot down the stairs.
Coming out to the front yard, I almost say her name but stop myself at the last second.
I loved you once.
Maybe I can love you again.
But not today.
And we part ways once again.