Cassandra has too much running through her head, too much restless energy, so instead of bed she takes out her laptop and scrolls down pinterest for a couple of hours. After that she still isn't tired, so she makes herself a cup of tea and pulls up Rosetta Stone French on her computer.
By the time she's finished a few lessons the sun is rising, so there's really no point in going to bed anymore. Besides, the sun is rising over some of those beautiful trees with the pink and purple blossoms, so she grabs her camera and goes outside to take some pictures.
They don't turn out as well as she'd hoped, but it's gorgeous out here, and the wind is soft and cool against her skin, so she settles onto the grass with the camera gently resting on her lap, and she stays to watch the sunrise.
By the time the last rays of pink disappear into the clouds the town is starting to rise, so Cassandra slips back into the house. Her pajamas smell like crisp air and freshly grown grass, and she loves it so much she delays getting dressed - instead choosing to snuggle into a heap of blankets and turns up the news.
She can only watch for the ten minutes before the death and violence starts to get to her, so she aimlessly flips through the channels until she lands on a Veronica Mars rerun.
"Christ." Her dad's voice comes from the stairs, just as she's a few minutes into the episode. "Thousands of dollars sunk into years of private school, and this is what you choose to fill your head with?"
"I was watching the news earlier." Cassandra protests faintly.
"Sure you were, kid." He moves to the kitchen and starts brewing a pot of coffee. "Listen, your mom and I are going to be gone for the day. Try to waste less of your time on this crap and actually get some work done, okay?"
"Yeah, dad."
There's a brief pause where Cassandra debates changing the channel or continuing with the episode, before her dad speaks up again.
"Oh, and a letter came in for you yesterday."
"Really?" Cassandra asks, because she hadn't given her address out to anyone that she can recall, and who even writes letters anyway?
"Yep. No return address, though." He tosses it over to her. It hits the floor, and Cassandra reaches down to grab it.
The address is typed, and there isn't any indication as to who it could be from. The envelope is cool in her hands, and a strange sort of hesitation takes over her, so she lays it in her lap and switches the channel back to the news.
"Any of that coffee for me?" Her mother asks, descending the stairs.
"Sorry, there's only enough for one cup." Her dad replies. Cassandra ignores the nagging feeling that surfaces whenever one of them does something like this; the idea that maybe this isn't just a thoughtless act, maybe the little things are getting bigger, more purposeful.
"Honestly, Ted." Her mother snaps. "Would it have killed you to brew a full pot?"
"Well, Dianne, maybe if you actually helped out around here and made your own coffee every once in a while -"
"Oh, don't even start. I do exactly as much around here as you do, and we both know how often I pick up your slack around work -"
"My slack? What was that last note you got from Akker - 'careless work, including reports lacking several key elements', wasn't it?"
"Well, I'm sorry I don't sleep with everyone to get a better review -"
"For the last time, I never slept with Jenny! Although you and Mark always seemed pretty comfortable around each other -"
Cassandra slips up to her room.
Once she's there, she sits cross-legged on the end of her bed and turns the envelope over. She breaks the seal cautiously, like she isn't sure what to find - and when she opens the letter and sees the familiar curly writing, she knows her apprehension was justified.
I miss you. Please call me.
I'm sorry.
~H
She goes to rip it up, but her fingers won't cooperate with her mental commands. So she folds it up and sticks it in a drawer. And then she turns on her music, loud enough to drown out the shouting coming from downstairs, and loud enough so even she can't hear her sobs.
She drinks five cups of coffee once she has the house to herself, and she stays up through the night. It's better than the dreams would be.
When Jake goes to school on Monday morning, the first thing he does is head to the library, as usual. Cassandra's there, sitting over in her now-designated corner, and he gives her a quick smile which she reciprocates with an added wave, before he heads over to his corner.
It's gotten to the point where he kind of subconsciously watches her out of the corner of his eyes, and today something's different - her hands and shaking just a little, and she stares determinedly at the book for a good five minutes without ever flipping a page.
"Hey, Cassie." He finally says, and she jumps, so hard the book falls off her lap onto the floor.
"Yeah?" She asks with a small shake of her head.
"You alright?"
"Fine." She says, but she won't meet his eyes.
"Cassandra -"
"You know, um, I just remembered I need to talk to Ms. Phillips before class. I'll see you later." She jumps up to leave, and it's a second before Jake realizes she left her bag - and the open book - lying on the floor. Okay, something is seriously up.
He puts the book back on the shelf and grabs the bag to give back to her in Pre-Calc. Assuming she'll be there, at least. He's never seen her be anything but perfectly composed, Initiation-day aside, so this is a little unnerving, to say the least.
"Hey, man." Brian catches up to him in the hall. "She's got you carrying her bag around, now? Dude, you are whipped."
"Shut up." Jake says tersely. Brian throws his hands up in a mocking gesture.
"Whatever. All I wanted to say was, make sure she doesn't rat about Saturday, okay? My parents would kill me."
Jake stares at him in disbelief. "Please tell me you're joking."
"Of course not." Brian's voice is getting colder. "Look, if you want to fuck her, whatever. Just make sure she doesn't talk."
Jake gives him a long look. A good part of him wants to hit Brian - a not unfamiliar feeling, but usually it isn't accompanied by this much white-hot anger. Instead, he runs a hand through his hair and turns to walk away.
Cassandra's late for class, and Jake's stomach falls. What if she isn't coming? What if something happened, and nobody noticed? What if -
His downward spiral of worry is cut short when she staggers through the doors, ten minutes late.
"Ms. Cillian." Mr. Franklin says with undisguised glee. "Please see me after class."
Cassandra doesn't even acknowledge that he spoke, just slips into the seat next to Jake, ducking her head.
"Hey." He whispers, and her head jerks up to look at him. He kicks the bag over to her seat. "You forgot that in the library."
"Oh." She looks at the bag with a blank expression. "Thanks."
He opens his mouth to say something else - are you sure you're okay, maybe, or how drunk were you to get this hungover, but nothing comes out. Instead, he settles back into his seat and keeps Cassandra in the corner of his vision.
He gets exactly nothing out of the lesson, he's too busy worrying. Cassandra's eyes have been flickering shut every couple seconds, and he remembers reading about something like this - microsleeps, or something. Whatever they're called, you have to be really tired to have them. So he waits until after class, until the room's cleared out for everyone except for him, Cassandra, and Mr. Franklin, and he nudges her to let her know to get up.
"What?" She asks groggily.
"You have to go talk to Mr. Franklin now." He says softly. She nods, placing her hands firmly on the desk as a barrier as she tries to push herself to her feet - and fails pretty spectacularly. Jake grabs her arms gently and lifts her to her feet.
"Thanks." She mutters, cautiously walking forward until she's standing at the front desk.
"I don't recall asking you to stay after class, Mr. Stone." The teacher says sharply, without looking up from his stack of papers.
"Yeah, I just thought I'd -"
The teacher glares at him over his glasses. "Go. Now."
Jake glances reluctantly over at Cassandra, who's bracing herself on the edge of the desk. "Okay." He murmurs, walking slowly out of the room.
He waits just outside the door. Mr. Franklin's speaking too softly to hear anything, but he can see Cassandra swaying a little through the crack in the door. After a few minutes, she makes her way a little shakily to the door, where he's waiting.
"Hey." He says, reaching an arm around her waist automatically. "What's your next class?"
"Biology." She says, then quickly adds, "But you don't need to walk me there. I'll be fine."
"'Course you will be." Jake says with a sigh. "But honestly - how long has it been since you've slept?"
"Only like, three hours." She mumbles, staring adamantly at the ground when she says it. Jake rolls his eyes.
"Okay, pinocchio. I'm walking you to Bio anyway."
"You're a little annoying when you're stubborn." Cassandra yawns, leaning into his side. Jake rolls his eyes, but resists the urge to say ditto.
"You'll be okay?" He asks, when they reach the Biology classroom. Cassandra's smile is half exasperation, half something else.
"Yes, Jake. I'll be fine."
"Okay." He says, then hesitates as he gets an idea. "Do you want to come over after school?"
"To your house?" Cassandra asks, sounding surprised. Which, maybe it was a little out of the blue. But whatever.
"Yeah. We can hang out for a couple of hours, you can stay for supper, whatever."
"Sure." She smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "See you after school."
"See ya."
He waits outside the classroom for a couple minutes after she heads in. And then he shakes his head, tells himself he's overreacting, and walks away.
Cassandra isn't really sure how she's able to make it through the rest of the day - just that she's going to have to beg notes off of Lamia later, because there's no way in hell she's able to do more than barely stay awake in class. She grabs another cup of coffee in between classes, which helps a little with the walking/talking thing, but not so much with the shaking or the attention span of .3 seconds.
During her lunch break she realizes she forgot to pack herself something to eat (it's fine, she isn't really hungry anyways), so she heads to her locker instead to grab the books needed to bully herself into doing some homework over the break.
"Hey, freak show."
She turns around at the unexpected voice, and freezes. It's one of the guys from the "initiation", the one with the accent. "Um." She doesn't think it would be completely acceptable to start off a conversation with 'leave me the hell alone'. "Hi..."
"Zeke." He supplies. "Or Ezekiel. Take your pick."
"Don't take this the wrong way," she says, despite her ice-cold tone, "but what are you doing here?"
"Here as in the cosmos of the universe, or here as in standing here talking to you?"
"The second one." She really doesn't have time for this conversation.
"Ah, well, that one's easier. Jake sent me."
"What?" Out of all answers, this is one she hadn't expected.
"Apparently, you two have separate lunch breaks on Mondays, and he wanted to make sure you didn't, I don't know, explode? Have a psychotic break? Unleash your magic powers and turn the entire school into rats? He wasn't very clear on the details."
"Well, I'm fine." Cassandra snatches her books from the locker with a little more ferocity than is probably necessary. "And I have homework to do."
Ezekiel raises his hands in surrender. "And trust me, on any other day, that would be more than enough to get rid of me. But see, I owe Jake big time. So despite the fact that you don't like me and I really don't like homework, it looks like we'll be spending the next -" he checks his watch - "twenty-six minutes together."
Cassandra would argue any other day, but today she just shrugs and heads down to the library.
"Oi, freak show - about the other night..."
Cassandra looks up from her book - wait, book? She glances around to see that she's sitting in the corner of the library, and she can't even remember the walk over. She sips her coffee - did she get that on the way over? - and shoots Ezekiel her most intimidating look.
"I just want to make sure we're both on the same page. If I get into any more trouble, I'm headed straight back to boarding school in Australia." Cassandra tucks this piece of information away in her mind - she's been wondering about the accent.
"I won't say anything." She says, more to make him stop talking than anything. She wasn't going to tell anyone in the first place.
"Alright then." The bell rings, and Ezekiel shoots her a sloppy salute as he gets to his feet. "See you later, mate." And then he heads out.
Cassandra pushes herself to her feet, and leaves the book where it's at because she's not totally sure she won't drop it with the amount she's shaking. Just three more hours, she tells herself. Oh, except - Jake. And her parents are home today, so she'll have to stay up until a decent hour so they don't think she's sick (or at least pretending to be). And then she'll have to go face that letter -
So, whatever, she can go another night without sleep. It won't kill her. She can call in sick tomorrow, and sleep on the couch while her parents are at work. It'll be fine.
She trips on the way out, the contents of her bag scattering across the floor as the wind is knocked out of her. She lies there for a moment, before the agony of getting to her feet.
(Maybe it won't be fine, after all.)
After school, Jake is sitting out on the steps waiting for her when she comes out, even though she knows he usually likes to slip out to the library.
"How's it going?" He asks nonchalantly as he stands up, but his wary expression and the way his hand reaches around to hover at the edge of her waist tells her he's still unnecessarily worried. But she's had, like, five cups of coffee already. She can handle it.
"Which way to the palace?" She jokes, but it falls flat. Jake gestures over to a rusty old pickup that's sitting in the parking lot, and she follows him over. He holds open the door for her and waits until she's inside before slipping around to the driver's side.
The truck's engine is too loud for conversation, which is good because at this point even basic conversation is exhausting. Is it possible for her to get by with just nodding and shaking her head for the rest of the day?
They finally pull up in front of what she assumes is Jake's house - and it's quite possibly the cutest thing she's ever seen. It's painted white with green trimmings, there's an oak tree growing in front, and it not only has a white picket fence, but the windows have shutters. She bites her lip and tries to keep her excitement down, but when Jake looks over at her and grins she knows he can see right through her.
"It's so cute!" She exclaims with a burst of air.
Jake rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. It's stereotypical, is what it is."
"Which doesn't take away from the fact that you live in the most adorable house I've ever seen." Cassandra replies staunchly, as Jake goes around the outside of the truck and puts his hands gently on her waist to lift her down. She would object, but his truck is huge, and the jump down is nearly as tall as she is, and knowing her luck she'd probably fall and break her nose, so.
When they walk into the house it's exactly as wonderful as she'd imagined it - wood furniture, a gas stove (A GAS STOVE. She didn't even know people still had those), and a little fireplace all greet her.
"This is adorable." She squeals, ignoring Jake's attempt at apathy.
"If you use one more synonym for cute, Cassandra, I swear -"
"Okay, okay. But even you can't deny that it is."
"Yeah, yeah." He says, then takes a long look at her.
"What?" She demands, too tired to even be self-conscious.
"Do you even realize how terrible you look?" He asks in a matter-of-fact voice.
"Well, thank god I have you to clear that up for me." Cassandra replies sarcastically. Seriously, what the hell?
"Jesus, Cassie, you know what I mean. You're shaking so much you're practically falling over."
"I'm not -" she glances down at her hands. Oh.
"Yeah, oh." He replies, which means she now can't distinguish between what she's thinking and what she's saying. Wonderful. "C'mere." He starts heading towards the stairs, and Cassandra balks.
"What -"
"Come on." Jake says firmly, grasping her shoulders and gently pushing her up the stairs.
"Where are we going?" Cassandra snaps. Jake sighs loudly and continues to propel her forward. Once they hit the top of the stairs, he opens the first door to the right.
Inside, it's a typical guy's room - clothes strewn across the floor, some action movie posters on the walls. And then it hits her - this is Jake's room. She turns to him and raises an eyebrow, trying to hide the slight flush in her cheeks. He scowls deeper, then gives her a little push forward. "Sleep." He says, folding his arms. Cassandra takes a second to realize that yes, he is serious.
"Are you actually -" She cuts off, and rephrases. "I wouldn't want to -"
"Cassie." Jake says with an exasperated sigh. Maybe she would've sounded a little more convincing if her words hadn't come out slurred. And she would protest, really, but she's gone, like, 58 hours without sleep and she's pretty sure she's been hallucinating off and on for the past five hours and sleep sounds so wonderful that she just barely manages to make it to the bed before she collapses. She hears Jake mutter something, but moving her lips to ask what he said is too much work, and before she knows it everything is drifting away.