BIRTHDAY LETTERS
10. Over the skin-surface, a bracing of nerves
The hall is loud. Cheers and claps surround him, as Clemmons reads out each graduate's name over the frenzied excitement. Cassidy is sitting with Dick, Duncan and Logan; Dick's pretty much here just because the Cassidy and Logan insisted. Dick looks bored, but he has been lured with the promise of the graduation party.
The list of names scrolls down and they all politely clap – they don't really know any of these people. Then Clemmons reads out the name they're all waiting for.
"Lilly Kane."
Duncan leaps to his feet to clap as hard as is humanly possible. "Go Lilly!" he yells out, and Dick laughs at him. Cassidy lightly punches Dick on the shoulder. Logan smiles a little, and claps for her. Cassidy can see a lot of memories running through Logan's head.
Cassidy remembers too. Lilly had slept with him, Lilly had been his friend, Lilly had destroyed the life he wanted to live, then helped him build a knew one. He had liked her, hated her, loved her – she was always just fucking there. He doesn't know who he would be if it wasn't for her. He claps as hard as he can for her, cheering and watching her grin.
The graduation party is even louder; the beat of the music pounding in his head like a heartbeat. He is, surprisingly, not drunk. He's never a really heavy drinker except for when he's self-destructing, which he really doesn't want to be doing right now.
Lilly runs into him – well, dances into him. She turns to see him, and wears her widest grin. "Hey-ey, Cassy!" she yells, slurring the words before throwing her arms around him. "How's everyone's favorite nutjob?"
He laughs. "Fine. How drunk are you, Lilly?"
She pulls away. "Uh, don't really think it's on the sort of scale that can be described with words anymore," she says, before hiccuping. He nods.
"Yeah, I kind of guessed that one myself," he says. She slaps him on the arm.
They pause, and observe their fellow party-goers. She leans on him to stay upright. "Graduation," she says, suddenly sounding a good deal more somber. "Wow. Really wasn't understanding the concept it would eventually happen; you know, leaving Neptune High."
Cassidy shrugs. "Yeah. Well, of the many things you can say about your run here, you cannot say it was boring."
She laughs. "What do you mean? I didn't get to scale the alps, or cure cancer... Total snoozefest."
He laughs, then pauses. "I'm going to miss you."
She blinks. "Oh, like hell," she says. "Come on, Cass. Hearst is like... some tiny amount of miles away; I'm drunk so I don't remember how many, but the point is: still here. And if you bitches abandon me, I will totally come machete you to death."
Cassidy shakes his head. "The conversations we have, Lilly."
She grins and wonders off to indulge in her typical party girl activities. He winds up on the couch, next to Logan. "Hey," he says.
"Hey," Logan replies in kind, handing his beer over to Cassidy to share. He accepts it. "So, what's new in Beavertown?"
"My name is Cassidy," and Logan's gotten better with that, but still, the nickname occurs and it annoys him. "And... not much is happening, really."
Logan nods, and his eyes find Lilly on the dance floor. "Well. There she is; modern college girl on the go."
"Yeah."
Logan sighs. "Well, you can say many things for her, but you've got to admit one way or the other – she's... special."
"Yeah, well, a lot of the things I heard you say for her would probably be unprintable, so I guess 'special' is the way to go if you ever get interviewed about her."
Logan laughs. "Yeah, sounds like me." He gently holds Cassidy's arm – memories occur, but it doesn't take too much effort for Cassidy to push them down now. Maybe he really is getting better.
"I said I was going to miss her," Cassidy says. "Then she got all insistent that we all have to visit her. Which I was planning on doing anyway, so whatever."
"Where is she going, college or jail?"
Cassidy laughs. "Knowing Lilly the way I do, the latter would not really surprise me."
Logan pauses. "So. It ends where pretty much everything important happened – another goddamn drunken party."
Cassidy shrugs. "Where were you planning on ending it? The moon?" he says. "Besides, it's not really ending. Is anyone dead yet?"
"Actually, there's a long list of dead people involved – you forget that?"
"Well, I meant like, Lilly or either of us," he explains.
"We're alive. Go us," says Logan, moving in a little closer. Cassidy feels some heat rise to his face, and passes the beer back to Logan.
"Yeah," he says.
Logan takes a drink, and they observe a little more. "So. Last big high school party where we're meant to do crazy shit. We should make it memorable."
Cassidy raises an eyebrow. "Dude, are you hitting on me?"
Logan rolls his eyes and throws his hands up. "Finally!" he exclaims. "Thought you'd never notice."
"Hey! We were talking about your ex, slash the girl who would have been the mother of my child. That's not exactly the best way to go about it, Logan," Cassidy defends himself.
"Oh, whatever," says Logan. "How about we try this properly, Cassidy?"
Cassidy blinks. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," Logan pauses. "That I like you. And everyone knows there's something going on now anyway, so it's not like we're hiding anything. And, I don't know, it's been like forever and I still remember everything about you, and I... I want to actually be with you, you know?"
Cassidy's lips form a silent 'Oh'.
Logan quirks a smile. "So, yeah. That's my heart, offered on a silver platter. Feel free to crush it and bake your bread out of it if you wish," he says, joking like he always does when he's nervous and is pretending not be. Cassidy bites his lip.
"Yeah," he says quietly. This is good – he likes Logan, and Logan is right there and things are going to be good between them. He wants this, and he doesn't really feel scared of it. "Yes," he says more loudly.
Then Logan kisses him, and Cassidy vaguely hears some people hissing, and some people cheering in the background. He doesn't pay attention to all that, but he can feel Lilly beaming from all the way across the room.
10. For something that has already happened
He books a room for him and Mac on the night of her graduation. They're back together, and he wants to make the perfect cliche for her – okay, technically the cliche would usually involve prom night, but they missed that and this is good enough.
The truth about Woody is out, thanks to Cassidy's blackmailing and the nosiness of Veronica Mars. Nobody knows how Cassidy relates to whole thing now, and hopefully they never will – after all, if he could sell his lies to Veronica so successfully, he's sure he can pull it off with everyone else too. However, the situation frightens him – he's not sure how good a liar he really is, and he never meant for people to get this close to the truth. Sure, it's nice to think he's forced Woody to run scared; but he's terrified that people might realize the truth. Even if he took his voice off that tape, someone is going to remember he was on that team and start asking questions; the medical records would show he had chlamydia, Mac might connect it to how he was with her, and then they would all know...
Veronica, the name pops up in his mind. He knows he gave it to her – they said she had it at Aaron's trial – and she's stupid, but she's not that stupid. She knows he was in the room there with her; she would figure out exactly what he did to her. His life would be over.
No, he thinks. He's paranoid. He's kept his secrets well for the last six years; no reason for things to change now.
He claps when Veronica gets her diploma. She looks stunned by the applause she gets – how she has gone from school outcast to school hero. He feels a little envious, but deep down he knows she deserves the love.
He takes Mac to the room, feeling the dark weight settle in his stomach as they get closer and closer. They're on the bed and he's on top of her, but he just can't and the memories are invading his head like soldiers. He rolls off her and focuses on the ceiling, concentrating hard on not throwing up all over her. He feels crushing sadness radiating from her body; like he's met her expectations and broken her heart at the same time. He wishes he wouldn't do this to her – she's the one person he never wants to hurt, and he never seems to be able to avoid it.
He goes to take a shower – he thinks he can hear the muffled sound of her crying underneath the rush of water. He hopes she can't hear when he throws up into the bin. He sits on the bed for a while, waiting, until Mac's cellphone buzzes with a message from Veronica.
Get away from Beaver. Now. He's a killer. I'm in the lobby.
Cassidy's stomach turns as he reads the message. Veronica. He could do this with Veronica – it isn't the same with Mac, and he doesn't know why. And now he has to kill Veronica, and he hates it, because he likes her and wants to keep the proof that he's strong now in this world.
But he can't. So he grabs the gun he had the forethought to bring with him – little paranoid, but useful now – and he texts her back, telling her to meet him on the roof. He hopes she'll be in enough of a panic not to wonder why the hell Mac would want to meet her on the roof. He thinks she will be, and besides, Veronica Mars is nowhere near as smart as she's made out to be.
The shower water noise is still playing in the background, and Cassidy knows he has to deal with Mac somehow. Otherwise she'll follow him; see everything and it will all be over. But he won't – can't – kill Mac; not now, not ever. He racks his brain for a different solution, and decides he just needs to keep her here. Then he can run, and she'll be okay.
He starts to strip the room. He charges into the bathroom and takes her clothes and the towels, seeing her turn in confusion.
He adds them to the pile as she storms out, still dripping wet and with the water still running. "Cassidy, what are you doing?!" she shrieks, and he doesn't answer.
She lunges for the clothes. "Stop it!" she says, and when her hand lands on her dress she can't help but slap her.
She falls to the ground with a thud. Her eyes are wide, terrified and full of tears; he can see the red mark on her face. He floods with guilt, and all he wants is to be able to take her away where she – and he – can never be hurt again. But he's not that person and he has to go kill her best friend now; she's crying and he eyes are landing on the shiny silver gun he's holding.
"Cassidy," she forces out, "What is going on?"
She sounds so weak, so pathetic, so helpless. He feels sorry for her; wishes he could take it all back for her. He can't answer the question, so he just shakes his head. "Don't wait for me, Mac," he says. Then he storms out with his arms full of stuff, dumping it before heading up to the hotel room.
Veronica flinches when she sees him, but she tries to stay calm. He can see the effort it's taking to strangle him in her eyes, because she really doesn't want to be shot. He doesn't really want to shoot her anyway, but what's done is done and he has to. Shit.
She spells out his evil deeds – it's a cliche and he knows it, but it's kind of nice to hear. She's scared of him, finally.
She reaches Shelley Pomroy's, and loses her composure with a cry: "You raped me!"
He can't help but laugh. "And Dick still thinks I'm a virgin," he says, dismissing it like she meant nothing to him. She meant absolutely everything, but he knows acting like he doesn't care will make it worse – he always hated being just one in a long line – and he wants to hurt her as much as he can before he does it. He's savoring his last moments with her.
But she snaps right back into place, gloating at him that she's told her dad everything. Stupid girl. Cassidy's not even sure it's true, but that's not the point. He tells her about the bomb – cruelly gives her a minute to say goodbye – then presses send; Keith Mars, Woody and probably some innocent, completely irrelevant people go up in flames.
He feels a kind of deja vu.
She collapses to her knees with grief, and again, he feels jealous that she gets the family that can mean so much. She looks so shocked and weak there, just like she did at Shelley's party, and he wishes he could make her a comfort again. She was so soft and warm there; he just wanted to crawl into her and forget who he was.
He can't do that now. He tortures her with her own tazer and watches as she shrieks. He tells her to jump off the roof – he doesn't want to kill her and it might be easier if he doesn't physically have to do it himself – and she begs him to stop. She never got to beg before. She was unconscious; she just lay there as he did what he liked with her. The way she sounds now; it makes him sick and he likes it. All this time and she's as weak as she was when he first found her. He loves her for that. Hates her for that.
Indifference is not an option anymore.
Then Logan shows up somehow; a fight ensues and he loses the gun. Veronica winds up with it, pointed straight at him and she's crying. She's screaming. She wants to be strong.
Logan tells her no, and Cassidy suppresses a laugh – it's not funny, really – because he's imagined this so many times before. His first victim, about to make him pay for her pain the way he made so many people pay for his pain. His eyes are yelling "Do it!" at her and he knows they are, but Logan's even tones seem to be convincing her. The gun falls as Logan takes her in his arms, and Cassidy's stomach flips as he realizes that he is still not important enough to her.
Logan and Veronica are too busy wallowing in how Cassidy's hurt her to notice when that same guy climbs the railing on the roof. Logan lifts his head, and paces forward, calling out "Beaver, don't!" in a panic.
"My name is Cassidy!" he screams for one last time. They pause.
"Cassidy, don't," Logan says, as if – or anyone really – cares who Cassidy is or whether he lives or dies. He thinks of Mac, who he has already crushed so far – she loved him, but it will be better for her once he's gone. He thinks of Dick, who he feels will miss him (if only out of familial loyalty) – but Dick has always treated him like shit, so if he decides to care about Cassidy once Cassidy's freaking dead, that's his own problem.
"Why not?" he asks. Logan's jaw moves like he's trying to say something, but Cassidy knows Logan can't say anything that might convince his. Logan doesn't know him, after all. Veronica just stares, and he wishes for half a second that he could be like her. That he could keep going. He realizes now how stupid he was to expect her to roll off the roof. He might have been the one who broke her, but she emerged the stronger one.
"That's what I thought," he says with an ironic smile. He steps backwards and it's over. He's ended it, on his own terms.