Update: So for some reason the server isn't letting me add another document, but if you want to read the last two chapters they're on AO3 under the same title and username, and I'll work on getting it on here ASAP.
A/N: This is what Cassandra's outfit is based off of: pinterest dot com/505458758149241131/, and this is a slightly more advanced version of Jake and Cassandra's swing dance: youtube dot com/watch?v=KaOFhdZRtRY
Chapter title from 'High Hopes' by Kodaline.
I completely encourage you to listen to the songs as they're mentioned. Country music is a lot of fun.
Jake watches as her breathing evens out, and her hands relax from where they'd been clutching the blankets. He lingers in the doorway for a minute, before flipping off the light switch and softly closing the door.
He patters down the stairs, only to jump when his mother rounds the corner.
"Oh, sweetheart, I didn't know you were home." She says, walking over to stir something on the stove that smells suspiciously like corned beef hash.
"Oh, yeah." Jake clears his throat. He's not sure if it's easier to not say anything, or to try and explain why he has an unconscious girl - one that his mother hasn't met, no less - in his bed.
He doesn't say anything.
He calls Lamia when he's able to sneak a phone off to his room. "So," He starts off, "this might be a strange request."
"Shoot." Lamia sighs, like she knows what she's getting into and is already regretting it.
"Can you call Cassandra's parents and tell them she'll be staying over at your house tonight?"
There's a long pause at the other end of the line. "If this has anything to do with the Initiation -"
"It doesn't, Lamia. I swear."
There's a sigh. "Okay." She agrees. "But, Jake?"
"Yeah?"
"Just - be careful, okay?" There's a warning note to her voice. "I don't want to see you or Cassandra get hurt."
Then she hangs up, leaving Jake feeling lost in more ways than one.
When Cassandra wakes up, for the first time in ages she feels actually refreshed, and the urge to stay in bed isn't from the dread of putting her feet on the floor and forcing her muscles to work, it's simply because she's comfortable where she is.
Until, of course, she remembers where she is.
She jerks up, glancing around for a clock, her eyes landing on the glowing white number 7:36 glaring up at her. 7:36 am.
Oh, shit.
Just as she's starting to freak out, a soft knock comes from the door. "Yeah?" She whispers, and the door creaks open just enough for Jake to stick his head in.
"How are you feeling?" He whispers back.
Cassandra lets out a relieved sigh. "Wonderful."
"Good. But, hey, you should probably get up so you'll have time to run back to your house for new clothes."
"Yeah, thanks." Cassandra runs a hand through her hair, suddenly self conscious. She pushes that to the back of her mind, and rolls - or, rather, falls - out of bed and scrambles to follow Jake out of the room and down the stairs. A thought hits her, and she freezes. "Your parents -"
"Are asleep." Jake assures her - he wouldn't want his parents to witness her 'walk of shame' any more than she would, she realizes.
She follows him into the kitchen as her mind latches onto the next obstacle. "My parents -"
"Think you're staying at Lamia's." He rolls his eyes and shoves a plate of scrambled eggs across the counter to her. It takes her mind a second to wrap around it.
"You called Lamia?"
"Yep."
"And you made me breakfast?"
"Shut up." He scowls, which only makes Cassandra's smile grow brighter.
"Thank you." She says sincerely, before tucking into the eggs with gusto - and holy crap, these are delicious.
"So." Jake says, after he's finished off his own plate in a truly impressive amount of time. "You wanna talk about last night?"
Cassandra suddenly becomes very interested in her plate. He sighs. "C'mon, Cassie. You don't just up and decide not to sleep for however many days."
She downs the last bit of her eggs and pushes the plate back. "I really have to go home and get changed." She says firmly, turning to leave.
"Cassandra -"
"No, you know what, how about we don't do this." She turns back to face him, and the words are spitting out with more ferocity than she'd ever intended. "Because if we get into the big emotional backstory, you'll have to explain why you are so worried about your family seeing you with a book between your fingers, or why you're friends with assholes whose greatest aspirations are kidnapping people and getting high, who couldn't care less about Yeats or Lord Byron or whatever other author you read like they're the air you breathe."
She lets that last bit out with a gasp, and waits with curled-up fingers digging their nails into her skin as Jake looks away mutely.
"Yeah." She says bitterly, snatching up her bag and turning to head outside. "That's what I thought."
"So, Jake." Lamia dashes up behind him in the school hallway, making him jump and muffle his curse.
"Dammit, Lamia. Can you just walk up like a normal person?"
"Fuck off." She replies good-naturedly. "Okay, so since I got all caught up in whatever the hell you were doing last night, I am owed an explanation."
Jake sighs. "She was just - she was super tired, okay? And she ended up falling asleep at my place, and I didn't want to wake her up - ow!" The last bit is in response to Lamia pinching his arm. "What was that for?"
"Come on, Jake. You are so head over heels for this girl and you don't even know it."
"It's not like that." He scowls, which prompts an eyeroll from Lamia.
"Yeah, sure."
He hesitates. "I'm just - a little worried about her. She changes the subject every time I try to talk about it."
"Yeah, well." Lamia grimaces. "That's because it's kind of - well, it's not a pretty story."
Jake's jaw drops. "She told you?"
"What can I say? Ladies love me." Lamia smirks. "But, no, seriously. I might have done some digging this morning, when I couldn't find you."
"And?" Jake tries to sound nonchalant, and fails miserably.
"Well, she went through a pretty bad breakup back in New York." Lamia grimaces. "Poor girl. The girl she was seeing already had a boyfriend she didn't feel like mentioning until four months into the relationship."
"Ouch." Jake winces, until the whole sentence sinks in. "Wait, she? Cassandra's -"
"She's bi, so don't have a heart attack." Lamia smirks. "But yeah. And her parents are kinda shitty from what I've seen of them - which isn't much, because they are literally never home. So, all in all, she's doing pretty well."
Jake lets it sink in. "So." He says, then doesn't continue. Lamia sighs dramatically.
"So, this means you should get your shit together, apologize for pushing, and ask her to the dance next Friday."
"What? She isn't even talking to me right now, much less -"
"Jesus, Jake. Just ask the girl out." Lamia interjects, and before he can reply she slips off into her classroom.
He sucks in his breath, and he goes to find Cassandra.
She isn't in the library, so he goes wandering through the halls until he spots her in one of the classrooms talking to someone.
"...which is why, when you take his theorem into account, the total would be three point two four." She finishes excitedly.
"Fascinating!" The man Cassandra's speaking with turns just enough for Jake to see that it's Mr. Carsen, Principal Baird's husband. Or, at least, that's what everyone in town assumes he is. Principal Baird's lived in Annicks for five years, but she's pretty closed-lips about her personal life, and Mr. Carsen is always darting off to some dig site halfway across the world. They both wear wedding bands, though, and he lives with Baird when he's in town, so that's the explanation everyone settled on.
Jake hangs out in the open doorway, filtering out the math talk before his head starts to spin, until Cassandra glances over and sees him.
"I actually have somewhere to be," she tells Mr. Carsen apologetically. "But it was lovely speaking with you."
"And yourself." Mr. Carsen replies with a smile, snatching up a large duffel and briskly striding out of the classroom, leaving Jake and Cassandra alone.
"Hey." Jake starts off.
"Hi." Cassandra mumbles, ducking her head behind her curtain of red hair as she reaches to collect her books.
"So, I, uh, I talked to Lamia." He mutters awkwardly, and he can see the red rising on Cassandra's cheeks even as she studiously avoids his gaze.
"What I told her wasn't exactly supposed to be public knowledge." She snaps.
"I know, I was just..." Jake trails off. "I was worried."
"Well, don't be." Cassandra replies defiantly. "I'm fine."
She doesn't look ready to talk, so Jake takes a deep breath and switches tactics. "They wouldn't understand." Cassandra's head snaps up to look at him, mildly confused. "Everyone here." He elaborates. "This - this thing, in my head. No one here would understand. They like what's safe, what they can understand. Right now, I'm safe, I'm one of them. But as soon as I give anyone a glimpse at what's hiding up here -" he gestures at his head.
"You'd be an outsider." Cassandra finishes softly.
"Yeah."
She doesn't say anything for a minute. Then, "You'll get stuck here, you know. Like a fly in amber."
"So'll you." Is all Jake responds, but even as he says it he knows it isn't true. There's no force on this earth that can stop Cassandra Cillian.
He finally works up the nerve to ask after school, when they're sitting on the old wooden swingset out behind the corner store. It slips out all at once. "Doyouwannagotothedancewithme?"
"Slow down, cowboy." Cassandra laughs, her tiptoes gently brushing the grass. Jake coughs and clears his throat.
"Do you, um, want to go to the barn dance with me next Friday?"
Cassandra pushes her feet against the ground so her swing turns around and around until the chains are twisted together in the same way that his stomach is twisting into knots.
When she finally comes to a stop, her entire face is lit up. "Yes." She replies, biting her lip as the corners of her eyes crinkle up.
"Okay." He lets out a deep breath of air. "Okay, cool. Good."
He doesn't stop smiling for the rest of the day.
When Friday finally comes around, Cassandra's a wreck.
Jake's been wonderful, about everything. He hasn't pressured her to talk about anything she doesn't want to, and whenever he notices that she's looking tired, he all but forces her to come over after school and nap for a couple of hours. (It's weird. She knows it's weird. But then, everything's been weird since she met Jake.)
But right now, the reason she's a wreck has nothing to do with her parents, or with the letter that's still tucked under her mattress. No, right now she's verging on a panic attack because of the dance. What do you even wear to a barn dance, anyway? She stares at the seven different outfits laying on her bed, and lets out a pained sigh. Defeated, she grabs her cell and hits speed dial 4.
"Yeah." The voice on the end picks up.
"I need help." Cassandra blurts out.
"What's up?"
"I don't know what to wear."
"Oh, my god."
"Lamia."
"Yeah, yeah. I'll be right over."
Cassandra hops down the stairs and spends the next minute and forty-three seconds pacing anxiously around the living room. When she sees Lamia walking up, she dashes over to the door and swings it open just as Lamia's raising a hand to knock.
Lamia blinks, wide-eyed. "Okay. You need to calm down."
"Not really an option." Cassandra replies, closing the door behind Lamia and all but dragging her up the stairs. "Okay." She demands, once they're standing in her room. "What do I wear?"
Lamia surveys the clothes strewn across the room with the look of a war veteran looking at a battlefield. "Look, I get that this is your big date with Jake and everything so you're going to freak out a little, but there's really nothing to get worked up about. These things aren't really dressy - just wear a skirt and you're good." She glances over at Cassandra, who's still in the white top and floral skirt she'd worn to school. "Honestly, you could just wear that."
Cassandra slumps over and puts her head in her hands. "I'm a mess." She mumbles, and Lamia laughs.
"You should've seen me before my first date with Kayley." She says with a roll of her eyes. "You look downright levelheaded compared to me."
"Really?" Cassandra asks doubtfully.
"Really." Lamia replies, pulling Cassandra to her feet. "Now c'mon, let's find you something to wear."
When Jake shows up at Cassandra's doorstep, it's not without a good deal of trepidation and just general nerves. She would've realized it was supposed to be a date, right? What if she'd already gone over to the dance, not even thinking he'd walk her over? What if -
The door opens before he's even worked up the nerve to knock, and a part of him freezes at the sight of Cassandra standing in the doorway.
"I saw you standing at the door." She says shyly. Her hair is half pulled back with the rest falling in ringlets around her shoulders, and she's dressed in a white v-neck sundress adorned with tiny flowers and cowboy boots that look suspiciously worn for someone who's never lived in the country. "Lamia loaned me a few things." She says with a sheepish glance down at the boots, and Jake can feel his face heat up at the realization that his staring was less than subtle.
"You look beautiful." He says, and Cassandra's eyes light up even as her cheeks flush as red as his own.
"Thank you. You look very handsome, too." She twists her fingers together and pushes her palms down as she lifts her heels just off the ground, which Jake's noticed she does when she's nervous.
"You wanna walk over?" He asks, trying to deflect the layer of awkwardness.
"Sure." Cassandra replies in a relieved voice, falling into step beside him as he turns to walk down the driveway. "Where is the barn dance, anyway? Is it actually in a barn?"
"That's part o' the appeal, sweetheart." He laughs, the word slipping out before he even realizes it. He glances over at Cassandra to see if she noticed, but her expression hasn't changed, so he continues. "Old Billie James has a barn on the edge of town he never uses and he won't get rid of, because he keeps food out for this wild mare that comes by every once in a while. So whenever we want a dance, he lets us use it."
"Neat." Cassandra quips brightly. "And is this one of those 'literally every town member attends' kinda thing?"
"Oh, yeah. You didn't get to see the barbecue -" Jake coughs, wincing at his choice of words - "but, um, you're gonna love it. Oh, and I should've asked - do you know any swing dancing?"
"Oh, yeah." Cassandra replies offhandly. "My parents were really into me being the perfectly well-rounded child, so I took lots of dance lessons as a kid. Is that what most of the dancing's going to be?"
"Not most, but some." Jake says. "But this way, I'll probably step on your toes less."
"Please." Cassandra scoffs. "You act all humble, but ten bucks says as soon as you step out on the dance floor you're whirling people around like it's nothing."
"Not people." Is the first thing that comes into Jake's head. "Just you."
Cassandra glances over at him, her smile that's half shy and half beaming creeping onto her face, and Jake has to quell the sudden urge to push her hair back and kiss her.
Instead, he coughs, and changes the subject. "So, uh, how's today going?" He's been trying to give her space, but she doesn't seem to mind when he asks just generally about how she's doing, and it gives her a chance to bring up anything that hasn't been going well without seeming like she's complaining (which, he's found, she hates doing).
"It's been good. My parents were a little, um, heated this morning, but then they left, so."
"That sucks." He hasn't seen any more of her parents since his brief sighting at the barbecue, but from Cassandra's reports he's pretty surprised by the fact that they're still together - the only thing they agree on, from the sound of it, is Cassandra's constant need for improvement.
"But hey, how about that book you were reading this morning?" Cassandra changes the subject. "I didn't really think you read any poetry past the 19th century."
"I just, wanted to try something different." Jake says, trying to keep his voice from giving him away. "You know, you should really break outta the nerd section of the library one day and come check out the really good stuff."
"Whenever you decide to come read the best stuff, I'll try some of your dusty poetry."
"Dusty poetry? That's harsh."
"Anything more than a hundred years old can accurately be referred to as dusty, just so you know."
"Yeah, well, at least this poetry's stuck around for that long, instead of having to be updated all the time -"
" - To make it more accurate -"
They bicker until they reach the barn, where lights that have been strung up from the roof are contrasted against the dimming horizon, and already half the town is dancing.
"Ready?" Jake asks, reaching down to squeeze Cassandra's hand.
She takes a deep breath, and squeezes his hand back. "Ready."
The barn's big enough that even with this amount of people it isn't too crowded, and everyone is either dancing or drinking or sitting on the sidelines laughing at everyone else. Cassandra's nervousness is fading from her eyes as the notes to Josh Gracin's Nothin' To Lose start up, and Jake pulls her onto the dance floor.
She was right - he does know how to dance. And so does she, more than a few lessons as a kid would've resulted in. Or maybe she really is just amazing at everything she does, as he's suspected. She's laughing, breathless, as they whirl and dip, faster and faster, until the room is a blur around them and he can't even think further than the next step. He doesn't even realize he's laughing until the song comes to an end, with Cassandra in his arms and the sound of scattered applause and hooting from the crowd.
"'Step on your toes', my ass." Cassandra comments, and he grins.
"Okay, so maybe I've picked up a few things over the years."
"You pick up a lot of things." She replies, rolling her eyes. Just as they're both recovering a regular breathing pattern, Zac Brown Band's cover of Oh My Sweet Carolina comes on, and Jake shifts into a waltzing position.
"Surprisingly, I actually know this song." Cassandra mumbles into his shoulder as they fall into the slow rhythm.
"Yeah?"
"Mmhm. Molly, one of my friends from New York, well, her parents loved Ryan Adams, so they would play all of his songs like, on a constant loop whenever I was over. I think they were trying to convert me. But, I mean, that was the original, not this crappy cover."
"First 'dusty poetry', now you insult Zac Brown Band." Jake shakes his head slightly, his cheek brushing Cassandra's hair. "I sometimes wonder what I see in you."
He can feel her smile against his shoulder even as she mumbles, "Same to you, nerd section of the library."
They dance to a few more up-tempo songs until his feet start to ache, and he links his fingers with Cassandra's and leads her to just outside the barn, where there's a rickety old picnic table with fading paint. He settles down onto it (the table part, obviously. Picnic table benches were never meant for anything more than footrests), and Cassandra perches beside him, just close enough that their shoulders are almost touching.
They sit in silence for a minute, gazing out at the now-dark sky that's spotted with stars.
"It's beautiful." Cassandra says, and Jake finally forces out the words that he's been sitting on all day.
"You, Therefore." He blurts out.
"What?" Cassandra turns to look at him, her face just barely illuminated by the lights from the barn behind them.
"That's the poem I was reading, earlier. It's by Reginald Shepherd." He says, and instead of saying anything else Cassandra just waits in anticipation, as he clears his throat. Well, here goes nothing.
"You are like me," he starts. "You will die too, but not today:
you, incommensurate, therefore the hours shine:
if I say to you "To you I say," you have not been
set to music, or broadcast live on the ghost
radio, may never be an oil painting or
Old Master's charcoal sketch: you are
a concordance of person, number, voice,
and place, strawberries spread through your name
as if it were budding shrubs, how you remind me
of some spring, the waters as cool and clear
(late rain clings to your leaves, shaken by light wind),
which is where you occur in grassy moonlight:
and you are a lily, an aster, white trillium
or viburnum, by all rights mine, white star
in the meadow sky, the snow still arriving
from its earthwards journeys, here where there is
no snow (I dreamed the snow was you,
when there was snow), you are my right,
have come to be my night (your body takes on
the dimensions of sleep, the shape of sleep
becomes you): and you fall from the sky
with several flowers, words spill from your mouth
in waves, your lips taste like the sea, salt-sweet (trees
and seas have flown away, I call it
loving you): home is nowhere, therefore you,
a kind of dwell and welcome, song after all,
and free of any eden we can name."
When he finishes, it takes him a second before he works up the nerve to look over at Cassandra. When he does, she's looking at him with an expression of wide-eyed wonder, and a little bit of something else. "I just - thought you would like it." He says, and when she doesn't respond his tone turns worried. "Do you like it?"
There's a few moments where time seems to stand still. Cassandra, looking more beautiful than ever as she throws her head back to laugh. Cassandra, tightening her hands in her lap.
Cassandra, bringing her fingers up to cup his chin as she leans in to kiss him.
"Yeah, Jake." She says, once they've pulled just enough apart that their lips can move on their own. "I really like the poem."