As she walked home from school that afternoon, Cassie finally had a moment to herself to think. Diana and some of the others were going into town to shop for spring festival outfits. You need a spring dress for the spring festival, Suzan had insisted when Cassie said she was feeling too tired to shop. But Diana interjected on Cassie's behalf, saying if she was tired it was best to rest.
Did that mean Diana didn't really want her there? Cassie wished she was feeling more confident about her friendship with Diana, but it seemed out of sorts, just like everything right now.
Cassie decided to walk the longer, more scenic route home along Cherry Hill Road, where rows of Kwanzan and dwarf bing cherry trees would be on the brink of blooming. It was a blustery March day, and the sound of the wind in the trees was her favorite. She stopped walking for a moment to look up at their leaves, to watch them shake and dance overhead until she was dizzy.
"This is my turf," a voice behind her said.
She glanced around and saw a black leather jacket and black jeans.
"Nick," she said. "I walked this way to be alone, so maybe you're on my turf." She was trying to sound playfully sarcastic. Then she immediately ruined it by adding, "But it's really nice to run into you."
She noticed him shift uncomfortably at the sappy comment, but more of the same started sputtering from her mouth. "It's just . . . we've hardly gotten to talk lately," she said. "And we never hang out anymore."
Nick's face appeared cold. No smile, not even a hint of one. He obviously didn't feel the same way. He looked away and patted his jacket pocket for his cigarettes. Then he remembered he'd quit, so he stopped patting and stood still.
"I miss you, Nick," Cassie heard herself say. And she immediately wished it hadn't come out sounding so needy and pathetic.
Nick had been this way - aloof and closed off - since Cassie and Adam got together. The rational part of her brain knew he was only shutting her out because he'd been hurt, but the other part of her brain, the irrational part, didn't care at all about that and just wanted him back in her life.
She touched the soft leather of his jacket and asked, as innocently as she could, "Don't you miss me at all?" A pang of agony shot across his face, like she'd stabbed him in the stomach with a sharp knife.
"Cassie," he said.
He was about to say something important. She could tell by the gentle tone of his voice and the way he was struggling to find the right words. It was so difficult for him to express his emotions that to watch him working so hard at it now made Cassie's heart melt a little. This was the tender side of Nick not many people had access to.
"Cassie, listen," he said.
But just then Adam drove up, honking his horn. "Hey, you two," he called out. "Want a ride?"
Shoot. What terrible timing. She and Nick were finally getting somewhere.
But the moment was lost. Nick's face, which had opened itself up briefly, closed again, tighter and more secure than a vault.
"Do you want a ride home?" Cassie feebly asked him.
The sight of her with Adam was the last thing Nick needed, and Cassie knew it. "I'll pass," he said, with the coldest voice he could muster. "But you'd better go," he added, when he noticed Cassie's hesitation. "Your chariot awaits."
Cassie was torn. For a split second she imagined their alternate future, the one where Adam didn't pull up, where she and Nick talked the whole long walk home beneath a canopy of trees. She didn't want to let this possibility go.
But she knew not to push Nick too far. After all, her loyalties were to Adam, and they always would be.
Nick started shuffling away in the opposite direction of home. Cassie rushed to catch up with him and whispered into his ear. "You may have earned the right to wall ow a bit," she said. "But I'm not going to let you go that easily." Then she jogged back to Adam's car, opened the door, and climbed inside.
The interior of Adam's car always smelled the same. It was the sweet musk of autumn leaves and gasoline, oiled leather and rubber, and it never failed to make Cassie feel a charge.
Adam looked her over, analyzing every inch of her face with his piercing blue eyes. "I thought you were going out dress shopping with the girls."
"I didn't feel like it."
He rested his warm hand on her knee. "Cassie, are you sure everything's okay?"
She gazed out the window and didn't answer.
"Was Nick giving you a hard time back there?"
"What? No, of course not. If anything, I was giving him a hard time, trying to get him to be my friend again." Adam returned his hand to the steering wheel and gripped it so tightly, his knuckles whitened. "He needs time."
"I know."
Cassie watched the more ordinary streets of New Salem give way to Crowhaven Road and decided to change the subject.
"Did you get a weird feeling from the new principal today?" she asked.