Page 28 of As the Rain Falls (Sainte Madeleine #1)

I LOVE MOZZARELLA STICKS!

Cassandra

Back when I was still a child, or at least much younger than I am now, Saturday afternoons always meant a trip to Dole’s, short for Dolores. She’d been Le Port’s most sought-after nail tech at the time, a Mexican lady with warm brown eyes and a small, stubborn mouth.

Dolores moved to the island before I was born, and Mom used to say she owned nothing but two pairs of shoes and an unborn baby, carried out of wedlock. It clearly wasn’t the best first impression, and had she been anything less than talented, it probably would’ve stuck.

I loved Saturdays.

Saturdays meant no school, no homework, and my weekly dose of Dolores. And besides, all the other mothers in town scheduled their appointments for the same afternoon, meaning that I always had someone to play with while we waited for our turn.

Dolores made these delicious homemade mozzarella sticks that crunched with every bite. Mom never wanted me to indulge in snacking between meals, but I could never eat just one. I’d been a chubby baby who grew into a chubby child. I liked to indulge. It felt like a reward.

Saturday at Dole’s is how I met Lucia Evans. Like, I really met her. Of course, we weren’t complete strangers before that. We knew of each other: she was my neighbor, and we went to the same school.

But we never shared a real moment besides playing little league together, where I’d spend half of the season on the benches and the other half dodging the ball until Mom had to take me out of the team, only to sign me up again later because I crushed on Beckett.

That is, until her mother made an appointment.

Lucia sat beside me, playing Mario Kart on her Nintendo DS. She was thinner than I was, which was always the first thing I noticed. Blonde like me, but prettier, with these natural Irish curls that made my stomach twist with a wicked sort of envy.

I decided, upon five seconds of breathing the same air as her, that we wouldn’t be friends.

The idea stuck with me. It’s almost silly, looking back, how every decision feels like a permanent one.

Instead of trying to talk to her, I stayed silent, chewing my mozzarella stick.

Breathing the same air as she did seemed like enough.

Susan Evans watched her with the kind of adoration that I reserved for my Barbie dolls. I realized after swallowing down the third mozzarella stick that my own mother never looked at me like that.

I didn’t like the thought of it, so I pushed it down with a fourth snack. Even though I wasn’t the brightest child, and I didn’t understand much about the world, I could tell Lucia was well-liked. Every girl wanted to be her friend, and every boy wanted to hold her hand. Except Beckett, of course.

As far as I recall, Beckett Evans never held any other girl’s hands except—

“Do you want to play outside, Lou?” Susan nudged her gently, trying to get her daughter’s attention.

Lucia hummed, barely looking up from her game. Her nose scrunched in some kind of delicate grimace, and I tried to do the same. Mine didn’t work as well as hers did.I felt silly for even going there.

“I’d rather stay in,” she answered after some time, deep blue eyes flicking between the console screen and her clothes. “Like Cassie is doing.”

“But why? It’s just such a sunny day outside!”

“I’m not going outside! I don’t want to get mud all over my dress!”

She grabbed my hand then, as if urging me to say something that would help bring them to reason. I couldn’t speak a world, too caught up in my own shyness.

Her comment made the adults chuckle, but I could tell she was serious.

Her voice was sweet, but her tone was firm, leaving no room for argument.

Lucia Evans meant business; she cared about her dress, and she had every right to.

The dress, a bright yellow fabric with embroidered daisies at the front, was lovely.

I understood then, before I even had the words for it, that this was what it meant to be a girl.

Girls stayed inside.

Girls cared about their appearance.

Girls sat quietly for a decade, watching their mothers sit in salon chairs while another less fortunate woman knelt at their feet, poking at their overgrown bits of skin.

That moment with Lucia Evans as she held my hand, as small and insignificant as it seemed, had a greater impact than any conversation we could’ve shared. It changed my life forever by rewiring something in me.

I stopped going to Dolores.

I stopped indulging in mozzarella sticks.

I learned how to stay home, caring about my hair, my nail polish, and my dresses.

It’s what got me to stay back that night, instead of going out with my parents. Yes, my skin felt too tight, too sunburnt from that party at the beach a few days before. But mostly, I desperately needed to wash my hair.

It’s not a night I like to think about. Not after it took me so long to forget.

The first few months that followed made me hate every dress I wore, and every second I spent obsessing over how I looked felt like a second too long, but I couldn’t stop.

I became unlikeable.Everybody thought so.

Mom, Dad, and even Nathaniel himself after he came back, and I guess it must have been true.

For someone who hated beauty, I could crave it just as much.

My brother had taken something from me, and I wanted it back.

Nothing I did would erase the weight of his touch, the way his stinky breath lingered over my skin, or the feeling of pressure I got sometimes late at night.

It kept building up between my legs, making me nauseous and flustered.

This was the worst part, I think. Suddenly, I knew what sex was and I couldn’t stop touching myself.

I felt aware of it, haunted, torn apart.

Foolish, too. Certain that I could never, ever, feel pretty again.

Mom caught me doing it once, and she taught me how to stop.

I needed to be good, so I did. I stopped.

I hated her. Though it was unfair, I hated Lucia Evans, too.

I hated how pretty she was and how untouchable it made her, when I hadn’t been spared in spite of being less beautiful.

I had these conflicting moments of jealousy and envy, admiration and longing, that I couldn’t tame.

She’d catch me staring at her sometimes, at school and at church, and I could tell she felt sorry for me. I didn’t look happy anymore.

My brother’s return made me angry and volatile, and Mom would spend hours consoling me after school.

Once I realized nothing would change, I began to ignore the ugly feeling in my chest, replacing it with a different kind of hunger.

Being the prettiest didn’t matter, at least not when I could be the sweetest.Lucia didn’t have to feel sorry for me anymore. I got better. I could pretend.

That was, until I realized something. Something I wouldn’t think about again until years later, months after her death.

It really was weird that she’d noticed how terrible I felt when no one else did.

She never spoke to me about it, but we knew.

We were two sides of the same coin, stuck inside together.

She’d been there long before me, long enough to know how to recognize the signs.

Something about us made us vulnerable. Playing girls like us was fair game, and whatever ugly truth I knew about the world, she’d known it first. Every discovery I made, every path I decided to take, only meant that I’d find her instead.

And something told me sometime around the beginning of November that, out of the two of us, Lucia also knew it best.