Page 75 of As the Rain Falls (Sainte Madeleine #1)

STRUGGLING WITH DISSOCIATON

“He’s going to tell her.”

All I can hear is the sound of Cassandra’s heavy breathing keeping me grounded, my own thoughts too scattered, trying to piece the whole night back together and figure out what happened to her.

I flick the headlights right on time to see her break down, her face twisting in pain.The sight makes me feel worried. I wet my lips quickly and ask.

“Who are you talking about?”

“Caleb and Maria,” she whispers, trying to hide her face from me. “I swear I was the one to break things off. You have to believe me, Beckett.”

“That’s—”

Too much information.

I take in a sharp breath.

“Okay.”

“God!” she starts sobbing quietly, bracing herself, making those painful sounds I’m starting to hate. “I don’t want you to think I’m a slut!”

“Hey, no, no, no,” I whisper, shifting in my seat and reaching for her hands. I find them again, cold and trembling, and intertwine our fingers together. “I’m not thinking about anything, baby. Ever, okay?”

The baby slips out of me again, and I catch myself wincing. Maybe I shouldn’t be calling her that if she’s not mine. It’s just hard not to when she’s like this. I just want to… make her feel better.

“You don’t understand,” Cassandra continues to spill everything, sighing dramatically. “You’re such a good guy. I bet you’ve never even kissed a girl who belonged to another boy.”

I wince again.

Not quite true.

“Nicolas would tell you a different story if you asked.”

Her eyes widen just a little, a glint of recognition shining in her eyes at the mention of my ex-classmate.

“What?”

“He’d been dating Alex for six months. I knew that. Everybody knew that.” The girl with the red hair . “But I still hooked up with her in the backseat of my dad’s car.”

She blinks, her green eyes lighting up.

“Really?”

“Twice,” I smirk. “Best first times I’ve ever had.”

I tighten my grip on her hand, lay my cheek against the back of my seat, and watch the tears streaming down her face. Her tight lips turn into a pout.

“You’re a dog!” She dries her tears with the back of her hand while looking at me, flustered and yet intrigued. “Is this true?”

I roll my eyes. She’s cute.

“Yeah, it is. Not my proudest moment or anything.” I shrug. “I still did it, and I’m not embarrassed about it.”

She hesitates, looking torn, “I know we’ve talked about this before, but I never had the courage to ask.”

“Go ahead.” I smile softly. “I don’t keep secrets from you.”

“Was she really your first love?”

I raise an eyebrow, finding it interesting that Cassandra knows so much about me when I’m always trying to guess what’s on her mind. I can’t read her, not as well as she reads me. It annoys me to no end that I can’t pick up on things as easily as she does.

“How do you even know about that?”

“Everybody knows.” Another lonely tear slides down. I watch her wipe it quickly. “Don’t go around thinking you’re that important to me.”

I chuckle, “Right.”

“So?”

“I guess.” I shrug. “But I don’t think about her anymore.”

Because I’m too busy thinking about you instead .

“What am I going to do?” her question comes out with defeat. “Beckett, I’m scared.”

“Are you sure he is telling her?”

“Probably,” she answers quickly, and I can tell she feels embarrassed about it. “I turned him down tonight. Told him I didn’t want to see him anymore.”

“Did he get upset?”

Cassandra shifts, her fingers tracing mine, playing with my rings.

“I think so, yeah. Nobody likes to be dumped, I guess, but still.”

“Well, nobody likes to be made a fool, either,” I keep my voice gentle, not liking that she’s more inclined to see his side than her own.

It’s the first mistake every girl I know makes: being so empathetic to someone who couldn’t give less of a fuck about them. And I don’t get why guys are like this, deep down.

I mean, you either like someone, or you don’t. There’s no need for games. But we all play them. Me included.

“We can figure this out. Convince him not to.”

“Beckett, I know you’re trying to be nice right now, but I really think it’s too fucking late for that.

” She shrinks into herself like she wants to hide from the world.

I just want to protect her from it. “Maria probably already knows. His friends saw me there; they saw me going to his room… She’s going to kill me. ”

“She should be killing Caleb, too,” I suggest. “You’re not the first girl he cheats on her with.”

“But I’m the first one to get caught,” Cassandra says, her tone final. “All the other girls were smarter than I was.”

“He asked you out, didn’t he? Not the other way around. Don’t overly blame yourself for his decisions, Cass. He’s not worth shit.”

She shakes her head. “He loves her, doesn’t he?”

I don’t even give her an answer to that right away. Of course, he doesn’t. Maria is just the girl he knows he can fall back on easily, but that’s far beside the point.

As silence stretches out, I give her a long look, piecing everything together. Realization hits me like cold water. She actually thinks he is being somewhat honest about his feelings.

Oh, hell no.

“Wait, you’re actually being serious? No, no. Cass, let’s think this through,” I try to keep my voice steady, but the dry laugh still escapes me. “If Caleb cared about Maria, alright, he wouldn’t even consider the thought of someone else.”

She looks back at me, entirely skeptical.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Isn’t it like… the bare minimum? He shouldn’t have been kissing other girls.”

Her voice cracks, “But he said I was pretty and funny.”

“And you are,” I agree quickly, brushing the back of my hand against her skin, wiping away the bits of mascara running down her cheek. “You’re the coolest girl ever, but even someone as pretty and funny as you wouldn’t do the trick. Not if he really loved her, okay?”

I emphasize each word, and she tilts her head up, maintaining eye contact. She just shakes her head.

“Love is more complicated than that.”

Her words make my chest feel tight.

“Don’t tell me you loved him. We both know that it’s a lie.”

“I don’t know,” Cassandra cries. “I don’t know what I’m feeling anymore. I can’t… Beckett, I can’t feel anything.”

“Cassandra.” I pause. “If you really want to know my opinion, from where I’m standing, it’s all quite simple.”

“Is it? So, you really wouldn’t have done what he did?” her voice is barely above a whisper. “You wouldn’t be caught dead kissing me if you liked a girl like Maria?”

I brush my thumb against her palm, watching her shiver. Something lightens in my chest, a feeling of certainty building up.

“Not if I really liked her, no.”

“And if you liked me?” she asks nervously, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “I mean, I get it. She’s amazing, and I’m just not good enough compared to her.”

“Cass.” I start, hearing my father’s words echoing in my mind. The conversation with Mateo and Antony. Angelina. Tread lightly . This is delicate. “I don’t know if that’s the kind of question I can just answer right now.”

She blinks, wide-eyed. “But it’s totally hypothetical!”

“Even so.”

“If you liked me, but someone else came along,” Cassandra continues, frantically speaking every word. “Someone as good as she is, I mean. I can see why you wouldn’t go for me, but—”

“There wouldn’t be someone else, Cassandra.”

My words come out quiet, silence stretching between us. Slowly, I feel that certainty blossom, taking root somewhere deep inside of me. Somewhere I can’t reach easily or alone. This feeling tugs my heart, making it stir in my chest.

There’s never a specific reason why you fall for someone. Sometimes, it’s not even a result of work and effort. You just do. But once you’re there, nothing can shake that feeling off. It’s a permanent fixture, something that changes you to your very core.

You are who you love, who you surround yourself with. And for as long as I’ll have Cassandra by my side, as my friend or anything else for that matter, I will never ever hurt her like that. If this is the betrayal she is expecting far ahead, it won’t be coming from me.

“If I fell for you, I’d love only you,” I say, hearing my heartbeat pounding in my eardrums. “There wouldn’t be eyes for anyone else. I… I wouldn’t do things halfway. Especially not with you because I care, you know?”

Her face falls, lips wobbling.

“Why can’t I believe you?”

My heart shatters at the question.

With the way she starts avoiding my gaze, shrinking into the passenger seat the longer I stare at her, it’s easy to tell that Caleb hurt her badly. She has no confidence in herself anymore. He shattered it, shattered her so quickly, like it was nothing. Like she meant nothing .

“You think she’s better than you?” I ask, trying to understand.

“Sometimes,” Cassandra admits, her gaze lost.

It makes me want to scream.

“She’s not,” I affirm, because she can’t be. “I’m not saying this just to say it. Any guy would be lucky to have you.”

“But I think she could give him something I couldn’t,” she explains.

“Like what?” I blurt it out.

“I don’t know,” Cassandra pauses, considering my question. “I couldn’t go all-all the way, and I always made things more difficult than they needed to be, looking back.”

“You’re looking at this the wrong way,” I cut her off. “If you couldn’t go all the way with him, it’s not as much your fault as it is his.”

What did this guy do to her?

“Trust me,” I repeat my previous words. “Caleb doesn’t love Maria.”

“He told me he loved me.” She dries her tears with the back of her hand. I scoff, and she quickly adds, “I didn’t believe him. I thought it was just something you say to a girl to get her to take her panties off.”

“It is,” I agree, hearing her breath catch right after. The sound makes me regret being so blunt. “Wait, no. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t be more careful.”

Cassandra asks me again, avoiding my gaze this time around, “But what do I do?”