Paper Airplanes (10 page)

“Holy shit,”
Cassie hissed as she picked up the napkin airplane that had come unfolded. Then she looked up at me again with wide eyes. “That was you?”

“Skinny and weird with greasy
long hair and acne. Yup, sounds like me,” I said sardonically, and she frowned.

“No, Jared.
I’m sorry,” she said quickly, finally hearing the words that had come out of her mouth.

“Whatever,” I said, shrugging. “That was years ago. It’s fine.”

I felt like I had to play it off like what she’d said didn’t cut me at my core since she looked like she was about to cry.

“I’m sorry,” she said earnestly. “
I shouldn’t have said those things. I’m such a bitch.”

Well . . .

I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. Seriously.”

She was biting her lip, and she wouldn’t look at me. I just watched her, feeling
guilty for some unknown reason.

“Who’s your friend,
Jare?” Brooke said then, suddenly appearing next to our table. I had no idea where she’d been for the past twenty minutes, but there she was, glaring at Cassie and practically spitting venom.

“We’re not friends,”
Cassie said then before she got up from the table and bolted to the bathroom, her hands covering her face.

“Shit,” I cursed, as I started to get up to go after her, but Brooke blocked me in, so I sat back down.

“Lover’s quarrel?” she asked, leaning down so she was closer to eye-level with me. “I thought you said you weren’t seeing anyone.”

“I’m not.”

“Then who’s that?” she demanded.

I glanced over at the bathroom. All I could think about was that
Cassie was upset, and I’d most likely made her cry. I hadn’t meant to. I wasn’t a jerk.

“She’s the
new server Rick hired. I’m training her.”

Brooke narrowed her eyes. “Don’t play dumb with me. That was not a conversation between you and someone you just met. You’ve slept with her.”

“No, I haven’t,” I said firmly, not sure why I was justifying myself to her. I actually wasn’t even sure why I was still sitting there listening to her. I stood up. “Move, Brooke.”

“Why? So you can go comfort your girlfriend? I don’t think so.”

Dammit. She was so freaking frustrating.

“Brooke, move,” I said through gritted teeth. “Now.”

“Fine,” she said, stepping back in a huff. “But if I find out she’s my competition, I’m not going to be happy.”

Fantastic. Great to hear it.

I pushed passed her without responding and walked to the women’s restroom. I knocked softly on the door. “Cassie?”

I could hear the muffled sounds of her crying, and it made my stomach knot up. I hated when girls cried. She didn’t answer me.

“Cassie?” I said again. “I’m coming in, okay?”

“No!” sh
e said quickly, sniffing loudly as I pushed the door open. “I’m fine. Don’t come in.”

“Too late,” I said
, right as her face crumbled and she started crying again.

Instinctively, I crossed the room and wrapped my arms around her, her
vanilla scented lotion assaulting my senses yet again. I tried to ignore it as her face dropped into the crook of my neck, her hands squeezed between her chest and mine, and she sobbed against my t-shirt.

For several minutes we stood there in the middle of the women’s bathroom, her in my arms, the only sound her
muffled sobs echoing around us before they slowly subsided. Finally she pulled out of my arms and covered her face once again, turning away from me.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s fine.”

I stayed still. I was sort of afraid to move.

“No, please,” she said, still not looking at me. “Let me apologize for what I said. It was so mean, and I was such a bitch all through high school. I know that now, and I’m sorry for anything I did to you back then that might have made you feel bad. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I told her honestly, because it was. “
Just forget about high school. You didn’t do anything to me directly. It was your friends. I can’t hold that against you.”

It was a small white lie that I figured she needed to hear.

She turned around to face me, her eyes red-rimmed and wet. “Yeah, but I said things today. I said what I thought of you back then, and that was so wrong. I have such a big mouth sometimes, and I don’t always realize how I say things. I shouldn’t have judged you back then. Jared, you’re a nice guy. I’m so sorry if I hurt you.”

“You didn’t,” I said adamantly, because I just wanted her to stop beating herself up.

She was obviously remorseful. And the truth was we weren’t the same people we’d been back then. That was apparent. I could see now that Cassie
had
changed. She’d lost the edge she’d had years before, and I couldn’t overlook that. No way would the girl she used to be have been upset about hurting my feelings, but Cassie looked devastated, and that kind of endeared me to her, as much as I didn’t want it to.

“Are you sure? Because I’m running through what I said to you, and if someone said that to me, it would hurt.”

“I’m fine,” I insisted, even though her words had stung, taking a step closer to her.

I wasn’t sure what provoked me to do it, but I reached out and swept an errant curl off of her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. She looked up and made eye contact with me as my hand dropped back down to my side.

“You don’t have to be nice to me,” she said. “I’d understand if you weren’t, if you hated me.”

“I’m not that kind of guy,” I said honestly, shaking my head.

She nodded. “That’s good. You’re really sweet,” she said, offering me a small smile.

And damn if that didn’t send my pulse into overdrive. Simply the combination of being in such close proximity to her, the scent of her
vanilla body lotion lingering on my clothes and the vulnerability she was showing in that moment were enough to make me crazy. I had the sudden and desperate urge to kiss her.

“I’m a nice guy,” I told her, almost choking out the words I was so tongue-tied all of a sudden.

She nodded. “You are.” Then she took a deep breath. “Can you give me a minute? I want to pull myself together before I head back out there. I know there’s probably a lot of work we need to do before we open, and it’ll take longer because you have to show me.”

I nodded
, because she was right. We did have decent amount of work to do, since we didn’t do any side work at the end of our shifts. We did it all at the beginning, but I worked fast. I could get it done in a rush if needed.

“
Take your time. I’m going to go fill the salt and pepper shakers,” I told her. “Come out whenever you’re ready, okay?”

She nodded and looked at me gratefully
. “Thank you, Jared.”

“You’re welcome,” I told her, knowing
that something had shifted between us.

No matter how she’d viewed me in high school or
what my impressions of her had been before today, it seemed inevitable that we were going to be friends. Maybe it was because I felt bad for her, or maybe it was because she was so vulnerable in that moment, and it seemed like she really didn’t have anyone to turn to, but it seemed like she needed a friend. And for whatever reason, she wanted to be friends with me. I couldn’t turn my back on her now.

I’d just have to ignore the feelings that told me I was fairly certain I wouldn’t mind being more than friends with her. I knew that would never happen in a million years. She’d never be interested in a guy like me. I was a nice guy after all. And unfortunately I’d learned
the hard way that nice guys really do finish last. They didn’t get girls like Cassie Witter.

Chapter Seven

Cassie

I was so incredibly mortified that I’d cried in front of Jared. Shit, I’d cried on his shoulder, after I’d insulted him, and he hadn’t pushed me away.
It had all happened so fast. One minute I was feeling embarrassed that I’d been so rude to him, and the next I was feeling like I couldn’t breathe as visions of how clueless I’d been for so long assaulted me.

And
the worst part was that talking to him, I’d felt normal for the first time in months. It had been so easy. He didn’t make me feel wounded like my parents did, our conversation hadn’t centered around the shooting like it did when I talked to Marley or Reese, and he didn’t treat me differently because of what I’d been through. He probably didn’t even know, and the anonymity of it was wonderful. It was truly the first real conversation I’d had with anyone since I’d gotten out of the hospital, and then I’d gone and royally screwed it up.

I’d
hated myself in that moment, when I’d seen the hurt look in his eyes, and when he’d talked about my friends bullying him and beating up him and Scott. I’d gotten so angry. I couldn’t believe they’d done that, but then again, I probably wouldn’t have done anything about it had I known. God, I could remember laughing as my friends made fun of countless people for no good reason, shoving them when they walked past or calling them names. I’d chalked it up to being a part of high school. We’d thought we were so cool, but we were really assholes – all of us.

I knew t
hat had triggered my emotional breakdown – aside from simply feeling like a total bitch. As soon as Jared described what he’d been through, I’d thought back to the reports I’d read from a few days after the shooting when the police uncovered what they could about the gunman. He’d been quiet and reserved and didn’t have a lot of friends. He’d been picked on most of his life and had been an outcast. They’d found pages and pages of journal entries spewing hate and threats to go after the people who’d hurt him. At the time they had no idea what his trigger point had been, but for some reason that day in January, he’d snapped and gone on a rampage.

Then the
y found out that his roommate had been eating in the dining hall with his friends, and the gunman had killed him first before going after the guy’s friends and then the innocent people who’d been caught in the crossfire. Some reports said he and his roommate had been arguing that afternoon, but no one really knew the truth.

I couldn’t believe how eas
ily someone could snap like that, but I guess if you push someone far enough there’s no telling what they’ll do. And wasn’t that always how these things usually came about? Some kid or kids were pushed to the outskirts of society and rebelled, taking out their anger at being rejected on those who’d hurt them. It had happened at Columbine, and it had happened again and again over the years at countless schools. It was like a never ending cycle of hatred that was flipped around where the bullied became the bully. And I hated that I’d ever been a part of making someone feel like Jared must have felt all throughout high school. I was such a bitch back then, and I hadn’t even realized it.

And what had really
made me feel worse was that Jared had been so sweet when I’d been falling apart. Regardless of what I had done to him in the past or present, he managed to overlook it and be there for me when I needed someone to tell me I wasn’t a horrible person – even though I knew I was. He was such a nice guy, and I should have realized it years ago. I should have talked to him, gotten to know him, looked past who he was on the outside, because if he was the same guy back then that he was today, I probably would have wanted to be his friend.

Now a
ll I wanted to do was apologize for judging him and not talking to him and trying to cheat off of him in English. I wanted to make things right. I hoped he could forgive me. After all, we all make mistakes. I just hoped it wasn’t too late to make amends.

For a lot of reasons,
I really wanted him to like me. I wanted us to be friends. Maybe he could see that. Maybe he knew how bad I felt. Maybe he’d realize that I’d changed and he’d like this new version of me better. The girl who was so broken and scarred that she didn’t know who she was anymore, but she knew she couldn’t go back to being who she used to be. Maybe Jared could like the new me – whoever that was. Maybe he could forgive me for being naïve and too stupid to see that outside appearances weren’t everything. Maybe if I showed him that I was different, we could be friends. I had a feeling I could use someone like him in my life.

But h
ow the hell was I supposed to even face him now? I was mortified.

I snuck a look in the
bathroom mirror and was appalled to see how blotchy my face was, along with my puffy eyes. I looked like shit, so I quickly splashed some cold water onto a paper towel and patted my face with it, trying to calm my skin down. I took a few deep breaths, wiped under my eyes to remove the mascara that had smeared below my eyelashes and fanned my face with my hand.

After five minutes, I looked halfway presentable and figured it would have to do since I needed to get back to learning my job before Rick decided to fire me for slacking off on my first day. I took one more deep breath, threw my wet, wadde
d up paper towel into the trashcan and left the sanctuary of the women’s bathroom to go face Jared again.

When I walked up to him, he was focused on filling the salt and pepper shakers for all the
tables. They were spread out in front of him in rows like chess pieces.

“I’m sorry,” I said again, simply because it felt like I should say it – again and again
and again.

He looked up at me,
his bright blue eyes meeting mine. “Are you okay?” he asked sincerely, bypassing my apology.

I nodded. “
Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Good,” he said
, giving me a tentative smile. “Why don’t you finish rolling the silverware? I’ve got this. I can walk you through the rest of the pre-opening checklist during a lull this afternoon.”

“Sounds good,” I said, pulling my shoulders back
along with my dignity. “And thank you.”

He shook his head infinitesimally. “No thanks needed.”

Then he went right back to filling salt shakers, so I knew that was my cue to head back to the booth we’d been in, where we’d left the silverware. A part of me wished he’d come with me, that we could keep talking. I wanted to explain, tell him again how truly sorry I was and how I thought he was a really great guy, but I wasn’t going to get a chance to do that. He was busy with his work, and I had to get busy with mine.

I sat down and started
rolling silverware as fast as I could, hoping to prove to him that I was a hard worker and there was no need to tell Rick about my little meltdown. It wouldn’t happen again. I also, maybe, wanted him to be impressed with how much I’d gotten done.

“Hi. How are you?”
a newly familiar voice said fifteen minutes later.

I looked up to see the blond who’d approached the table before slid
e in across from me and start rolling silverware.

“Fine. You?”

She shrugged. “Can’t complain, I guess. So how do you know Jared?”

“I don’t really know him. We just met.
He’s training me.”

“He has a girlfriend, you know.”

Okay, point taken. Put your claws away.

“I wasn’t asking if he was available.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, but you looked interested, so I wanted to save you the trouble of hearing an answer you wouldn’t like when you eventually asked if he was seeing anyone. He’s not interested in you anyway.”

Damn, this girl was direct.
Who the hell was she? Jared’s girlfriend, obviously.

“Am I to assume that you’
re his girlfriend?” I asked, trying to keep the peace, because even though this girl probably deserved it, I wasn’t going to unleash my inner bitch on her. I’d already done that to Jared, and I regretted it. I didn’t want to make any enemies at my new job.

“I’m Brooke,” she said, as if that was supposed to ring some sort of bell.

“Nice to meet you, Brooke. I’m Cassie.”

She smiled, but it was an evil smile. “Great.”

Damn, this girl was a
bitch.
Luckily I’d been friends with enough bitches in my life to know how to handle myself when they got territorial.

“Okay, people
, we’re opening in five minutes,” Rick said, having appeared from the kitchen. “Brooke, put the silverware away. You guys can work on it later. We need the dining room ready to go. Jared, are we good out here?”

From somewhere across the dining room, Jared responded, “Yeah, we’re good.”

I was learning that he was a man of few words.

Brooke got up from her seat in a huff, grabbed the bin of unrolled silverware and stalked away from me. She was not a fan
of me, and I had similar feelings toward her. So much for not making enemies

“
Justin! Scotty! How we doing back here?” Rick asked, as he burst through the kitchen doors. I heard Scott respond to him, but their conversation was muffled by the closing doors.

Then Jared was by my side. “You ready to do this?” he asked, a faint smile flirting across his
lips.

I nodded. “Let’s do it.”

As I looked over my shoulder, I saw Brooke glaring at me, her eyes narrowed and her arms crossed over her ample chest. I figured if she still hated me by the end of my shift, I might pull her aside and tell her I wasn’t interested in Jared. I wasn’t about to encroach on her territory. What I’d told Jared earlier had been accurate. I wasn’t looking for a relationship. A part of me was still hung up on Will, and mentally I wasn’t even sure if I was ready for something like that. It was too soon.

* * *

By the end of my shift, I was flat-out exhausted, and all I’d done was follow Jared around, refill drinks here and there, and run food. He was doing all the hard work like charming the customers and remembering orders without writing them down and talking effortlessly about the specials. I could barely keep up. It was only seven, but I was ready to go to bed.

Just as I was untying my apron and moving to the register behind Jared so I could clock out like he
’d showed me, Scott came bursting out of the kitchen. I’d seen him frequently throughout my shift since I had to run in and out with trays of food regularly, and he was always there, smiling at me, and telling me good luck with the tray. He was sweet. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about his crush on me, but until he tried something, I figured I was safe.

“
Yo, dude, you ready?” he asked Jared loudly.

Jared just glared at him.

“Sorry,” Scott said, lowering his voice. “Cass! What’s up, girl?”

I smiled. “Not much, Scotty. Just getting ready to go home.”

Somewhere throughout the day, we’d started calling each other only by our nicknames.

“Ah, big Friday night plans
, I assume?”

I shook my head.

“Really?!” he asked, a little surprised and way too excited.

“Nope
,” I said, shrugging in the hopes of making light of the fact that I was just headed home. I had no friends, ergo, no plans.

“Oh, I find that hard to believe. A girl like you with a thousand friends must have some party to go to.”

I saw out of the corner of my eye that Jared was watching me pensively. Maybe he thought I might start crying again, but I wasn’t going to. My tears had nothing to do with my lack of a social life. I could have had one if I wanted, but I couldn’t bring myself to pick up the phone and call Nicole or any of my other friends who were home for the summer. I couldn’t imagine going back to a life of drinking and partying and not caring about anything. Life had become too heavy in the past few months.

“No, no plans,” I said, quieter than I’d intended.

I guess the idea of going home to one of the many books on my Kindle didn’t sound so appealing after all, but I didn’t have any other options that sounded interesting. Had Marley been there, we’d have had a movie marathon, but she was halfway across the country. Maybe I’d call her and see how she was doing.

Scott’s eyes brightened. “You
wanna hang out with us?”

I
raised my eyebrows in question. “What are you guys doing?”

Across the servers’ station, I saw Brooke looked up in surprise. When she saw me looking at her, she glared at me. I looked away, my gaze shifting to Jared who was watching me pensively as Scott started to launch into a description of what they had planned. I’d assumed Jared would have plans with Brooke, but maybe I was wrong since he seemed to have arranged to hang out with Scott.

“It’s a Playstation Battle Night. We’ve got big plans to fight it out and see who the champion is,” Scott said exuberantly.

Jared
just rolled his eyes and mumbled something about not being cool. But I’d spent my life only doing things that were considered ‘cool’. Maybe doing something not cool would be a nice change.