Chapter 33: Cassiopeia

Sleeping is hard.

Two in the morning and I'm still fucking awake.

I hate myself.

I'm definitely going to hate myself in the morning if I doubt go to sleep now, but I know I'll do this again tomorrow night.

I carefully roll over with a sigh so I'm laying on my side, my ribs protesting in pain, and stare at the ceiling.

I know now isn't the time, and I should be focusing on sleeping, but I'm so. Fucking. Bored.

I feel like screaming because there's nothing to do but sleep, and I can't even do that.

Letting out a sigh and closing my eyes, I decide to count sheep. It should work, or at least help a little.

I visualize a small meadow with a fence in my head, and then the sheep come.

One sheep.

Two sheep.

Three sheep.

Four sheep.

Five shee––

Holy fuck, why is this so boring? How do people do this to fall asleep?

I let out another sigh, and not even five seconds later, my phone vibrates from the nightstand by the bed, and I pick it up to see a text from Aaron.

Oblivious Ass: can u stop sighing I can hear u from my room and it's keeping me up

Me: ur room is right next to the one I'm in it's not a big deal

Me: and I'm not even sighing that loud

Me: get earplugs

Oblivious Ass: Cassie just be quiet

Me: make me

He sends another text, but by then my phone is already locked and is resting back on the nightstand.

Withholding another sigh, I close my eyes again and attempt to go back to sleep.

I just want to fucking sleep.

My eyes fly open when a hand covers my mouth to see Aaron leaning over the side of the bed with a stupid smirk on his stupid face.

"This counts as making you, right?"

I glare at him. "You fucking asshole," I try to say, only it comes out extremely muffled due to his warm hand covering my mouth.

"What was that, Cassie? I couldn't quite hear you."

Oh, what I would give to be able to kick him in the balls right now.

He must see the thought on my face because his eyes widen and he leaps away from me, his hand slipping from my mouth.

"Dick."

He smiles at me. "I got you to be quiet for five seconds, didn't I? I call that a job well done."

I roll my eyes and his smile turns into a smirk.

I stare at him, confused, but my eyes widen when he comes close again, his face nearing mine.

What is he doing?

I can feel my cheeks heat up and my breathing quicken, hoping he's about to do what I think he's about to do.

And then he lands a flick on my nose.

I groan, slamming my head back into the mattress. "You're an ass."

He snickers, and the sound makes me smile, a happy feeling rising in my chest as I stare at him.

He turns away to walk to the door, but instead of leaving, he closes the door before walking back to the bed and climbing on.

"Scoot over."

I follow his request, scooting over to the right side of the bed as he climbs on to the left and lays on his side so he's facing me. I turn my head to look at him.

"Hi, Cassie."

"Hi."

We lay in silence, just looking at each other, until he speaks.

"Are you ever going to talk to your parents?"

My first reaction is to close up, not tell him, deflect, but all thoughts of not telling him fly out of my mind as soon as he lays his hand over my waist and grips the hip furthest away from him.

My shirt rode up a little bit, so his hand is brushing my waist, causing warm tingles and sparks of electricity to erupt over my skin, traveling up to my cheeks, which are now a nice shade of red.

"What's wrong, Cassie?" he says, a teasing note to his voice.

Bitch. He knows what he's doing to me.

"N––nothing."

He hums. "Sure. Are you going to answer my question, then?"

"Um, I don't know. I want to, but I'm still so angry with them for not telling me earlier, for waiting for when they did."

He moves closer and buries his head in my neck, his nose brushing my skin.

Jesus.

"I think you should." His words come out muffled. "They love you." He says something else after that, but I don't catch it because my brain is too caught up on the way his thumb is drawing circles near my bellybutton. "Cassie?" he says as he pulls back the slightest bit. I think I make a sound of acknowledgement, but I'm not sure because all I can focus on is his hand.

My brain calls up the memory of me and him in his living room the day my parents told me. The things I was feeling then come rushing in now, and I couldn't stop them if I tried.

"I want to show you something," he whispers, his lips brushing against the curve of my neck.

I die. Right there. I'm dead.

"Okay," I choke out, and I want to cry when Aaron fully pulls away from me, getting off the bed.

He holds a hand out and I grab it, allowing him to pull me off the bed and scoop me into his arms.

He walks out of the room and down the stairs, and then out his back door. He heads to the middle of his backyard, and then he places me down, laying himself down next to me, so close that the right side of his body and the left side of mine are pressed together.

We stare up at the night sky together, looking at the stars.

"There's the Little Dipper."

He's pointing up at a section of the sky, and I follow his finger to see a cluster of stars the vaguely look like what he says it does.

"Sure, Aaron."

"I'm serious. That's the Little Dipper, there's the big one, you can see the North Star, too." I follow his finger as it moves around the sky, pointing the things out to me, and I'm hit with another memory.

It's me and Aaron, together, in his room the day where we went to the theme park. I was pointing Little Mermaid characters out on his ceiling, and he was going along with it.

"That's Cassiopeia."

I snap out of my thoughts. "That's what?"

I see him smile out of the corner of my eye.

"Cassiopeia. She was a Greek. She died because of her arrogance and vain, basically."

My brows furrow. It's nice to know someone gave you a nickname based off of a bad lady.

Not.

"That day we met for the first time, you were different. Most of the other girls at school are like Cassiopeia, but I could tell that you weren't, even though we only talked for, like, two minutes. You are a little mean, yes, but you don't let that hinder your ability to care about people. You're kind, and caring, and funny, and beautiful, and tons of other things that I could get into, but then we'd be here until tomorrow night. I used to think that everybody was secretly a bad person, even if only a part of them was. You changed that. So I call you Cassie to remind myself of that. That not everybody is as bad as they seem at first."

I'm silent. And I feel like crying. I thought he just did it to annoy me, because he wanted to; I didn't expect it to mean something to him.

Aaron seems to understand the fact that I can't talk right now, because the only thing he does is grab my hand and squeeze.

And I'm reminded of the rollercoaster.

"I got you, Cassie. And I'm never letting go."

And I realize now that I don't want him to let go; I want him to hold on to me, to never let me go. I want him to stay with me, I want him to be with me.

I open my mouth to tell him that, but he speaks before I can, probably thinking that I'm going to say something insensitive, or tell him something negative.

"Even though your parents aren't biologically related to you in the parent-child way, they're still your parents; they raised you, were there for you for most of your life. Talk to them. You don't have to forgive them, but you should at least talk to them."

I think over his words.

He's right, I know he is, but I don't want to talk to either of them, even though I should.

But I know they're hurting. I know they are because I am too.

Tomorrow. I'll talk to them tomorrow.

Right now, I just want to lie here with him, until we have to go back inside.

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We're getting closer to the end, my friends. I don't think there'll be more than forty to forty-five chapters. Are you ready for some hardcore editing?

This chapter was a little hard to write; writer's block has been killing me (though it is a little longer; almost 1700 words), and school has been a little stressful. Second week back and I'm already failing two classes. So, of course, instead of trying to fix that, I am procrastinating and am on here instead. That's definitely gonna come back and bite me in the butt later on, but it'll have been worth it, so...

#yolo

Anyways, hope you enjoyed that! Next chapter should be out Wednesday of next week. Or maybe Monday. Or maybe both. I don't know I haven't decided yet.

Peace.

--Rose

P.S. Can somebody please tell me if it's 'onto' or 'on to'. I've been treating it like 'into' but it doesn't look right. You can see where I kept switching between them because I don't know which one to use. Thank you!