Promising Young Woman

Old Memories

It's breakfast time yet again at the Thomas residence. Today, Susan has made pancakes. Cassie eats her pancakes dry; Susan has her pancakes lathered in syrup.

Stanley isn't eating breakfast. He almost never does. He has the same routine every morning. Slide out of bed when Susan gets up, go to the bathroom, brush his teeth, go outside and grab the morning paper, sit at the kitchen table and read. By the time he gets back to the table, Susan always has the coffee ready.

Cassandra looks empty. Tired. She silently yawns, then takes a bite of her pancakes. She's still wondering if she made a mistake not going up to Ryan's place. What would have happened? Nothing bad, she reassures herself. She knows he's not like the "nice guys".

The suitcase incident has created a thick layer of tension in the house. Why should she interact with people that don't even want her in the house?

"Did you and your friend have a nice time?" Stanley inquires.

Without looking up, Cassie replies. "Mm-hmm."

"You came in pretty late!"

"Yep." Her voice is soulless.

"You two go dancing?" Susan asks.

"Yep." Cold.

Susan and Stanley are oblivious to her dead voice as they look at each other, exchanging ecstatic glances.

Cassie looks down at her sweater sleeve, staring at the nightclub stamp on her hand, the black ink still stained on her skin. It's just a case of washing it off.

Then she looks at her wrist. A very bad bruise. Black and purple and blue. It looks incredibly painful. One could feel her pain just by looking at her wrist.

She quickly pulls the sleeve down, covering the bruise and just barely covering the stamp on her hand.

———

Cassie, standing behind the counter at the coffee shop, stares into space, still trying to figure out if she made a mistake. Gail is readying the coffee machines for the onslaught they'd soon have.

"Ugh," Gail says.

That kicks Cassie back into reality, shaking her head quickly. "What?"

"Look at them." Gail gestures towards a couple sitting at the back of the shop.

They're acting cutesy. The girl smiling and laughing, staring into the guy's eyes with nothing but love. The guy momentarily rests his hand on the girl's leg. He pulls away as she lays a hand on his back.

"Look at them. Take your happiness somewhere else, please."

Cassie finally looks over, slightly pissed at the sight. That could have been her and Ryan. But she doesn't let it show. "You and Richard must have been like that at some point."

Gail recollects, looking around as she tries to remember. "He did make me laugh. Lucky for him, I find farting hilarious otherwise we would have been over right after the first date."

"He farted on the first date?" Cassie asks, repulsed.

"Yeah. I made him laugh so hard that he farted." Gail can't help but laugh, no matter how hard she tries to keep the laughter in.

"Fuck," Cassandra says. Then after a moment, she adds, "That is so romantic."

And she means it. Kind of. But not really. Cassie is almost disgusted with Gail's cute-but-also-gross story.

———

Cassandra sits patiently in a waiting room at the Bathory Hospital, where Ryan works. She looks around the waiting room. It is surprisingly busy — sick children sitting with their parents, grown adults coughing and sitting by themselves. A red balloon that a kid had let go of hours earlier sits floating in the air in the corner of the ceiling.