The Stories of Latia, Vol. 2: Demon's Curse

Chapter 10: Easier

Chapter 10: Easier
The Narrator

"Avery, I-" Cassidy begins, but Avery doesn't let her get very far.
"How... How long have you known?" Avery softly asks, her gaze fixated on the table in front of her.
"Since Friday," Cassidy mumbles, and Avery's gaze jolts up from the table to the floor in front of Cassidy, but careful as to not look at her.
"This was that thing you wanted to say, wasn't it? When I... When I proposed?" Avery stumbles, barely able to get words out.
"Yeah."
"So... What? What was your plan here, Cass? Let me get my hopes up, go through with the wedding just to... what? What is it going to do to you? How did it even happen?" Avery stands, teetering between outrage and a shattered heart.
"Well... Back in November when I was in that room with Two, it threatened me. Well, not me, it threatened you, and Jayme and James and everyone else if I didn't accept its... curse," Cassidy quietly explains.
"So I did, and didn't think anything of it. Until the Christmas party, when I first noticed this," she continued, pulling the blue strand of her hair from behind her ear to show Avery.
"I pretended it wasn't there until Jayme noticed it, and he had me go ask James about it... and he told us all about the Curse."
"So... what is it going to do to you?" Avery asks, holding back even more tears.
This is the part Cassidy dreaded the most.
"It's... it's going to kill me." Every word felt like daggers clawing their way out of her mouth.
Avery was sure of what Cassidy was going to say, but that didn't stop every fiber of her being hoping it would be anything else.
"How... How long?" She can only bear to get those words out without relentlessly sobbing.
"A couple months. A year, if I'm lucky."
Avery crumbles back into her seat and the two remain silent, with them both avoiding even looking at the other.
"Were you ever going to tell me?" Avery softly starts again.
Cassidy falls silent.
"Cass...? What were you going to do?" She whispers, unable to do anything more.
Cassidy, without saying a word, trudges over to the stairwell, reaching down and pulling a backpack from under it and dropping it in the middle of the floor, and sitting down across the table from Avery. Avery can't pry her eyes off of the red, packed bag that now sat in front of her.
"You... you were just going to r-run away?" Avery asks in horror.
"Yeah..." Cassidy confesses, the guilt weighing on her voice like anchors weigh on a ship.
"W-Why?"
"I... I thought it would be easier for you."
Avery scoffs "You thought... You thought getting up and disappearing one day would be easier for me?!" she exclaims, finally meeting Cassidy's eyes as she stands.
"I figured this would be easier if you hated me. And that's why I was going to leave. Because I wanted you to hate me. It would've been another lie I've told you, but I felt it was the better of two really shitty options," Cassidy explains. Despite the softness in her voice, her words carried a weight that rested on Avery's shoulders, buckling her knees and eventually sending her crumbling back into her seat.
"You were just so excited about the wedding and... I couldn't bear to stomp on that, so I didn't tell you. I thought... you'd have an easier time if I just wasn't in the picture anymore, but for a reason you could just blame me for. And I didn't want you to have to see... it happen," Cassidy sorrowfully explains.
"So... So what happens now?" Avery asks, her voice hollow with hopelessness.
"I really don't know."