When We Write the Stars

Chapter 9: Cassie

" I'm not a smart man. But I know what love is." – Forrest Gump

     I woke up with a raging headache and the unfortunate memory of everything that'd happened last night. I'd made a complete fool out of myself in front of Hayden. Between the two of us, I figured he'd be the one to get drunk and not do an assignment or miss something, but instead, it'd been me.

     I'd been doing fine the whole day, I hadn't thought about him once, but then every photo app I had decided to show me memories from a year ago today, of our one-year anniversary, and something in me just broke.

     Steven Yang and I had met at a mixer for astrophysics majors. I'd just gotten into the major and didn't know too many people yet, he was a year above me. We hit it off right away and started texting a lot. He'd asked me out after two weeks of texting all the time and causally running into each other at various department events that both of us would later admit to only attending because we though the other might.

     He'd told me about the research group he was in and helped me get into it too. I suppose, given everything that happened at least I got into one of, if not the best research group on campus. I really did love the research I was doing, but maybe I would've gotten into it without him too. I'd like to think that I didn't find and receive this position solely because of who I was dating.

     Anyways, Steven and I started dating and things felt perfect. I fell for him hard. I became one of those girls, who spent all her time with her boyfriend, or when I was with my friends, I'd spend all my time talking about him. They'd all jokingly make fun of me for it at first, but even I'll admit I was pretty annoying.

     The beginning of our relationship was honestly really good, I just remember being happy and giddy. He came home with me for Thanksgiving, and I visited him and met his family over winter break. I was picturing being Cassie Bennet-Yang and being this badass astrophysics power couple. He had different ideas though.

      I couldn't remember when exactly it started, I think it was so subtle that I didn't notice until things were bad. Hell if I'm being honest I never really noticed, it took Alyssa, Lyra, and Adrianna to pull me out of whatever spell I seemed to be under. Steven took little things from me. Not physically, but mentally, emotionally. He took and took parts of me until what was left hardly resembled me.

      At first, it was just we wanted to spend more time together, so I started building my class schedules so they fit better with his, even though that meant sometimes having worse professors, or not getting to take the exact classes I wanted. Then, I started spending even more of my free time with him. I would barely ever make plans with friends that didn't include him, and when I did half the time I'd be texting him, or he'd ask me to do something and I'd cancel on my friends or leave early. It was shitty of me, but that was what Steven did to me.

     Then, when Steven got into grad school, I was so happy for him. He'd gotten into Stanford which was an amazing school. I'd commented to him, about how cool it would be if I got into Stanford too, then we'd get to go through grad school together. He didn't want me to go to grad school though. He thought that when we had kids, which we'd talked about before along with getting married, but never seriously, that I should stay home with them. So why should we go into debt for both of us to go to grad school, if he'd be the only one using it?

     I should've argued. I should've stormed out and left. I should've told him no, and that I wasn't going to give up on my dreams for his, but I didn't. I said okay, I don't think I even thought about how I'd be giving up everything I'd been working for, because it was Steven, and I loved Steven. I thought I was happy, this meant he for sure would propose at some point, that we would be forever.