When We Write the Stars

Chapter 19: Cassie

 "But most of all I hate the way I don't hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all."- 10 Things I Hate About You

     "Hi, I'm Cassie and this is Hayden, our presentation is 'The Sounds of Romance,'" I say standing next to Hayden with our PowerPoint in front of our entire film soundtracks class. It's the last day of class before Thanksgiving break starts, and I'm pretty sure the only reason anyone's here today is because we have to be there for our presentations.

     It's kind of hard to believe we're already at this point, giving the presentation. It's funny in a way, what started as something I dreaded, watching these movies with Hayden has turned into one of my favorite things.

     "This movie had to be my personal favorite," Hayden says as he gets to the slide comparing music in a more modern film, Shotgun Wedding, to a classic, Dirty Dancing. A part of me is shocked he's remembering everything, but I did make him spend half the weekend practicing the presentation. I felt like we had to though, it's worth such a big chunk of our grade, and especially now that I've submitted my MIT application, I need to keep my GPA up. The only thing worse than if I get rejected would be getting in, then them changing their mind because my GPA dropped.

     He and I have been doing really well, we spend time together when we can, mostly hooking up or watching movies, but I've gone to all his home hockey games, and he always calls me when he's at away games. Which sounds very couple-like, but it's not. We just spend so much time together because of the hooking up that by proxy we know about each other's lives and thus it makes sense to talk about it, and Facetime when he's gone for games. Or at least that's what I tell myself.

     Originally, we were going to stop this, whatever it is after the project ended, but we both agreed to keep going at least through the end of the quarter because it seems to be working, and it's nice to be regularly hooking up with someone again. And Hayden definitely knows what he's doing in the bedroom, especially compared to the guys I've been with in the past.

     "Thank you for listening," I say, ending our presentation which went flawlessly, "Are there any questions?"

      "What would you say is the most important element to the soundtrack of a romance film," Our professor asks. I knew this question was coming, he'd asked some variation of it to each group that went before us, and I had the perfect answer ready, but Hayden beat me to the punch.

     "I think the most important element to a romance film is the first song played," he says, surprising me by saying exactly what I would've, "It helps set the tone for a movie. You can tell right off the bat, is this going to be more lighthearted and fun or serious and dramatic."

     I offer him a smile of approval as we walk back to our seats, and as soon as we're seated and the next group, horror, is setting up we high-five.

     "Killed it," he whispers, leaning back in his seat to relax while we watch the rest of the presentations.

     I reach over and grab his hand, and entwine our fingers, a gesture that now feels so natural I hardly think of it but would've been unthinkable when we first got assigned this project. Tomorrow I'll leave to go home for break, and won't see Hayden again for an entire week. The Hockey team has an away game this weekend and is leaving for it on Friday so a lot of the guys on the team, like Hayden are staying at Seaport over break so they don't have to drive back right after Thanksgiving dinner. I kind of feel bad for them, I wouldn't want to miss my mom's cooking for anything.

     This past summer, my parents moved to this little cabin near Leavenworth, Washington out in the mountains. I've only visited them there once and it was beautiful. I'm excited to see it now that the weather's cooler and there should be some snow up there by now. It won't feel the same as coming home to the town I grew up in, but I'm excited nevertheless. It's been raining for the past three days straight, and that should mean they've been getting a lot of snow.