When We Write the Stars

Chapter 21: Cassie

"You can be mad at someone and still miss them." – To all the Boy's I've loved before

     I had absolutely no right to be annoyed that I hadn't so much as heard from Hayden since Thanksgiving, I'd watched them lose to Boston College on TV, and then I'd been at both of their games against Colorado with my roommates. I thought that maybe after the wins he'd text me, or want to meet up or something, but nothing. And that was fine, or at least it should be fine. He and I agreed that we weren't priorities for each other. I'd just gotten too comfortable with the way things were. The quarter was ending and I had finals I needed to study for anyway.

     It was finals week, and since I'd gone to not one but two hockey games over the weekend I was feeling way more behind on studying than I wanted to. The best part about our film class was that it didn't have an actual final, the presentations we'd given before Thanksgiving break had been it, and Hayden and I had gotten an A on it, something I was hoping to celebrate with him. My other two classes though were no joke, no matter how much I studied physics was going to be rough, and my astronomy final was scheduled to be four hours long. I had no idea what kind of questions we'd be answering in four hours, and I wasn't looking forward to finding out.

     My physics final was on Wednesday and Astronomy on Thursday, so I took all of my stuff and set up camp in my favorite library, the STEM library on campus, and spent the whole day working out problems on one of the whiteboards and making sure I not only knew but was confident with everything on the study guide. I hadn't seen my roommates all week, and probably wouldn't until Thursday night when all of us would be done with finals. We always had one last meal together after finals before going home for winter break.

     My phone buzzed while I was in the library studying, a text from Hayden. The first one I'd gotten in over a week, not that I cared or was counting or anything.

Hayden West: Meet up 2night...?

Cassie Bennet: Can't, busy.

     He went an entire week without talking to me, and that was it. That was all he had to say, and during finals week too. I didn't like it, but I understood that hockey was his priority. School was mine, I needed to good on these finals. Even if my brain felt like mush after doing physics for this long, I needed to.

Hayden West: Are you mad? I'm sorry I just needed to focus on hockey for a bit

Cassie Bennet: Not mad, just need to focus on school. Finals.

     I was kind of mad, but I had no right to be. I wasn't his girlfriend. So I told him I wasn't mad, because I shouldn't be and I didn't want to be. If anything this was exactly what I needed to happen as a reminder that Hayden was just someone I hooked up with occasionally, not someone I missed after not seeing for a week.

     God it wasn't even the sex that I missed, I mean I missed the sex, but it was him more than anything. I'd gotten used to watching movies with him and studying together, and just talking about random shit. Things had been going so well, thanksgiving was fun but ever since then, since they lost to Boston things have just been different. Which is good, because if it hurts a little bit now, it'll hurt a lot later and I don't want to be another girl getting her heart broken by a hotshot athlete. The story practically writes itself.

    So I pour myself back into my physics work, silencing my phone and spending the next few hours grinding out practice problem after practice problem. Not stopping until my hand hurts from writing so much, and my stomach's growling from not eating all day. The way I live during finals week isn't how anyone should live ever. I sometimes forget to eat when I get caught up working on something, and it's by far the most terrible habit I have. There's never any good reason to skip a meal, and even if forgetting to eat isn't intentional it can have terrible consequences. Like making my stomach growl in a very quiet section of the library.