Life Cycle

1992

"You're eating too fast." Cassandra's mother warned.

Cassandra's jaw tightened and she shook her head that sassy way teenagers did. "I gotta get to the bus."

"You got time, honey." Her mother said. "Johnathon!" She yelled for her husband.

He stepped into the dining room, his hair an uncombed mess.

"I gotta hurry-"

"Not you too." She frowned.

"Life moves fast." Johnathon grabbed his wife's coffee, stole a sip as she failed to grab the cup back. "We should too."

Cassandra shoveled her hashbrowns in her mouth and eased it down with her own coffee. She slapped the table. "See you later, Mom."

"Be home by dinner!" Her mother wagged her finger. "I'm working hard tonight. I'm making curry!"

"Yeah, yeah-"

"She means it, baby." Her father said. "Even I'll be on time." He winked.

"You got it." Cassandra yanked her book bag and ran out the door. Despite how quickly she ate, she still almost missed the bus.

Pelle waited at her locker.

"Hey." Cassandra said, spinning the combination to the lock.

Pelle became friends with Cassandra her freshman year, when he noticed her reading a Doom Patrol comic. No one else at school had read that one.

"Hey, I wanted you to come over." Pelle had graduated the year before. He worked as a part time custodian to pay for his small house on the other side of town. "I got a super Nintendo."

"Ooooooh." Cassandra gave a lopsided smile. "I'm excited to finally see your place." Pelle had grown distant in the past few months. She worried he felt too old for her. "But I have to leave at, like, six. Parents are raggin' me about dinner."

Pelle snorted. "You can eat with them any time. We haven't hung out since summer."

"We've both been busy. Senior year's hard, you oughtta know. And you're working now..."

"So, we need hang when we can. Besides, they gotta let you grow up. You'll be outta this place in a few months."

Cassandra sighed. "I agree. I'm saying I want to hang out with you tonight, I just... don't make fun of me, I like eating with them. Mom's making curry."

"Can she cook?"

"No. But I like curry."

Pelle laughed and tried to add something else.

"I gotta go, class!" She jogged away. "I'll see you later!"

"No running in the halls!" He yelled.

She flipped her middle finger at him.

Cassandra was out of the classroom before the bell rang. Pelle waited in the parking lot. He looked silly next to his truck- this adult responsibility for someone who still looked like a teenager- like a kid. He hadn't grown much since graduating.

Cassandra tossed her backpack in the bed and pulled herself into the passenger seat.

"I call player one."

"You can't do that, it's my game."

"I called it first."

"You aren't gonna be player one." He raised his eyebrows.

"Watch me."

His house was a one-floor shack next to the road, close to a poor neighborhood. Cassandra supposed that was why the price was so low, everything there was cheap.