"We were
Just friends
That spoke like lovers
And that seemed to be enough for
Two teenagers who were scared to love one another"
- k.a.t.
~~~~~~
Lorenzo Berkshire x Cassandra Avery (OC)
A sort of slow burn, childhood best friends to lovers story...
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"I'll walk forever with stories inside me that the people I love can never hear" - Michelle Hodkin
~~~~~~
Lorenzo Berkshire
Waking up with a pounding headache was one thing. Waking up with a pounding headache and the image of Cassie kissing Theo burned into my brain was another. Fury should have been the dominant emotion, a scorching rage that would leave me shaking. But instead, a dull ache, a quiet understanding, settled over me. I knew, with a certainty that chilled me more than any hangover, that she'd done it to hurt me. A desperate attempt at payback.
I knew because I'd done the same thing, countless times.
I'm not angry at her. I never was.
I just miss my best friend.
Last night's party replayed in my head. It felt like someone had taken a Bludger to my gut. I thought that was the final crack in whatever the hell was left of us.
Except, no. That wasn't true. I wasn't going to let it be.
I had to tell her the secret I had carried for years. The secret that had haunted me, made me feel like a monster. The secret that had driven me to make so many mistakes.
Rubbing my temples, I forced myself out of bed. Cassie must have snuck back to her dorm once I fell asleep. The common room was eerily quiet, the aftermath of last night's chaos evident in the scattered bottles and slumped bodies. I weaved through the remnants of our so-called celebration and headed towards the girls' dorms.
The walk to Cassie's room seemed longer than usual, each step echoing the silence that had grown between us over the past two months.
I thought about knocking but decided against it, knowing that Onyx, Theo and Blaise were probably in there too. I slipped through the door quietly to find Cassie curled up in her sheets.
Her face was pale, her hair a tangled mess of midnight black. It was all I could do to not reach out and brush it away, the way I used to. It was a simple gesture, but it felt like a lifetime ago.
"Cassie", I whispered, shaking her shoulder gently.
The moment she blinked up at me and recognition settled in, I saw it - the guilt. It was all over her face.
"Lorenzo?", she mumbled, looking at me like I was the last person she expected to see.
I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. "Can we talk?".
She hesitated for a split second but then nodded, grabbing a hoodie off a chair and slipping it on. She looked entirely unprepared for any sort of emotional confrontation. Good. Neither was I.
We walked in silence, the tension between us palpable. I watched her out of the corner of my eye, noticing how her shoulders slumped with every step, the way she refused to meet my gaze. We reached the lake, the pre-dawn light painting the water in shades of bruised purple and inky black. I could feel the knot in my stomach tighten.
