Page 69 of Broken Pieces
Cassie passes me the joint again.
“At least charge your phone first. No one wants to suck dick in the dark.”
I laugh, but it scrapes at my throat. “Yeah. Gotta keep the lights on while they remind me I’m nothing but a warm body.”
I take a drag, hold it until my lungs sting, exhale slowly.
Smoke curls between us.
“I wish I could hate him, Cass,” I say, voice breaking around the words. “God, I wish I could. It would make it fucking easier.”
Cassie leans back against the wall, one knee bent, eyes never leaving me.
“Then don’t fucking hate him,” she says softly. “Don’t waste the energy. Just… survive him.”
The word hits like a bruise.
Survive. I’m always surviving.
Always fucking crawling out from under someone else’s wreckage. I shut my eyes and press my head back against the brick. I’m so tired of feeling like this was all I was born for.
The joint trembles in my fingers. Cassie snatches it, takes a hit as if it’ll silence the truth between us.
“It’ll work out,” she says, the words flat, unconvincing.
I side-eye her. “You don’t know that.”
“No,” she says. “But I’m saying it anyway. Because someone fucking has to.”
I look at her, jaw clenched.
She shrugs. “You just need to trust me.”
The words hang there. I want to believe her.
“I’ve trusted people before.”
Cassie doesn’t blink. “Yeah, well, none of them were me.”
She holds the joint out again, a quiet kind of promise. And maybe that’s enough.
We sit in silence, passing it back and forth until the day frays at the edges. The concrete holds the last of the sun, warm underus, that only lasts until the bell from the main building sounds, dragging us back to reality.
Cassie sighs.
We don’t say anything for a beat.
Cassie nudges me with her foot.
“Come on. Before they send a search party and find out their perfect little foster girl’s have been getting high by the incinerator.”
I stand, brush the dirt off my jeans. “Pretty sure they already assume we’re a lost cause.”
“Good. Saves time.” She shoulders her bag and starts walking.
I follow.
By fourth period, my head’s already pounding.
