Chapter 16 - Her Guy Best Friend

I blink still confused before I throw my cup away and run after her. I push the shock of what happened to the back of my mind and I only listen to the voice in my head saying hurry up, you idiot! So I run. I haven’t run in so long, but now I can say that finally all the sessions have actually helped. I feel pain at my side, where the big scars of my emergency surgery are, but I ignore them. I’ll be fine, it was two months ago. I’m just a bit out of shape.

I have to catch up with Cass, I can’t let her go. I don’t know what happened, but I must apologise. She clearly didn’t like where I brought her.

It’s my fault, my inner voice says and I groan. I know it is, I know!

I keep running until I can see her. Damn, she’s fast.

“Cassie!” I shout and she hears me because she looks back and slows down a bit. “Wait!”

She stops and I keep running until I catch up with her. We are both panting and she still has tears on her cheeks, her eyes red and her body shakes, although I don’t know if it’s because she just ran three blocks, or because she’s been crying. Probably both.

“I’m so sorry. I thought you were gonna like it but I— I’m sorry,” I blurt out, my hands on my side, on top of my scar that really hurts.

“It’s not that,” she says, wiping away the tears. “You didn’t know.”

“I didn’t know what?” I ask, utterly confused and she looks away. I know she’s fighting more tears. “Cassie, please.”

“You don’t know what that place means to me,” she finally says.

I’m sorry, Cass, my inner voice says and I shake my head. “I’m sorry, Cassie,” I say out loud and she takes a deep breath.

She doesn’t say anything else, she just jumps into my arms and I catch her, a bit taken aback, but I overcome that the moment she starts crying again. I hold her tightly, without saying a word. I just hold her and let her cry, for whatever the reason is.

“I miss him so much,” she says between fits of sobs and I freeze.

“Him?” I can’t help but ask.

Cassie pulls back and wipes away the tears, I still keep my hands on her shoulders, just in case she breaks down again and I need to hug her. Also because I don’t want to break contact. She meets my eyes and I can see so much sorrow in hers, a broken heart and I don’t understand what exactly triggered that pain in her.

“Come, let’s go into the shop. Over some tea and biscuits you can tell me what happened, okay? It may help you a bit,” I suggest and she thinks about it.

Cassie finally nods and she looks so small, so fragile, so broken. I bring her closer to me and I lead her to the same shop we were before. The barista sees us and looks confused, but I just motion to a table and he nods. I keep leading Cassie and she is in silence, still slightly trembling. We sit one across the other and I hold her hand, just to give her some support. The barista comes to our table and ask for what we want, so I just ask for two cups of tea and some biscuits. When he leaves I squeeze Cassie’s hand.

“What’s wrong, Cassie?” I ask and she takes a deep breath.

“I told you about my best friend, right? The thing is that we used to come to that very park every time we got the chance. We found this place when we arrived to London and it became our place,” she tells me and I blink surprised. That’s just like my dream. “I’ve come here again, just to feel closer to him.” Him? So her best friend was a guy? And all this time I thought it was a girl. “I cry every time I come here, I can’t help it. It’s not your fault, Liam. This place was just Jake and I’s.”

“J-Jake was the name of your friend?” I ask, a lump in my throat and at the mention of his name, she smiles sadly but lovely at the same time.

Jake… as the Jake in my dreams, as the same guy I dream I am. How creepy is that? Holy shit.

“Yeah. We met when we were in school, year three. We were inseparable since then,” she chuckles. “People said we were gonna end up married.” She chuckles again, the sad look never leaving her eyes.

The barista arrives with our order and looks at Cassie with a worried expression, but I mouth at him that I’m taking care of the situation. I try not to look as freaked out as I am. He finally leaves.

“I guess I believed that, too,” she carries on and I raise my eyebrows questioningly. She blushes and looks really nervous. “I-I started to have feelings for him as well. How cliché, isn’t it? I fell for my best friend.”

My heart stops for a second when I hear her saying that. She doesn’t meet my eyes but I can’t even take a breath. A part of me hurts because she was in love with her best friend, probably she still feels something for him although he is dead; but then there’s another part of me, happy, too happy and I don’t get it.

“I wanted to tell him, for so long I wanted to tell him but I never had the guts to confess and now it’s too late,” she laments.

It’s not! Cass, my inner voice whines and I push that thought aside.

“I was afraid he didn’t feel the same way,” she confesses, her cheeks burning bright.

“He was an idiot if he didn’t feel the same way,” I blurt out and she meets my eyes for three seconds, her cheeks even rosier. “You are an incredible girl, Cassie.”

“Thanks,” she says. “I guess I’ll never know. It hurts so much, you know? That he left and I couldn’t tell him.”

 I know, Cass. But you’ll know.

I ignore my inner voice and focus only on her, I take her other hand and try to give her all the support she needs. She didn’t only lose her best friend, she also lost the guy she was in love with. I can’t imagine how much that must hurt. I know I like her, but I can put those feelings aside for now and try to just give her support, to be a friend for her.

“You remind me of him,” she tells me with a sad smile, squeezing back my hands. “I think you two would’ve been great friends.”

We would probably have fought for her, but I don’t tell her that. I don’t know how he felt, but something in my guts tells me that he was also in love with her. Probably as much as the Jake in my dreams.

I have no clue why I dream of being her dead best friend, the guy she was in love with, but I won’t think about it now. It’s creepy enough to know that my idea of a perfect date came to me in a dream that actually happened. How did I know that?

“When I saw you in the hospital I could only think of Jake, that he wasn't here anymore. He didn’t even make it to the hospital. I don’t understand why he was driving drunk, that wasn’t something he would do,” she tells me and I collect more pieces of this puzzle. So the accident was Jake’s fault, he was drunk. Not so clever, then.

Shut up.

“I wanted to see him in that bed, I wanted to be next to him, waiting for him to wake up to yell at him for scaring me like that, but he wasn’t there,” she keeps saying.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her and she shakes her head.

I was there, my inner voice adds and I groan internally. Leave me alone! I think slash shout in my mind.

“It’s not your fault. It wasn’t meant to happen, I guess. Some things are bigger than us and it was Jake’s time to go. I just have problems coming to terms with that and I miss him all the time.”

“I can imagine,” I reply and squeeze her hands a bit more. “But I bet wherever he is, he’s looking after you,” I tell her and although I’ve said that before to her, this time is different. I know his name now.

“I hope he’s okay,” she mumbles.

She takes her hands back and grabs her cup of tea to take the first sip, a little smile on her lips. I also drink some of my tea and it’s really good.

“Jake was also nineteen so when I saw you I thought I had to help you. I couldn’t do that with him but you were there, you had a second chance that Jake couldn’t have. That’s why I spent so much time with you when you were still in coma. Reading to you or even telling you stories,” she chuckles softly. “I used to tell you about Jake and I. The things we did back at home or even here. I would just talk to you, hoping it would reach you and help you to wake up.”

“You did?” I ask and she smiles at me, her cheeks rosy again. She looks so adorable when she blushes.

“Yeah. I’ve heard that some people don’t want to wake up from comas because they are better in that state, so I wanted to show you that here it’s great, too, and that you had to come back.”

“I guess it worked,” I tell her with a big smile that she replies. “Thank you,” I add later and she nods.

“I’m really glad you woke up, Liam. And that you got a second chance. And I’m sorry I ruined our outing today,” she apologises and I don’t miss that she didn’t call it a date.

Shaking my head to put her at ease I say, “Don’t worry. I’m glad you told me, though. You probably needed to let that out.”

“Kind of,” she says, looking down at her tea. “It’s still hard to talk about Jake. Even saying his name out loud hurts.” I nod, understanding now why she didn’t mention his name before.

“Well, if you need someone to talk to, I’m here for you, Cassie. You helped me a lot when I woke up and it’s only fair I offer you my help.”

She smiles brightly at me, in that way that makes my own heart skip a beat.

“Thank you, Liam,” she says and I can only smile at her because I have a lump in my throat again, a very different kind of lump this time as I realise how much I fancy her. “It means a lot to me.”

We stay there until we finish our order and we change the topic, just to cheer things up a bit. She is still sad, she still has that look that I saw in the hospital in so many occasions. Now I really understand why, now it makes sense to me.

I drive her to her dorm and when I’m alone in my car again I allow myself to think of what happened and of my dreams. Zayn suggested before that maybe it was because she told me about her best friend while I was in coma, now I know it for sure. She told me stories, she probably even told me his name was Jake and that’s why I dream about being him and the life he had with Cass. Maybe all the dreams I’ve had are Cassie’s memories, stories she told me while I was still in coma.

It’s still weird and creepy, but I feel much better now, knowing that my dreams have an explanation. Sort of. I’ll believe in this or I’ll go insane and I really don’t want to end up in a mental institution.

Exhausted of the day, even running after Cassie, I drive to my dorm in Uni. This day didn’t go as planned, but it wasn’t a complete disaster. I realised I really, really like Cassie, but I also found out she was in love with Jake, and most likely she still has feelings for him.

It won’t be easy to win her heart.

You won’t, my inner voice says.

“Gosh, thanks for the support, mate,” I mumble sarcastically as I keep driving, not minding that I’m talking to myself again.

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Woohoo! And for that reason I posted the first chapter of The Carrier (Louis' backstory).

Dedication to @nattlesacosta. I hope you finished that homework ;)

Bel, xx