Cassandra in reverse, p.21
Cassandra in Reverse, page 21
“Hey, I was just winding you up,” she says in a small voice, reaching a hand out toward mine. “I’m really sorry. Old habit.”
“Don’t touch me,” I say, whipping away.
“And I’m not lying,” she objects desperately. “I could have been called Diana, couldn’t I? It’s not that different. It would have taken just the tiniest tweak. Just a nudge, somewhere in the past, and boom—a different story. So I’m not a liar. Sometimes I just enjoy living in all the narratives that never got a chance to happen.”
“That’s the definition of pathological lying,” I hiss.
“Oh.” She frowns, thinks about it. “Then, yeah. I might have a problem.”
We stare at each other, breathing hard.
“Sam!” Will’s cry of relief is so tangible it turns the air green. “Buddy! There you are! Where the hell have you been?”
With a quick, dutiful kiss on my cheek, he shoots away from us like a paintball and everything inside me abruptly hurts. She’s done it again. She’s ruined everything. This is exactly why I tried so hard to keep her away from me: I do not like who I become around her.
No, that’s a lie.
I don’t like being reminded of who I really am.
“Just stop,” I say as my eyes fill. “Please.”
I’m going to have to undo all of this, aren’t I. Erase it from existence. I’m not sure when you’re allowed to start shouting and swearing at a strange woman in the middle of an art exhibition, but I’m going to assume it’s somewhere after date four; probably never.
“I’m sorry,” she says in a tiny voice. “This has all gone wrong, Cassandra. I just wanted to run into you here, like it was a big old accident, catch you off guard, and then I got all preoccupied with showing off, trying to be funny, and I’ve gone ahead and screwed it all up again. Please can we just start again? I am so, so sorry. Truly. For literally everything.”
Her gray eyes are so earnest and I can feel myself soften, begin to relent, and then—with a crack—one of my Tupperware boxes starts to leak again and I hear it as if it’s still happening.
You’re a monster you’re a monster you’re a monster you’re a—
Something slams shut inside me.
Not because I don’t believe that she’s sorry—there have been enough letters over the years to understand that she is—but because, much like a curse from the gods, turning people into frogs and beetles and flowers and trees and then immediately regretting it, it doesn’t really matter.
At some point, what is done cannot be undone.
But I know one thing that can.
* * *
“Sounds lovely.” Sophie beams. “You can tell me all about it tomorrow!”
“Sure,” I say distractedly, typing:
So sorry, can’t make it—stuck at the office.
I press SEND, but all I’m thinking about is Greek Penelope.
Just like my other mythological namesake, it’s starting to feel like every day I weave a complex tapestry, and every night—terrified of the consequences, of what will happen when I’m done—I simply unpick it again.
And nothing gets made at all.
26
This time, I go straight home.
I return to the safety of my bedroom and throw myself into a loop of my own making: read a book I’ve already read, watch a TV show I’ve seen dozens of times, wear my Wednesday pajamas and eat my Wednesday dinner. I listen to a favorite song on repeat, dozens of times; bury myself in familiarity like a small, hurt animal in its den, turning in tiny circles until it can comfortably settle. I make the same small sounds to myself, over and over again. I curl up in a ball on my bed, rocking gently, losing myself in the comfort of a pattern.
I soothe myself with repetition until I feel calm.
Until I can finally fall asleep.
* * *
A bright blue light flash; a fraction later, the knock on the door like the thunder after the lightning.
“Mnnnnuh?” Disoriented, I sit up. “Will?”
Where am I this time? There’s another knock, louder this time. Panicking, I try to process my environment: window outline, position of the door, the smell of my duvet, shape of my shelves. Relief settles gently like my old floating duvet: I’m at home.
A third knock outside my bedroom, and I now suspect it’s not Will after all. Having woken up a little more, it seems unlikely that he left the exhibition and crossed London just to break into my house. Groggy and still confused, I turn the lamp on, grab my yellow dressing gown and unlock the door.
“Hey.” Derek leans against the frame. “Were you asleep?”
Blinking, I glance at my wrist before realizing I took my watch off and put it on my bedside table as I do every night.
“What time is it?” I manage.
“Dunno. Midnight? Just after? The pub’s kicked us out. Sal decided to go on with her mates, but I didn’t feel up to it. Can I come in?”
Before I can say absolutely not, Derek slides past me.
Trying desperately to wake up properly now, I pull my dressing gown tight and warily watch my flatmate walk slowly around my bedroom like he’s Dorothy in bloody Oz. He scans all my color-arranged clothes, walks over to my shelf and studies it, picks up my little gold peacock, turns it over and puts it back in totally the wrong place. What the hell is happening? I’m scanning my memories for this scene the first time round, but it isn’t there. Although I worked so late in the original timeline, maybe I just slept through his incessant knocking.
Derek picks up my little silver deer figurine and hiccups, and oh my God, I’ve just realized: Is he drunk?
“Can you stop touching my stuff, please,” I say sharply.
He puts the deer back in the wrong place and I wait until he’s moved away before scurrying forward and pointedly moving it back again. I’m going to have to wash it with soap: it’s got grubby, inebriated-Derek fingerprints all over it now.
“You’ve really made this space your own,” he says, continuing to perambulate with a now noticeable wobble. “I’ve not been in here since you moved in. Which was...how long ago now? Five weeks?”
“Nine weeks,” I say guardedly. “And two days.”
“And two days.” He flicks me a strange look and grins, then goes back to perusing my belongings as if this is a small station shop and he’s got time before he catches his train. “It feels like you’ve only just moved in, Cassandra Wankworth.”
My eyes widen. “Dankworth.”
“That’s what I meant. How are you finding it here?”
“Fine.”
I feel invaded. Sullied. Like I need a six-hour hot shower and a power hose for my bedroom. There’s something icky and khaki coming out of him in short, slimy waves: a really ugly color, but I have no idea what it means. I just know I want it out of my bedroom right now before it coats everything.
“Cool.” Derek goes to my bookcase and begins scanning the contents with his fingers before pulling out a particularly brilliant story about Pandora. “Can I borrow this?”
“No. What are you doing in here, Derek?”
“Oh.” He puts the book back in the wrong place and perches on the end of my bed; I have to stifle a roar. My bedding will need to be thrown out, possibly burned. “Sal is a bit worried about you. We don’t really know much about you yet, you really keep yourself to yourself, so she asked me to check on you. See if you were okay.”
I relax slightly. “She did? Really? That’s so nice.”
“Yeah. You’re somewhat of an enigma, Cassandra.” He looks around my room again. Burps. Teeth gritted, I immediately cross the room and open the window. “You’re a bit of a mystery. It’s hard to know what you’re thinking. Your face never really moves, does it? And your voice is kind of flat. Like a robot. Hey.” He picks up the paint chart next to my bed. “You can’t paint in here. Sal’s dad won’t let us redecorate.”
“I’m not painting,” I say tightly.
“You’re not painting?” Derek stares at it. “So...you’ve just got it here as, like, bedtime reading? Is that why there’s one next to the bath, too?” He peers at me for a few seconds, then laughs. “You’re a strange duck, Dankworth, that’s for sure. Like, are you stunted in some way? Is something in here missing?” He taps his head. “Not being rude, but this doesn’t look like the room of an adult woman.”
I flush hot. “How is that not fucking rude?”
“Hey, don’t get all prickly.” He holds his hands out and drunkenly studies his own fingers for a few seconds, fascinated, then returns his focus to me. “I’m just trying to figure you out. I’m curious, that’s all.” Another hiccup. “You’re kind of childish, but also a granny, with your frozen meals and your mad outfits and your cuddly toy and your dressing gown and your figurines and your hedgehog bowl. Don’t think I didn’t see the hedgehog bowl, Cassandra. What’s that all about?”
I like to see his little friendly face when I eat breakfast—it cheers me up—but I do not think telling Derek this now is going to help my cause.
“It’s just a bowl,” I reply tersely.
“But you’re hot too.” He considers my face. “Very pretty. Rocking bod under all that fluff. I bet you’re a bit of a surprise in the old bedroom department, actually. Efficient. Hardworking. Everything ticked off. Blow job—tick! Hand job—tick! Orgasm—tick tick tick! Marks out of ten, gold star, smiley-sticker sex.”
My mouth drops open in shock.
Somehow, this is even worse than it was the first time round. Why does the universe keep trying to make me move? Why can’t it just let me have a home? All I need is a room without a drunk man in it, waking me up at midnight to talk about my sexual prowess and crockery. Is it really too much to ask?
“Hey.” He chuckles lightly as I attempt to pull the fluff of my dressing gown into the cells of my body. “I’m just joking, Dankworth. Banter, you know? You don’t need to look quite so appalled. I’m not a predator or anything. I’m just playing around.”
A small wave of déjà vu, as if I’m on a boat.
“I’m very tired,” I attempt, trying my best to stay friendly. “Can we have whatever this conversation is in the morning?”
“Do I make you nervous, Cassie?” Derek smiles at me.
“Yes,” I admit this time.
“I don’t mean to, you know. I just want you to be comfortable here, Cassandra. My casa is your casa, after all. Or, I should say, your Casa-ndra. Ha ha.”
Oh, look, he obnoxiously extended it. I look desperately for an escape route, but there isn’t one because this bedroom is supposed to be it.
“So, are you dating someone?” Derek reaches toward me and picks a ball of lint off my dressing gown; I flinch and jump away. “Do I know him? He’s a lucky guy, whoever he is. You’re quite the catch, if I do say so, Cassandra Dankworth.”
My tongue finally unsticks.
“Leave,” I say, holding the door open. “Now.”
“Whoa.” Derek blinks. “That’s a bit rude. Why are you freaking out? I was just being friendly. You’re reading it all wrong, taking it the wrong way. I didn’t mean anything weird by it or anything.”
I hesitate, studying him carefully. His colors and his words and his face don’t match, and it’s incredibly confusing. Last time he said I was reading it all wrong, taking it the wrong way, and I do it so often—destroy so many relationships, romantic and otherwise—that I believed him. I’m still not sure, it’s all very confusing, but the inconsistency is suddenly making me doubt both of us.
“Sorry,” I say uncertainly. “It’s just... I’m tired, Derek. It’s been a long evening. I really need to go back to bed.”
“No worries.” He looks at my bed, then stands up and sways slightly. “Look. Cards on the table. I know you have a bit of a crush on me, Cassie. It’s really obvious. You can’t meet my eyes, you talk nonsense when I’m around, go red constantly, scurry out of a room if I’m in it. It’s really cute. Nothing to be embarrassed about. If I wasn’t with Sal, then... Well, who knows?” He smiles, sadly. “But I am with Sal. I love Sal. That’s the thing. It’s a no-go between us. I came here tonight to tell you that.”
Is that a thing people do? Come into other people’s rooms at midnight to finger their belongings and declare love for someone else? It doesn’t seem very logical, but people aren’t very logical, so how the hell am I supposed to know?
“I can’t meet anyone’s eyes,” I point out. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“But you’re looking at me now,” Derek points out triumphantly, as if he’s caught me out in a lie. “So that’s clearly not true.”
“Because now all I can feel is shock.”
Hope blossoms abruptly. This might be my chance to set the narrative back on the right path. I just have to take it slowly, carefully: step through the crackling undergrowth one cautious foot at a time like a tiny animal evading a hungry tiger.
With all the energy I have left, I make unblinking eyeball contact.
“I am so sorry that I have given you the wrong impression,” I say as clearly and as loudly as I can. “But there has been a bit of a miscommunication. I do not fancy you, Derek. I do not find you physically, mentally or emotionally attractive. If anything, you repulse me. Sexually, but also on a much deeper, more spiritual level. Even if Sal wasn’t so nice, even if I didn’t live with you both, I would never want to be involved with you in any way. Ever. Even with all the infinite chances that time might give me.”
It’s not very “friendly,” admittedly, but it should at least clear the situation up. A Bit of a Miscommunication should be the title for my autobiography.
“Gotcha.” Derek winks. “Loud and clear.”
I stare at him. “Why did you just wink?”
“No reason.” He grins at me. “I hear you. That’s all I’m saying.”
“It doesn’t feel like you do hear me.” I hesitate, frowning. “That wink feels like it’s communicating something else entirely.”
“Nope.” Derek stretches. “You don’t fancy me. I don’t fancy you. We’re on exactly the same page, Cassie. So we’re all good.”
He finally ambles out of my bedroom, then leans drunkenly on the door frame.
We stare at each other.
Derek is still grinning and it’s nice that he’s taken the rejection so well, but I can’t help feeling that it’s because he hasn’t taken it at all. I’m not sure I can tell him he repulses me again, though: twice would feel a bit cruel.
“I looked you up,” Derek says, apropos of nothing. “Did you know that Dankworth is one of the rarest surnames in the country? There’s articles about it and everything. Dankworths are on the brink of extinction, apparently.”
He’s studying my face, inordinately pleased with himself.
“Yes,” I say cautiously. “I know.”
“And you are surprisingly absent online, Cassandra,” he continues. “Like, nowhere to be found. No social media accounts. No online profiles. You work in public relations, yet you do not appear to exist on the internet. Which seems strange. As if you’re hiding something. Or from someone.”
I wait, then lose my patience. “Get to the point.”
“I met the hot girl who came here the other day, looking for you,” Derek concludes with yet another wink. “Very pretty. Supercute. So if you’re a secret lesbian, Cassandra, that’s something I could totally support. You know? Like, really get behind. If you catch my drift.”
I have suddenly never been this tired.
Ever.
It would be so easy: to rewind time, hear the knock, not answer the door. But I suddenly don’t want to. I’m getting sick of traveling through time. All it seems to do is carry me to places I don’t want to be.
“Wrong conclusion,” I say in exhaustion. “It’s perfectly possible to fancy men and still not fancy you, Derek.”
And I shut the door in his face.
27
Except—something has gone wrong.
I’m not sure where it is or what has caused it, but I feel it the moment I wake up the next morning like a puncture in a bike tire. Just a tiny hole in time, yet somehow it’s just enough to let all the air out and send everything wobbling in a completely different direction.
At first I think it’s Derek, but when I bump into him in the hallway on the way to work, he eyes me sweatily over a glass of water and says: “Did we tête-à-tête last night, Cassie? It feels like maybe we talked, but I can’t for the life of me—”
He ends the sentence by running to the bathroom and vomiting with the door open, so it’s probably not him.
Then I worry that it’s Sal—that somehow Derek may have said something to her when she got back last night—but she’s in the kitchen, humming and fiddling with some pastry, and when I walk in she brightens.
“Morning! I am making croissants.” She eyes them dubiously, unsure of this statement. “By making, I mean defrosting and twiddling them around, but I still feel quite French and sophisticated nonetheless. Would you like one, Cassie?”
So I’m guessing it’s not her either.
I politely decline—it’s a sweet offer but that’s a lot of handling—and somehow make it to work, still trying to feel the shape of the day with my fingers. What is letting all the air out? But as the day careers forward, it doesn’t seem to be Barry, or Sophie, or Anya, Miyuki or Anton. It’s not Jack or Gareth or the SharkSkin campaign, which is taking an almost bewilderingly better direction.
And I’m not sure how I know it isn’t them—given that the original timeline is rapidly becoming fainter, like a rubbed-out pencil line on a piece of paper—but I can feel it, in my gut: they’re not the perforations I’m looking for.
