That Witch! Read online

  “God, you really are a beauty queen,” Brynn mumbled, wide eyes scoping the bedroom.

  “Those are actually kinda old,” Cassidy explained, feeling the temperature rising in her cheeks. “I was ten the last time I was in a pageant.”

  “I, um… didn’t mean anything by it. I just—”

  “Don’t judge me for it, ’kay?”

  “I wasn’t, I….” Brynn sighed, lowering her crystal-blue stare. She was obviously chewing on the inside of her cheek, and Cassidy almost kicked herself for making Brynn feel the way she obviously did. “I just didn’t know you were actually a beauty queen. I mean, we’ve made jokes about it. I just didn’t know it was true.”

  “You make jokes about me being a beauty queen?” Cassidy asked, unsure if she should be mad or if that was actually kind of funny.

  “Well, I, um… we….” Brynn bit down on her bottom lip, brows furrowed as she frowned. “Yeah, we do… or did. I mean, I won’t joke anymore. It was just—”

  “Whatever, it is what it is.” Cassidy dismissively waffled her hand in the air.

  “I’m really sorry, Cassidy. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Hey, at least you’re not kissing my ass like everyone else. Whatevs.”

  Cassidy watched closely as Brynn set her backpack down on the floor, then reached in to fish out a book or something. The way Brynn knelt down, her skirt rose high up her thighs. Obviously, Brynn wasn’t used to wearing outfits like that, and had Cassidy not been so mesmerized by so much of Brynn’s skin showing, she might’ve laughed.

  “So, I brought my notes from class,” Brynn said as she returned to her feet. Cassidy quickly looked away so she wouldn’t get caught ogling Brynn’s goodies. “I think our first book has to be a classic novel by a California native.”

  “How about John Steinbeck? He’s a classic, California-born author.” With her breathing returning to normal after Brynn’s unintentional indecent exposure, she walked over to the bookcase taking up nearly half the side of one of her walls. “I think I have some of his stuff here, if you haven’t read—”

  “Of Mice and Men is my fave!” Brynn blurted—eyes widened, lips curling into a smile so huge it made her entire face glow. “Can we do that one?”

  “Sure, we can do that. I was gonna suggest either that or Grapes of Wrath. You like Steinbeck, huh?” It was clear she did. Brynn was all but beaming at the mention of the author, and her enthusiasm was a tad contagious. It elicited a soft, half-cocked smile from Cassidy.

  “Honestly, I love Steinbeck.” Brynn paused, glowing smile morphing into a subtle frown. “I’m sorry, Cass, but I’m surprised you know who he is.”

  Cassidy’s smile died like a fading sunset. She didn’t know what bugged her more, the fact that Brynn insulted her intellect, or that she’d called her “Cass.” Definitely the latter.

  “Please don’t shorten my name. Only my dad calls me Cass….”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was a big deal. It just kinda happened. I won’t do it again.”

  “It’s just that he took off and left my mom and me for some chick in New York. He doesn’t even call anymore, but he loves the floozy’s kids as if they were his.”

  Why did she just blurt all that out? Since her dad had left them last year, she hadn’t told anyone what really happened. Her friends thought he was always away on business, and that was the way she preferred it since it wasn’t anyone’s business anyway. In the interest of trying to show Brynn the real Cassidy, she left it alone and didn’t bother to cover up her words or distract Brynn with something else. Humility was something she was quickly coming to terms with.

  “Then again, maybe if someone else calls me ‘Cass’ then it won’t bug me as much… yanno?” A softer side to Cassidy Rivers. Oprah, prepare your couch.

  She felt something warm and soft at her wrist, and the gentleness of it made her look down. What she found was something she’d never expected to see. It was Brynn’s hand, reaching down for hers.

  Cassidy froze. For a moment, it felt like her heart stopped beating. She didn’t know what to say or how to react, so she simply didn’t move. And apparently, her lack of reaction meant something entirely different to Brynn, because the girl didn’t waste a second yanking her hand back and saying a soft, “Sorry.”

  “No, don’t be sorry.” Why was she sorry? She was nice and compassionate and tender and… real. In comparison to any one of Cassidy’s dozens of friends, who all would have consoled her to her face before running back to the group to gossip about the news behind her back. “I’ve never said that to anyone. I guess I just didn’t know how to react to nice… ness.”

  “It was a natural reaction.” Brynn laughed. There was a nervous quiver to her voice and a new redness in her cheeks, which Cassidy found to be absolutely adorable.

  “Your cheeks match your hair. It’s cute,” she blurted out, soft laughter matching Brynn’s.

  “So, I’m cute, huh?”

  Dun dun dun. The moment had arrived. Now was not the time to be shy. Cassidy was a whole lot of things, but shy had never been one of them. “Yeah, you are. But don’t tell anyone I said that, ’kay? Last thing I need is a bunch of snobby cheerleaders calling me a lezzie.”

  And they both laughed off the moment as if it had never happened.

  Chapter 9

  YES, Brynn laughed, but there was a whole lot more going on inside her head—curiosity, confusion, fear, and then the most oddly comfortable feeling she’d ever experienced. Cassidy Rivers called her cute.

  Holy crap!

  They sat close to each other, going over the scavenger hunt questions for the book they’d chosen. Brynn just knew Mrs. Miller would be impressed. Of Mice and Men was probably one of the best classic American novels ever, and thankfully, they’d both read it, so answering the questions was a breeze. But finishing the first part of the assignment left Brynn with about three extra hours to kill, and she really didn’t want to leave Cassidy’s house yet. Dare she admit she actually enjoyed Cassidy’s company?

  “So, um—” Brynn stood from the chair and closed her laptop. “—I guess we’re finished, huh?”

  Cassidy closed her own laptop, set it off to the side, and stood along with Brynn. “I guess so, but it’s still early. You don’t have to go yet, if you don’t wanna.”

  “I don’t,” Brynn blurted, then immediately clamped her mouth shut. “I mean….” Oh, screw it. She put her foot in her mouth and couldn’t take it back now.

  “So then, don’t. We can watch a movie or go hang out at the park or something.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to be seen in public with me.”

  Cassidy had the decency to look embarrassed. Her gaze dropped momentarily, cerulean eyes hooding as she obviously collected and carefully arranged her response. “Yeah, well, they won’t question me anyways. No one has the balls to.”

  Yeah. Maybe. But that didn’t change the fact Cassidy had made it very clear she didn’t want anyone seeing them together. While Brynn loved the idea of hanging out with Cassidy in public, where people could see that someone like Cassidy Rivers didn’t consider Brynn an embarrassment, Brynn didn’t want to be some kind of charity case. She wanted Cassidy to truly like hanging out with her.

  “We can stay here. It’s okay,” Brynn finally said.

  When Cassidy lifted her head again, determination shone in her cobalt stare. The words her gaze silently spoke, however, didn’t quite make it past her lips. Instead, she shrugged casually and gave a short nod. “That’s cool too.”

  Brynn dropped her backpack down in the chair again. This wasn’t going to be like watching movies with Laura. There wasn’t going to be any comfortable quiet and casual jokes about crappy dialogue or horrible acting. Brynn just didn’t have that kind of calm, peaceful feeling with Cassidy, even though she wanted to.

  She looked around the room for a stack of DVDs and didn’t see any. There was no comfortable beanbag. In fact, the clothes Brynn had on wouldn’t al
low her to get much comfort at all, and now, looking at Cassidy’s T-shirt and jeans, Brynn wished she’d dressed down too. Not that it mattered now. She was stuck.

  “So, um… what kind of movies do you have?”

  “I don’t have movies. I have Netflix,” Cassidy casually explained.

  “Oh. We use Netflix too. It’s just, when Laura and I watch movies, they’re always DVDs,” she offered, but Cassidy seemed unimpressed as she turned toward the nightstand next to her bed and picked up the remote.

  The huge flat screen mounted to her wall came to life, and immediately, the bright red Netflix logo appeared. Cassidy flopped down onto one edge of her big bed, then scooted off to the side, leaving plenty of room for Brynn to join her. But Brynn didn’t assume Cassidy wanted her that close, in such an intimate position. After all, a girl’s bed was sacred, wasn’t it? A place reserved for only the people she really cared about? At least it was to Brynn, and the very reason why only Laura had ever lay down in hers.

  But then Cassidy patted the empty spot beside her and gave a Brynn a warm smile. She was actually offering Brynn a place to sit… on the bed… right beside her. Suddenly, Brynn’s mouth felt drier than sand, and no amount of licking her lips made it any better.

  Cautiously, she sat down on the edge, kicked off her Mary Janes, then relaxed a safe distance away from Cassidy. “So what do you want to watch?” she asked, hoping her complete nervousness didn’t come out in the tremble of her voice.

  “Isn’t this your speed?” Cassidy quipped, nodding toward the TV.

  A long list of horror movie covers ran from edge to edge—the likes of Saw and Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street, even movies Brynn had never heard of, with covers gory enough to make her cringe.

  “Um, no.” Brynn playfully grabbed the remote from Cassidy’s hand, then scrolled up to the romantic comedies. The cursor landed on Legally Blonde, and Brynn laughed. “And this is yours, right?”

  “No,” Cassidy said flatly, taking the remote back.

  As she scrolled through the unending supply of movies, Brynn stared at the screen, but she wasn’t really watching any of the covers or titles. They were unimportant—cannon fodder, something to keep her eyes busy so she wouldn’t accidentally start staring at Cassidy.

  “This is it!” Cassidy all but yelped, waving the remote at the TV.

  “Wild Things, huh?”

  The bed shook as she gave an excited little bounce. Brynn shook away her daze so she could get a glimpse of what Cassidy was so damn excited about. The smile on Cassidy’s face was nearly contagious, and the lilt in her voice as she said, “This is my favorite movie,” made Brynn equally as excited to watch it.

  “I’ve never seen it,” Brynn quietly admitted.

  “Shut up!” Cassidy gasped.

  “What?”

  “No. I didn’t… I meant, you’re kidding, right?”

  “No.”

  “Oh my God! It’s so good. And if my mother caught me watching this, she would kill me.”

  “Then we’ll rebel against parental authority,” Brynn said as she leaned over, reached across Cassidy’s arm, and hit the play button. She looked up in time to catch Cassidy staring down at her with the softest gaze, like Cassidy had suddenly become as high as a kite. Brynn pulled back and cleared her throat, then settled into her spot a safe distance from Cassidy.

  The opening scene started to play. The music was dark and sort of seductive. It immediately grabbed Brynn’s attention. Ironically enough, both Brynn and Cassidy almost mirror imaged the two lead girls. One was Gothic and the other a rich, snobby, popular blonde. Only Brynn didn’t grow up in a swampy trailer in the middle of Florida. She came from class, just like Cassidy did.

  The movie dragged on, and Brynn thoroughly enjoyed it, even with all its darkness, violence, and taboo behavior. Then it came to a part that both fascinated and scared the hell out of her. The two girls, Suzie and Kelly were having a threesome with their skeevy guidance counselor. Brynn didn’t really focus on him, but more on the girls. They were beautiful, bodies supple and softly glowing in the low light.

  Freaked out by her immediate attraction to the girls, she quickly closed her eyes and looked away and prayed Cassidy didn’t notice. She hoped the heat in her face didn’t turn her cheeks blazing red, and for a moment, she silently debated telling Cassidy she needed to go.

  But God help her, she wasn’t ready to leave.

  When the scene ended, she looked back up at the screen and everything seemed safe enough to watch, though the content was far outside anything Brynn would’ve considered decent. If her mom and dad caught her watching such filth, they would ground her for life and probably never let her visit Cassidy again.

  Everything was as okay as Brynn thought it could be. She quietly sat beside Cassidy, watching the movie she’d picked. Everything was fine, and then the two girls kissed. For some stupid reason, Brynn pictured her and Cassidy on that screen—lips locked, bodies pressed together. Her mouth became dry again, and her heart beat a little harder. She suddenly became all too aware of Cassidy sitting beside her, the smell of her perfume and the sound of her soft breaths.

  Brynn pushed up from the bed and said, “I have to go.”

  “But the movie—”

  “I shouldn’t be watching this.”

  “Oh c’mon. No one will know.”

  “I can’t. I… I gotta go.”

  And before Cassidy could argue with her, Brynn grabbed her backpack and tore out of Cassidy’s bedroom as if the devil were nipping at her heels. She raced out into the suburban evening, slamming Cassidy’s front door behind her, and didn’t stop running until her foot hit her driveway.

  Home. At last. Ironically, though, she missed sitting beside Cassidy already.

  The feelings running through her gave her cause for alarm, even though things suddenly made so much more sense now—why school dances were so lame, why Valentine’s Day didn’t matter as much to her as it did everyone else, why she hadn’t ever tried to get a boyfriend. Brynn thought she’d had too many other things on her mind, that dating simply wasn’t important. How wrong she’d been.

  Dating was important.

  Dating boys wasn’t.

  Her backpack slipped from her shoulder as she sank down on the driveway and pulled her bare legs up to her chest, trying not to burst into tears. The black schoolgirl skirt ruffled out around her. It was then that she noticed she’d bolted away from Cassidy’s house so quickly, she’d left her adorable black Mary Janes behind.

  Chapter 10

  BRYNN bolted, and Cassidy remained on her bed long after the sound of the slamming door reverberated through the silent house. The movie kept playing, scenes continued to flash across the screen, and eventually the ending credits began to scroll upward, bathing her darkened room in dim light.

  None of it mattered. Cassidy’s thoughts were racing, and her emotions were beginning to get the best of her. Right up to the minute Brynn took off, Cassidy had been stupidly hoping that Brynn was feeling the same way she was. She thought she’d seen Brynn stealing glances at her, gaze wandering from the action on the flat screen and possibly wondering what it would be like if they acted out the scenes in real life. For a second, she had even talked herself into believing Brynn wanted to kiss her.

  All that hope and possibility darted out behind Brynn, leaving Cassidy full of questions and worse, self-doubt—something she was not comfortable with at all. Why did Brynn leave? Was Brynn homophobic? She had been fine up until the girls in the movie kissed. Did Brynn think Cassidy was some sort of perv for wanting to watch such a sultry flick? Was she going to run off to school and spread vicious rumors about Cassidy’s obvious comfort with lesbians, implying that she was into girls? It wasn’t a lie, but it really wasn’t what Cassidy needed, either.

  The TV flickered before it returned to the main Netflix menu, and still she sat there with nothing but a headful of doubt and an uneasy feeling pulling at her stomach until her mom’s voic
e cut through the silence, startling her. “Cassidy, honey? We’re home. Come say hi to Nana,” her mother called up from the spot at the base of the stairs where she always stood to make announcements Cassidy needed to hear beyond her always-closed bedroom door.

  “Just a minute, Mom,” she replied with a despondent sigh.

  Reaching over for the remote, something black on the floor caught her attention. Brynn’s cute Mary Janes. Jesus tap-dancing Christ, the girl had been so distraught she left without her shoes. That added a whole new level of insecurity to Cassidy’s already mounting incertitude. Am I really so bad that she couldn’t wait to get away from me? And there she thought Brynn had been genuinely enjoying her company, just as she had been thoroughly enjoying Brynn’s.

  Guess not.

  She thought about taking Brynn’s shoes back to her, but decided against it. Not only did she not really know which house was Brynn’s since they all looked alike, but she didn’t want to seem like a desperate stalker, checking up on the girl who had just rocketed out of her house because obviously she thought Cassidy was a freak.

  So this is what she feels like at school. How horrible.

  It was a feeling Cassidy didn’t want to experience again.

  Picking up the shoes, she allowed herself a moment to feel the supple leather—to take in the feel of the only thing she had of Brynn’s—before she put them into her backpack so she could return them to her at school on Monday.

  With the last trace of Brynn gone, she padded down the stairs and sat with her mother and grandmother in the kitchen while they made dinner. The rest of the evening was spent talking over food about her school activities, her grandmother’s adventures in composting, and her mother’s newfound love of gardening. Through all the chatter, Cassidy kept her wrist close to her face. The spot where Brynn’s hand had delicately wrapped around it—warmly, caringly—when Cassidy told her about her father. It was stupid, but she felt close to Brynn that way. Why she even wanted to feel close to a girl who obviously didn’t feel the same way about her was even stupider, but she did it anyway.