Independent and Selective Cassie Howard. Open to all fandoms.

“Oh god, no –” Liv laughs as she speaks, letting out an exasperated sigh. Not towards the other girl, just … herself. 

“That was all me, I think. I’m totally having one of those days where you knock everything over, including your coffee.” She flashes an awkward smile before she manages to take a breath in. “I once pepper sprayed myself in a panic though, so that might just … be me …” She trails off, clearing her throat. “I’m sorry, I was looking something and I wasn’t paying attention, like … at all.”

“I was paying too much attention and not really paying attention either,” Cassie said with an awkward chuckle. Spiritual Healers by Stefan Zweig didn’t mean that much to her now that she was talking to someone who seemed as weird as she was. Pepper spaying one’s self in the face? Cassie was sure that she had done that, too.

OPEN

‘   it   ain’t   that   bad   —   looks   worse   than   it   is.   ’            he   says,   eyeing   the   broken   finger   that   bent   the   opposite   direction   it   was   supposed   to,   hissing   as   he   sucked   in   a   breath   of   his   marloboro.            ‘   i   think   it’s   a   clean   break.   ’            he   would   know   he’s   had   so   many   at   this   point.         ‘   it   just   needs   a   splint   and   —   ’            without   much   warning,   he   just   pops   it   back   into   place,   a   low   growl   vibrating   off   his   lips   that   pressed   firmly   around   the   filter   of   his   cigarette.            ‘   fuck   me,   man   —   shit.   ’            he   groaned,   looking   to   the   other.            ‘   you   wouldn’t   happen   to   have   any,   uh   —   rubber   bands   or   tape   or   somethin’   like   that   would   you ?   ’           

Cassie probably should have known better than to try and help a stranger out here in the middle of the street, but she also knew that she couldn’t walk away from this guy. Even if all he had was one broken finger that he just pushed back into its socket, it didn’t necessarily mean that he didn’t have other injuries that she couldn’t see. “Oh yeah,” she said digging into her purse and handing some gauze and a rubber band. “Here you go. Do you want vinegar or something to disinfect it with?” 

Kelly alternates between being excessively interested in the game to typing away in silence on his phone. At this moment, he was standing up and clapping; cheering through cupped hands at the players: “ YEAH-HAH, LET’S GO! ” Sure, he was a little drunk, but sports were sports and the wining team had his all-star god son on it. If there was a time to be rowdy, this was it. “ FUCK EM UP! ” SCORE. He slumps back down in his seat to shoot off an email when the girl pipes up, followed by an eruption of cheers. “ What was that, sweetheart? ” He leans over and tries to catch what she was saying. “ Oh, BOTH. I’m here because… to support the team, I guess. ”

“I’m here for that, too,” Cassie replied shrugging her shoulders. She had gone to so many football games in high school that most of them had blended into one huge game and the romance of it all was mostly gone. “The Trojans, though, haven’t really been on their A game in a really long time.” Dad could vouch for that and she would sure that Grandpa could task this guy’s ear off about how they great they were back in his day. “If you don’t mind me asking, what year did you graduate?”

Cassie put one foot in front of the other as she wandered through the trailer park. As she walked down a well worn path, she constantly looked over her shoulder making sure that no one was following. Sometimes, out of the corner of the eye, she could see someone looking, appraising, and probably catcalling her from behind a window.

She didn’t fit in this place. In her varsity jacket, expensive jeans, and designer sweater, Cassie was probably an alien to the locals and her looks probably made some of them think that she was a supermodel as well.

She finally made it to the last trailer. The one inhabited by a family of sorts, but one that she wasn’t really well acquainted with apart from “the mother” who was a classmate of hers.

Walking up the steps, Cassie knocked on the door gently. “Hey Mercy,” she called. “I brought the notes from history class.”  

Idle Time Books was shaped like a square with the cash register right smack in the middle. On all sides, it was surrounded by shelf after floor to ceiling shelf of nothing but books. Cassie was standing in one of the corners and running her fingers down the spines. W, Y… As Cassie reached out for the blue hardcover with the gold letters, she felt something bump against her.

“I’m sorry,” Cassie said as she stood up and noticed the woman. “I swear, I’m not usually this clumsy.”

Returning back to the very same campus he and Foggy had made a name for themselves at felt weird in some ways, but it wasn’t the worst place in the world to be. Overall, the two of them had managed to create some rather fond memories of themselves while attending Columbia University, so to be asked to come back and give guest lectures every now and again to the world’s next crop of promising lawyers wasn’t too much to ask for. Hell, the amount of money they were paying him to provide these lectures sure screamed a lot more than good will.

Listening to the sounds of students murmuring and walking by across campus, the hushed whispers managed to alert Matt’s attention to something else that was going by. Spiked heart rate, cold sweat, unsteady breathing patterns, Matt thought to himself. Somebody was having a panic attack of some kind, and he needed to find them in a hurry. Using his radar sense to pinpoint the exact person who seemed to be suffering, it wasn’t hard for Matt to track down the person while maintaining his usual cover in civilian disguise as his typical lawyer self. When she seemed to be falling backwards, Matt positioned himself behind the young woman, catching her gently from behind in his arms and chest. “I’ve got you,” he calmly assured her.

As she fell, Cassie thought that darkness she was seeing would envelop her. Instead, she felt strong arms catching her and heard a reassuring voice. She opened her eyes and turned her head. The man who was helping her was wearing red glasses and a nice suit. A professor. Cassie thought to herself. Of all the people on this campus, she had to fall straight into his arms.

A blush came to her cheeks as she tried to raise herself a little. Cassie felt her breathing slowing down, but she was still a little anxious as she glanced around the quad wondering who else had seen her take that tumble.

Cassie was wandering around the Columbia campus and trying to take everything in. She could hardly believe that she would be living in one of those brick dormitories come August or that she would be studying in one of these hallowed buildings. The whole situation was utterly surreal to her. Back in October, she had been pulling one all nighter after another buzzed on energy drinks studying for the SAT in her room back in Pasadena and, now, she was here.

   It’s almost freeing to be able to go to a party, no matter how much the ballerina had always hated them. Under Campbell’s control, going to a party had been almost a fantasy. But now, she was as far away from Connecticut as she could get. She was free and she intended to enjoy a few moments in the sun. She’s curled up in a poor chair, a couple of drinks and maybe a smoke or two in when the blonde next to her speaks. Head turns and she follows the other’s gaze, towards the stars. Lips quirk into a smile and she bites her bottom lip, pensive.

“They could but it would never capture… how perfect it is right now, you know?” Shoulders rise and fall in a shrug. She looks at the stars above her head and lets blue eyes flutter shut for a moment. The party pulses on around them but it feels serene for a moment. “We could only hope to capture how beautiful it is at this exact second.”

The girl’s words were filled with a certain poetic sadness. Even though Cassie was well read, she could never be that well-spoken. Instead, she stared at the sky and contemplated it again. She didn’t see diamonds this time, but a string of pearls stretching out as far as the eye could see. “When I look up at all that, I realize how small and insignificant we are,” she said quietly.

The music pulsated around them repeating over and over that it was time to fall in love, yet Cassie was lost in another world. “We’re just specks,” she said quietly and then turned to the girl she was talking to. “Have you read Angels in America?”

The parties Cassie had attended the last two weeks were so similar to each other that they had started to meld into one huge party. The houses were different sometimes and the music was whatever the host wanted to play, but the same people were there drinking, dancing, having sex, doing whatever.  That’s how it was out there in the  LA suburb that Cassie called home.

Tonight, she was sitting in the back yard near the pool on a lounge chair and staring at the scattered dim diamonds in the sky. “Somebody should paint that,” she said turning to a girl nearby.