15. Paul
That night, after my shower, I warm up a bowl of pasta Cassie left for me in the fridge and settle in front of my laptop. I have my phone beside me, but it's not like anyone will text me but Dad. The house is quiet again since Cassie's at work, and having the phone beside me makes me feel safer. Behind me, the radio is on a random station, and occasionally a woman's voice breaks through the music that escapes from my earbuds with an ad for a local business.
An email notification pops up on the screen, blocking the black-and-white photo I'm repairing for the wife of one of Dad's friends. During my grade seven year, I spent most of my time in Toronto with Dad. After what happened in Eyre, I did online schooling and Dad signed me up for all these graphic design courses. Partly he couldn't stand me hanging around his condo all day doing nothing, but mostly he thought it would be a good way to earn some side cash while distracting me. After Dad got me a subscription to Photoshop, he's steadily directed people my way whenever he finds someone who needs any digital work done. It helps I'm a cheap amateur compared to the real professionals in the field.
I open the email and sigh when I see it's from that guy Jon who works with Cassie. He's a security guard at the hospital who got his realtor license recently and wants me to design his business cards for him. Cassie gave him my contact info and since that time, he's emailed me daily with more details of what he wants. Halfway through reading it, I scowl. This guy Jon says he wants to meet up with me to discuss the project, since he's giving Cassie a ride, anyway.
My phone vibrates under my hand as a text comes in from Cassie telling me she needs to talk to me and not to go to bed until after she gets home. My fingers fly. I tell her no way do I want to meet this guy. The entire point of my doing work on digital projects, instead of say working at McDonald's, is the lack of human contact. Why can't she get that? I'm not like her. I don't like people. Especially weird men.
I wait, back stiff, for a response that never comes.
Half an hour later, I jump at the sound of a loud muffler coming from the street below; the sound echoing through my room. I glance at the clock. It's dark outside, and just past ten. I close my laptop, removing the only source of light in the room.
A car idles in front of the house and when the door opens, Cassie hops out from the passenger seat. The driver rolls down the window, light streaming out, and leans against the frame.
Cassie stands there on the sidewalk talking with him for some time and twice gestures to my dark window. I can only guess that she knows I'm not coming down and is telling him I must be in bed already.
Only when he drives away do I cross the room to my bed and sink down. The stairs creak as she makes her way up. She bypasses her room at the back of the house, and moments later, there's a soft tap on my door. "Leila," she whispers, as the handle moves to the right. It stops as it encounters the lock, and then slowly rotates left again.
I don't move, even though she stands just on the other side of the thick wooden door.
I know what she wants to say—that Jon insisted, that it's hard to say no, that it's a small-town thing. Blah, blah, blah... It's the Jenny thing all over again and I get it. Cassie isn't perfect. She's too soft and needs to learn to say no to people she likes. It doesn't help that she spent eighteen years watching Mom fold to men's demands. But tonight, I don't want to hear it.
"Leila, please open the door." She waits for a sound from me, but when it doesn't come, she tries again. "I need to speak to you. It's important."
I get to my feet and trudge to the door. The lock makes a thunk sound as I twist it and open it a crack to stare into her tired face.
"What?"
Cassie pushes against the door until I relent and drop my hand from the knob, letting it open fully. She sits cross-legged on my bed in her nasty hospital scrubs that have spent all day around germs and pats the place beside her, waiting for me to join her.
"Look," I say, "If this is about that weird guy—"
She doesn't let me finish. "Your dad called me tonight at work."
I go quiet because Dad never calls Cassie. I'm just processing what this can mean when she tells me. "He just found out that Paul got paroled last Monday."
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