Stuck In The Past | Five Hargreeves

Chapter 5: Breaking Point

Warning: This chapter will contain some triggering that will have to do with Cassie's past traumas. It's going to follow stuff that was mentioned in the previous book so if you haven't read that already I advise you to do it before continuing with this story.

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Having to go to school was probably in the top 5 worse things that had happened to Cassie in her whole life. If anyone were to ask her to narrow all 5 in a list it would probably be something like this; first would be having to survive and escape the apocalypse (twice), in second place was getting stuck in the 60's alone, third was the events that led to her joining the Academy as a kid, fourth would be joining the Commission, and fifth was going to school.

Granted it has only been a month since Cassie started attending school with Nathan, to her it felt a lot longer than that. Every day from Monday to Friday the two would wake up early, get dressed, eat breakfast, and walk to school. But this part of the day wasn't exactly what Cassie was beginning to loath, instead what she hated was the whole being in school part.

There was something about having to listen to stuff she already knew about that didn't sit well with Cassie. Not to mention that at times she even knew more than what was being taught which just made lessons extremely boring for her. But the worse part of it all was having to deal with Nathan's friend group.

Despite Nathan being the kindest person Cassie has ever met, she couldn't understand how he surrounded himself with people who were extremely shallow and full of themselves.

The first few weeks of school she tried to put up with them for Nathan's sake but no matter how much she tried she just couldn't do it. Maybe it was the fact that Jake made her extremely uncomfortable or the dirty looks she got from Hannah every time Nathan tried to talk with her. So instead Cassie started to distance herself from Nathan and his friends during school hours.

Nathan couldn't help but notice how Cassie tried to avoid him whenever he was with his friends and being honest he really didn't blame her. In fact, he found himself more often wishing to be spending more time with her rather than Jake and his friends, but whenever he tried to get near her they always found a way to pull him away elsewhere.

The girl didn't mind spending her time at school alone. After all, high school drama and friendships were beyond her, plus it was nice being alone not having to pretend to be like every single teenager that surrounded her.

Cassie could tell that Nathan wasn't very fond of his friend group either but he somehow still put up with them and didn't complain. From her understanding, Nathan and Jake were friends since kindergarten they practically grew up together but somehow the two turned out completely opposite from one another.

According to Nathan, Jake didn't use to be extremely full of himself. It all started when they were in middle school and Jake's parents got divorced that his attitude completely changed. Jake has never been an asshole to Nathan but by being his friend he saw how he treated others that he considered inferior to him. Which made Nathan wonder if the reason why Jake wasn't an ass to him was because his parents had more money than Jake's. But despite being a terrible person to others Nathan didn't end his friendship with Jake because he had never done anything to wrong him, and regardless of that Nathan also had a hard time letting go of their longtime friendship.

On the other hand, Hannah and her friend group started hanging out with Nathan around the time Jake changed his demeanor and started to become the most popular kid in school. It made sense that Hannah, the most beautiful girl in school, would want to associate herself with the popular kids.

Usually, Cassie wouldn't pay attention to this type of stuff but considering the events of her first day of school she knew that Hannah was obsessed with Nathan and not in the good type of way. Whenever she was around him she became very clingy and tried to get herself all over him but unfortunately, Nathan didn't seem to get the clues of Hannah's clear liking of him. But the reality of it was that Cassie couldn't imagine Nathan being with a girl like Hannah, sure she was beautiful but her snobby and rude personality has a huge contrast to Nathan's caring and sweet personality.