The Devil & Me

Chapter Ten: Atonement

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Cassius was yanked away by his parents. Apparently, he'd atoned enough, and he'd been called back to the family compound to waste the rest of break away. I was left with strange dreams, strange feelings, and lots of silence to torture me. The rest of the break went by slowly. I was glad when it ended: the whole thing was a reminder of what I'd done.

Luce returned on the first day of the new term with a fresh set of bread. Green thread wound around chunky twists as she held them up for me to see. "It's to symbolize spring. It'll come early this year."

I hummed. "Will it?"

She stopped and looked at me sideways. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," I said.

Her voice was full of wariness. "Nothing happened over break?"

"Nothing," I echoed. "How was your break? Did you go anywhere?"

Her eyes lit up with excitement. "I went to Miami," she started, "you can't believe how warm it was..."

Grace returned a few hours later. She was wearing a new pair of boots. They looked like genuine leather (although I couldn't be sure, I never owned genuine leather in my life). Her coat, though, I knew was Canada Goose; it said so on the label.

She looked at me just after she set her bags down. "Happy New Year," she said, rocking back and forth on her toes.

"Happy New Year."

"Are you...are you doing well?"

"Just great, Grace."

"And you...and Cassius is treating you well?"

"Do you care?"

She flinched. "Of course, I do. You're my—"

If she said the word friend I was going to scream. Sure, I could have held it in, but I wanted to scream. Everything⁠⁠—her, Cassius, the Devil disturbing my sleep, my work, my academics, the bricks of the school itself⁠⁠—had come to bother me. "And you're full of shit, Grace. Yes, the Ambrose Devil has been treating me well. I'm not sure why it concerns you though—you've wiped your hands of me for Leon Raufus and his disciples."

"That's not it. That's—"

"That's exactly how it is—"

"No." She flexed her hands by her side. "No. I can't say—I wish I could say, but that's not it. I wish—"

Her phone began to ring and her face crumpled into a ball of frustration. She pulled it out. The name Leon flashed at me, with no contact picture. You'd think with how close they were (completely attached at the hip), there'd be some heart, some stars, or a nickname. There was no indication that she liked him at all. So then, why did she stay with him? Why did she cause all this trouble?

"I have to go," she murmured, answering her phone in the process. Through the shutting door, her voice drifted through. "Yeah, I know, I shouldn't. I won't, I just got frustrated. Well, I'm sorry, I'm sorry...."

The silence crept up around me. I sat down on my bed, looking out of the window as friends who hadn't seen each other in three weeks reconnected, hugging and kissing cheeks, and walking away arm in arm. I sank deeper into the mattress, my eyes falling closed. Around my shoulder, the ghost of Cassius Ambrose put his arm around me. His lips brushed the side of my neck.

My eyes flung open, while my face flamed with embarrassment.

It wasn't that he'd died. I was just going crazy. I was reminiscing about something I had no business thinking about. And I thought maybe if I avoided admitting it loud, it would all go away. When they didn't, I pushed the same train of thought and decided to wait longer. And I did the same thing, again and again.