Four Of A Kind

Chapter 143: [3.45] Not Weird, Normal

Then she was gone. The door closed with a soft click.

I sat there. Stared at nothing. Tried to process the sentence “sleep in my room with me” in any context that made professional sense.

Failed completely.

“Did she just,” Cassidy said quietly, “did she just ask you to spend the night with her?”

“I think so?”

“And you’re actually CONSIDERING it?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.” I turned back to the table. Cassidy’s work. The problems we were supposed to be solving. “Let’s just. Can we just focus on math? Please?”

Cassidy looked at me. Her expression had shifted into something complicated. Like she was trying to solve a different kind of problem now. One that didn’t have a formula.

“You told her no,” she said.

“I told her to get up.”

“Because of me.”

“Because you deserve to actually learn without distractions.”

Cassidy’s face went pink. Started at her cheeks and spread down her neck, disappearing beneath her collar. She grabbed her pencil. Gripped it so hard I thought it might snap.

“That’s,” she started. Stopped. Started again. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yeah I did.”

“Why?”

Because watching you look hurt made something in my chest hurt. Because you worked three hours last night when you could have been doing literally anything else. Because seven tutors gave up on you and I’m not going to be number eight.

I couldn’t say any of that. So I just tapped her paper.

“Problem twenty-one,” I said. “Show me where you’re stuck.”

She looked at me for three more seconds. Then down at her work. Her shoulders were shaking slightly.

“The quadratic formula,” she said. Her voice had gone rough. “I keep forgetting which order the terms go in. Is it negative b plus or minus the square root, or is it b plus or minus negative square root, or—”

“Write it down. Every time. Don’t trust memory.”

“That’s cheating.”

“That’s adapting.” I pulled a blank index card from my bag. Wrote the formula in large letters. Negative b plus or minus the square root of b squared minus four a c, all over two a. “Keep this in your textbook. Reference it whenever you need it. There’s no rule that says you have to memorize everything.”

She took the card. Stared at it like I’d handed her something valuable instead of basic algebra written on cardstock.

“My mom would say that’s making excuses,” she said quietly.

“Your mom’s not here.”

Cassidy’s laugh came out strangled. “No. She’s in Paris. Or Milan. Or Tokyo. Who knows anymore.”

The bitterness in her voice was sharp enough to draw blood. I recognized it. The particular flavor of resentment that came from realizing the people who were supposed to care about you had priorities that ranked somewhere between their phone calls and their coffee temperature.

Been there. Currently living that.

“Well,” I said. “I’m here. And I’m saying use the card. Use whatever helps. The only thing that matters is whether you understand the concept, not whether you memorized the equation.”

Cassidy nodded. Didn’t look at me. Just nodded and opened her textbook to problem twenty-one.

For the next forty minutes, we worked. She’d start a problem. Get stuck. I’d point to where the issue was. She’d fix it. Move forward. Get stuck again.

The rhythm was familiar now. Comfortable, even.

Around problem twenty-five, Cassidy’s pencil slipped and drew a line through her entire solution. She swore. Grabbed her eraser. Started scrubbing so hard the paper started tearing.

“Hey.” I caught her wrist. “Stop.”

“I messed it up.”

“So start over on a new sheet.”

“But I wasted—”

“Nothing. You wasted nothing. The point is learning, not having perfect paper.”

Her wrist was very warm under my hand. Small. I could feel her pulse.

I let go. Probably should have let go faster.

Cassidy pulled out fresh graph paper. Started the problem again. Got to the same step. Paused.

“This is where I messed up before,” she said.

“So what’s different now?”

“I’m… I’m going slower. Checking each step before moving to the next one.”

“Good.”

She worked through it. Arrived at the correct answer. Looked up at me with something like wonder breaking through her usual defensive posture.

“I got it.”

“You did.”

“I actually got it. On the second try.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s never happened before. Usually I make the same mistake five times and then give up and—” She stopped. Bit her lip. “Sorry. I’m being weird.”

“You’re being proud of yourself. That’s not weird. That’s normal.”

Her eyes met mine. Held for longer than necessary.

The library felt very quiet suddenly. Just us and the slowly dying afternoon light through the windows and approximately six thousand books bearing witness.

Cassidy opened her mouth.

My phone buzzed.

The moment shattered.

I checked the screen. Vivienne. Reminding me about tomorrow’s tailor appointment at three and the media training session beforehand at one-thirty.

Right. Real life. Professional obligations. The fact that I was employed by these people and not actually friends with them, no matter how much my stupid brain kept forgetting that detail.

“Vivienne?” Cassidy asked.

“Reminding me about appointments.”

“She’s good at that. Reminding people about things they already know.” Cassidy gathered her papers. Organized them into a neat stack. “We good for Friday? The test?”

“If you keep working like this? You’ll be fine.”

“What if I’m not?”

The vulnerability in the question caught me off guard. Gone was the aggressive confidence from ten minutes ago. This was the Cassidy who genuinely believed she was broken. The one who’d internalized seventeen years of being called the stupid sister.

“Then we try again,” I said. “That’s how this works. You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to keep trying.”

She looked at me like I’d said something revolutionary instead of basic human decency.

“Isaiah?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. For telling Sabrina to get up. You didn’t have to do that.”

“She was being distracting.”

“She’s always distracting. That’s not what I meant.” Cassidy stood. Shouldered her bag. “I meant thanks for making this actually about me instead of whatever weird game she’s playing.”

Before I could respond, she was gone. Moving fast enough that her ponytail whipped behind her like a very angry flag.

I sat alone at the library table. Surrounded by quadratic formulas and colored pens and the lingering scent of whatever fruity shampoo Cassidy used.

My phone buzzed again.

Sabrina this time. A single message. No words. Just a rose emoji and a time: 11:00 PM.

I stared at it. Tried to figure out what the appropriate response was when one of your employers casually suggested you sleep in her room with her like she was asking you to grab her mail.

There probably wasn’t an appropriate response. This situation had left “appropriate” behind approximately three days ago and was currently speeding toward “completely unhinged” with no brakes and a full tank of gas.

I pocketed my phone. Gathered my materials. Left the library before anyone else could find me and make my day more complicated.