The Half-Class by Kayvion Lewis

Chapter Thirty-One

Aknock sounded at my door. I shifted in my sheets and forced my eyes open. Why was Auntie Jen knocking? She never knocks.

I sat up and looked around the room—the oak wardrobe, the tufted chairs, the four-post bed.

Oh, that’s right.

My legs slipped out from under the covers. My feet touched the cold stone floor, and I shuddered.

When Bridgette said she’d return early, I didn’t think she meant this early. It was barely dawn. I wrapped my hand around the doorknob, which was equally chilly, and pulled the door open.

Cass smiled weakly at me, with messy hair and a tray in hand.

“You’re not Bridgette,” I said.

“Who?”

I stepped back. “No one.”

The heavy door shut on its own. Cass looked like he was heading for the small sitting area, but I was too cold for that.

I hurried back across the floor and snuck back into the bed, slipping my feet back into the warmth of the covers. “Over here.”

Cass, looking surprised but not unpleasantly so, turned around and met me at my bed. I crossed my legs under the sheets as he laid the tray before me, then carefully sat down across from me.

“You brought me breakfast?” I asked. Sliced strawberries and pears, boiled eggs, lamb likely leftover from last night. Anything I could have asked for. Not that I had much of an appetite this morning.

“All the way from the kitchen.” He picked up a piece of lamb and popped it into his mouth. “I’m not complaining, but I want you to know that it was a very long walk, and this tray was very heavy.”

I bit into a strawberry and forced myself to swallow. I suppose he decided that we were just going to go back to normal.

“Good. I need you to keep those muscles. If you lose them, then we’re done.”

He forced a chuckle. Last night Cass had looked his title, but this morning was a different story. His clothes were disheveled—the same as he wore last night—and his thick black hair had dissipated into a fuzzy storm. For whatever reason, his neck was tinted a reddish color. Maybe he’d slept oddly if he slept at all. Whatever it was, he was a mess. But I probably was too. Who knows how disheveled my hair must have looked or how see-through my shift was now that the daylight was beginning to tint the room, but I was okay with all of that. I didn’t have the energy to care. It was taking all my energy not to think about last night. Especially when every time I blinked, the darkness that should have been there drenched itself with red instead.

Maybe if we got into a conversation, it would distract me. “Did you fall asleep in your dinner clothes?”

“Yes.” He ran a hand through his hair. “In the library. I wanted to think about everything after last night.”

I gripped the sheets. So, we were going to address it. So much for a distraction.

“Evie,” Cass said, “please tell me honestly...did you know those boys?”

My heart clenched. Was he suspicious about me now too?

“I might have seen them running around the city, but I didn’t know them.” I didn’t blink as his eyes scanned mine. Did he suspect I was lying?

He sighed, and his entire body slumped. “I didn’t know he was going to do any of that. Please believe me.”

“I do.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I know you would have warned me if you did.” Everything would have been so much easier if I could blame Cass for this.—if I could believe that he and his father plotted this together and that they both forced me to do that to Brison. Life would be simpler if I could hate everyone in this castle.

But the opposite had happened. His father put me in an impossible position. He was going to make me do something that would have crushed me forever, but Cass showed me mercy. He took on the burden with me. I didn’t know if I would have done it on my own, but now I never had to know. That was an ignorance I couldn’t live without.

“Thank you, Cassian,” I whispered. “Thank you for helping me.”

Cass’s gaze wavered. “I would do anything to keep you from pain.” The pain in his eyes descended into guilt. “I would have stopped him if I could but—”

There was no need to finish. What I’d seen of Cass’s father made it clear that he didn’t accept orders—or disobedience—from anyone.

I glanced at the now apparent bruise at the corner of Cass’s head.

“Cass,” I said in a soft voice. “I want to ask you something, and you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

He furrowed his brow.

I leaned forward. “Does your father hit you?”

His face went blank. I let him watch me glance back up to the bruise on his head, then, almost instinctively, down to the redness around his neck, as I realized that he did not just sleep in an odd way.

He averted his eyes from me. “Doesn’t everyone’s parents.”

My heart broke. “Not like this.”

Cass threw his legs off the side of the bed, leaving his back to me. Only the side of his face was visible. I waited for what felt like minutes until he finally spoke. “It’s not always like this. Not so long as I do as he asks. Most of the time, I just try to stay away from whatever he’s doing. I’d actually gone without angering him for almost an entire season before we left Aurell. But these past couple of days, he’s been so on edge, since—"

“Since those officers were killed.”

Since he found out about me.

Cass turned back to me. “This isn’t your fault. It’s mine. I shouldn’t have disrespected him in front of everyone like that.”

“But you did…Because of me.” How much of my behavior last night had Cass faced punishment for? How many people were suffering because of my mistakes?

“Meeting you has been one of the best things in my life,” Cass said. “I’d take a thousand licks for you and more.”

“Cass.” I pushed the tray aside and crawled over to him. “You shouldn’t have to take any. You know that, right?”

I leaned close to him. A shame had settled his features—a shame that didn’t belong to him.

He dropped his gaze and nodded softly, but he didn’t mean it. He might never believe that he didn’t, in some part, deserve what was being done to him.

I took Cass’s hand and brought it up to my lips. It felt so warm under my kiss.

“It’s alright,” I whispered. “One way or another, we’re both going to be alright.”

His eyes glimmered with an unearthly sparkle. He brought his hand up to my face and caressed my cheek. “Evelyn...” He paused, and the entire world was still. “I love you.”

My heart should have swooned. I should have smiled. I should have kissed him. But I could do none of it. I was entrapped in the stillness.

He loved me. That was the last thing I expected to hear, and at the moment, I didn’t know in the least how to feel about it. There were too many factors and too little time to figure out how they all should have made me feel. I wished I could have told him to say it again later, after I had some time to think about it. But I had to say something back now, so I found myself saying what I knew he wanted to hear.

“I love you too.”