“Now, why didn’t I think to tell you that when you were trying to rip the steering wheel off back at the gas station?” I say. “How about I’ll learn to ‘be more positive’ when you learn a little anger management.”
Jasper glances in my direction and, annoyingly, actually seems hurt. “Just trying to help.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t need your help,” I say. “Cassie does.”
I feel embarrassed as I look down at my phone. Why am I even getting into this? Do I actually care what Jasper thinks? I check for a signal as the diner fades into the distance behind us.
“Anything yet?” Jasper asks. His voice is different now, chilly. And maybe I’m even glad. We don’t have to be friends, he and I.
“Do you think she’s okay?” I ask. If he’s going to be honest with me, now would be the time.
“Yes,” he says, too quickly for me to believe.
“Why?”
“Because she has to be, right?” and when he looks at me this time, his eyes are shiny in the dark.
“Yeah,” I say, my own throat burning as I turn away from him toward the windows and the darkness beyond.
It isn’t until that moment that I realize what I said to that crazy old man was true: I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose Cassie, too. How will I ever live without her and all her insane manic energy, making me see past my world of worry?
“So, did you ask your dad or what?” Cassie peered at me over the top of her Western Civilization textbook.
For the past hour, she’d been sitting in a beanbag chair in the corner of my room, pretending to study. But I could tell she was mostly texting behind her book. To Jasper, maybe. It was only the beginning of October and they weren’t officially dating—yet. I was still hoping something might head it off at the pass. So mostly, I pretended that it—whatever it was—wasn’t happening.
“Ask him about what?” I was playing dumb.
Partly because I just didn’t want to deal and partly because I wasn’t in the mood to be doing Cassie any favors. But I knew she was desperate to take my dad’s test. Cassie had a glass slipper complex—forever hoping to discover she was a long-lost princess.
“Ask him about his test.” Cassie rolled her eyes.
“He’s going to say no,” I said. “This week especially he’s in a really bad mood. He had to fire that assistant guy he was obsessed with.”
“I thought he loved that guy,” Cassie said, because even she had been treated to one of my dad’s endless speeches about how everyone in the world should try to be more like the insightful and dedicated Dr. Caton.
“Thin line between love and hate.” I shrugged. “Why do you care so much about taking that stupid test anyway?”
“I feel like there has to be something more.”
“To life?”
I watched Cassie’s face sink. “To me.”
And now I felt bad. I wasn’t actually trying to hurt her feelings.
“You don’t need some dumb test to prove that you matter,” I said. “You matter to me.”
“Yeah, thanks,” she said with a wink. “But I still want to take that test.”
Fifteen minutes later, when my whole family was assembled around the dinner table, there Cassie went, asking my dad herself. She was tenacious. I had to give her that.
“Do you think Wylie and I could try your test after dinner, Dr. Lang? Just even like a little part of it?” Cassie asked. Her voice was intentionally high and squeaky like a little girl.
My dad frowned into his beet salad. “I don’t think that—”
“Please, please, please,” Cassie begged. And it kind of made me love her that she couldn’t care less that my dad seemed so displeased. “Knowing our results could be super useful, you know, in school.”
“In school?” Gideon asked, staring at Cassie as usual like he both loved and loathed her.
Cassie rolled her eyes at him like he was her brother, too. “Or fine, just for our own personal use. Or whatever.”
I could tell from the look on my dad’s face that there was no way he was going to say yes.
“Yes, well, as much as I’d like—”
“Oh, let them, Ben,” my mom said, swooping in with one of those smiles of hers. The kind that always made my dad cave. “They’re the ones who haven’t seen you for months. It will give them a chance to be a part of it, a part of you.”
“A part of me?” My dad blinked at her like he had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. He really was becoming more and more like a robot every day.
“Yes, honey, share something of yourself with your kids.” My mom was being playful now, but firm. “You know, connect with them. It might help them better understand why your work is so important to you.”
“He’s never going to say yes,” Gideon said to Cassie. “I’ve already asked him a hundred times.”