Dead Weight

"Are you finished with this page?"

Cassandra flinched and straightened up. Lily's phone flashlight illuminated the novel propped on the pillow in front of them. Her mind had been wandering fiercely. Lily was lying facedown on the bed, propped up on her elbows, while Cassandra sat cross-legged in front of Lily's folded forearms, too tense to lean back her friend.

"Yes," Cassandra lied.

Lily turned the page, chuckling curiously. "What's up with you? You usually read faster than me. Getting sleepy?"

It wasn't even ten o'clock. Cassandra wished they could do something that didn't require so much concentrating, but going out to the living area to watch TV was risky. Any one of Lily's roommates could barge in to raid the kitchen for a midnight snack and spot Cassandra.

"Cassie?" Lily nudged her back gingerly when she didn't answer. "You doing alright? You've been quiet all night."

"I'm fine," Cassandra said, putting on a fake smile and waving Lily's hand away.

There was quiet for a few long seconds, and Cassandra was relieved to think Lily had gone back to reading. But the human cleared her throat and shifted, inadvertently shaking the bed.

"You don't have to stay if you're tired, you know," Lily said. "You can head home if you--"

"No!" Cassandra interrupted too shrilly. She turned to look over her shoulder, finding Lily's surprised brown eyes. "I--I mean… can't I stay a little longer? Unless you're ready to go to bed yourself, that is. I just--alright, I'll go."

Weeks ago, Lily would have been made frantic by the misunderstanding. Now, she took it in stride.

"Cassie. Take a breath." She lowered her head so she was more level with Cassandra, who could see in Lily's face that there was no way she was going to accept anything less than a straight answer now. "What's going on? You can tell me."

Wringing her hands, Cassandra turned to face her completely, but ended up looking down rather than making contact with the worry glistening in Lily's eyes. "Someone was in my home sometime yesterday. Last night, I found some of the food missing from my stores."

Lily straightened up suddenly, prompting Cassandra to flinch back against the open novel.

"Do… do you mean someone like one of you?" Lily asked, raising her eyebrows. "Like a borrower? I thought you were the only one around here?"

"I was alone… for a while," Cassandra admitted slowly. Everything she had come to know about Lily the past few months said that she wouldn't be angry about Cassandra keeping things from her. But it was hard not to be apprehensive with giant eyes boring into her. "A month before we met, I use to be with someone. I… my boyfriend, I guess."

Her cheeks heated. Boyfriend sounded so childish. So mundane. But that was what he was.

Lily looked stricken. "Boyfriend?"

"Vince. He left me by myself." She clenched her jaw, twirling the ends of her hair between her fingers while she avoided Lily's eyes. "He was fed up with me. I was too afraid to go borrowing. I didn't want to go out. He made me do it a few times, and I… I could never get very far without wanting to head back. I kept promising that I would try harder, but I-I… I could never bring myself to do it. He said he couldn't keep us both alive. One day he was gone, with over half of our supplies."

The silence drew out so long that Cassandra had no choice but to peek up timidly. There was a fire smoldering in Lily's eyes that she had never seen before.

"That jerk!" she snapped. "He leaves you on your own, and now he's just waltzing in and taking food that isn't his?"

"Just a little," Cassandra said. "You've given me more than enough, it's not like I'm gonna go hungry."

"That's not the point, Cassie!"

"It's more than that," Cassandra added miserably. "He left a note on my bed. He says he's sorry. That now he sees I can take care of myself, and the two of us could help each other. He says he'll come back soon."

"You… are you going to let him back in? Are you going to forgive him?"

Burying her face in her hands, she shook her head helplessly. "I don't know! I… I finally won't feel like dead weight anymore. If he hadn't left, I wouldn't have learned how to fend for myself. When I started borrowing on my own, I thought I could find him and show him, but now… I don't know what I'll do if I see him again."

"Cassie. You can't honestly think he left you to make you a stronger person. By the sound of it, he was only thinking of himself." Lily's fingers slid between Cassandra and the page of the novel, curling like a warm blanket over her back. A thumb smoothed her hair down comfortingly, though Lily's words were like a stab to the heart: "He left you for dead."

Cassandra burst into tears, knowing in her heart it was true. She leaned into Lily's fingers and curled into herself. If Vince could see her now, he would think she was crazy. Making friends from a human. Accepting help from a human. Finding far more comfort in the company of a human than of a borrower.

"You don't have to go home," Lily said, her voice wavering in an effort to soften her tone and calm Cassandra down. "You can stay the night and think on it. Do you want that?"

Sniffling, Cassandra nodded. She put up no resistance as Lily put the book away and scooped her up to set her on the pillow. As slowly as Lily tried to move, Cassandra still rocked on the plush surface as the human put her head down next to her. The phone's flashlight illuminated the gentle concern still brewing in Lily's eyes. There was no escaping it, not with Lily laying right beside her.

Lily shut off the flashlight and slid her hand up near Cassandra, who settled down on her back and stared at the dark ceiling.

"He'd be pretty pissed, wouldn't he?" Lily murmured. "If he found out how you got all that food?"

Cassandra shut her eyes and scooted closer to the warmth of Lily's fingers. "You have no idea."