Don't Scream (Complete)

Chapter 26

Cassidy Hoskins

"Did you really hurt his friend?" Scott asked as the two of them walked back to class. 

"No," Cassidy said. 

And, for once, it was the truth. 

Earlier that morning, Ponnie had come down the corridor to where Cassidy was stuffing stuff in her locker. 

"You can have my seat," she'd said. 

"Really?" 

"Yeah. I don't want it anymore. Congrats on your relationship with Scott." 

Just like that, Ponnie was gone. Her congratulations to Cassidy was totally fake - Cassidy could tell - but it didn't matter. Now Cassidy had both Scott and the seat next to him. Wonderful. 

That had been all there was to it. Ponnie had told Cassidy she could have the seat next to Scott, then left. Cassidy hadn't hurt her or grabbed her forearm or anything of the sorts. But something had popped into her mind as Jonah had accused her. When Ponnie had spoken to Cassidy, Cassidy did notice that Ponnie was clutching her left forearm, almost as if in pain. She'd been hurt before she'd even spoken with Cassidy. Her dumb friend, Jonah, clearly wasn't thinking straight. 

"That's all that happened. Then you came along," Cassidy said to Scott. "You believe me, right?" 

Scott nodded, a wry smile on his face. "Course I do, Cassidy. That Jonah kid needs his head checked. If he'd accused you of anything further, I would've slammed him into a locker." 

"Pshh. That's such a stereotypical thing to do. Surely you can be more original than that," Cassidy joked. 

"Okay, how about I slam him into a locker, then I slam that locker into a second locker?" 

"That's more like it. He'd finally escape from the first locker only to find that he's stuck in another."

Nothing about their conversation struck Cassidy as devious or diabolical, but the truth was, they were calmly discussing ways to bully and pick on Jonah as if they were merely chatting about the latest fashion trend. 

The two of them entered the classroom. True to her word, Ponnie was there, sitting in Cassidy's original seat next to Sylvia. Sylvia saw Cassidy enter the room with Scott and shot her a reproachful look. 

Cassidy almost forgot - having a seat next to Scott meant that she lost her seat next to Sylvia. Sure, Cassidy did value Sylvia's friendship greatly and she felt a pang of guilt, but she decided that a hot boyfriend was better than a friend at that point. Even as the thought entered her mind, Cassidy's feeling of guilt became greater, but she shrugged it off. 

Satisfied, Cassidy plonked down onto Ponnie's original seat. While Scott sat next to her and began rummaging in his schoolbag for something, Cassidy turned to address Ponnie. "You know, you might want to put a leash on your little friend or something to restrain him." 

"What?" Ponnie turned to look at her, eyes narrowed, clearly not happy about where this conversation would be heading. 

"Your friend, Jonah. In case you haven't heard about it yet, he accused me" - Cassidy grabbed Ponnie's left forearm, pulled back the sleeve and pointed at the fingernail marks prominent there - "of doing this to you!" 

Ponnie pulled her arm away from Cassidy and muttered something inaudible under her breath. 

"What's that?" Cassidy asked. 

"Nothing. I'll go talk to Jonah, alright?" That was that and Ponnie turned back to look at the front of the room, even though the teacher wasn't even here yet. 

* 

"So did you or did you not hurt Ponnie?" 

"OMG, no! I did not!" Cassidy exclaimed in mock disbelief. 

Sylvia raised an eyebrow. The two of them were back in Cassidy's bedroom, hanging out after school. Though Cassidy wanted to spend some time hanging out with her new boyfriend, Scott had football practice. Their first official date would be that Saturday afternoon and Scott had arranged for them to go to a gelato place down on Klinton Avenue. 

"I don't know, just thought I'd ask. After all, seems like the sort of malicious thing you'd do," Sylvia said, though Cassidy could tell she was joking and took no offence. 

"I wonder who did though?" Cassidy said, though she turned straight to browsing through Facebook, bored and uncaring. 

"Who cares? So, tell me about Scott. Is he everything you hoped for?" Sylvia asked. 

"Well, what I can say is, he and I definitely get along. Let's hope this relationship can last longer than all three of my other ones," Cassidy said.