I remember the first time I met Cassie. We were at a party being thrown by a friend of mine. I had excused myself from the group of friends I was talking to to grab a beer. I reached the fridge the same time she did.
"Sorry." we said at the same time as we both reached for the handle.
"Go ahead." I said.
She smiled at me and handed me a beer before grabbing her own.
"I don't think I've seen you at one of our little gatherings before. How do you know this group of miscreants?" I asked, a common joke among my friends and I.
"I just moved here a few months ago. I'm here because of my boyfriend." She pointed him out, a guy I sorta knew named Ian. I grimaced.
"Ooh, I'm sorry."
Cassie took a sip of her beer and smirked. "You're the third person that's said that to me. What's the deal?"
"Ian's... well, he's... odd. I mean he's not a bad guy, most of us tolerate him, but he's got a somewhat annoying personality. How'd you meet him?"
"Through a mutual friend, a guy I work with." Cassie said.
"You need better friends." I joked.
At this point I had forgotten I had promised my friends I'd be right back because there was something about her. It grabbed my attention and refused to let go. Maybe it was the purple hair with the teal highlights, maybe it was her gorgeous blue eyes, maybe it was her tits that were pushing the limits of the shirt she had stuffed them into, maybe it was her smile, whatever it was, it had its hooks in me.
I held out my hand. "I'm Tony."
"Cassie." She said, shaking my hand.
At that point the group of guys I had been hanging out with called me back over. "Well, I guess I'll see you around." I said.
I saw her a few more times during the night, but didn't get another chance to talk to her, but I did see her again a few days later when I ran into her and Ian at a local pizza place that my friends and I frequented.
We got to talking and I found out she and I had a lot in common. We liked a lot of the same bands, movies (especially cheesy horror movies), we both liked pro wrestling, about the only difference between us was our science fiction fandoms. I was more a Star Wars guy, while she was a tried and true Whovian. I also found out that Cassie didn't live too far away from me, it was about a ten minute drive door to door. She was also two years younger than me, 27 to my 29.
She also told me her real name was Cassandra, but she hated that name and insisted people call her the shorter Cassie pretty much all her life, and had legally changed her name when she was 20.
We ran into each other a lot after that, in fact it seemed Cassie and Ian showed up at places our mutual friends met up. This was surprising because Ian barely ever hung out with us before Cassie came along, and we figured it was her that dragged him out, because it always seemed like he didn't want to be there. Cassie and I always ended up spending a lot of time together just talking while Ian skulked off to a corner somewhere. We became such good friends that it wasn't uncommon for Cassie to come over to my place or invite me over to her place and we'd find some really bad movies to watch and make fun of.
About a month or so before I met Cassie I found out my girlfriend was cheating on me. That on its own would have been bad enough, but she was cheating on me with the guy that had set us up in the first place! Needless to say I cut them both out of my life. One time when Cassie asked me why I was single, I launched into a whole 30 minute tirade about it. She sat and listened to me while I bitched and complained about my ex-girlfriend and ex-friend.
A couple of months after I first met her, Cassie and Ian broke up. It was at a friend's birthday party (really just an excuse for all of us to get together), and I saw the two of them arguing. Finally Cassie stormed away from him and came up to me.
"Tony, would you mind taking me home?" she said.
"Sure," I said. "Is everything okay?"
"No, everything is not okay." she said, shooting a withering glare at Ian.
I made my excuses to our friend who was throwing the party and took Cassie home.
"So you gonna tell me what's going on?" I asked once we got in my car.
All the pent up frustration she had kept in while at the party came out of her in one breath. "Fucking Ian." she said, "You were right about him. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt because he seemed like a decent guy when I met him, but he never wanted to DO anything! He'd rather sit around at home and watch TV or play video games or some shit. All those times we met up, I had to practically drag him out of the house kicking and screaming. Half the time I had to threaten to go out without him just to get him off his ass."
She took a deep breath, I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye, and saw her compose herself.
"I mean I don't mind some quiet time, but not all the fucking time. I like being around people, I like going out and doing shit. I don't always want to sit around and stare at the same four walls." she said, "But Ian, he never wanted to go anywhere or do anything. I got so fed up with him and we always ended up arguing like we did tonight. I finally had enough and told him it was over between us. I really wish I had listened to you guys."
"That's one of the reasons we stopped bothering to invite him anywhere." I said, "He'd either say he was busy, which we knew was bullshit, or he'd show up, and then kind of blend into the shadows in a corner somewhere. If he did mingle with the rest of us, he'd say stupid shit that would kill any conversation he joined in."
"That's the other thing!" Cassie said, throwing up her hands in frustration. "We never fucking talked! I've talked to you more than I did him. Hell you know more about me than he does. Any conversations we did have were initiated by me, and lasted less than five minutes. And his sense of humor... Geez, Tony, I'm sorry to unload all this on you."
"S'ok," I said, "You listened to me bitch when I told you about my ex cheating on me. I never really told anyone the whole story before, but you sat and listened to me, so I'm repaying the favor."
By this point, we had reached her place. "You wanna come in for a bit? I really don't want to be alone right now."
"Yeah, I'll stay for a bit if you want." I said.
"I want."
We headed into her apartment, and she disappeared into her bedroom for a minute. "Hey, grab a couple sodas out of the fridge and see if there's anything good on the tube."
I kicked off my sneakers and turned on the TV before heading to the kitchen. Cassie came out of the bedroom a couple minutes later in PJ bottoms and a faded Hello Kitty t-shirt. We sat on the couch and she snuggled up to me. We'd never done that before in all the times we visited each other, we'd sit together on the couch, but never snuggled up because she was still Ian's girlfriend, and no matter how annoying we found him, I would never move in on someone else's girl. But now she was newly single, so why the hell not?
"You don't mind do you?" she asked me.
"No, not at all." I said, wrapping an arm around her.
"You're a good friend." she said.
"Did you just friendzone me?" I asked as we settled on a ridiculous movie about killer earthworms.
