I. Cassidy
She hadn't realized how long she'd been staring at her phone until the glare of the setting sun through her dorm room window started reflecting off of its screen. She looked up and blinked, for what felt like the first time, her eyes dry and red, her tears long ago having run out. She was dehydrated, hungry, and sore. The weird kind of sore, not the one that comes from exercise or hard labor, but the dull, throbbing sore that emerges from within, a physical manifestation of an emotional wound. Distracted momentarily by the sun out the window, Cassidy looked back down at her cellphone. It had been silent for, by her rough calculations, at least two hours, since her boyfriend, twelve-hundred miles away, had hung up.
There had been no screaming between her and Mike, during their entire three-hour-long phone call. There never was. Cassidy had almost wished there had been. Wished that they could have ended with a bang, instead of a whimper. Some heated screaming match, yelling awful names and accusations at each other, until finally mashing the 'end call' buttons on their phones and never speaking again. Or, she wished, that he had cheated on her. Or her on him. Or that he had shown up drunk to her family's Christmas dinner, or she had accidentally called his mother a bitch in front of him. Something, anything, that would make for a more momentous end to their four year relationship, the first serious one for both of them.
But no. That wasn't for them. Mike and Cassidy, the couple that would have been obnoxious if everyone hadn't agreed that they really did belong together, brought down by a tired, worn out cliché: the long-distance relationship. Mike was a year ahead of her. When he graduated the previous spring, he'd managed to land his dream job. Or, at least, his dream internship, with a major tech company in Seattle. He'd offered to stay, and he would have, but she couldn't do that to him. She knew he'd regret it, and probably start resenting her. Besides, it wasn't going to be like that for them, they'd both agreed. Sure, other couples couldn't deal with not seeing each other for long stretches. Those couples would grow jealous and suspicious. Those couples would start worrying about the future. Those couples would grow apart. Not Mike and Cassidy. They would make it work. They would find a way. They would Skype and text and talk on the phone ever day. And then, after Cassidy finished her final year of her undergrad work, she'd transfer to UW Med. It was a great program, especially for a state school, and even though she'd lived in warmer climates her whole life, she'd adjust. And besides, she'd have him to keep her warm.
Then the letter came. Accepted, from Johns Hopkins University. In Maryland. She'd applied almost as a joke, mainly because two of her friends were applying and had begged her to join them. So, to get them off of her back, she'd sent in her application. They all got their letters the same day. It was a full week, after her friends' tears had finally dried, that she told them that she had received the lone acceptance letter. But she had been committed to Mike, and besides, UW was a fine school. Fine. Just fine. Not like Johns Hopkins, the school she'd dreamed of attending ever since she first decided she wanted to be a doctor, back in sixth grade. She'd come so close to throwing that letter away but, in the end, Mike did for her what she had done for him, and convinced her to follow her childhood dream. They could still make it work, couldn't they?
They couldn't. There was no big moment, it was just a slow slide into the grave for their relationship. When Mike had graduated, the two of them had been talking engagement and marriage, and Cassidy had even, only to herself, began musing on names for their inevitable children. They did well for the first month, talking at least twice a day, usually for several hours, driving Cassidy's roommates crazy. Then the cracks began to form. First it started with a missed call here, a canceled Skype session there. Then Mike had a late meeting, then Cassidy had an exam to study for. Days began going by with no contact. Before they knew it, weeks. Their calls became shorter; they had less in common to talk about. They had a few fights, over things they knew were stupid even while the fights were going on, but nothing explosive. When Cassidy had answered his final call, which had been a full two weeks separated from the previous one, he started with what they both knew.
"It's not going to work, Cassidy."
She didn't spend much time trying to convince him otherwise. They were both smart enough to know better. Instead, they just did an autopsy of their deceased relationship. They remembered good times, and lamented that they were gone. They both cried. At the end, they said their goodbyes, and he hung up first, for the first time ever. That's when she knew it was over.
So she sat there, alone, in her dorm room. Her possessions were all in boxes, most labeled "misc." Her two roommates had already moved out. Jill, whom she'd never really bonded with, left without saying goodbye, and Meredith, who was as close to a best friend as she had aside from Mike, had left that morning. She was going to stay with her family in the hotel suite they had rented for her graduation party. Cassidy thought about calling her and telling her the news about Mike, but decided against it. Meredith had better, more fun things to be doing than listen to her weep over the phone. Besides, she couldn't imagine the words she'd use. She and Mike had been the central couple of their group of friends. While they all acquired, lost, and traded partners, Cassidy and Mike were the load-bearing pillar. She wasn't ready to tell them. She wasn't ready to say it out loud.
There was a faint ticking of an old, analogue clock coming from inside one of her boxes. It was the only thing in the room producing sound. She knew she should get up off of the floor, at least to go down the hall and get some water. But she couldn't move. She was alone in her room, maybe even in the whole building, aside from a stray RA or janitor. So she turned to her only release for the past year, one she'd started turning to almost on impulse. Without thinking, she reached down and unbuttoned her jeans, proceeding to squeeze her fingers down the front of her satin panties and begin to massage her clit. It was funny, she'd never masturbated before Mike moved away. Not even when she was single. It just wasn't something she'd learned to do in her rather restrictive household. She'd only learned for Mike, so they could have some way to share intimacy while talking via webcam. But as their relationship deteriorated, it became her outlet for all of her frustrations. By the time January had rolled around, after Mike had had to cancel their Christmas visit, she was going at herself at least twice a day. And like any drug, the effectiveness had begun to dwindle.
It still felt good, of course, her fingers sliding over her clitoris, through her moist lips and inside herself. She'd built up a perfect rhythm, and trained her body to respond to it. A little too well, she feared, as she pumped her fingers in and out of her pussy, which was getting wetter and wetter, surprising her that she had any moisture left in her body. She worried about the next time she was with an actual partner, instead of just her fingers. She'd been faithful to Mike, even in her fantasies. Her fingers were always, in her mind, his fingers, or his cock, or his tongue. Never anyone else. Not the cute guy in her Anatomy class, not her handsome young professor who she always caught looking down her shirt, not even Channing Tatum. Her fingers moved faster and faster, finally hitting their groove as she reached her hand up under her snug fitting t-shirt and began massaging her left breast. She leaned back against the side of her dresser, closed her eyes, and let the fantasy began to flow in....
...only to have it stop dead in its tracks. Whose hand was pleasuring her this time? Mike's? That seemed...wrong. Depressing. The guy from Anatomy? She couldn't even remember his name. Two tears that she didn't expect trailed out of her eyes. Fuck it, she couldn't even finger herself anymore! Just then, the phone rang.
She pulled her hand out from under her shirt and grabbed the phone off of the floor next to her. It was her brother, Alex, who was in town for her graduation. Staying the same hotel, in fact, as Meredith, just a few floors down. She'd promised Mer that she'd introduce her to Alex, after her roommate had admired a photo of him on her desk. She still wanted to try, if she could ever get off the damn floor. Not thinking, and with her other hand still absently rubbing her clit, she answered the call.
"Hello?" she said. She'd never gotten into the habit of just greeting someone, even if she knew who it was.
"Hey Cassidy, it's Alex," her older brother said on the other end. "I wanted to know if you had plans for tonight, or if you wanted to get together and have dinner or watch a movie or something. I've got free HBO in my hotel room, there's got to be something worth sitting around making fun of."
"I...I don't know," Cassidy said, trying to keep her voice steady. She didn't much want to see anyone, but her brother might have been the one exception. The two of them had always been close. He was the one person whom she told everything to. During their parent's divorce, when he was fourteen and she was ten, they grew even closer. None of their friends knew what they were going through, so they withdrew and ended up talking almost exclusively to each other, leaning on one another. He was the only thing that got her through the nightmarish custody battle that followed, ending with her going with her mother, and him with their father. Later, when he was eighteen and she was fourteen, she sat with him and said mean things about the girl who had stood him up for prom, the only thing that made him smile that whole week. They were always there for one another. She couldn't shut him out now.
"Why not?" he asked. "Did Mike get into town early? Shit, did I interrupt something? They need to come up with a phone version of a necktie on the doorknob."
