mp | i know it, i love it, and i hate it — cass

JUNE 2004
late

It was very late, and appropriately quiet, now.

Tomie had been trying to sleep for a while. Her sleeping bag was plush and comfortable, and she was well-fed; what other ingredients went into having a good sleep? Apparently having a clear mind was helpful, she thought sarcastically, wriggling over to her other side.

Her brother always chastised her for doing stuff before thinking about it. He was right, of course, and overthinking wasn’t her thing at all, but tonight she couldn’t seem to turn her brain off. If this was what more-thinking felt like, then she didn’t want any part of it. The sleeping bag clung to her legs as she tried to roll back onto her back and Tomie fought back the urge to start punching in response. After another five (million!) minutes of this claustrophobic torture, Tomie unzipped her soft little tomb and escaped to her feet.

Bathroom it was. The young witch started walking towards the end of the hall, careful not to step on any sleeping bodies. They looked like little grubs to her, and the thought was amusing enough that she smiled a little to herself, though the smile didn’t linger.

It was dark and felt oddly chilly in the hallway despite the season and her slippered feet, and Tomie felt a little safer once she stepped into the girls’ bathroom. Once she was in a cubicle, though, she couldn’t stop thinking about the kinds of creepy crawlies that probably lurked around the castle at night. She thought about her favourite horror comics and her heart beat a little faster. After flushing, she went to wash her hands and felt reluctant to leave the relative safety of her cubicle. 

Someone appeared to her right.

“Ohmy—” Tomie clapped a wet, soapy hand over her mouth to stop herself from exclaiming so loudly. “Cass!” she whispered loudly, half chastising the older girl as she lowered her hand back to the sink, where the tap was still running freely. “I nearly pissed myself,” she accused, lifting a shoulder to wipe her now-soapy face against.

It really wasn't that late yet -- Cass assumed her roommates were all aslumber because creeping around the firsties was too much of a hassle. Good for them, anyway, that they could get to sleep so easily.

Cassandra had already tried counting sheep, redoing her cushioning charm, redoing her muffling charm, and yet found herself awake still. It became intolerable to be lying down after a while, with energy roiling up and down her arms. Cassandra grabbed a little bag of toiletries and slipped out of the Great Hall, pointing the way to the bathroom when someone stared at her with bleary eyes.

(She hoped that was why they were staring, anyway.)

Her flannel pajama trousers were a little too short for her legs, and the cool air nipped at her ankles. Her slippers were too worn through to be much warmth, and the oversized band tee shirt she was wearing didn't help either. She found her arms curled up around her sides when she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror, which was as much a surprise as the rest of her reflection.

It still caught her off guard, sometimes -- the long curls of hair, the softness in her face and frame where before there had only been sharp, oppressive angles. But there was too much of Howard left in her reflection, too.

“Ohmy—” Cass jumped, her bag of toiletries clattering to the stone. On her left, a short figure in fuzzy slippers -- Cassandra knew that voice. "Hi, Tomie," she said, trying to grin and not let on that she, too, hadn't noticed her teammate. The second-year nearly pissed herself, which was apparently Cassandra's fault. "Not my fault you wasn't looking," Cassandra replied, picking her bag up off the floor. Hopefully the joint at the bottom hadn't gotten too beat up. "Can't sleep either?"

Not my fault— “Yeah, well...” Her words hung there for a beat, and then Tomie just gave a bit of a sheepish smile and shrugged. It was too late for her to be coming up with anything witty. She wasn’t not-tired, she just couldn’t sleep — there was a difference. She finished rinsing her hands and turned off the tap.

“I guess, yeah,” she said vaguely. Through quidditch and the whole SNAIL thing, Tomie had ended up with quite a few older friends. They were mostly girls, which was fine because they weren’t her age. The logic there was a bit undefined but it made total sense to Tomie. Regardless, Cass’ presence was soothing in a way that none of her same-age friends’ could be.

Patting her hands dry on the sides of her thighs, Tomie glanced briefly at other girl via the mirror, wondering how much experience she had with things like maybe-breaking-up-with-your-boyfriend or kissing-girls-as-a-dare-ONLY or being-distant-with-your-best-friend or being-shit-at-quidditch-when-you’re-supposed-to-be-amazing.

The young Gryffindor didn’t want to pressure Cass into conversation but she couldn’t help but lean against the wall in a natural, conversational way when she started talking. Tomie was comfortable in conversation. “I think it’s just, I’m dating this guy… I told you...?” She glanced to see if Cass remembered. Tomie exhaled a frustrated sigh. “I dunno,” she said with a shrug, her expression betraying discomfort. She scuffed the edge of her slipper against the cold floor. “I dunno what I’m doing.”

“What about you?” she asked, “Too many people, or…?”

Tomie sounded tired. Cassandra had been there before -- body tired, mind tired, and yet frustratingly not asleep. It had been worse last year, the insomnia, but had mostly gone away when the source of most of her malcontent had been forcibly expelled from her body.

The younger girl was looking at her in the mirror -- Cassandra met mirror-Tomie's gaze, leaning a little forward onto the sink basin. The little one looked away. Cassandra had never really been alone with Tomie, she was realizing. Never really had much of a reason too, given what they played on the pitch. She wondered what the youner girl thought of her, if she thought that Cassandra was a freak. Her hands felt big, her neck protruding. Cassandra turned away from the mirror.

She thought Tomie might leave and leave her to smoke in peace, but Tomie was leaning against a wall. She wanted to talk. Cassandra gave it a thought before leaning against the sink basin herself, bag tucked under one arm.

Something about a boy. Cassandra arched one perfectly plucked eyebrow. "Whatsit, the Slyth'rin boy?" She remembered him, vaguely, from a pre-game chat. "One what owns the Griffins." She was remembering now -- she had asked Tomie to introduce them sometime, with a jokey smile on her lips. I dunno, Tomie said, and Cassandra frowned. "He not treating you right?" Maybe not that. "He don't like you so much anymore? You don't like him so much anymore?" She studied Tomie's face for a reaction.

Too many people? "Oh, that's --" Cass flapped an idle hand. "Just an insomniac, I am."

Slytherin boy. Tomie nodded. Owns the Griffins — right again. Two for two.

She shook her head quickly when Cass suggested that JR wasn’t treating her right, feeling guilt first, and then a self-defensive need to hit something or go for a run. No, JR didn’t treat her badly at all. If anything, there was a near-opposite problem where he couldn’t seem to stop doing nice stuff for her. She had an internal list of all the shit he’d bought for her or Hogsmeade things he’d paid for or fun, extravagant things he wanted to take her to in the summer. Thinking about it all made her feel twisty and heavy inside. Once again, she felt like rolling her eyes at her own brain.

He don’t like— “Nah—” Her head-shaking stopped at the last part. Her not liking him anymore? Tomie hadn’t said it so explicitly to anyone. She’d only really started thinking about it yesterday. She didn’t say anything now, but her expression was easy to read. “Oh,” Tomie said, not sure if Cass meant what she was saying literally or not. “Sorry.” She hadn’t ever really considered insomnia a real thing. Tomie covered a yawn with one hand, but she was far too wired to go to sleep right now. That was how it felt to the young teen, anyway. She glanced down at her feet again, aware that she was dawdling. Being here was preferable to being back there. 

She glanced at the door, then back at Cass. She’d already said I don’t know what I’m doing, and that summed it up pretty well, but… Cass didn’t seem disinterested, and Tomie was a talker.

“He’s like, my second best friend after Benny. Rivera.” The surname was tacked on — he was so much a part of her world that it still surprised her that everyone didn’t already love him as much as she did. “And I don’t want it to be all... messed up.” She gestured a spirally mess with her hands. “Like with our friends and stuff. But it’s nearly summer, and he keeps talking about all this stuff we could do and…” she pushed some hair back from her face. “I dunno.”

She was remembering right, it seemed. Her guesses, though, were a little more off the mark. Tomie's shake of the head was vigorous, almost violent. Okay, so, if the boy wasn't being a prick, nor was he pulling away... Cassandra nodded sympathetically when Tomie paused. Sorry, the little girl said. Cassandra shrugged. She could be asleep, soon, if she took a few hits of her joint and stumbled back to the Great Hall, but she didn't want to shove Tomie out of the bathroom for it.

Besides, she knew Tomie was a chatterbox. That she kept going on was hardly a surprise.

Cassandra had no clue who Benny Rivera was, but nodded like she knew. She had never been prefect, never really had to or wanted to memorize the names of all the little kids in their house. There really weren't so many of them -- perhaps, if she was made co-captain, she could make a better effort. Next year, though.

But it was a friend thing -- the skin between Cassandra's eyes furrowed slightly. Oh, she knew that pain well, though not the specific way Tomie was describing. But changing friendships irreversibly, because of something changing deep inside? Cassandra was familiar with that.

"Like, date stuff, yeah?" Cassandra asked, pushing up so she was seated on the edge of the basin. "S'what he wants to do?" Cass tapped a fingernail against the side of her face. "You could just say you aren't around, avoid him all summer. S'not very brave, that," she tacked on with a hint of judgement, "but it works. September comes round and you'll be back to friendship square one."

She let that sit in the air for a moment. "S'also like, you can't control how other people react, right? But being honest about what you want -- just friends, not kissing or whatever -- should let them know they can be honest wit' you, too. Worked for me and me ex-girlfriend, anyway. We're still friends."

“Yeah, date stuff I guess,” Tomie said. Was it still a “date” if your boyfriend had tickets to every quidditch game happening for the entire summer? JR wanted to take her to every behind-the-scenes event his family had access to. She didn’t even know what someone was supposed to wear to a “gala”, and doubted she’d be able to afford it even if she did.

“Nah,” Tomie said, agreeing with the older girl. Not very brave indeed. She hadn’t even thought about trying to let it die out on its own — was that even allowed? Weren’t they already “going out”, and didn’t that require a formal ending? “Nah I almost… I mean, we were kinda talking about summer this afternoon but got interrupted.” Tomie ran a hand through her hair again, feeling uncomfortable. She couldn’t stand having a feeling and then sitting on it for 24 hours. A part of her wanted to go wake him up so she could break up with him right now. She picked at a fingernail absentmindedly.

Tomie was glad her eyes were on her hands when Cass said that last part. Girlfriend. She felt the same cold, unnerving tension curl in her stomach that she always did when anything like that came up. She tried to keep the frown off of her face, but it made her uncomfortable, and it honestly didn’t really compute. Maybe the older girl was talking about before, when she thought she was a boy or whatever. When everyone thought she was a boy. Tomie didn’t really know how it all worked, but she felt the same irritation she felt when Kitty wouldn’t shut up about her gay mums, and wanted to move on.

“Well… I don’t wanna not be friends,” she said finally. JR had a pretty big ego, though; Tomie knew it intuitively even if she couldn’t put it to words. She kept picking her fingernail, feeling a lot of things at once, including the frustration that always came when she couldn’t sort her feelings out. Big feelings usually turned into anger, one way or another. “He’s nice, you know,” she said, protesting her own feelings. She glanced at Cass again. “He’s fun. He wont stop paying for stuff—” Tomie flicked away a bit of nail, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. She still couldn’t quite explain why that last point made her feel defensive instead of grateful. She should probably be grateful. “I dunno,” she finished lamely.

Date stuff. Cassandra had just managed to not cringe as she said it -- it was so juvenile. Tomie didn't seem to notice or mind. How did you talk to kids, anyway? Cassandra wasn't even technically a child herself anymore, not legally, not emotionally. She had come of age a year early because she started a year late. It was fine when she was with the upper years, but here, with six years stretching like an abyss between the two girls, Cassandra felt ancient.

Tomie wasn't a coward. Good. Cassandra found herself surprised by the number of Gryffindors who were cowards when it came to emotions. She was too, sometimes, but she could unpack that realization with her own peers. Or, like, never. Her fingers itched for a smoke.

There was a twitch in Tomie's cheek. Ah, shite. Cassandra pushed down the urge to add I'm not a gay, mind, just a transsexual, but that would be worse, wouldn't it? And Cassandra didn't want to remind anyone of who she used to be. Howard could stay dead, far as she was concerned. Should she mention a boyfriend? That would be a lie, though, since she hadn't properly dated anyone since transitioning. Hadn't felt able to, knowing everyone still saw her as someone else.

Tomie moved on; Cassandra breathed out and nodded along. The girl's fingernail was getting ragged -- Cass almost wanted to toss her some clippers. Nice. Fun. Glowing endorsements of the boy. He won't stop paying for stuff -- Cass let out a little noise of annoyance. "That's patronizing," she said, with perhaps more venom than she needed for a twelve-year-old boy. "Makes me feel obligated to them who's buying everything. Don't care for that."

She twisted a finger into her hair, hooking her index finger through a curl. "How soon you want t'be done with him?"

Her housemate’s reaction surprised her; Tomie wasn’t used to being so straightforward about this kind of stuff. Benny was about the only person who she felt like understood it, and they didn’t speak about it explicitly at all. She started again cautiously. “It’s like… I’m really thankful that he wants to pay for lunch, or that he buys me chocolates, or invites me to the Hawkins ball or whatever…” She looked at the other girl, made sure she knew that Tomie knew to be thankful. Her eyes slid to the door again briefly, then back; she might die if Hazel or Magnolia or Shelby or just about anyone walked in right about now.

"His dad paid for me to go to camp last summer," she admitted, feeling ashamed and uncomfortable. "This quidditch scholarship thing," she explained, resisting the urge to tack on more emphatic declarations of gratefulness. “I guess JR doesn’t really get it?” she said, frowning a puzzled frown. She probably shouldn’t be talking about this at all, but Cass was older. Wiser. Knew lots of stuff. Tomie was tired and stressed, and the words were begging to be spoken. “It’s like this pressure… I dunno, you get it,” she concluded, shrugging. Cass got it. Tomie yawned again, her eyes watering just a little. She blinked the wetness away, reached up to rub one eye with the back of her hand.

“Aw man,” she said, feeling guilty and a little sheepish now that Cass had put it out there so explicitly. She slumped against the wall, smiling a small, wry smile. “Soon, I think… I’m not good at waiting,” she said. “Kinda wanna go wake him up and get it over and done with,” she added, her words only partly a joke.

Thankful. Cassandra tried not to let too much a sneer smear across her face. That was the demeaning part -- when they wanted you to be thankful for frivolities, thankful for food, thankful for shelter, thankful to them (to him, a hateful voice added) and grovel for it. Because what they never said but was always true was this was a transaction, not a gift. Chocolates in exchange for attention. Dinner in exchange for coming to bed. She managed to keep her face from souring all the way and just kept nodding.

Tomie changed gears, and Cassandra's eyes went wide. That seemed excessive, even to her. For a second year? For a twelve year old? "That's a lot of pressure," Cassandra said, nodding, because she did get it. If things had been tight for her financially before, getting disowned hadn't helped matters. It was like a debt, when people bought stuff for her or offered to house her for the summer. She still wasn't sure how long this thing with the Wests would last, or how no-strings it truly was.

Tomie yawned; Cassandra stifled one of her own.

"Do not wake him up," Cassandra warned, on the off chance Tomie wasn't joking. "If you want to stay friends with him, you do not embarrass him by dumping him in public." Cass looked to Tomie, searching for an indication the younger girl understood. "Boys are fragile -- their egos, more so." She said that with confidence -- hadn't she the right to do so? Hadn't she put in her years as a boy?

Pressure. The pressure of dating JR, of dating anyone at all (probably). The pressure of him being way richer, his family way more important and connected than hers. The pressure of him liking her like that. Not that she didn’t like him or anything! She wouldn’t have said yes if she didn’t like him. But Tomie was still sort of hazy on the distinction between liking someone as a friend and liking them as something more, and she felt like it was much clearer for her boyfriend. The pressure was in the disparity.

Cass was right. “Yeah,” she agreed, the word coming out in a sleepy sigh. She nodded. She wasn’t going to actually go wake him up. Probably. The waiting made her squirm, though, and she felt both too-sleepy and too energised at once. Egos, said Cass and Tomie nodded again. “Yeah, he’s like that,” she agreed. Was it an all-boys thing or just a JR thing? Tomie didn’t mind; she liked being one of them. Better fragile egos than the drama and discomfort that came with trying to make friends with her girl housemates, she thought distantly. Tomie had friends that were girls, but she didn’t have the closeness some of the Gryffindor girls seemed to have with each other, and she felt weird about trying to.

Cass was cool, though. Cass and Donna and Mavis and — Tomie frowned. “I know it’s dumb, but… Don’t tell anyone, yeah?” She knew dating in second year was kinda silly, and not the same as dating in seventh, but she still didn’t want to hurt JR more than she already might. His older sister was an older Gryffindor; she’d die if rumours spread because she’d sleepily spilled her guts to an upperclassman late at night.

Tomie was drifting, it seemed to Cass, half in and half out of the waking world. She pushed back to her feet, just leaning against the porcelain, in case the younger girl suddenly decided to topple over. Too sleepy to go and wake up her boy, at least. Cass nodded in approval. "Course he is," she said with a knowing tone. She didn't miss that, from her old dorm -- trying to straddle the line between too much and too little teasing, or roughhousing, or emotional vulnerability. She was still pretty well closed off, Cass thought, but when cracks appeared in the facade there was less fear in the eyes of other girls. Disgust, maybe, or discomfort, but not fear the way boys feared showing any emotion.

She hoped, for Tomie's sake, that egos at twelve or thirteen were less developed and less fragile than they were at fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.

Don't tell anyone, yeah? Tomie asked. "Not dumb," Cass replied, miming zipping her lips shut. "Not a soul, dead or alive," she promised, because one really shouldn't forget about the ghosts and their keening need for gossip. She considered putting her finger out for a pinkie swear, but that seemed definitely uncool to do for an underclassman. A fistbump, maybe? "You let me know if you need anything, yeah?" There was something about Tomie that reminded Cass of herself -- she just wasn't sure what.

Me too, though, she wanted to say, but Tomie’s ego was not the current topic of conversation right now. And Cass wasn’t wrong, either. Tomie didn’t want to hurt JR’s feelings, and she knew how much it hurt to have one’s ego crushed. Ego, feelings… All the same thing, maybe? Tomie still felt wired, but her thoughts were even less cohesive than earlier.

The older Gryffindor swore secrecy with a little more drama than was probably necessary, but Tomie enjoyed it. It made it seem more sincere too, somehow. It would really kill her if JR found out before she could talk to him. “Thanks, Cass,” Tomie replied, the end of the other girl’s name disappearing into yet another yawn. She covered it with a clumsy hand, again. "...And thanks for listening," she added. She didn't add caveats about how she knew it must all seem so silly to someone who was basically a grown-up. Tomie figured that was something they could both just know and not acknowledge out loud.

After a beat, she took a couple of steps towards the door, her slippers shuffling against the cold floor. “Well… Maybe if I catch you tomorrow, or on the train, I’ll let you know how it goes,” she told her older friend sleepily.

Cass shrugged. "What are older'n'wiser friends for, hey?" It made her feel old, but she was literally older than some of the seventh years, so, whatever. She could dispense advice. It was her magically given right. She hoped Tomie felt a little better -- it seemed like the Asian girl did.

Tomie was walking out -- Cass reached for her makeup bag, fingers already hooking into the clasp when Tomie spoke up. "Hm?" she said, looking back up. Tomie looked so small. Cass knew she was small, she had been a twelve year old seeker, but with her slippers shuffling across the stone in the empty bathroom, pyjamas hanging off her shoulders, she just seemed exceptionally tiny.

Tomie kind of asked another question -- could she come tell her how it went? She hadn't phrased it as a question, but Cass heard the query in her tone. Cass nodded, smiling a bit at her housemate. "Yeah, you should. Keep me posted on all the hearts you're breaking, yeah?" She raised her eyebrow, curled her lip into a joking smirk. "I'm sure it'll be fine."

It wasn't quite right to dismiss Tomie, so Cass waited for Tomie to quit lingering. She went, eventually. And it wasn't like Tomie had been annoying or anything, but -- there was a joint in her bag.

Cass lit the end of the joint with the tip of her wand and inhaled, blowing smoke into the space Tomie had just been.

/out

Older and wiser. Tomie smiled a bit, wondering why it couldn’t be this easy with the girls in her year. She and Shelby were still kinda weird, even after things had been a bit more connecty over the April break. She still felt like a freak around Trudy — and Wendy, too, even though she didn’t catch herself paying way too much attention to her like she used to. Well, not as often, anyway. Tomie felt a squirm in her tummy and intentionally shifted her thoughts back to JR instead. Some worries ran deeper than others.

“Okay,” Tomie said, her lips shifting to an easy half-smile. Breaking hearts wasn’t funny in real life, but it was fun like this. Maybe after she broke up with her boyfriend she’d be able to wave it off like no big deal? Just a silly anecdote? She felt a little jealous for her future self who’d already done it, and didn’t have to wait.

“Seeya,” she said, shuffling out of the bathroom in her oversized PJs and fluffy slippers. Tomie’s mind spun up creepy, spooky things as she made her way back in the dark alone, but she was only the fun-kind of anxious until she was actually in the hall. She crept back to her sleeping bag, her smile well and truly faded now, and crouched down to get back inside it. She would try to sleep again, but subconsciously she’d already started counting down the minutes until daylight.

Tomie thought about JR, and about their friends, and about girls and how much she kind of hated them as a whole entire group. She thought about her parents, and boyfriends, and the way Cass had mentioned an ex-girlfriend, and how that had made her feel. She thought about a lot of things hovering at the edge of consciousness, and most of them were stressful.

In the end, she didn’t sleep much at all.

— end