Love? Never! Rewrite

Chapter 1

Cassidy cringed when she heard this. “Everyone falls in love.” What a big crock of nonsense!” She thought. Cassidy loved Shakespeare and his works, but always dreaded the time that they discussed Romeo & Juliet in class.

At the beginning of AP English, Mrs. Tart had a joyous expression on her face. Cassidy, quite a clever girl, already knew what they were going to discuss. She sighed, embarrassed that almost all women were hopeless romantics and that almost all women loved to talk about love. Almost all women want one thing: love, marriage, and kids. But not Cassidy, Cassidy loved not being in love. Cassidy loved the fact that she didn’t want the house in the suburbs with the kids. Cassidy loved the fact that she never obsessed over things like boys. Without a husband and kids, Cassidy knew she could be perfectly happy. And it wasn’t that she was cynical, she just saw what her parents had or rather what they didn’t have, and it’s hard for her to believe in true love after growing up in a household like that.

She absentmindedly twirled a piece of her lengthy, flaxen hair around her pointer finger. She always did it, but was oblivious to the fact of why the male population of her school liked it or even that they liked it. Her hair wasn’t bleach blonde, or dirty blonde with streaks. It was a striking, natural blonde, and it was glossy and straight. Cassidy’s hair wasn’t her only defining attribute. Cassidy had a beautiful face. She wore no make up except lip-gloss, and she didn’t try to cover up her light freckles. She had a tall, well-rounded body and she did not show it off or cover it up. If she were to analyze her fashion sense though, she was definitely more conservative in her clothes than not. Today she was wearing some Abercrombie jeans and a sweatshirt. However, the unique visual aspect of her wasn’t her hair or her body or even her fashion sense.

She had the bluest eyes. Not soft or gentle, like most blue eyes, but cool and intelligent, analyzing azure eyes. If you were to meet her for the first time, she would come off as mean, because of her hard stare. Cassidy wasn’t mean, though. She just wasn’t nice to people that didn’t deserve to have her be nice to them. And that doesn’t mean geeks or people that weren’t popular, but people with no morals or ethics to speak of. People like the one that was sneering at her right now, People like Corbin Caesar. Don’t let the name fool you; Corbin Caesar wasn’t anything like the great Caesars of our time or rather before our time. Corbin was scum, a big piece of scum. Maybe not a revolting piece of scum as her mind seemed to notice from time to time, but still a piece of scum.

She observed him. He had uneven dark hair, and the softest brown shade of eyes she had ever seen and his body was lean and muscular. The thing that struck her most though was his sharp, attractive nose. Most people couldn’t pull off a sharp and attractive nose but he did so with flying colors. She of course could never tell him these complimentary things. A strong belief of Cassidy’s was not to ever over inflate an already inflated ego. So what, she was warm for the guy’s form… that didn’t mean that she had to tell him that, and it didn’t mean she was going to fall in love with him even though you know every one falls in love…Cassidy smiled humorously at the thought.

Corbin caught Cassidy in the act of observing him and gave her one of his slow smiles. A smile that just screamed out, “I know I’m fine, and it looks like you know it too.”

Cassidy made an obscene gesture and rolled her eyes at him. Ms. Tart caught sight of it.

“Cassidy Abbot, I am appalled at your behavior!” She gasped and admonished Cassidy for her behavior. After a few minutes of silent punishment for Cassidy, she continued on “Now as I was saying everyone falls in love.”

Cassidy made an incredulous noise before she could stop herself. She immediately reddened as the class looked at her inquiringly.

“Ms. Abbot, is there something you would like to discuss with the class about people falling in love?” Ms. Tart inquired.

The sensible part of brain was telling her to shake her head and dissuade the teacher, but it was like she was vomiting out the words before she could stop them, “There would be no discussion, Ms. Tart. It’s easy to see that not everyone falls in love, and you’d have to be quite naïve to assume so.” Cassidy sassed back. After Cassidy’s comment the whole class went quiet. There were muffled whispers and awkward glances at Cassidy. Corbin just looked at her inquisitively. Great now I look like a cold-hearted person, that wasn’t my intent. That’s going to help me acquire more friends! Not!

“Why are you so skeptical, Ms. Abbot?” Ms. Tart asked Cassidy.

“I’m not skeptical, I just don’t agree with your statement. Sorry for interrupting.” Cassidy said quickly trying to make up for interrupting the teacher, even if she thought her lecture was ridiculous.

The damage was already done, and crazy Ms. Tart was already off her rocker with a plan. “You obviously know nothing of love, Ms. Abbot, and as a teacher I feel compelled to teach you about love. Obviously a normal lesson plan won’t work. No we need someone to break into your shell, Ms. Abbot…” She rubbed her chin, thinking. “Someone who annoys you and frustrates you, yet you’re attracted to them…”

Just then Corbin raised his hand with a yet again egotistical “all-knowing” smirk. “I bet I could make her fall in love Ms. Tart.”

Cassidy’s face went red from embarrassment and anger, her blood was literally boiling. She was so angry. She did not want to be treated like a science experiment. She would win this little…whatever it is! “Okay Corbin, whatever you say.” Cassidy said to embarrass Corbin a little.

Ms. Tart just smiled. Corbin was just the one to crack into Cassidy’s skepticism about love. They had chemistry indeed. “Cassidy if you’re so sure that he can’t make you fall in love, then prove it. I want notes on your feelings and reactions on how he tries to romance you and you” She pointed at Corbin. “I want you to give me a schedule on how you plan to make her fall in love.

“Are you serious?” Cassidy asked incredulously. Did her teacher just assign her a project where she had to fall in love…with Corbin Caesar. Could Ms. Tart be any weirder? Could life be any crueler to her? Her home life was bad enough but now her whole life was going to be occupied with Corbin Caesar. She ignored the voice in her head that reminded her that at one time he had been a big part of her life.

“Quite.” Ms. Tart said and then she continued with class like she hadn’t ruined Cassidy’s life. Cassidy’s nails drew blood from her hands as she clenched her hands painfully. Cassidy didn’t know if she was going to cry or to scream or to punch someone, but she was definitely in the mood to do one or all of those things.

By the end of class, Cassidy had calmed down a small amount, but not quite enough to not sound angry when she confronted Ms. Abbot at the end of class.

“I want to know” Cassidy said, “what I did to deserve this kind of punishment.” When Ms. Tart gave her a look that expressed her unhappiness with Cassidy’s question, Cassidy backed down a little bit and said, “I am really sorry for interrupting you. Could you please take back this assignment?”

“No, I won’t. Maybe one day in the future you will realize the necessity of this assignment.” She gave Cassidy a soft smirk. “It really is for your own good.”

Cassidy stormed out of the room and huffed through the rest of her classes. When she was at her locker putting her items into a bag to take home, a friendly face caught her attention, and made her feel a little better. It was her tall, lanky best bud, Bob.

Her face lit up and she smiled. “Bob! I’m so glad you’ve come to talk to me. I’ve had the worse day in my whole life!!!”

His face twisted in confusion until finally realization dawned upon him. “Ahh. Ms. Tart, I heard about that. Doesn’t it have something to do with Corbin too?”

She looked up at him and said softly, “yeah, it does.” She was a little angry that she had to spend so much time with Corbin because he was a very maddening person, but mostly she put on the angry persona during class to shield people, especially Corbin, from knowing the real truth, the truth that it really just hurt to be around him since what had happened between them.

Bob was the only person besides Corbin and Cassidy who knew the whole story between them. And that made it all the more clearer to him as to why Cassidy was so extremely shaken by such an absurd assignment. “I’m sorry Cass.” He said softly and solemnly.

“I’m just glad that you’ll be around during this whole thing.” She said and softly smiled.

“Yeah” he said then smiled. “Hey I have an idea of a comforting thing we could do. It’s your favorite thing to do in the whole wide world!”

“Oh yeah?” she said, “What might that be?”

“Eating, of course. I’m hungry.” Bob playfully rubbed his tummy.

“Hey! That’s mean!” She said then shrugged, “McDonalds or Burger King?”

Bob rolled his eyes up, as if making a life and death decision. “McDonalds.” He finally said.

“Good choice, let’s roll.” She said and then burst out laughing.

A couple of minutes later, they were both seated at McDonalds. After both of them shoveled down their food, Bob only had one question for Cassidy.

“So Cass, you got a plan yet for crushing Corbin?” He asked evilly.

“Not one quite mean enough yet.” She said.