Chapter 9: Avoidance

I spent all evening and most of the night sitting in the tree by Cassie's house. I was not going to let anything happen to her, and not just because Nick told me to watch her but because I had started to fall for her. 


When Cassie and Leah left for school, I decided that I better do the same, so I followed the car from the distance of the sky. After everything that I had learnt, I was very reluctant to let Cassie out of my sight.

When Cassie and Leah got out of the car and walked towards the school entrance, I decided to change back to my human from. I started heading toward my first class, knowing that I would see Cassie there. Before I had even reached the classroom, Cassie walked up to me and pulled me to the side of the hallway. She looked a bit indecisive, like she was trying to find the right words. A moment later she started talking.

"I am not avoiding you, but I don't think we should hang out in school any more"


I looked at her a bit confused, not really sure what she was actually telling me. Before I had a chance to talk, she continued. 


"Don't worry about meeting me after school tomorrow, Leah will give me a ride to your house instead."


She walked away, leaving me in the hallway with a lot of unanswered questions. I went over everything she just told me in my head. It seemed so out of the blue, but then it hits me. She probably does not feel the same way about me as I do about her and spending time together yesterday, watching a film, may have made her uncomfortable. Maybe this was her way of telling me that she was not interested in anything more but a platonic relationship, where I would just help her with her abilities. 


It hurt a bit knowing that she did not want anything else to do with me, but if she needed me to stay strictly professional, I could do that. I would keep my distance and give her space if that were what she needed. Maybe she will come around, however my main priority was to keep her safe, everything else were a bonus.

Throughout the day, I kept my eye on Cassie. It was hard. In most of the lessons she was on the opposite side of the room, and she was almost completely ignoring me, minus a few looks here and there. At least she seemed to have a good time with her other friends.

When school finally finished, I debated whether I should try to talk to Cassie about what she said this morning, however she was out the door before I even had a chance to catch up her. When I walked out from school, I looked around to try to find an empty area where I could transform to a bird. 


After I had transformed, I flew over to Cassie's house. I know she does not want to see me, but I still had a mission to follow. I made myself comfortable in the tree in Cassie's garden and spent the rest of the time watching over her.

The next day at school were very similar to the day before. Cassie did not completely ignore me, but she was not seeking me out either. It had been two days of her not talking to me and I started to question what I was even doing, going to school.

I had been lucky in avoiding Mark for the last two days, however as I was walking to the last class of the day, my luck seemed to have run out as Marks slammed me into the lockers.

"Stay away from Cassie, she does not want to see you"


When Mark got his hands of me, I took a moment to collect myself. I sent out my energy to see if I could sense anything different, but I was surprise that I could not sense that Mark was a shapeshifter, especially after knowing that he actually was one. There was definitely something strange going on.


I watched Mark walk away down the corridor like nothing had happened. When he was a safe distance away, I started to consider what he told me. Had he been telling me the truth? Had Cassie told him that she does not want to see me? Was that how she really felt?


I could feel my anger coming on and I struggled to get myself under control and calm down. It was probably due to my lack of sleep. I spent the last two night, since I came back from Nick's, at Cassie's house as a bird and only slept a minimum amount of time as I was too worried about everything that was going on and how it may be related to Cassie. 


It was not like I needed sleep to survive, but not sleeping made it harder to control certain impulse feelings that came with the joy of being a demon. I needed to come up with a better system, before I would out myself as a supernatural being. Besides, I did not even know if I would be able to teleport into Cassie's house, due to the enchantment on the house, to protect her if something were to happen. 


When school ended, Cassie walked out the door before me just as the day before. I had no chance of catching her, at least not without using any of my abilities. I did not even know if Cassie was still planning on coming over to my house today to practice her abilities. She said she would, but I had not spoken to her since yesterday morning.

Just in case, I teleported myself home and waited to see if she turned up. Part of me was still wondering what was going on. I wanted to ask her, but the other part of me feared what the answers may be.

Leah's car pulled onto my driveway, so I made my way towards the car. Cassie made it clear yesterday morning that she was only here to practice her abilities, so I promised myself that I would stay professional and adhere to her wishes. When Cassie got out of the car, I did not even bother to give her a hug. We walked into the house, and I mentally made myself turn my feeling I have for Cassie off, at least for now. I proceeded to tell Cassie about the different exercises that I thought we should try.

It was irritating me that I did not know how to help her, I wanted her to succeed in managing her mind reading, but she did not seem to get anywhere with them. After a few hours trying to make Cassie turn her ability off, I was debating whether to take a break and get her to try reading my mind again, as I could see that she was getting very frustrated. 


Unfortunately, the more I thought about it, the more I realised what a bad idea it would be. I had too many thoughts going around in my mind and I doubted that I would be able to stay focused enough to think about just one thing long enough for Cassie to be able to pick up what I was thinking about. Instead, I told Cassie that it was time to call it a day and continue with the practising another time. 


Cassie gave Leah a text and gave herself one more attempt in controlling her ability. After that there was a lot of silence and awkwardness before Leah turned up to collect Cassie. I walked Cassie out to the car, there was a moment where she looked up at me a bit confused, like she was considering to tell me something, but a second later, she seemed to have changed her mind. When she got into the car, she tells me that she will see me in school tomorrow.

I watched them drive away. I felt very disappointed with the day. At the beginning of the week I was really looking forward to seeing Cassie alone, thinking we would be talking and just hang out, but after today I was fairly sure that she did not see me in any romantic way at all, however part of me still wanted to be her friend and not just her mentor. Maybe I did need to talk to her.