Chapter 147: The Right Tone

Cassian's POV

I made one mistake over the winter break. I assumed Daphne would still be waiting for me. I only did it because I was angry and frustrated. I wanted to keep digging into Oliver's accident, even after promising her I'd let it go.

I figured she'd cool off in a few days. That's how it always worked. She would get mad, she would refuse to talk to me for a weekend, and then we would sit down and talk it out. I was completely convinced, but I was wrong; I spent the whole holiday waiting for her to call me back.

So when Milo and the guys said they were heading to the diner after school, I tagged along. I wanted to see her. I expected her to look pale. expected her to glance over at my booth, trying to catch my eye the way she always did whenever we had a stupid fight.

Instead, she wasn't even looking in my direction.

Daphne was sitting right across from Reed. They were sharing a large pepperoni pizza with a few of her friends, the steam rising between them in the crowded room. She was wearing a thick blue sweater, her hair tied up in a loose bun, and she looked completely beautiful.

She was locked onto him. Every time Reed spoke, her face lit up. He wasn't aggressively flirting with her or putting on a loud show for the crowd to make me mad. He wasn't trying to impress her.

Reed has always been easy to be around. He leaned forward, his chin resting on his hand, his eyes completely focused on her face while she rambled on about some romance novel she had finished over the holidays.

"And then the main character realises the letter was never actually sent," Daphne said, her hands moving fast as she talked. "It's so frustrating because if they just had one normal conversation, the whole misunderstanding would be over!"

"So the whole plot is just two people refusing to use their words?" Reed asked. He let out a soft, easy laugh, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

"Don't mock it!" Daphne laughed, hitting his shoulder lightly with her napkin. "It's classic drama, Reed."

"I'm not mocking it," he said, his voice quiet and calm. "But why do you always read these tragic romances anyway? Why do you like the ones where everything goes wrong?"

Daphne slowed down, her fingers tracing the edge of her water glass. "Because I like stories where people actually choose each other. I like it when they drop their pride and fight for each other instead of just walking away when things get hard."

Reed smiled, his eyes warm as he looked right at her.

"Fair enough. But you still threw a napkin at me, so I think you just like the violence."

"It's not violence, it's emphasis," she shot back, throwing another crumpled napkin straight at his chest.

Their friends at the table burst out laughing. Landon leaned over to steal a piece of garlic bread from Milo's plate, and the girls started arguing about which character in the book was the worst.

The whole table felt alive, full of loud, easy energy.

Reed didn't even look at the rest of the room. He just quietly slid the very last slice of pizza onto Daphne's plate instead of taking it himself, making sure she got it.

I watched his hand rest on the table right next to hers. He wasn't grabbing her or trying to claim her in front of the diner. He was just there. Whenever Daphne was with me, her shoulders were always tense. She was always worrying about my mood, worrying about my brother, or walking on eggshells around my anger.

My chest tightened as a memory hit me. Last year, she had begged me for three weeks to read one of her favourite books. She had left it on my desk, the cover worn at the edges. I had shoved it into my drawer and told her I had better things to do than waste my time on fake stories.

I had too much real drama to worry about. Now, Reed was sitting there doing exactly what I never did. He was actually listening to her.

"Hey, Cassian, you want the last fry?" Milo asked, waving a piece of potato in front of my face.

"No," I muttered, my throat dry.

Milo dropped the fry back onto the plate and leaned his elbows on the table, watching me closely. "You've been staring over there for ten minutes, man. I heard you guys broke up over the break."

"We didn't break up," I said, my voice dropping into a hard line. "We're just taking a break."

"Right," Milo said, not sounding like he believed me at all. "Well, you need to leave it alone. Reed wouldn't do anything to hurt you anyway. They're just friends hanging out."

"I don't care what they are," I snapped, looking away.

"Sure you don't," Milo muttered, shaking his head.

"You're just sitting here looking like you want to punch a hole through the window. I know it is because of that Truth or Dare game. You're still thinking about how Daphne kissed Reed, aren't you?"

"I said drop it, Milo."

"Fine, fine," Milo said, raising his hands. "But seriously, look at them. You're going to get us kicked out of here if you keep glaring like that."

I didn't answer him, but I couldn't stop looking either.

Daphne reached for her glass of orange juice, still laughing at something Reed said, but her fingers slipped. A small splash of the bright orange liquid spilt right onto the sleeve of her sweater.

"Oh, damn it," she muttered, her face falling as she looked at the wet spot. "This is brand new. I just bought it."

She grabbed a paper napkin from the dispenser and started rubbing at the sleeve frantically, her face turning red with embarrassment.

"Wait, stop, don't rub it," Reed said, gently reaching out and catching her wrist, but Daphne stopped immediately, looking up at him. "You're just going to push the colour deeper into the fabric."

"It's going to ruin it," she said, her voice sounding small and stressed.

"It's just juice, Daphne. It's not a permanent marker," Reed said with a soft laugh. He took the napkin from her hand and pulled a clean one from the holder. He leaned across the table, his movements slow and easy. "Don't panic. If you ruin the sweater, we can tell everyone you got into a brutal fight with a citrus fruit. You should see the other guy. He's totally smashed."

Daphne blinked, a tiny smile breaking through her panic. "That is a terrible joke."

"It's a great joke," Reed corrected, his voice low and calm as he gently dabbed the paper against the wool, soaking up the liquid with careful strokes. "See? It's already coming out. Just a little bit left."

Their eyes met in the space between them. Reed didn't look away, and Daphne didn't either. Her breath hitched slightly, her cheeks flushing. I waited for Reed to tease her. I waited for him to make a sarcastic comment or pull his hand back to act cool in front of the guys.

But he didn't. He didn't drop a try-hard line to look smooth. He just looked at Daphne the way someone looked at a person they actually enjoyed being around. He looked at her like she was the only important thing in the room.

Daphne let out a genuine, beautiful laugh that completely filled the space between them. She looked right into his eyes, and for a second, the rest of the diner didn't even seem to exist to her.

A cold, heavy knot formed right in the centre of my stomach.

The realisation hit me like a physical punch. This wasn't a rebound. She wasn't trying to make me jealous at all. For the first time, it hit me that Daphne wasn't waiting for me anymore. She had found someone who wasn't carrying a mountain of dark secrets. Someone who didn't make her feel responsible for fixing him.

Daphne stood up from the booth, wiping her sleeve one last time with a clean paper towel. "I'm going to go wash this out in the bathroom before it sets," she told her friends.

"Want me to come?" a girl asked, shifting in her seat.

"No, I'm fine," Daphne smiled, turning toward the back hallway.

Daphne disappeared around the corner.

Reed watched her leave, then turned back to the conversation when one of the girls asked him something. He didn't rush after her. He trusted she'd come back.

I envied that.