The Nettle Tea Chronicles

Cassandra

Cassandra had, without question, one of the best holidays of her life. There were few days in life where one could truly just tune out basically the entire world and do literally nothing all day without a single care in the world.

For her, Christmas day was exactly that. She had no family obligations, as her immediate family didn't really want anything to do with her. She didn't get so much as a text from any of them, and that suited her just fine. She didn't particularly want to talk to them either.

And unlike most weekends, when she felt like she should at least get up and get errands and other adult tasks done, virtually the entire country shut down for Christmas, so she could waste away at home without guilt. Waste away and drown in the two buckets of day-old and cold fast-food fried chicken that she had bought the day before in preparation.

She flip-flopped between video games and TV at the whims of her mood, actively chose to dress in the most beat up pajamas she could find, and did not pick up after herself. Which didn't matter much in the end, when she typically kept her place spotless, so the addition of her discarded clothes from the night before to the floor of her room didn't exactly make the place look dirty.

Admittedly, the paper plates she used to keep the chicken grease off her bed and the empty soda cans made it look a little less clean. But that was the goal for the day.

The sun came up and went down quickly in the end. But despite how fast it all went, Cassandra was more than pleased with it. While she definitely enjoyed her day of zero responsibilities, she wasn't sure she'd like it to go on much more than a day. She'd get too bored. But just the one was perfect.

On yet another whim, Cassandra decided to take a silly picture of herself and send it to the group chat. It took her more time than she would admit to get the camera angle and chair set up perfect before she snapped the image and sent it off to everyone. She continued to laze around after that to watch TV and respond to the group messages. She got a kick out of seeing everyone's family photos - but one from Zoe had been suspiciously absent among all the chatter.

Continuing to follow her more serendipitous self, she walked into the kitchen to grab the second bucket of fried chicken she had gotten on the off chance that Zoe would actually follow up on her throwaway mention of coming to visit after her family's dinner. She snapped a picture of herself holding one bucket in her hand and the other in between her teeth.

{Cass} : Hey, I know you were probably joking about stopping by tonight, but I still got two buckets of chicken just in case.

{Cass} : [Attached Image]

Cass read over the message a few times, altering it a bit here and there before finally sending it off. She didn't want to pressure Zoe into dropping by. While the message had started as "Hey, I've got something for you if you're coming by," it had slowly morphed more into a message with a built-in easy out for Zoe.

After the message was sent, Cass went back to her room and collapsed on her bed. She really didn't have the backbone she thought she did. She wanted so badly to ask Zoe out for real, but when push came to shove, she just kept folding. She kept telling herself she just didn't want to risk losing Zoe's friendship; and then kept telling herself that was such a cliche and that she should just say something.

Yes, communication was the most important part of a relationship.

But also, communication in this case could jeopardize the relationship.

She kept checking her phone for a reply before eventually getting frustrated that Zoe hadn't sent anything back. She tossed the phone aside, deciding that she needed a break from staring at it, and went to take a shower.

The hot water cleared her head, at least a little. She had bought a waterproof speaker for her shower so she could relax and listen to music while showering, and that helped. She happily sang along to whatever came up on shuffle, bouncing between genres at the drop of a hat.

Almost a half hour later, she felt refreshed and clean as she stepped out of the water. She took her time drying off, and put her hair up into a bun, still sopping wet. It was too close to bed time to let it dry anyway, so she'd need to take a shower in the morning to brush it out anyway.

She changed her underwear, but left on the old beat up PJs. She hadn't dropped any food or anything on them, so they were still pretty clean. And the old, beat-up vibe was exactly what she wanted for the day.

As she walked out of the bathroom, she allowed herself to check her phone again. She saw a few messages from Zoe in the group chat, including an image of her family gathered in a big room, spread out across various seats, most of them smiling at the camera. Her younger brother wasn't paying attention though, looking at his phone instead.

While she was looking at the image and comparing Zoe and her siblings' visuals, she noticed that she had a notification for a new DM from Zoe.

{Zoe} : Half an hour.

{Zoe} : I'll be there.

Cass stared dumbly at her screen with the messages. She really hadn't expected Zoe to visit. She thought she probably wouldn't see Zoe again until after New Years', given they both opted out of the holiday pay at work for the extended vacation around the holidays. Honestly, Cass simply hadn't wanted to fight over the hours, as with the addition of the holiday pay made a lot of the workers around her age froth at the mouth for the extra pay.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Maybe, at best, Cass thought she might be able to see Zoey on New Years' Eve if she had gathered enough courage to ask if she was free. But even that was something of a pipe dream.

Cass shook her head to refocus. She had exchanged addresses with Zoe a while ago, just in case it had ever mattered. Every potential safety net in a big city was worth it, and Zoe and Cass trusted each other well enough that, honestly, Cass would consider putting Zoe down as an emergency contact. It's not like she had a lot of options, anyway.

But Zoe had still never visited. In a sudden rush, Cass moved to clean up what little trash had accumulated over the day. Given her general cleanliness, it really wasn't much of an issue. She quickly grabbed the used paper plates and soda cans from around her room, and ran to the kitchen to toss them in the trash. While walking back to her room, she took another glance at the messages, still half in disbelief.

Zoe was headed to see her.

And then Cass noticed that the messages, which indicated she'd arrive in half an hour, had been sent 36 minutes ago. Probably just after she had stepped into the shower. Cass cursed her awful timing when her phone rang with a voice chat call from the chat app. It was Zoe.

Cass hit the answer button on reflex without thinking.

"Oh, good, you are home," Zoe said, sounding some combination of nervousness and relief. "I'm outside. I know your address, but not which door you are."

"Oh, uh. If you go to what looks like the main door of the building, up the stoop. The green one. That's mine." Cass said lamely.

"I see it. I'll be there in a sec." Zoe said, and hung up.

Cass, somewhat at a loss of what to do after being caught off guard, scrambled into her kitchen to grab the second, still full bucket of fried chicken from her fridge. She brought it with her to go answer the door.

And as soon as Zoe knocked on it, Cass swung it open. Zoe stared at her in shock for a moment, then giggled. "Hi."

"Hi." Cass said, imagining how absolutely deranged she must look at that moment; hair squirreled away in a towel, wearing beat up old pajamas, still somewhat damp, holding a bucket of fried chicken. She was surely the perfect picture of attractive.

And in contrast, Zoe had come straight from a family gathering that had led her to wear nice clothes. She had her new peacoat on over a lovely black sweater with a deep blue midi skirt and black stockings with boots. She was even wearing a silver chain that stood out nicely against the sweater. Her hair was a little wild and mussed, though, as if she had ridden with the window open.

Cass thought she looked gorgeous.

"Come in?"

"Yeah, thanks." Zoe said, still giggling. Cass moved further in so Zoe could get out of the cold, and closed the door.

"Sorry for…this." Cass said awkwardly, motioning to her current getup. "I took a shower shortly after I sent you the message, and I missed your reply until I got out. But I have your chicken!" She added helpfully.

Zoe snickered. "It's fine - so long as you're okay with me being here. I can always -"

"No, please. Stay."

Zoe smiled in response to Cass' request. "Okay, I will."

The quick agreement took Cass a little off-guard. She had expected that Zoe might hem and haw over it, or need some convincing that she wasn't bothering Cass. The sudden change was nice, though.

"So, what made you come by? I honestly thought you'd be at your family's house all night. Are you alright?" Cass asked, her mind immediately jumping to something bad happening that cut the day short or the like. Though she wasn't sure if Zoe would come to her for comfort if something did. Were they that close? Cass really wasn't sure.

"I'm fine. Yes, we did eat dinner. It was earlier, so I only skipped out on dessert." Zoe eyed the bucket of chicken that Cass was still holding. "If anything, I wouldn't mind sharing some of the fried chicken. I'm kinda hungry."

"Your wish is my command." Cass said, and swung out an arm to direct Zoe toward her kitchen table. Cass was glad that she had the few seconds that she did to clean up the trash at least, which left her kitchen and table clean and ready to be used.

Cass put the bucket of chicken in the middle of her little table and went to pull paper plates from the package on the top of her fridge while Zoe sat down. She quickly tossed the pair of plates onto the table before asking, "Anything to drink?"

"What are my options?" Zoe asked, separating the two plates, then picking through the chicken in the bucket.

"Cola, sparkling water, water, iced coffee, juice -"

"Damn, you keep a stocked fridge." Zoe laughed.

"Not usually. But I did go a little overboard shopping for today. I wanted to be able to cover any craving I had."

"That's logical. I think I'll just take a cola though."

"'Kay." Cass said, pulling two cans from the open box in the fridge before finally joining Zoe at the table. She slid one of the cans across the table to Zoe, who passed the bucket and second plate to Cass, having already selected a leg and thigh for herself.

"As it turns out, my family is a bunch of assholes." Zoe started. Cass nearly snorted into her soda can, which started Zoe off laughing. "To be fair, I knew that. Whenever I go home - especially since my older sister got engaged - they've constantly been on top of me about finding a girlfriend. It's exhausting." Zoe harrumphed and ripped a big bite of chicken from the leg in her hand.

Cass was momentarily stunned. She wasn't sure that Zoe had said so entirely on purpose, but either way, she had confirmed what Cass had suspected for a while in such an off-handed way. She decided to quietly reach for her own chicken leg to let Zoe continue to vent.

"And my brother. Oh, that little shit. He saw us in the city on Sunday, and brought it up during dinner with the express purpose of trying to get my mother riled up." Zoe continued, half rambling, while ripping apart her chicken angrily. "And, boy, did it work too. When he mentioned that he saw us arm-in-arm in the park, my mother immediately jumped to me hiding a girlfriend from my family!"

"Oh. I'm sorry." Cass said, suddenly feeling guilty. She was the one that had pushed Zoe into walking like that.

"Don't be." Zoe waved her off dismissively. "There's no reason to feel bad about it. And like I said, my brother was just actively trying to be a dick."

"Well, I'm sorry for that too. Does he do that often?"

Zoe tilted her head in thought. Cass found the little motion to be utterly adorable. "More or less. He loves stirring up drama at family events. Any time he finds some kind of ammo on any of us, he always hoards it until the next family gathering to let it fly."

"That's obnoxious."

"Yeah, like I said, he's an asshole. He's still family, I suppose, but I'll be damned if he doesn't piss me off sometimes."

"What about your sister? Is she also a drama seeker?"

"Amy? Not really." Zoe said, appearing to calm a little. "She…Well, I think she likes watching the drama unfold, but she's much quieter about it. Doesn't actively cause a mess the way River does."

Cass watched Zoe carefully, royally confused by her sudden shifts in mood. She couldn't tell if this was normal for Zoe after being riled up by her family or if something was wrong. Or something else entirely. But she couldn't recall ever seeing Zoe swing between moods so quickly.

Zoe looked prepared to stew in whatever emotions she was lost in for the moment, so Cass let her be. Silent support was easy to offer, especially when Zoe had driven all the way to her apartment. Cass was content to simply Zoe company for now while she was processing…something. Whatever it was, Cass really couldn't tell.

Instead, she picked at her chicken thigh and sipped her soda waiting for Zoe to have her moment.