Hindsight and Other Things That Burn (Mac's thoughts on Cassidy after he jumps)

For the purpose of this story, Keith really did die the night Cassidy blew up the plane.

"Hey Mac," she heard, and she smiled as she closed her locker, already knowing who she'd see.

"Cassidy," she grinned. He was the boy who had her heart. The one who could make her laugh so hard she cried. The one who understood that she wasn't a vegetarian because she didn't want to hurt the cute little animals, but because she just didn't like the taste. The one boy who proved to her that they weren't all the same. And she loved him because he was gentle.

He was sweet, gentle, unlike Dick and Logan and all the other 09ers, who were all cars and sports and killing butterflies.

Cassidy wouldn't hurt a fly, she can remember thinking.

And it's funny how she still thinks that, two weeks later, after he's jumped from a rooftop while she huddled in a shower curtain, confused and none the wiser. After it's revealed that he was the one who raped her best friend and blew up her father. After they tell her he was the one who blew up the bus.

After she is left alone with nothing of a boy she once loved but a Land Trust named for a bird that rises from ashes like they never could, and happy memories that make her stomach churn.

At night she imagines a bus going up in flames, and Cassidy rising from the ashes to take her with him into the sky. She imagines him bloody and burning, and maybe, just maybe, if she can douse his rage, they might all be safe. But she can't put out a forest fire with a single tear, and if only she'd known she'd need more later maybe she wouldn't have cried them all while huddled in the corner under a shower curtain. But something tells her all the tears in the world couldn't have put out this fire and besides that, it will always be too late for Veronica. Nothing can save the tough-as-nails blond girl from what he did to her; from what Woody did to him.

She sees his face in the paper, weeks later, and she just stares, remembering.

She loved him because he was gentle.

And oh how hindsight burns.