The house was completely quiet. Steve was long gone, Cass still taking a nap in her bedroom, and Cooper was... somewhere. Alex hadn’t seen Nathan at the guest house, but Alex wasn’t really concerned about him. Nathan was a grown man who could take care of himself. Alex was content with Cass sleeping, allowing him to sit in his own temporary bedroom and stew in his feelings. It was so much. Too much, especially all at once. What the hell was Alex going to do? His mind strayed to Cassidy, unsure of what to do. Should he tell her? Was he allowed to tell her? She was Cass’s friend, and Cass didn’t know that they were together just yet. Fuck. Why did everything in his life have to be so fucking complicated? Things between him and Cassidy were still so fragile. Alex wasn’t even completely sure that Cassidy wanted to be with him. He wanted to think that it wasn’t him that scared her, and he knew that she had said otherwise, but it was difficult not to feel like part of her fear was his fault. If he was a better man, maybe she would be more confident that they would be okay together. Maybe she was right to be scared of him - of them. Alex clearly wasn’t the person he had thought himself to be. His sister had been abused by one of Alex’s friends for months and Alex hadn’t known a single thing about it. He knew that Cass didn’t fault him, and he was grateful for that, but that didn’t mean that Alex felt the same way. He should have known. The one job he had as an older brother was to protect Cass and he had failed miserably. Over and over. Cass had felt so unwanted that she had gone back to Steve. Alex had been hoping that things would work out themselves, but they hadn’t and he wasn’t holding his breath for them to do so any time soon.
He shouldn’t want to see Cassidy as much as he did, but he couldn’t help it. He wanted to hear her voice, hold her close to him, feel that she was real. She was the only part of his life that wasn’t completely fucked, or at least that was what it felt like. He didn’t deserve any of it. His thoughts blurred in his head, and every part of him was hurting whether physical or emotional. Without thinking, he brought his phone out of his pocket and pressed the call button, waiting and hoping that Cassidy would pick up.