A Late Night Visit

It had been hot all day. Now it was raining. He had spent the evening with friends in a bar and barely made it home without getting wet. The air was filled with the heavy, sweet smell of rain on asphalt. More slowly than usual, he unlocked his apartment door, hung the light summer jacket on the hook and put his shoes aside.

He had just sat down on the couch with a cold beer when the doorbell rang. Who could that be? Although it was still warm, it was late, a quarter to twelve. He pressed the button of the bell system and waited at the door, one hand on the handle. When he saw her, he closed his eyes in agony. She greeted him by twisting her red-painted lips into a cheeky smile.

“Cass,“ he said.

Her smile grew even wider. "May I come in?"

"Not really."

She did it anyway. Hung up the dark coat, from which the raindrops beaded, on the coat rack as if she lived here. But she didn't. Not anymore. Not for a long time. He sighed, raised the beer bottle to his lips and took a few generous sips. She gazed at him with auburn eyes and then turned away. Her pale fingers stroked surfaces and furniture as she began to wander around the apartment. "You have redecorated."

"Cass, what's the point?" he whispered in agony. "What are you doing here?"

She continued her exploration. "How's work, honey? Any news?"

No doubt, he had gone mad! He downed the rest of his beer, ran to the fridge and got himself a second one. She watched him, leaning quietly against a wall with her arms crossed. The bottle of Irish whiskey at the top of the shelf came to mind. A gift from his uncle. Maybe he should have a glass of that instead of the beer.

"Hey, I'm talking to you!" Cass had put her hands on her hips and struck that very specific tone of voice that he had always hated. Now he hated it all the more. It reminded him of how she had once wanted to be a teacher and made him feel like a rebellious elementary school student. He resolutely fished the whiskey from the shelf, took a sip directly from the bottle and coughed. His throat burned. Tears blurred his vision. "Cass, what's the point?" he asked angrily. "Just go! Leave me alone! Why do you keep coming back?"

She answered with a laugh that sounded scornful and pitying at the same time. "The question is rather: Why do you keep letting me in? Admit it: You feel guilty. You regret how everything went down."

"No!" he said vehemently. "None of it was my fault!" 

His thoughts wandered back to the day he had met Cass. It had been at a MUN event, in the twelfth grade, at the neighboring private school. Normally, he would have never even considered taking part in something like that, but his best friend had convinced him to give it a try. "Come on, man, it´ll be fun," he had said, "There's even a "business" dress code. We can just sign up for Nicaragua and the Bahamas or something then you won't have to do much anyway."

In the end, he had agreed and, at the day of the event, found himself at the table of the representatives of Latin America. His seat mate had smiled at him. She had auburn curls and almond shaped eyes, though you couldn't see them too well behind the glasses. Her name tag read: Cassandra Ebers – Uruguay.

They had started talking. About nothing special: school, teachers, hobbies, friends, the event. The latter interested Cassandra much more than him. She was very enthusiastic, held speeches, formed alliances, made proposals, objections. While he was just trying to bridge the time until lunch break.

Perhaps he had stared at Cassandra, or Cass as she called herself, in a way that could be interpreted as interest. In any case, she invited him to get some lunch with her during break. He had agreed with the feeling that he would have been quite an idiot otherwise. While eating, he noticed himself again staring at her. At the time, this was less due to romantic interest than to her courageous taste in fashion. Cass wore a colorful checked tartan skirt over white knee-high stockings, which ended in old-fashioned brown men's shoes. Her light-colored blouse was carelessly buttoned and hung limply down her body like a nightgown. Apart from red lipstick, she hadn't put on any makeup, but she had been very generous with it, so that her incisors were lipstick stained as well. He had never seen a girl dressed like her, not a girl his age. Nonetheless, she was attractive with her sparkling brown eyes and open, warm manner, and she was smart and funny! As they walked back from lunch, he asked Cass for her number.

Two days later they met up again. This time she introduced him to her friends. He didn`t really know what to make of them, the quiet Charlie with the Lord of the Rings T-shirt and the intimidating Josephine, with the thick black eyeliner, but Cassandra effortlessly kept the conversation going and somehow made sure that everyone enjoyed themselves. For that talent he began to love her.

Barely two months after their first meeting, they became a couple. A serious one. After graduating from high school, they enrolled at the same university. Both for law. Cassandra's parents were wealthy lawyers and gifted their promising daughter her own apartment for her birthday, less than two streets away from the university. Somewhat ashamed, she asked her boyfriend if he wanted to move in there with her. He said yes.

Ever since he had seen <<Suits>> as a teenager, law had been his big dream. Unfortunately, this dream, brought into the harsh light of reality, turned out to be a nightmare. He couldn't cope with the vast amount of material and had to drop his studies after a year. Around the same time, his relationship with Cassandra began to falter for the first time. They argued a lot. He accused her of no longer having time for him, she complained that he was not doing his household chores. Cassandra's father, who had never really liked his daughter's boyfriend, treated him more condescendingly than ever since he dropped out of college and it hurt him that she let that happen. They spent Christmas with Cassandra's parents, and the silence around the table was icier than the weather.

In the new year, however, everything seemed to gradually turn out for the better. He began an apprenticeship with his uncle as a car mechanic, where he made new friends and honestly liked the work. Kass dropped her law studies that summer. That confused him, she had such good grades, but if he was honest, it also gave him a certain satisfaction. It was not about the grades, law simply did not interest her, Cass explained to him. It never had. She would rather study pedagogy, or become a teacher. History had always been a very special passion of hers. She was going to become a history teacher, and she was happy with that decision.

Gradually, the couple began to drift apart again. They spent less and less time together, separated twice, only to get back together again. Their friends were now completely different, their daily routines, their hobbies. The little they had ever had in common seemed to be extinguished. When it looked as if their relationship was dragging itself towards a dry death in slow motion, life came back into it. They had a fight. Cassandra had been given the opportunity to study in Spain for a semester. Eager to escape the bad weather and dreary mood for a while, she had agreed at once. That annoyed him. Was it too much to ask to discuss the matter with him beforehand? After all, he was her boyfriend, wasn't he? And she would be gone for months! They argued and instead of giving in and going to bed as usual, Cass ended the argument this time by packing a suitcase and leaving the house. Her flight to Spain was in two weeks, until then she wanted to stay with a friend. She asked him calmly not to call or text her, they would talk when she was back.

In the first few weeks they had no contact at all and he was strangely happy about her absence. It was nice to have the apartment all to himself. Eventually, however, he called her and apologized. How was Spain? Fantastic, she replied. She liked the university, she had already made friends and taken up mountaineering as a hobby. She also thought that they should take a break and both see other people.

He had shrugged. Well, yeah, that was fine. He started to go out to nightclubs with his single friends again. He had a few one-night stands, but nothing serious. On Facebook, he watched Cassandra`s life in pictures. She had started dating some pale Englishman who shared her passion for climbing in the wilderness. She was smiling radiantly in every picture, and he had to admit that she looked gorgeous with her suntanned skin, rosy cheeks and contact lenses instead of glasses. He waited impatiently to hear when she would come home but instead, she texted that she wanted to extend her stay.

After that he didn´t hear from her for weeks. Until he received a message from her friend, typed into Cassandra`s cell phone with trembling fingers. "Cass fell while climbing a mountain. She`s in the hospital. The doctors say she won´t make it. I am so sorry."

At first, he couldn't believe his eyes. Then he called her parents. They already knew, they had been notified long before him. Cass died on that same day just about an hour later. He collapsed on the kitchen floor.

He remembered her funeral only vaguely. They had left him alone. Him, the grieving boyfriend. Or ex-boyfriend? Nobody knew exactly. The Englishman had been there. Flown in from Spain with his silent cries and pink nose from which sunburned skin peeled. It had rained like it did now. How inappropriate everything had seemed. The pink nose, the gray clouds, the rain, the sunburn, Cassandra's funeral. As he stood in front of her grave his friends had silently clutched his shoulder.

Her parents hadn`t recovered from the loss even two years later. He had wanted to go meet them for a long time to talk about what was going to happen to the apartment he was still living in. It had passed back into the possession of Cassandra´s parents; he lived there without rent. They didn't want to enter it, but they couldn't part with it either.

He wanted to move out. Maybe he should just do it. Look for a new place tomorrow and leave. Maybe Cass would stop visiting him if she didn't know his address anymore. Her shadowy figure was still leaning against the wall. A nagging feeling inside him told him that it wasn't going to be that easy. He closed his eyes and let his head sink onto the table.

When he opened his eyes again, she was gone.