Re: [The Lake: Atticus & Cass]
Cass didn't steal. It was a line, thickly drawn where others were gray, pencil, easily rubbed out. She'd done it once, to know what it was like, what the thrill of it felt like but she didn't need anything badly. Time. Keys to locks. But no thing. "I think they have their reasons." Rationales. Ways of explaining away the why of thieving. There was little romantic about thieves that didn't live in storybooks. Desperation. It tasted like ashes in her mouth when she saw it.
She hauled herself over the side, dredged-wet silk and sat on the bench in the middle, her bare feet on sun-warmed wood and her knees against her chest and watched him cast a glance toward the water. "So was I," Cass said, amusement warming it through like sunshine on wet skin. "I don't think it needs a romantic name, the one it has is perfect. I like to think the romance in life, we find. Cerrito doesn't hold it back." She glazed her fingers in lake water, and regarded him with serenity.
"Why were you on the water so early? Or is it 'people are strange'," she sang the melody softly, quietly and grinned. "A mood."