It takes one single moment to define your life.
Cassie learned it the hard way. She's seventeen and felt like she has the world on her shoulders. Trying to survive and keep going despite the sadness and fear, Cassie finds out that opening your hear...
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I stared at my barely touched pasta. Forcing myself to eat, I twirled the pasta around my fork and popped a mouthful into my mouth. It was good. I should know, because I made it.
Two days had passed since I talked to Amanda. Dad had kept his distance; me too. Apparently, there was much to think about, much to digest in a way. We were both working things out in our own different manners. One thing was true, we needed to talk.
I had lost Mom. I didn't want to lose Dad, too.
After I got home from school, I searched through the cabinets and found some pasta and tomato purée. Mom loved to cook and there had been a time that I had paid close attention to her doing. So, in order to make some sort of peace offering, I decided to make dinner. Onion was chopped and tears were shed. Although I couldn't tell if they were just because I was sad or for the onion. It was a plain old tomato sauce but it tasted homey, therefore it was good enough. But I still wasn't hungry and my clothes were still loose.
"Have you made new friends at school?" Dad asked cautiously as he served some salad on his plate.
Letting my fork on the edge of the plate, I swallowed the last bite and drank some water. After cleaning myself with a napkin, I looked at him for the first time since we started dinner. "How long have you been dating her?" my voice was barely a whisper and I swallowed hard because I sort of dreaded the answer. The question had been on my mind ever since he told me so.
Dad's blue eyes looked at me calmly. He'd been expecting this. Of course he had. We had been avoiding ourselves but the big white elephant on the room was too large and too heavy now. He took a sip of his water before answering me. "We have only been together for a few weeks. But I want you to know that this is no ordinary relationship. We are together because we don't want to be alone." I stayed quiet as he sighed and pushed his plate away. "I never disrespected your mother, Cassandra. I was with her until her last breath." A pang of guilt played in my chest. "And not once did I think of another woman but her." He closed his eyes and when he opened them, they were teared up. "I miss her so much; but I know that she needed to go, she was hurting too much." He ran a palm across his face completely distraught, "God, she'd been in so much pain for the last three years."
My eyes were brimming with tears as I recalled her cold body lying peacefully on her bed and her pale face. She had been in pain. I didn't know what was worse: cancer or chemotherapies. The treatment was too harsh. Especially since they found the disease when it was already advanced.
I remembered talking to her about it a few months back. She told me she wanted to live but her body wasn't responding to the treatment. I remembered how her voice broke and tears rolled down her cheeks as she finished speaking. I couldn't utter a word because I just didn't know what to say. My heart was in my chest as I embraced her. Because I didn't know how to make it better. It was frustrating and heartbreaking at the same time.
