Baby Don't Return to Me

“Cas,”

I closed my eyes, trying to block out the condescending tone of his voice. Maybe if I tried hard enough I could will him away with my mind. Wasn’t there a movie about that?

I folded my legs up underneath me causing the springs in the old couch to creek. Seriously, why had no one replaced this ugly piece of furniture yet? It was an eyesore that had managed to (barely) escape the ‘80s. It was a faded shade of bubble gum pink and was more grey then pink these days. There were faded marker stains on one of the arms from my artistic days as a four year old. The picture was somewhat abstract and it changed depending on what angle you looked at it from. It looked vaguely like the Statue of Liberty, or maybe it was an elephant.
“Cass are you listening to me?”

“No Kenny, actually I’m not.” I stated coolly. Kennedy playing big brother/parental unit was getting really old really fast. I didn’t owe Kennedy an explanation for my whereabouts last night, I wasn’t in the mood for a lecture, and a scolding. Kennedy wasn’t my father—and he was only older by 7 minutes.

“You were with John weren’t you?” The accusatory tone in his voice irritated me worst than other aspect of this interrogation.

“C’mon Kenny, we both know he hates me.” I stated matter-of-factly.

“Yeah you’re right,” He mumbled more to himself than me. “Well, where were you then?”

“It doesn’t matter Kennedy,” I snapped gritting my teeth in annoyance. I’d hardly slept the night before (for obvious reasons) the lack of sleep mixed with Kennedy’s interrogation was becoming a good concoction for putting me in a bad mood. “I’m a big girl Ken, you can’t control me. What the hell do you think you’re going to do, ground me?” I retorted rising to my feet.

Kennedy glared at me, his jaw clenched as he watched me move for the door. “Where are you going?”

“You didn’t care four years ago Ken, don’t start now.” I growled wrenching open the door and allowing my feet to carry me as far away from my brother as possible.

My feet always had a way of leading me back to places I’d been before. I was pretty sure that I would never get lost with this known fact, but I was too chicken to actually tempt this theory.

But my feet, like Finnegan’s, had led me to an all too familiar place. A place of memories that made my eyes water and a smile force its way across my dry lips at the same time.

The old soccer field.

But this wasn’t just a soccer field. Granted, it was the place Kennedy spent many days upon while bonding with a soccer ball, but it was also a place that had also been affected by the guys and my influence.

I couldn’t help but cry and smile at the same time as I drank in all the dots of yellow and white amongst the forest green grass.

Daisies. My favorite flower.

It was freshman year and John had blown me off for a cheerleader (who as it turns out was just trying to make her ex jealous—it worked and John got a bloody lip). According to John he hadn’t meant to blow me off, he just forgot to meet me at the park. Of course I went looking for him and saw him with Chelsea.

When John finally found me I was an unfortunate mess of tears and a running nose—hey, he was my best friend and I thought I was loosing him!

Of course, John being a guy and all, had made it worst and made me cry harder before he finally calmed me down.

We made up and later that night he brought me back to the soccer field—Daisy seeds in his pocket.

John proceeded to tell me that for each one of the seeds was an apology to me for all the times he had screwed up and would screw up in the future. He told me wasn’t perfect and had a bad tendency to screw up. We spread the seeds through the whole soccer field that night and two days later John kissed me in the same place.

This soccer field was now more overgrown field manicured soccer field these days. A large, better-managed soccer field had been created three blocks a way while this one was left for nature to take over. The daisies had come back every year but were now being strangled by a high mess of weeds. But still…here was proof of what had once been my life. A living thing here because of John and I. It was because of these small simple flowers that I would never be able to truly deny what had transpired between the two of us.

“You know he came for weeks after you left,”

I jumped, startled, and spun on my heels to see none other blue eyed Garrett peering back at me as leaned up against a nearby oak tree.

“Sometimes he’d just sit on the bleachers for nearly an hour, locked away in his head.”

“John,”

Garrett nodded as he shrugged away from the tree and moved closer. He squinted against the unforgiving Arizona sun, his hands shoved in his back pockets as he came to stand beside me.

“Emerson and I,” he trailed off for a moment, his mind flickering elsewhere before he continued his sentence. “we’d take shifts sometimes, yeah know just sitting with him, hoping he’d open up to us.”

“Did he?” I wondered quietly. But then I regretted the words, of course he hadn’t—John had said as much himself.

“No he never did,” His gaze locked with mine in an unnerving way, as though he was looking for some sort of answer, some kind of proof in my eyes.

I blinked, looking away before slowly moving toward the old rusted bleachers. He followed me silently, plopping down next to me with our shoulders just barely touching.

It was silent for a long time before I couldn’t take it anymore: I had to ask, I had to know. “Garry will you tell me what happened between you and Emerson?”

He froze for a moment, his eyes locked on the daisies moving lazily in the warm breeze. “It’s like I said, we used to sit with John and try to comfort him, hoping he’d tell us what the hell had happened. We wanted to help him, we wanted to know where you were, we wanted to know…we just didn’t know.”

I opened my mouth to form a question I didn’t know how to ask and no sound left my lips.

“Pat and I used to help Kenny around the house sometimes. Macy used to break down a lot, she’d throw a glass across the room, yell at Jamie when he was only a baby. She made Pat nervous so I used to sit with her sometimes.

You know your sister, she wears her heart and every emotion under the sun on her sleeve, you could always see when she was right at the edge of her breaking point and it was always me and Kenny that had to talk her off the ledge. I remember sitting with her on the back porch one day, it was probably the hottest day of the summer and I’m pretty sure she’d been stealing from the liquor cabinet…I don’t know why I thought Macy of all people held the answers but one day I just asked her if she knew something about you she wasn’t supposed to.”

Garrett glanced at me for a fleeting moment before he dropped his gaze to his interlocked fingers uneasily. “She started talking about fucked up everything was, how everything just went backwards and she couldn’t figure out which was up anymore.

At first I thought she was just rambling drunkenly but then she started saying your name. She said how it was really messed up the Brock sisters, already in bad situation, ended up in another bad situation together yet both of them alienating one from the other.

She…she told me what happened CJ.”

I was at a loss of words. Mostly because I was utterly confused, he spoke as though I had every inkly as to what he was talking about but I didn’t, I really didn’t. I never talked to Macy before I left, I probably should have sister to sister but I didn’t. My world had entirely wrapped itself around all things concerning John, with bits of Kennedy, Jared, Pat, Garrett, and Emerson, all mixed into it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I admitted slowly and I watched as Garrett’s gaze lifted from his hands to my face, confusion written all over it. “Macy didn’t know anything.”

“But…she did,” Garrett began quietly, speaking as though each word was a struggle to get out. “She told me she found a pregnancy test in the trash can.”