A Part of My Heart

P.O.V. Cassadee

I gnawed on the end of my pen as I attempted to think of anything else to add to the list. Frowning, my eyes found the last line I had written on the paper and focussed on it intently.

'I still am scared, the question is now: When will that scared child feeling go away?'

Would it ever go away? Would I always have that little voice in the back of my mind pulling me away from things, all because of the frightening thought that I may get hurt by the aftermath? I felt ridiculous, childish even. I would never admit this to anyone... but I'm scared out of my wits. What about? I don't even know for certain. Maybe I'm scared of getting hurt. Maybe I'm scared of hurting other people. Maybe I'm scared of taking chances and going on faith. And maybe... just maybe I'm scared, no, absolutely terrified of figuring things out.

All in all, I feel like a scared little kid hiding from their own shadow. It seems pretty dumb, but nothing else can describe it better.

A good example, is when I told the boy in the pub, the boy that used to be my best friend, to move on with his life. I know that it hurt him, now thinking back on the scene my heart hurts, but I did it because I was scared. I was scared for myself, for him. If he knew about the accident, about how I had changed... I'm not the little girl he used to be unseperable from, the sooner that reality hit him, the better. Him knowing everything... It would crush him and that's just not something I'd like to be responsible for. I'm pretty sure my being here like this has already hurt enough people as is.

"Cassee?"

I jumped, slamming my journal shut and tucked it under the pillow at the end of my bed. My mother tapped timidly on the door, I crossed the room and opened the door to reveal my mother. She stood there her arms full, a tray of steaming soup in one hand and a pile of thick, overly large books stacked in the other hand. She brushed passed me, set the tray of food on my counter and layed the books on my bedspread.

I raised my eyebrows, hitching my thumb in the direction of the pile of books. "What's all that?" I questioned, crossing my arms over my chest.

Mum gave a small, trying to act nonchalant about it. "Oh... y-you know. It's just some old photo albums, in case you wanted to look through them or... you know, whatever," She mumbled, her voice growing smaller and smaller as she shrunk under my hard gaze.

I picked up one of them, blowing the dust off of the cover and gave her a look. "Mum..." I sighed, dropping it back down on the mattress and running a hand through my hair. "I appreciate that you're trying, but it's kind of hard to let the memories easily flow back to me, if your always trying to shove them down my throat...." I tried my best to be patient and not sound rude. She was only trying to help, maybe a little too much, but still.

She gave a small nod and started to collect the albums into her arms. A dark maroon colored one with gold accents caught my eye as she heaved it into her arms. My hand shot out before I could stop myself and pulled it from her growing stack.

"I think I'll take this one though," I whispered, my hand sliding over it cover.

My mother smiled. Wiggling one arm free of the mountain of books, she reached over and rested a hand on my cheek. "G'night. I'll see you in the morning." She patted my cheek, then shuffled out of the room. I closed the door behind her, then made my way across the room. Belly flopping onto my bed, I set down the album, my fingers trailing around the edges of the acient book. Biting my lower lip, I flipped the cover page over to reveal a white page with two photos plastered neatly on it and right along side the photos were a small description of the event taking place.

The first picture was me and my mother standing infront of a large sign that read: London Zoo. I smiled down at the photo. My mouth was covered in what was obviously the aftermath of sticky, sweet, pink cotton candy and my smile was so big, my eyes were squinted into little slits. I chuckled to myself, thinking what a handful I must have been.

My eyes moved down the page to the next photo, there was my mother and father, holding hands and smiling warmly at the camera, and there I was in the backround gawking at the monkeys as they teased me. You could plainly see that the little me was pissed. I couldn't stare much longer at the picture or I would start to laugh so hard I would cry. And I've had enough tears today to last a lifetime, so I turned the page.

My heart dropped, as if it weighed one hundred tons. A lump formed in my throat as I stared at the picture in disbelief. This was not happening. This could not be happening, I thought as my mind went into a sudden panick.

There stood two little kids arm in arm, looking as happy as can be. As any normal kid, they grinned wildly at the camera. There stood a chipper boy about the age of 7, by assumption, he had short widly curly brown locks and bright green eyes. There stood little girl next to him, I recognized her on the spot, it was me. I had waist length black hair and grey eyes as big as the moon. They stood infront of a never ending, beautiful, flower field posing for their picture. They were the children from my dream. The dream that I had in the back of the cabbie earlier today. It was me and, apparentally if my dream was right, Harold

As if that weren't enough, I recognized the boy on spot. I only knew one boy that looked like that, there couldn't be another one like him. It was the boy I had blown off as the pub, the boy that I hurt in the process of trying NOT to hurt him.

It all crashed into me at once. The boy, the dream, the photo. I shut the album, tossing it onto the floor, and rubbed the back of my neck.

Well.... shit.