Coming Home

“Okay, what’s going on with you and Tobias?”

Cassadee looked up from her coffee to see Caleb standing in front of her, an impatient and angry expression on his face. She sighed. There was so much explaining to do, and now she just wanted to finish Dave’s wedding gift.

“We’re just friends,” she muttered.

“That’s not what Derrick texted me.”

“Did he also misspell any words?”

“Yeah, actually. Was he drunk?”

“Amazingly.”

Caleb sighed and pulled his chair out and sat opposite Cassadee. She looked tired, her short hair curling haphazardly under her chin and there were the tell-tale signs of eye bags emerging.

“So just friends huh. Amazing article again by the way,” Caleb said, pulling out his illustrations as Cassadee flipped through her note pad.

“He told me I was too straight for him,” Cassadee shrugged. Caleb eyed her warily.

“You asked him?”

“I was curious. Plus, you can’t deny he’s pretty damn sexy.”

Caleb looked at Cassadee, thinking how hard it was to pitch across the idea that she and Derrick were separate entities. He was so used to thinking of them both as a pair that when it demanded that they be treated as individuals, it took a while for Caleb to get used to it.

“So… love is?”

Cassadee thought for a while, looking at the stack of phrases and quotes she had in her notepad. They were lame, boring and extravagant. Love, didn’t require much. It was like many things, celestial and hard to explain. As much as it hurt, love never went away. It was always there, coming strong. You could be hurt by someone, but the root feeling would always be love. It was easily the most destructible and pleasant thing ever.

She scribbled down the word on a piece of paper and slid it over to Caleb. He looked at it longingly.

“I like it,” he finally said, a smile lighting up his face. Cassadee grinned back, pleased with herself. It took so quickly to write the truth about politics, but the simplest of phrases sometimes required the most thinking.

“Does that Derrick have to do with this?” Caleb asked again.

“Everyone has to do with this Caleb,” she said, before closing her notepad. It was Saturday, and she had a recital to go to.

~

Derrick entered the recital hall, bustling with parents with cameras. He looked around for her, and felt his heart sink. In the sea of social workers and parents, Cassadee was no where to be seen.

He heard some murmurs around him, and sunk further into his seat. The parents knew him, they must have read the papers. It seemed so insincere, like he was here for a political favour instead of genuine support for Crystal.

Trying to ignore the cameras and murmuring, Derrick watched as the lights around him dimmed and the hustle of the crowd slowly silenced. Despite being swarmed by disappointment, Derrick tried to focus entirely on the reason he was here. To watch Crystal recover, to watch her blossom again.

~

Cassadee saw Derrick from afar, his blond hair glistening like it usually did. She had just entered the hall as the lights dimmed and she had settled into one of the seats at the back, it would suffice. She didn’t want to be next to him. Distance made it easier to deal with her heart.

“Let’s put our hands to welcome, our Little Darlings of Ballet!” cooed the emcee, before the lights flicked completely off and the red curtains drew open slowly. The music smoothed out of the speakers, like the tinkering of fairies and unicorns.

Then Cassadee saw her. She looked just like she had the day she stabbed her, gorgeous and picture perfect. It made her stomach clench uncomfortably, and goose bumps rise on her skin. But the mind had a curious way of putting similarities together first before differences. Cassadee tried to calm her thumping heart, looking on at her.

For once Crystal was smiling, a smile that reached the corners of her eyes- crinkling her face into a pleasant and placid sort of expression. Although she was caked with performance make-up, this Crystal looked so happy. It made Cassadee’s heart sing, because it was so different from how she felt when she picked up enough courage to visit Crystal last year. She had listened to Cassadee, and she had gotten better.

Cassadee relished in the feeling that she had eventually saved Crystal, and that Crystal’s face and memories would forever haunt Cassadee. But it didn’t matter, all that mattered was that Crystal was better.

As Crystal did pirouettes, Cassadee watched in amazement as tiny little girls, with eyes and faces full of angelic hope prance onto stage next to her. There was an ethereal sense surrounding the audience as they oohed at the children. It may have been an adorable spectacle, but Cassadee just couldn’t stop looking at Crystal.

She was beautiful, and when she allowed herself to look at Derrick, it was undeniable to Cassadee that Derrick thought so too.

~

Halfway through her performance, Derrick noticed Crystal looking out to the crowd. She looked so happy and proud of her students, recovery like water, coating her skin. He noticed the way she artfully bent her feet and waist towards the children before freezing, just for a few seconds to look at something in the crowd.

Then the smile was back, a joy so great that it seemed to crush her face. Derrick didn’t know if the other people noticed it, but he followed to where she was looking at the audience- tipping his head just slightly. And he saw her.

Dressed in an ivory coloured blouse and cuffed maroon pants, with her olive jacket hanging down one hand Cassadee had her eyes fixated onto the stage, just like he had a few minutes ago.

She came.

Derrick allowed a small smile to creep up his face as he looked back at Crystal, who looked like she was trying to hold back tears.

There had been so much pain, so much had happened. But for once in a long time, it felt like everything was turning out fine. How could there be so much love filling the lives of the three people who were once dominated by hate and longing? Derrick didn’t know, but whatever the reason was, he was okay with it.

~

“Derrick,” Crystal yelled as she gently brushed passed tottering children to envelop him in a very sweaty and make-up caked hug. He laughed into her shoulder as she hugged him so tight that it felt like she was trying to release something she had been holding in.

“Aren’t they amazing?” she gestured to the children around her, pooling and giggling around their dance instructor. Derrick smiled at her, they were. And she had become amazing as well.

“I’m so proud of you,” he said as she pulled away. He noticed the smudge of mascara around her eyes, and knew that she had been crying. She let out a shaky breath and laughed, a real genuine laugh.

“She came,” Crystal whispered. Then she was holding his hands together, and repeating the phrase again and again like she didn’t believe it.

“Did she come talk to you?”

Crystal shook her head, and wiped her eyes.

“Doesn’t matter. She came, and it’s like I’ve run out of thanks to give her Derrick. She fixed me,” Crystal said before choking up all over again.

Derrick didn’t know what to say. He didn’t expect anything less from Cassadee, even if she was a different girl.

“If you see, thank her for me okay?” Crystal said again, wiping her eyes. Derrick laughed, and used his free hand to wipe her mascara lined face.

“I will.”

“Sorry Derrick, I can’t hang tonight. The social workers are here to babysit me and I need to speak to a few parents,” Crystal said, hiccuping a little. Leaning in to kiss her cheek, Derrick bade her farewell and left.

As he left the hall with a few lingering eyes on his back as his face met with the stinging cold of the night. As he walked forward to hail a cab, he saw a very familiar set of curly, messy hair catch up to him.

The hammering in his heart started once Cassadee reached him, wrapping her hands tightly around herself to fight the cold. He saw that her eyes were red and she was sniffing.

“Are you okay?” He asked, shoving his hands down his pockets to keep himself from touching her. She looked at him for the longest time, as if she was calculating her words carefully- a sort of restraint that he didn’t like.

“Do you wanna go somewhere? You know, to talk?” She asked, her voice warbled and raw.

~

That was how Derrick found himself at the pier with his ex-girlfriend. They didn’t even take a cab there, they walked there.

“Do you want to go somewhere else?” He asked, because he didn’t want to ruin this place with whatever horrible thing might happen next. Their conversations were far from friendly these few days.

“No, I’ve always liked it here,” Cassadee replied, her nose red from the cold. She had stopped crying and pushed herself up one of the metal structures that stood facing the sea. She was so small, her feet completely left the ground as she sat elevated, her clothed legs swinging against the metal exterior.

Joining her, Derrick made sure to keep a distance between them.

“Crystal wanted me to thank you,” he said, smiling at the thought of something good that actually came out from their wayward relationship. Cassadee let out a shaky breath, and he looked at her, afraid that she would start crying again.

“Thanks for inviting me,” she replied. In the dimly lit part of the beach, she was beautiful. Heck to Derrick, she was beautiful anywhere. Every different mood showed a different kind of attractiveness. There was a raw almost jarring way that she looked out to the sea that struck him now.

“All I ever wanted to do was help her you know,” she said again, an edge of a smile toying the corner of her lip. Derrick looked at her, before sliding his arm over and placing his right hand over left hand. Cassadee looked over at him abruptly, before staring at their hands. Her small hand below his, then she laughed.

“I would've done that sooner or later, it's cold,” she shrugged.

“You saved her Cass-“

“After all that she did to me? It took a while to get over it Derrick,” Cassadee interrupted, a frown replacing her smile.

“You have no idea how much it means to-“Derrick stopped. Not sure if he should tell her. It seemed like such an unfair thing to do, making this about himself.

“I never really hated anyone Derrick,” she replied softly. The wind blowing her hair messily around her head. The smell of her shampoo and the sea filled his nose and Derrick exhaled.

“I’m impressed Cassadee.”

Cassadee turned to look at him. Like the first time she looked at him when they were at the school fieldtrip, by the lake. Her eyes, they were soul-searching- straight into his. And for a moment, he forgot all that had happened. Just her and her eyes, and the sea.

“I’m impressed with myself too,” she finally said, like she couldn’t believe herself.

“Ah, but that’s the difference between you and I.”

“What?”

“I’ve always thought you were amazing,” Derrick admitted. He watched as Cassadee opened her mouth, then closed it again. He felt it, the feeling that the truth was coming. She had learnt the way with words, she had become so honest that he knew whatever she said next could splinter his heart into two.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t fix us,” she said. Then she sucked in a breath and he felt her hand harden under his.

“I’m sorry, I thought we were sharing secrets now,” she laughed awkwardly.

Derrick felt his blood run cold, was this why she was so self-destructive? Because she blamed what happened between them, on herself?

“Please don’t.”

“Don’t what?” She asked, turning to face him again as the sound of the sea filled the air between them.

“Please don’t hate yourself because of me.”

The minute Derrick said it Cassadee fell silent, searching his face for some kind of clue. Derrick couldn’t say anything more, because it was true. It was funny because the moment he said it, it was like everything he wanted to tell her was told. There was nothing else to say.

He felt the warmth beneath his hand disappear and he pushed himself off the structure, suddenly disgusted with himself. He did this, he ruined it. He ruined everything. If she couldn’t forgive him, it wasn’t her fault.

Suddenly he felt her hands on him again, pulling him towards her. Pulling him towards her body, reeling him in. Her hands were on his face, pulling him down to her eyes. He looked at her, her honest, clear eyes. She looked back at him, running her thumb below his eyes, trying to wipe the tears that were supposed to be there, but weren’t coming.

Then she was kissing him. A conciliatory kiss, her lips on his. Again and again, like she was kissing away his pain. Like she was trying to fix him.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he repeated, again and again- hoping to empty his heart from the guilt from the hate. But it never went anywhere.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she replied, between kisses. She kissed his lips, the side of his mouth, then his lips again. Like fluttering band aids, trying to patch him up.

“I love you,” she said again.

Then the waves stopped and it was silent.

~

I’ve been at crossroads about the idea of love. How it stays, and festers- kind of like how energy is. You can transfer it, but you can never get rid of it. It’s always there after you create it. There is love between everyone, what happens between two people just depends on what’s mixed with love. Love, Dave, is indispensable.

May you and Wendy have a love that is always pure, and never lost.
Love, Cassadee.