Coming Home

The next few days blew by, and soon weeks had passed.

With Cassadee and Tobias as Derrick’s management team, they were churning out articles, newsletters, Facebook profile updates- anything to increase Derrick’s (and also indirectly), NDP’s public rating.

Cassadee felt good to be back on her feet, goals cleared and heart cleared. She now worked part time for the local paper, and part time for the NDP. Even though Cassadee hated to be returning the favour to the very avenue that had shamelessly used her- there was always a back-hand plan.

Sampson wouldn’t look both Derrick and Cassadee in the eye, fuelled by resentment over his son’s haphazard life decisions which threatened to usurp the NDP’s and his own hold on power. Things with Cassadee and Derrick’s father were more strained because Cassadee knew the unjust nature of her case was because of Sampson's iron-fisted rule of what to do and what not to do. And it all came at the expense of her emotional welfare.

Word had gotten round about Cassadee’s blanket party and Cassadee could feel her innards shatter with every single judgmental glance people at the office shot her. It shamed her, even though it wasn’t her fault. Even when in the NDP headquarters, Cassadee felt people talking- the kind of whispers that made her neck bunch up and shoulders tense.

Even if she did help them raise their ratings, she would only be defined as one thing. A defunct, used girl who was too weak to defend herself. In this election period, she was their plaything.

Derrick noticed her shrunken demeanour and tried his best to be there for her, because he owed her for all the times she had beaten herself down. He had seen her at the photocopying machine a few times, just standing there, looking at the flickering buttons on the machine.

Her spacing out never went unnoticed and Derrick made sure to hold a little bit closer everytime they touched.

~

Cassadee was typing away in her office, trying to rush out another article on fashion and food. The words came aimlessly, haphazardly thrown onto the page. That was how the public liked it anyway, large, flowery words next to colourful pictures.

“Cassadee, Lee wants the article in an hour,” commented Jeff snidely as he walked past her, following his new reporter to whatever it was they were going to. Cassadee looked up at him and smiled sadly. He had been such a nice person to her and she had to go ahead to ruin whatever friendship they had.

If only she could turn back time and made her decisions a little more wisely.

Sighing, Cassadee returned to her article.

~

“Are you alright?” Derrick asked as he shuffled into Cassadee’s work room to see her tapping away at her laptop, surrounded by mountains of books and articles.

This was their life, they spent consecutive nights at each other’s houses. But Derrick liked Cassadee’s house more than his own because it smelt like her, and he felt her safety and protection through the walls of her house.

“I’m fine, what's up?” Cassadee asked, looking up from her work. Derrick noticed bags under her eyes, her lips raw and red from the cold and nervous lip biting. He had realised, that that was her habit when faced with unfamiliar and uncomfortable situations.

Sighing, he sat down next to her and looked up at the colossal wall of quotes, pictures and articles taped onto her wall. He would never get tired of looking at the wall, an extension of her mind. She had articles that she liked, articles that she wrote, random post its and pictures of her life tacked onto the wall.

“What’s your favourite one?” Derrick asked, looking up at the wall. He heard Cassadee stop typing and shut the screen of her laptop down. She joined him, looking up at the wall. Derrick felt her shoulder press up against his as they both sat in silent unison.

“I don’t know. They’re all my favourites,” she shrugged.

“What’s your favourite one?” She asked. Cassadee watched as Derrick scanned her wall carefully.

“Besides anything you write?”

“Don’t play that trick here,” Cassadee laughed.

“I like that one,” Derrick pointed at a poem tacked at the corner of the wall.

Cassadee looked wordlessly at the poem she had left there. She put it there to remind herself again and again, not to give up on life, to hold on to things that would anchor her to whatever seemed to kill her again and again.

“It helped me get through stuff,” she shrugged.

“Helped?”

Derrick looked at Cassadee’s small frame, staring curiously up at her wall. The wonderment and amazement he felt course through her prickled his senses. They could sit there, talking all night about things. But now Derrick just wanted to touch her, feel her skin against his.

Then Cassadee turned her head towards him.

“Before you came back,” she said simply, a small smile creeping up her face.

~

Cassadee lay in bed, looking at Derrick lying opposite her. Eye to eye, a sea of white cloth separating them. She searched for his eyes, trying to hold on to the clarity and safety he represented. She was so in love with him that it hurt. Sometimes she felt so filled up with love that she just wanted to hug him until both of them exploded into fragments of molecules and stardust.

She watched him look at her before he suddenly opened his mouth.

“Are you really okay?” He asked, his voice like velvet against her ears.

“Why are you so obsessed about that?” laughed Cassadee.

“You always seem sad.”

Cassadee smiled sadly at him. She shouldn’t really be sad, she had everything going on for her. But she was haunted with memories and nightmares. Sometimes she felt so small and dirty around other people, that her body was no longer hers. She missed her old self, missed the respect she used to hold herself with. Now she was marred, and she was afraid that she would never be okay again.

“Its many things Derrick, you know that.”

She watched him think for a moment, trying to find words to console her. She had seen that expression on his face before- a kind of painful pondering to try to make her feel better. She wouldn’t necessarily feel better when he said it, but his presence made her feel better.

“Sometimes I wish I could forget everything,” Cassadee sighed, her breath hitching up painfully in her throat. She felt Derrick shift his weight, before placing his right hand on her cheek, stroking her pale skin. She felt his calloused hands on her face, tracing the faded bruise on her face. It had faded to a gentle purple colour, and she could finally cover it up with enough makeup to not be reminded of it.

She returned his touch by scooting closer to him, bridging the distance between them. Pressing her head against his open chest, feeling the way his chest rose and fell to his breathing. She felt his hand brush her hair from her face before holding her head in place, against him.

This was how she wanted to fall asleep every night. With him close to her, sheathed by his love and protection.

“You are not defined by your tragedies Cassadee Adams,” she felt him murmur into her hair and she smiled.

“I like that, it’s going up on the wall.”

She heard him laugh, a pleasant sound reverberating through his body. Wrapping her hands around his torso, Cassadee breathed him in. He smelt clean, like soap.

“I love you.”

“Love you too.”

That was how they fell asleep.

~

“My older brother received a call at two pm on a Thursday,
That his roommate from college
And best friend from high school;
Overdosed and died,
Last Wednesday night.

My brother is 25 years old.
He missed three days of work, sat at home in the dark,
And cried for the first time in six months.
This is not poetry.

My father is very, very sick.
He sleeps for seven hours,
To build up a half hour of strength,
Just so he can pick me up from school.
He hasn’t been well in over a year.
And still,
He prays every night, “Thank you God, for making this happen to me, and not my children.”

I am swallowed in fear,
That soon enough, he will go to bed,
And never wake up.
This is not poetry.

There are thousands of people,
fighting cancer,
and war,
and death,
just to have one more day,
In hopes that it will get better.

And still,
You people glorify sadness,
and long for your death,
because apparently life,
is just too much of a burden.
Wake up, your ignorance is sickening.
Your life is thousands of times more beautiful,
Than your death will be.”

- For My Father, S.Skavdahl