When Life Gets in the Way

by Ines Vieira

  “Yes?” He asked with a full drawl in his tone. “Can I help you with anything, love?” The familiarity that both his words and tone had made me feel even more uncomfortable. I grabbed my books tight to my chest trying to cover as much of my body as possible.

  “Aren’t you a lovely thing?” Yes, I see now where Isaac gets his charisma but even their charm are polar opposites. Isaac’s charm is sweet and kind. Even when he’s faking it, it still comes out at it’s worst innocent in his flirtation. Isaac’s dad… His charm is used mainly to get what he wants when he wants it. There is nothing innocent about it. Innocence would be that last word I would use to describe Hector Silva.

  He turns towards me and that grin is still ingrained on his face. It looks wrong, though. It looks like this smile has been rehearsed to hide this man’s true features. I have never been speechless or lacking words in any circumstance, yet this man before me has such a presence that I’m almost afraid that if he hears my voice that it would be giving him something that I don’t want him ever to have. I look over to Isaac, hoping for a quick rescue. I’m surprised to see the panic in his eyes. I’m more surprised that for some reason, I must have the same look on my face. Before I say anything, I feel a gentle hand on my shoulder. I almost jump when I hear a recognizable voice.

  “Cassandra, querida. Isaac told me you’d be coming around this afternoon.” Jess’s dad was all smiles and I was extremely happy to see him. It dawned on me how all the men in this room were related yet so different. Mr. Silva face showed nothing but purity and kindness while the brother before him looked like he wanted to lick things off my face. Another shiver ran through my spine and I was glad that Mr. S arrived when he did.

  “Oh is this who you are? The famous Cassandra I hear my little niece rave about. So happy to put a face to the name finally.” I nodded and what I hope was a smile made its way onto my lips. I look over to Isaac who looks like he has finally gathered some composure for that much-needed rescue I wanted before Mr. S. arrival.

  “Uncle, mom’s in the back cleaning up. Would it be okay if we use your office for a couple of hours?”

  “Of course. Of course. Take all the time that you need. You sure you wouldn’t prefer to go home for the rest of the day? ” I look over at Isaac, almost pleading with him that I would prefer to be someplace else than here right now.

  “I guess we could go to the library to study, right Cass? But I’ll be back in a couple of hours to lock up with mom, would that be okay?”

  “Sure, Filho. Unless your father here would like to help out today?” I see that this suggestion has made both Isaac and his father tense up.

  “There’s no need really. I would prefer if I came back to do it.” Isaac quickly responded.

  “Yeah, I have my own shit to do Carlos. Maybe some other time. I’ll just go round back and talk to Evelyn for a second.” Before Hector turned around I saw him give a quick look towards Isaac. An understanding glance was shared between them that Isaac was none too happy with. Isaac grabbed his stuff off the counter and grabbed a bag that must have been placed in one of the lower shelves. I heard him thank his uncle and then grab my hand out of the store.

  Once we were outside, I felt the oxygen finally make its way to my lungs. Apparently I had been holding my breath the entire time. Nothing had happened, I mean not really, but I had felt that I had just met a person that I would prefer not to see too often. I was still clutching on to Isaac’s hand when we got to his car. Once we got in, I immediately felt safer.

  “Cass, you okay?” that blue starlight filled sky stared at me. I nodded again. “You sure? You’re not usually the silent type.” An awkward laugh left my lips. Isaac was already driving down Main Road, and with each minute that passed, I felt a little warmer from the inside. I had been frozen still under that man’s scrutinizing gaze, and I desperately cherished the warmth that I felt leaving him far behind me.

  “Sorry about dear old dad back there. He can be … a little intense on women. Especially the pretty ones.” His tone was low and wearing. Isaac wasn’t complimenting me. He was warning me. The first time I had met Isaac I was appalled at him. I thought he was such an asshole, from that encounter just because of the way he had looked at me. Like he had visualized me in my underwear or something right in the middle of Mr. Wilson’s classroom. It was degrading and I hated being seen like a piece of meat. But Isaac’s dad? His lingering eyes did more than undress me. Those eyes seemed like they would only be content with stripping away every layer of my very soul until I was nothing more than raw flesh.

  “It's okay.” I lied.

  “No, it's not Cass. It just is what it is. All I can say is that I’m sorry if he made you feel uncomfortable. I didn’t know that he would be dropping by. If I did, I would have met you someplace else.” He sounded disgusted with himself, as if he should have thought that this was a possibility beforehand. It touched me somehow that Isaac wanted to protect me even by something as harmless as a stare. Although I have to admit that Hector’s stare would probably keep me up at night.

  I reached out and placed my hand on his arm squeezing it to reassure him. I intended it to be an innocent gesture but as soon as my fingers touched his warm skin, it was almost as if they were being burnt with the heat that he gave off. I see his knee-jerk reaction immediately, as he grabs the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turn a shade lighter. I pull my hand back to safer accommodations on my lap. My whole body resents me for it. I stare out the window and bite my lip trying my damnest to act normal.

  For almost eighteen years of my life, I have never had this kind of reaction with any boy I have ever come in contact with. What the hell did Isaac Silva’s pheromones have that left my skin craving his touch and my heart leap out of my chest every time he said my name? It was bizarre and unwanted. Logically I knew that that was all this was. Normal teenage hormones at play. I mean sure, in my case it only occurred now, but it was bound to happen sooner or later. It was inevitable that one day I would meet a guy that I would want to be near at all times. It just wasn’t in my plans for this to happen now at seventeen. I had my whole life planned out, and having inappropriate thoughts now was a major hiccup. I had to concentrate on my academics. There was no room for “feelings” right now. No matter how good they felt.

  To top it off, life had decided to throw me a curve ball with my mom being mentally AWOL all the time. A boy in the mix just wouldn’t fit right now with everything else. But a friend would. Being friends with Isaac could work. Is working. That I can do. That I can open myself up to. A little bit anyway. More than that, though, was just not possible right now. I would have to be cautiously aware to not cross that invisible line.

  «Mental note: Don’t get sucked into his sky, otherwise you risk a lot more than deviating from your plan. Those stars will make you want to risk it all.»

  I’ll need to keep him at arm’s length. Too close and I’ll want more than just a holding hands. Unfortunately, this run in with his father and his protectiveness towards me made that invisible line even less clear in my head. There were so many things that I still didn’t know about this boy beside me and I couldn’t ignore the fact that I wanted to know them all.

  ISAAC

  As I sweep the gymnasium, Cass clears away all the basketball equipment. I´m in high spirits today. The kids had fun and I have this warm gooey feeling inside me. I feel good and as that doesn’t happen very often, I’m surprised to feel a smile on my face even after everyone has gone. Once we finish up here, I’ll drop Cass home and call Alex and Tony to see what they are up to. Anything to avoid going home just yet, I want to hold onto this high as much as possible. I look to my side and I see Cass biting her lip looking at me.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she says but here face says differently.

  “Oh come on. Spill it!” I continue with this stupid grin I have stamped on my face.

  “I was just thinking about something, but it’s stupid.”

 
“Jesus Cass! What?” I ask this time stopping what I’m doing, crossing my arms over my chest with the broom to my side.

  “How old are you, Isaac?”

  “Is that all?” I smirk and continue to sweep the floor.” I’ll turn nineteen this January.” I look at her again and she is still biting her lip. “What now woman?”

  “Well, if you’re almost nineteen shouldn’t you have graduated already? Did you start school at a late age or something or get held back a year?” I continue to sweep and smirk

  “What do you think?”

  “Well,” she´s no longer tidying anything up. By this rate, we’ll never be out of here.

  “I know that you’re smart. You’re in most of my AP classes, so I don’t think that you were held back, so I guess you started school late. But that doesn’t sound right.” She´s scrunching her nose and I find it extremely cute. I laugh.

  “You’ll be a great journalist Cass. Your brain doesn’t stop even with something as trivial as why I’m turning 19 and still a senior.” I laugh. She begins to pout and I still haven’t given her the answer that she wants.

  “So are you going to tell me or not?” She’s standing there not clearing the rest of the jerseys that are on the table. I drop the broom and head over, so I can put them in the laundry bag. My stomach is already growling so it's definitely way past eight. “So?” Okay, she won't stop until I give her what she wants and I feel my good mood shifting.

  “Fine! Do you want the bullshit answer that I give everyone or do you want the truth, Diane Sawyer?” I say facing her. She’s picked up the broom and is sweeping from where I left off in the middle of the room.

  “I’ll leave that up to you. Whatever you tell me, I’ll accept as much of the truth as you want to tell.” She grins at me with that sparkle in her eyes, that one that tells me she’ll know if I lie to her. Jesus.

  “Okay, fine. Bullshit answer first. When we went to Arizona, we didn’t think my Grandmother would make it past a couple of months, so I never matriculated, thinking we would come back to Plymouth and I would finish sophomore year here. But my Nana held on and time passed and my folks decided that I had missed too much so I ended up missing a year.” My arms are still crossed and I’m also still debating if I should follow with the truth.

  “That’s the bullshit answer? It’s pretty plausible to me. I would have probably bought that.” She says, but I can tell that that answer wouldn’t have completely convinced her. She would feel that there was way more to that. “So what is the real reason?”

  I smile and walk to her. Taking the broom away from her so that my eyes are concentrating on sweeping, rather on what I’m about to say. I also don’t want to see her face when I say it.

  “Well, half of that is true. My Nana was one of the most stubborn women I knew, so there was no way she was going down without a fight. I adored her and I would have gladly enrolled in high school that same year to show her how sure I was that she was going to be able to beat her cancer. My dad, however, was praying my grandmother would kick the bucket sooner rather than later. If I was homesick, then he was livid in having to move to Arizona because of his dying mother in law. After two months, he got restless and decided that he needed to loosen up a bit by doing some exercise. You see dad used to be a boxer when he was younger, so it’s in his blood to relieve stress this way. So he got a punching bag and let it all out. All that built up tension just evaporated after a good workout. He punched and kicked and even though the punching bag at times gave back as good as it got, it was no match for him. He was able to eradicate it to pieces. He ripped it apart.”

  I stop when I see Cass hasn’t moved since I started talking. I look at her and she is pale. Her eyes are a mixture of disgust and heartbreak and I can see tears threaten to burst. But I don’t see pity. So I continue.

  “I was in intensive care for several months with broken ribs, a broken arm, a broken leg, a broken jaw. You get the picture. I spent my sweet sixteen eating my dinner through a straw. So school had to be postponed for a bit.”

  “What about your mother? What about telling the cops or social services?”

  “My dad took care of that, too. You see when your jaw is wired shut and you can’t talk, your parents telling the cops that you were jumped for your wallet and iPhone is pretty convincing. My dad just told them some racist bullshit and my mom didn’t deny it, how could she? I was just a small preview of what could happen to her. So that was good enough for the police. I don’t even know if social services showed up at all, but even if they did, my dad is very charming when he wants to be.”

  “Does that still happen?” her voice comes out small.

  “The abuse or the beatings?” I sneer. “The abuse daily if I let him. The beatings… They’ve calmed down since we moved. But I doubt that it will stay that way.” I hear how deadpan I sound and it amazes me how little emotion I have describing my life. I go back to sweeping the floor, not wanting to look at her anymore. Seeing Cass’s face in pain only reminds me of how indifferent I’ve become. I don’t even feel the pain anymore. I just feel numb. Even when talking about it. Which I’ve really never done before. Aside from the prick, only my mother and my Nana, god rest her soul, knew the real reason why I missed a year of high school. And now Cass. I feel her walking towards me so I stop and look up at her. She puts her hand over mine on the broomstick and looks me in the eye with empathy.

  “I’m sorry that you missed your sweet sixteen. It's overrated anyway.” She offers a small smile and squeezes my hand and I can't help but smile at such a superfluous thing as missing my birthday.

  She nods and goes back to tidying everything up without another comment and for the life of me, that is exactly what I needed. She was able to hear me and not judge or pity me. She was just present and let me talk about my demons without having to analyze each and every course of action that I could have taken but didn’t. I had done that to myself for years, I couldn’t handle someone pointing the obvious to me. Like telling me that I could get help or tell some authority figure, a cop or a teacher. People only say crap like that because this shit doesn’t happen to them. It’s easier to solve other people's problems than your own. And this was my problem. This was my mom’s problem. We had been living with it for years. We would come out of this our way. Even though, I knew that people weren’t dumb. They knew. They knew why my mother would show up at PTA meetings shaking and banged up. They knew why she wouldn’t leave the house for long periods of time. They heard the yelling and crying coming from our house in the middle of the night. People knew, they just didn’t care. Yeah, it’s real easy to tell someone what to do, it’s a whole other thing showing them you actually give a fuck.

  “Hey? You want to grab a burger before going home?” Cass asks, already finished and she gives me one of those shy smiles that I’m not used to seeing from her.

  “Sure. I’m actually starving, so I doubt that I’ll stop at one burger.” I grin at her and I see that light come back in her eyes.

  CHAPTER 8

  CASS

  I stare out of the window of the car looking at my own bleak house.

  “So what is it? Chopped up bodies in the basement?” Isaac says leaning towards me looking out the same window.

  “What the hell are you on about now?” I ask him. He straightens back on his seat while still facing me.

  “I’m just thinking of reasons why you’ve never invited me in? It’s been almost a month that I’ve been driving you home, and you haven’t once invited me into your house. So I’m thinking that Nick probably has some dead bodies in the house that you don’t want anybody to find out about.”

  “That’s exactly right. See, I’m just watching out for you. If I invite you in, then you’ll be his next masterpiece. You see, that’s what he uses the chopped up body parts for. It adds that extra pièce de résistance to his paintings. But then I’d be stuck having to look at that mug every day, so I guess I’m really just looking out for me.” I roll my eyes and ge
t out of Isaac’s car.

  “You mean that ‘this’ doesn’t do it for you?” He says pointing at his face giving me that boy next door smile.

  “Nope! I prefer Nicky’s chopped up body parts. Good night Isaac.” I sing back at him, already walking up my porch steps.

  “Good night, Cassandra” He yells back laughing as he drives off. I have to admit that our banter is probably the highlight of my day.

  Mom is in the living room watching an old black and white movie. She’s in gray sweats and I can tell that she washed her hair today. It looked like bronzed flames placed neatly on her shoulders.

  “Cass, Hun, you’re home. Do you want me to heat you up some dinner? Nicky made his famous macaroni and cheese.” She smiles. My heart feels light in my chest as I see that my mom, actually seems like my mom today. I walk over to her and kiss her cheek. I want to savor this feeling as long as it lasts.

  “I’ll heat it up in a minute. Where is Nicky?” I ask while taking off my shoes and joining her on the couch. I lay my head down on her lap and she starts to run her fingers through my hair.

  “Oh, Nicky’s over at one of his friend’s. I think it’s that girl with the nose ring. I never can remember her name. Only that nose ring.” She laughs a little and its music to my ears. “Do you think they’re dating?” She asks and this is the most interested my mother has been in us in ages.

  “Na, I don’t think so. I think that he only sees her as a friend.” I say and unconsciously Isaac’s face pops up in my mind.

  “What about you, Cassandra? Has a boy finally grabbed your attention, or is it still only the Berkeley mascot that has your heart?” She teases. She is herself today, and I wish that these days lasted longer than they did. She touches my face, and my happiness is evident.

  “What about this boy that is picking you up for school every day? And bringing you home from the center too, that’s very kind of him. What did you say his name was?”