When Life Gets in the Way

by Ines Vieira

  “Oh, that’s too bad. Guess she wasn’t as satisfied with you as she sounded. Maybe all she needs is a wiser, older model. You know, someone that can teach her a thing or two.” He gets up and leans towards me. It’s close enough that I smell the alcohol on his breath. His vile stench almost makes me vomit, but it's his insinuation that he will come within five feet of Cass that really does my stomach in. I look him straight in the eyes with all the contempt I have for him.

  “Don’t even try going near her you piece of shit! If you do, I swear to God, I’ll kill you!” He laughs again pleased with my reaction.

  “Ah dear boy, both of us know that you’re too big of a pussy to do anything about it. But I’ll play nice for you. But those moans sure did get me wound up. Too bad your mother was at your grandmother’s last night. Again. I could have had a little fun pretending she was your girl. Maybe tonight, I’ll do that.” He sits back down on the porch swing and finishes his glass not giving me a second look. He’s too pleased with himself of how he can torment both me and my mother at the same time with just one perverted suggestion.

  I barge into the house and run upstairs. How I loathe the man. I hate him with every fiber in me. Even the word hate seems too kind a word for what I feel for him. I wish I was brave enough to kill him. To be done with him, once and for all. But the prick is right. I’m a fucking coward. I sit on my bed and text my mother.

  -Don't come home tonight

  Unfortunately, I don’t have to explain much else for her to know why she shouldn’t come home and she doesn’t have to explain to me why she decides to stay a couple of extra nights over at Grandma Irene’s place instead.

  CASS

  It’s been two months now that I’ve lived without Isaac. If you can even call what I’m doing living. I go day by day with my routine with my head held high and my heart ripped out of my chest. There are no more conversations taking place on Jess’s porch swing. There is no heart to heart in the center’s gym. There are no movie dates and binging on TV shows in my living room couch. There are no Friday night dinners to end the week with our laughter. I haven’t even noticed a sunset since it all happened.

  All there is now are empty stares in a classroom. Stolen glances in the Youth Center and jealous glimpses of him in the school cafeteria through my long hair. My friend disappeared and left no forwarding address. The friend that I thought would never abandon me did just that. The boy that made me feel breathless in his presence, now couldn’t even look at me, much less speak two words to me.

  It destroyed a little bit of me thinking that his last words to me would be ones of utter contempt and hate. That's what I saw in his eyes that night. He wanted to hurt me, and I never thought he could ever want that. I was too naïve in thinking that Isaac was incapable of hurting me. I should have known better. He had clawed his way into my life until the only happiness I had was when he was with me. So now with the void he left in my chest, I was miserable every second of every day.

  Not that I let on, though. I had some pride left and it was enough to hold me together when he switched from eating lunch at our table and eating it with the cheerleading squad. They ate his annoying charm right out of the palm of his hand. The first couple of weeks had been rough seeing his total detachment from me. Even more so when Alex let it slip that Isaac was hooking up with one of Ronnie’s cheerleading friends. I didn’t need to hear her name to know it had been Lily. She had been more that obvious on her intentions regarding Isaac that very first day he sat at their table. It still hurt, though. I never saw them go at it at school, but just imagining it was enough to want to puke my guts out. That was one of the side effects that had been happening lately. Every time I thought of Isaac kissing a girl the same way he had kissed me was enough for a puke fest. I had lost some weight; enough that even my mother noticed.

  Aside from that, I was same old Cass to everybody except Isaac. Luckily no one made any comments. I think that Jess had a lot to do with that, though. Whatever story she told was enough that no one asked me about Isaac, and I doubt that anyone would have asked what happened with us directly to him.

  What had happened to us? I want to say that sex happened but I know it wasn’t that. I happened. Me and my insistence to keep everything in its comfortable place. Isaac wasn’t a toy that I could put to the side when I thought that playing with him would get me in trouble. Isaac was definitely no toy.

  If anything had taught me about our fall-out, was that whatever he had felt for me at that time, was stronger than I wanted to admit to myself. I wanted to believe that the feelings I had were one sided only. Well, at least, more intense for me anyway and that I should play it safe as long as I could with my heart. Isaac wanted all in though and I was the one that had one foot out the door. Even though I wasn’t the one that left, I was certainly the one that pushed him out.

  It took me a while to accept that I was the one at fault for my own misery. I wanted to blame him at first. The way he had talked to me that night in the gym, it had shattered me into so many pieces that when I got home that night I was still in tears. My mother in her weakened state had been the one to console me. The pills she was on had made her lose even more weight than I had. Even her gorgeous red hair seemed to lose its bounce and brightness and thin out. She was still going to the hospital every day with Jess’s mom and refused to let me tag along. Isaac had said so many hurtful words about her as well that it shamed me that she was the one that came into my room every night to sleep with me those first couple of weeks.

  I didn’t want to tell her at first what had happened, but then one night I wasn’t strong enough to keep it in and it all flew out of me. From the day we met, up to our first kiss at the center and again at the beach, right up to the very night he had put an official end to us. I had explained the reason why I had gone over to Isaac’s house in the first place. Something that she had no recollection of. I told her what had happened between us that night, too. Talking to your own mother about losing your virginity should have been awkward and unsettling, yet she was there for me. No judgment, only understanding. Something that I had lacked with her, as Isaac had pointed out, she offered me in spades. I had told her about everything and she listened, and wiped my tears away.

  I was so confused. It had felt like he had just broken up with me and we hadn’t even had a relationship in the first place, so how can I feel this lousy over something that never took place?

  I remember that night so vividly when she crawled into bed with me and held me close to her while she stroked my hair in the way she had been doing since I was a small infant.

  “My sweet Cassandra. My sweet child. You are my daughter and I see so much of me in you. I know how much of a planner you are. How much you need to control your environment to breathe easy. Unfortunately, life doesn’t always see eye to eye with a person’s plans. Sometimes you have to let go if you want to experience the true beauty life is willing to offer you. That includes the pain as well.”

  “I’m so confused,” I had managed to say between sobs.

  “I hate to be the one to tell you this Cass, but I think your feelings for Isaac are unclear only to you because you wanted to control the outcome of it so much. Life doesn’t play by those rules, sweetheart. Neither does love. It just happens. No matter how hard you try to push them aside because either you’re not ready for it, or it doesn’t come when you planned it, or in your case, my sweet Cass, when it scares you too much. It comes when it comes, and there are a lot of lonely souls in this world that let it fall through their fingertips and never get it back.” She had gone silent just a bit. Long enough that I could regain some composure from my endless dribble.

  “I know in my heart Cass, that this is not your destiny. You are meant to live a blessed life surrounded by love, always. I have no doubt of that. Maybe Isaac is just God’s way of telling you to be open to life and all its possibilities in the future. Maybe the time you spent together was all it will ever be for the both of you.”


  “Even though the boy that came into this house had nothing but love for my daughter, and I doubt it very much that he’s able to switch that off from one day to the next. But even if that’s the case, I want you to know that you will move past this.”

  “People are capable of living perfectly normal and happy lives without their other half. I know that it doesn’t seem like it to you right now, but I promise you can. At first, life is a little bit duller without them, colors look drab, food doesn’t taste as good and any song that passes on the radio makes you think of them immediately. But all of that passes. Time does heal a broken heart, sweetheart.”She had turned on her side and had grabbed my chin softly with her slender fingers so I could look her in the eyes.

  “The one person that you need to remember that you loved in the first place is yourself. Once you remember that, then you start to grab happiness where you can and start making your own path towards something new and better. Don’t lose sight of that love, Cass. Ever. Loving and forgiving yourself are the first steps to mending a broken heart. The rest life will take care of providing. Every day that you let life in, little by little you will feel yourself grow braver. Next time you feel what you felt for this one boy, you won't think twice. I promise.”

  That night I had succumbed to the pain. I had let myself feel his loss completely. It had been one of the many nights that I had cried myself to sleep. Yet it had also been the night my mother had given me the best advice ever. I knew that all of what she had said was true. Even the part that she had seen love in Isaac’s eyes once. However throughout her talk, I couldn’t help wanting for her to also take her own advice to heart. I wish that she had heard herself too. Maybe she had been trying to help me in not getting too lost in my own grief, she knew all too well that it could spiral out of control. I understood now just how much losing someone you care about could damage you from the inside out. But my father wasn’t lost. He would come back, and even though the distance had taken an unexpected turn regarding my mother’s own mental health, she was getting somewhat better. She hadn’t had an episode for a few weeks now. Even when they did occur, Nicky and I had been able to handle it together. I was back in Nicky’s good graces. All I need to do was break my heart in two for him to realize that I wasn’t the heartless bitch he thought I was becoming.

  Soon all of this would be over. That is all I had to repeat to myself day in, day out. After graduation, I would say goodbye to all of my friends and my family, and leave Plymouth behind to start fresh in sunny California. We were coming to the end of our second semester anyway. Just one more and I would never have to be in the same room as Isaac Silva ever again. I prayed every night that by leaving Plymouth behind, that the pain would stay here too. But like all these past nights I couldn’t stop myself from summoning visions of those starry eyes that not so long ago had brought nothing but warmth to me and every morning after, these were the visions that haunted and tormented me.

  CHAPTER 19

  ISAAC

  “We have to talk.” Jess sat on my bed looking pissed at me. She had been giving me this look for such a long time now that it didn’t even bother me anymore. Still, I should have locked my door. I sprawled back on my chair and put both hands on the back of my head.

  “Yeah? What about?”

  “Dad has given me the green light on going to New York next Saturday. He said that he only has two conditions. First that we only stay over one night, and the second that you come with us. And when I say us, this includes Cass too. So will this be a problem?” I bite my inner cheek trying to cool off the plain disdain I hear in my little cousin’s voice. I had forgotten that I had volunteered for this little outing of theirs. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

  “Why would that be a problem?” I respond with as much animosity. She snickered and crossed both her arms in front of her chest.

  “Oh I don’t know, Isaac; maybe you screwing my best friend and then ditching her just as fast could maybe put a damper on the mood.” What the fuck? Is that what she thinks happened?

  “Is that what Cass told you?” I can't believe she would let anyone think that lowly of me, especially my own cousin, but then again, I had read Cass all wrong in other areas, why not this one? Jess lets out a small sigh.

  “No, Cass didn’t tell me that. I put that one together all by myself.” I know that I shouldn’t ask, but some part of me still needs to know.

  “What did Cass tell you then?” Jess’s eyes flare up and I immediately regret asking anything.

  “Nothing! She hasn’t said a god-damned thing. All she said was that you two had a falling out and that she was the one that did wrong by you. That I shouldn’t be mad at you since you did nothing wrong. Really hard to believe her though when I see you hanging around any girl that will give you the time of day. I guess Cass was just another notch on the metaphorical belt for you, huh canalha?”

  “You have no clue as to what happened, so stop trying to judge me on things you don’t know anything about, Jess. I love you cuz, but right now I would really like it if you got the fuck out of my room.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until I have an answer. Can I count on you for next weekend or not?”

  “I promised your dad I would, didn’t I? So can you leave now?” Jess gets up from my bed and storms off like a five-year-old with a tantrum. I get up from my seat and lock the door this time. No more unwanted visits from any family member today.

  Fuck. How could I have forgotten about this trip? I wasn’t ready to even come face to face with Cass let alone be in a fucking car with her for three hours. How was I going to be able to handle this? Logic told me that it’s been so long since we even talked that I should be over it by now, but my feelings were just as raw now as they were that fatal day. I was just able to hide it better.

  Hell, I even tried hooking up with someone just so I could feel something else than the pain I was in. It was no use, though. Lily had been less than an amusing diversion and more like a reminder of what I was truly missing. Every place I went reminded me of her. Every smell, every corner of my wretched mind brought me back to those hazel eyes.

  I had made a point of putting distance between us. It hadn’t been to punish her, though. I had hurt her enough by the way I last spoke with her. Distance had been more to protect me. I couldn’t be in the same room with her. Every time I felt her close by, my whole body reacted to her presence. My body seemed to be going through a junkie withdrawal these past months. That’s what I was. Addicted to her laugh, to her shy smile, so much so that everything else felt bland. She had me wrapped around her little finger and all she had to do was snap and I would run to her. Unfortunately, I didn’t need much convincing. But she didn’t though. After that night at the Youth Center, she didn’t try to talk to me again and I took a page from her playbook. I ran. The anger after those initial couple of days had passed and all that was left was the hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach that I had ruined the best thing that had ever happened to me.

  As each day passed and she made no attempt to talk to me, to mend fences, I grew more certain that she never really loved me at all. That the night she showed up on my doorstep, was just something she did to run away from her problems at home. I never entered into it. My feelings for her were an inconvenience.

  The realization of that should have driven me insane with fury; instead, it only made me grow more apathetic with each passing day. I had fallen so far in love with her in such a short period of time that I didn’t prepare myself for when the other shoe decided to fall. The only sucker here was me, and now I would have to endure a whole weekend with the girl that broke my heart in every way possible.

  I needed a plan.

  CASS

  “You have got to be kidding me! What the hell Tony?” Jess was furious. Apparently our weekend adventure had two chaperones now. We had just finished packing our stuff into Ronnie’s SUV, when along comes Tony with a duffle bag. Jess had gone ballistic in a fevered rant for the past ten minutes,
yet her parents didn’t seem to be moved by her outrage.

  “Just get in the car, Jess. It’s almost eight and by this rate, we won’t be in New York until lunch.” It’s the first time I heard his voice since what seemed to be forever. It was still velvet to my ears and I cursed myself for not making an excuse of being sick or something in order not to come.

  Whatever plausible excuse I came up with, Jess would have probably come to my house and pulled me out of bed kicking and screaming. I wasn’t a fan of drama so early in the morning. She even made sure Ronnie picked me up at place just in case I chickened out. This would be our last trip together so I had to make an effort, even if my heart wasn’t in it.

  My mother had thought that this would have been the perfect opportunity to get out and have some very much needed fun. I disagreed, but after Jess popped over our house demanding that my presence was essential, I had been outvoted two to one. Three to one if you count Nicky’s input. My little brother was getting as worried about me as much as he had been with mom. To calm all of them, I put on a smile and left my house this morning to join the road trip from hell. I really thought that Isaac wouldn’t come, and until I saw him in Jess’s driveway carrying her bags, I had still hoped that he would take one look at me and bail. He didn’t though. Look or bail.

  “Fine! Whatever! Just so you know I am not happy with this!” Jess wails.

  “We know, Jess. You’ve made that so clear that I think the next county even knows how displeased you are.” Ronnie teases. “Come on. How bad could it be?” Ronnie steps into the back seat of the car while Jess ushers me in to the middle. Great no window view for me. No way to make myself invisible for the next three to four hours.

  “Have you met my cousin Tony?!” Jess shrills. “Isaac, couldn’t you have at least asked Alex? Did it really have to be Tony?”