Surviving - Rewritten

Chapter Sixteen - Little By Little

Blaise Michaels

Blaise Michaels didn't know what to think when she saw Cassie standing in her living room. Usually when Carly took someone new in it was someone under the age of ten and she wasn't aware that the new girl was her age, let alone that it was Cassandra Blake, the girl who's live she had made a living hell.

Blaise had hated her before, but that wasn't really Cassie's fault. Cassie was the one who Lucinda had said was at fault for a car crash in which had killed her father and she was also the one who Blaise blamed for Lucinda's suicide. The main reason for that was because Blaise wanted someone to blame and Cassie was the only person that she could really pin that on. Still though, looking at Cassie as she left what would now be the bedroom that they shared she couldn't help but hate herself a tiny bit more.

Blaise hadn't really ever thought about Cassie's home life before, but Lucy had mentioned that her mother had died and Blaise found herself wondering why she was so skinny and why she had a couple of scars on her arms. There were faint bruises that looked almost like finger marks near them and Blaise noticed the enormous bags under her eyes for the first time.

At that point she realised that she had never really looked at Cassie or stopped to think that she wasn't the only person in the world with problems. Blaise suffered from depression and she had ever since her dad died from cancer when she was twelve years old. She had lived with Carly ever since.

In the last couple of months Blaise had slowly spiralled, feeling particularly fed up with life as the girl that she was in love with was now nowhere to be found. Not that she would ever admit that to anyone.

"Blaise! I need to talk to you!" A voice shouted from downstairs.

Blaise groaned, making her way downstairs towards Carly. "Yes?" She asked with a frown.

Carly rolled her eyes at Blaise's usual bitchy attitude. "First of all, don't talk to me like that. And secondly, I need to talk to you about Cassandra. I can tell that you know her, and I just wanted to tell you that she has been through a lot and she could really use a friend right now"

Blaise rolled her eyes right back. "She has a friend. It's not me and it never will be" she was going to apologise for being a bad person (not that it would do much help) but she very much doubted that Cassie would ever want to be friends. And anyway, Blaise didn't have any close friends. The only person that she spent much time with was Leah now and she didn't really want to let anyone else in after what had happened to Lucinda.

Carly sighed. "You know Blaise, you can't spend your life shutting everyone out"

"Yeah well, everyone leaves eventually so what's the point in being close to anyone?" Blaise snapped.

Carly smiled sympathetically, causing Blaise to become even more frustrated. "So, you're telling me that you would rather have not had the memories with your parents just because it came to an end? Everyone loses people Blaise, and it is awful but it's better to have known some of those people then to have never knew that kind of love. Haven't you ever heard the saying 'it's better to have loved and lost then to never have loved at all?"

Blaise sighed. She didn't want to upset Carly and whilst she understood what she meant she was very much convinced that Carly was speaking rubbish. "Yeah, you're right" she lied.

Carly rolled her eyes again, seeing straight through Blaise. "I can tell that went right over your head, but please, just be nice to her if nothing else Blaise. You know more than anyone that the girls I take in have been through a lot"

Blaise sighed. "I'll be nice to her" she agreed honestly.

Carly grinned extatically. "Thank you. Now you can go back to your room"

Blaise rolled her eyes at Carly's antics. She loved Carly, but she was a bit strange sometimes.

Blaise went back to her room, rolled her sleeves up and stared at her scarred wrists. She frowned, thinking back to the dark days that had followed her after her fathers death and about how much she regretted scarring herself during the depths of her depression. No one knew that she had sunk so low and the only person that knew she was on medication for depression was Carly. She hoped Cassie wouldn't find the tablets underneath her bed.

Blaise sat in the corner of her room for a while, contemplating life and how horrible she had been to Cassie, how she could somehow make up for it, and how bad of a friend she was to Lucy. She was blindly in love with Lucinda and never told anyone for the fact that the town they lived in was extremely homophobic and Lucy had always bullied the only openly gay boy in their school.

She wished that Lucinda had known that she would have done anything for her, and that she knew what drove her to do what she did. Ever since she died it was like the world that Blaise lived in lost all its colour and Blaise had lost all hope for the future.

Of course, nobody knew or would ever know about this, for Blaise kept everything to herself and spent her life putting on a mask, as many people do. No one would ever see how empty she really was inside.

At school, Leah only talked about parties, herself and her hatred for Cassie. It was never anything real and as much as Blaise thought Leah was a nice person, it was easy to tell that she had always gotten what she wanted and she only really cared about superficial things. She was upset that Lucinda had passed away, but Blaise could tell that she wasn't the type to speak about emotions either. Leah just bought new clothes and surrounded herself with things and was easily distracted from her pain. Blaise had never been like that.

Blaise jumped slightly as she heard the door shut and saw Cassie standing at the door. Blaise quickly stood up and walked towards her phone on the bed.

"Hi" Cassie muttered quietly before going to her side of the room and opening up a small suitcase.

"Hi" Blaise responded awkwardly with a slight wave, not really knowing how to act around Cassie anymore.

Cassie smiled at Blaise and started unpacking a few clothes before shutting the suitcase again.

Blaise frowned in confusion "is that all your stuff? Or do you have more downstairs?"

"Erm, this is all of it for now. I'm going shopping with Carly for some stuff at some point"

Blaise looked at Cassie with raised eyebrows, suddenly noticing her pale face and tear-stained face. "Have you been crying?"

"N-no. I haven't" Cassie replied, looking away from Blaise.

Blaise rolled her eyes at the obvious lie, but let it go. "Okay. Do you think that I could go shopping with you?" she asked hesitantly, surprising both herself and Cassie.

Cassie raised her eyebrows at Blaise, but nodded nonetheless "of course"

Blaise smiled. She didn't want to get close to anyone really, but now that she had more time to think about it she wanted to make it up to Cassie. She still didn't want to be friends, but maybe things would be less awkward if they knew each other a bit better.

Cassie smiled back before turning and sorting out her clothes, and somehow Blaise just knew that being roommates wouldn't be as bad as she had first thought.