happiness is a butterfly

i burned LA down

Cassie's summer moves at a snail's pace.

Once upon a time, her school holidays had been filled with fun parties, bonfires by the beach, sneaking out to see boys, weekends in Santa Barbara, dropping molly with Maddy at summer fairs. She has memories of sickeningly sweet ice cream melting in her hands and dripping down her fingers while she kissed a sun tanned boy. Or when she could feel the hot sun beating on her shoulder while riding her bike with Lexi around town.

This summer is different though.

Her days are spent by the Jacobs' pool, her skin now already golden from all the time spent tanning since living with Nate and his family. It felt like home, in an odd way, because it wasn't really her home. And it wouldn't be home for much longer.

In fact, Nate's grandfather has already given them keys to his Lakeshore Drive unit, but Nate has decided they should stay with Marsha until the end of summer as this place doesn't have a pool- and is a far fall from grace in comparison to the house Nate has called home all his life. The place was a little run down from being rented over the years and lacked the many amenities Nate was used to but, as Nate kept reassuring her (or himself), this would just be temporary as they got on their feet.

Still, Cassie is just fine with staying with Marsha for a little longer. She visits her mom every once in a while, one day they even go for lunch with Marsha- which is stressful for Cassie, as the two women seemed in a competition over who is the best mom/grandma to be.

Beverley visits for a weekend, alone, and insists on staying with them which drives Marsha close to a nervous breakdown.

Aaron has a new girlfriend, Gemma, who suddenly spends a lot of time at the residence. She's pretty cool, an art student, and she walks around with fitted crop tops and short shorts that show off her many tattoos and make Beverly shudder.

Overall her summer is relatively boring and uneventful, but the women in her life keep insisting she should be making the most of the calm before the baby storm.

Nate's summer plans are also very different to what he expected.

What he thought would be a last summer of fun before the responsibilities of fatherhood, actually turned out to be a rough intro to adulthood. In other words, his grandfather put him to work as soon as school was over, expecting him to deep dive into the business before the start of college classes.

Most days, Nate is out by the early hours of the morning shadowing his father at meetings and overseeing work at their many sites.This means that other than the occasional lunch break, some evenings and weekends, she doesn't get to see Nate all that much. And when he is around he is tired or grumpy or hungover.

Yes, because she would soon learn, his favourite part of having a job is going for drinks at the end of the day.

There is a varied group of men working for Cal, she has gotten to meet them over time when dropping in to have lunch with Nate. Some are young, only a few years older than her and Nate, and they all like to party. A lot. And not just go for a drink at the local bar after work. This was weekend benders, and strip clubs and, she is pretty certain from looking into Nate's pocket once, a lot of cocaine.

Cassie can't help but feel that for every step forward they had made at the end of spring, each day of summer is another step backwards. They were forever stuck on a rollercoaster of emotional growth, moving up towards the sky with smiles and fresh breeze only to accelerate and come crashing down with hands clutching their seats. The kind that flips your stomach over and over again and leaves you feeling light headed and queasy. The type that makes your jaw hurt from grinding on down so hard while anticipating the fall.