Chasing Euphoria

Chapter Fifty One

Landon

Yesterday, I had fucked up. 

Correction, months ago I had fucked up. Yesterday, I broke Cassie with it.

She was only working for four hours. I figured I could spend that time wisely, do everything that a fool in love would do to make things right with their girlfriend. 

When she left, I had five minutes to think and then I was in the car. First on my list was to call up a restaurant to see if they had any last-minute spaces. No specific restaurant, simply because I already knew there would be a list of people ready to answer the phone and tell me no. 

To my luck, the fourth one answered, informing me of a cancellation that I was welcome to take. It wasn't until an hour after her shift, which would have given me a chance to apologise to her and somewhat put a smile on her face. 

Next were the flowers. What sort of boyfriend would I be to not give flowers for an apology? I walked into the most expensive florist right before they closed and begged them to make me an apology bouquet. I had to tip almost as much as the flowers cost. 

White and yellow carnations apparently were the best for my purpose. Did I really know if that was true? No, but she seemed to have memorised it from the back of her hand. She also recommended a chocolate shop nearby that had late opening hours to go with them. Straight after I left, I headed right to the shop and picked up their largest box of chocolate truffles.

For a rushed thing, I felt I did quite well.

Finally, I would meet her from work just before she closed so she didn't have to walk home. On top of all my other guilt, it was awful for her to have to walk earlier, simply because she needed space from me.

However, when I arrived it was not what I expected.

Seeing the woman I loved more than anything in tears with a man holding a gun to both her and her coworker destroyed me. I didn't have anything on me, no weapon, no badge. I couldn't help.

I failed her again.

The only threat I could make was that the cops were coming - they weren't.

Sure, it caused him to leave, but then what? He was free? Would he have been caught, or chanced it again later? 

From what I knew after putting the report in, there was nothing about him yet.

Cassie and Tori had to wait for almost an hour for someone to show up for them to take statements and do checks for any sort of harm or injuries. Cailen's parents arrived and looked heartbroken to see that their front door had been smashed and their employees were almost certainly traumatised.

Luckily, they had no harm come to them. We reviewed CCTV footage to provide the officers with, but with the man's hood up, the only solid proof they had were his clothes. Perhaps not too much of an issue as the girls said that he wore that the first time he came in.

After they were free to go home, all we could do was leave it in the hands of the Caruso's to fix up their business. Cassie asked if she could go to sleep as soon as we were back at my place since she just needed to sleep it all off and recover from the events.

When we did try and sleep, she was tossing and turning the whole night, whenever she started sniffling I wrapped my arms around her for comfort and security. Her breathing eventually steadied and she dozed off.

On the other hand, I felt the need to stay awake as much as possible. The fear of something happening to her whilst I slept was ingrained into me.

I needed to devote some time to her, let her know that everything was going to be okay. We could both take a couple of days away from studying because I know in her spare time that was all she had been doing.