This is Me Trying ⭑ Rafe Cameron

thirty four

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
[34]
song: it's not easy by ofege

Papers were sprawled out in front of her. Bills, and receipts, and all sorts of things that Cassie's grandma should've been logging in a computer instead of leaving in a paper trail.

They sat at the kitchen table together, sorting through each one and totaling it up in different ways. Then her grandma would the bank, and Cassie would listen in, and then they would keep sorting.

"What's this one?" Cassie says, handing it to her grandma.

She tilted her glasses so she could read the paper better. In the corner read Kildare County Family Clinic. "For your brother."

Cassie took it back and read it over like she'd missed something. A bill made out to Kirsten M. Crowley, patient name JJ A. Maybank. From years ago.

"Needed some vaccines to get into the high school." Her grandma shrugged it off like it was nothing. "Your dad wasn't around so I took him."

Cassie didn't remember this at all, and she wondered if they did it without her knowledge. She thought about JJ, who'd been staying at The Chateau for days now. There would never be a good enough time to ask if JJ could crash here for a while. At least until he saved up enough money for his own place. She started to bring it up, but her grandma continued before she got a word out.

"Are your friends back to school yet?" She asked, writing a few things down on a notepad.

Cassie took a breath, then shook her head. "No."

"Are they going back to school?"

"I don't know. Kiara's parents are letting her repeat this semester next year, and I'm sure Pope will go back eventually because of his scholarship."

"And have you thought about it at all?"

Cassie watched her grandma as she spoke. An awkward tension still lingering in the air. "I think I might just keep trying to find a job."

Her grandma stopped writing at this, and looked up. "Instead of school?"

Cassie tried to speak calmly, so it didn't come off as as big of a deal as it was. "Well, you said the other day that you spent Grandpa's college funds for me on Kitty Hawk, and—" she shrugged. "And no high school degree is just as unemployable as not having a college degree."

"Well, no that's not really the case at all." Her grandma was taken aback. "You don't plan on going back ever?"

"I just think if I can get a good part-time job somewhere around here I'll be able to help support us both. I can save up for my own car. And I'll be around more to help out around the house."

Her grandma laughed. "If only it were that easy."

"There's like— two months left in the semester. There's no point in going back right now. I'm gonna have to repeat it anyways." 

Cassie watched as her grandma thought it over. Shocked at the fact that this wasn't an immediate no, that she looked like she might even be considering it.

"Let's talk about it later." Her grandma rubbed her forehead with a sigh, as she returned to the numbers on her notepad.

Cassie watched as she totaled up more money that she owed the bank. The number growing larger and larger every time Cassie thought she was done.