If Only You Knew

8 - Descendant

April 5th, 2015 - Cassia's House, England

"Just focus, Alice, just breath," Cassia's voice smooths over me, calming my nerves as I focus on the bowl of water sitting on the bench in front of me.

I stare at the water, imagining it moving in my mind, trying to act like Scarlette used to. My head feels tighter, and getting tighter, squeezing together against my concentration. It hurts so much, but I keep pushing and my fingers begin to tingle. I keep pushing. A slight ripple crosses the water and I let out the breath I didn't realise I was holding. The pain in my head goes away, but a dull ache remains.

"See, you did that," Cassia smiles widely at me.

"Yeah, I saw, but my skull feels like its about to shatter," I mumble a little, but Cass hears me.

"Oh, yeah, sorry, I forgot to warn you," she gives me a weak smile and hands me a glass of water.

I whisper my thanks and quickly drain the glass as my head stops spinning and my ears stop ringing. I place the glass on the bench and rub my temples lightly. Cassia stands with her hands in her jean pockets, the fabric of her loose green shirt blowing in the breeze. I look down at my hands, folded in my lap, against the fabric of her blue sundress.

"Well, if you're feeling up to it, we could drive into town and grab you some clothes?" She gives me an apologetic smile.

"Sure, sounds great," I put on a brave face and a smile, nodding in agreement.

She smiles and walks towards the door, where we both slip on a pair of her ballet flats and I grab one of her black cardigans. I pull it on as we walk out the door to her small car, climbing in through the two doors.

We quickly pull out of the driveway and turn on to the road into town. I watch huge, empty fields race past as we speed along in Cassia's little blue car. We reach the town department store after just a few minutes. We climb out of the car and I have to cover my eyes with an arm to shield myself from the brightness of the sun. It was rarely sunny when I was a child. Nevertheless, I'm happy once we are under the lights inside the department store and Cass guides me to the clothing section.

We browse through the racks for a while for me to find things I like, whilst Cassia grabs 'essentials'. Jeans, a huge black coat, a few singlets and everything else. I find some dresses and shirts I like and I try them on, Cassia approving them all.

As we head over to the shoe section, a man steps in our way and smiles at Cass, and I stare at him, clueless.

"Cass, long time, no see," he nods in my direction and Cass smiles up at his brown eyes and messy brown curls. He almost looks like my brother.

"Hey, Andrew, it has been a while," she nods in agreement, her cheeks colouring slightly, but he looks over at me. "Oh, this is Alice, a friend of mine, she's staying with me for a while."

"It's nice to meet you Alice, I'm Andrew," he offers me a hand, which I shake and he gives me a warm smile. I return his smile before looking down at the floor. He quickly returns his attention to Cass. "Well, you girls look like you've got a lot to buy, so I wont keep you."

Cass follows his gaze to the huge piles of clothing that we're both carrying and laughs. "Alice needed retail therapy, so here we are."

He laughs a little and her cheeks colour again, I notice, but he doesn't. "Anyway, we'll have to catch up some time, Cass."

"Yeah, of course," she smiles and nods quickly. "Just give me a call and we can organise something."

"Alright," he smiles and his eyes seem to sparkle. "Well, I'll talk to you soon Cass. And it was lovely to meet you, Alice."

"The same to you," I smile as he walks away. I cant shake the feeling that he seems familiar.

We continue into the shoe section where I spend the next 30 minutes trying on various pairs of heels, flats, sandals, boots and sneakers until I find a pair of each that I like. Once we have that sorted, we walk to the counter and pay for everything before loading the bags onto our arms and then packing the whole backseat of the car.

"I have a few groceries to grab quickly," Cass inclines her head in the direction of the grocery store down the road.

"Alright," I follow quickly behind her as we race down the street, Andrew still seeming familiar in my mind.

The grocer is pretty empty and we grab some chicken, vegetables and milk before approaching the counter, where the cashier and Cassia have a quick conversation before we head home.

We climb back into her car and start to head home, I look at the window, watching the sun start to sink lower, Andrew still on my mind. Once home, we unpack the car and hang everything up in my room. I thanks Cass profusely before she goes downstairs to start dinners.

I jump in the shower and let the hot water run over me. He just seems so familiar. But he can't be. Everyone I knew is dead. I let the water soak my hair. I step out of the shower and dry myself and my hair quickly before getting into a new pair of pyjama pants and a black singlet. I head downstairs into the kitchen, where Cassia is cooking, dancing and singing with music playing from the speaker her phone is plugged into.

"Hey Cass, what are you doing?" I sit down at the kitchen bench and watch her, she still doesn't trust me to cook in her actual kitchen.

"Cooking chicken and baked vegetables for dinner. And performing," she laughs and continues to sing, completely off-key.

"Who's singing this song?" I glance over at the speaker, my eyebrow raised.

"This is Ella Henderson, she won a TV show a couple of years back and I love her so much," Cass smiles crazily as this Ella person hits a high note and then returns to grilling the chicken.

"Oh, she's really good," I smile and nod in agreement. My mother used to sing this well. "Cass, what's between you and Andrew?"

She suddenly becomes very  interested in the chicken and refuses to meet my eye. "I don't know what you mean."

"Cass you were blushing, and he was looking at you like you were the most beautiful girl ever," I roll my eyes at her, trying to cement my point.

"He was?" She spins around, forgetting the chicken she was completely fascinated by a moment ago.

"Ha. So you do like him?" I raise an eyebrow, flicking my wet hair behind me.

"Maybe, he's a really nice guy, we went to school together for the last few years, and he was really great to me." She shrugs slightly.

"Well, good for you, he seems really nice," I smile, happy for her.

"Cassia Whitehall, it does sound good, doesn't it?" She laughs slightly.

"His last name is Whitehall?" I freeze as she nods.

"Alice, you look like you've seen a ghost, what's wrong?" She looks at me, eyes wide and eyebrows creased.

I look at my own reflection in the metallic surface of the fridge, my white face staring back at me before I turn back to her and meet her eyes.

"My last name is Whitehall."