XO Cassandra

*1*

Cassandra's eyes are full of tears, but she dares not cry. Her ears were ringing and her heart was beating, but she dares not move from the spot she finds her feet to be rooted to. The bags under her eyes were the only proof that she hasn't slept in four days. She was staring at the slumped, limp figure, but her mind couldn't process what was wrong with it. She saw the blood, but her mind was trying to put it off as only water. She could tell that he wasn't breathing, but her mind was telling her that he was only sleeping. Well in a way he was, but he wasn't going to wake up, and slowly but surely she was coming to realize that. "Nick?" She whispers towards the figure, slowly walking towards him. She was hoping, wishing, praying that he would answer. No response came, and she knew what she was going to find when she lifted his head. She wasn't ready to face this, but she knew she was going to have to.

By the time she makes it to his limp figure her heart is in her stomach and the tears are falling freely from her eyes. She slowly bends over and places her hand under his chin, pushing his face up so that he's staring at her; but his eyes are blank and his face is pale. "Oh no." She chokes out a sob, staring at the red smile glaring up at her from his neck. She couldn't force out anything but a scream and a sob, trying to hold it together long enough to stumble back. She falls to her knees, gripping her head in her hands. She can hear the sound of feet pounding against the steps, whoever else was in the house had heard her scream and now they were coming to check on her, and when they get here they weren't going to see the girl sitting on the floor, body shaking with sobs, head in hands pressed against her kneeling knees. No, they were going to see the boy leaning against the sink, head falling limply to the side, the large, glowing red mark staring up at whomever dares to face it.

A person slams the cracked door open, she hadn't even realized that it had closed once she walked in, and the footsteps stop almost immediately. She doesn't dare turn to look at the people, or person, standing in the doorway. If it were his parents then they would be staring at their now-dead-son and she couldn't face that, his parents were like family to her and she couldn't watch as their faces fall, she couldn't look at the tears. If it were one of their other friends then they would probably flip out first, then they would break down, and she couldn't watch that either.

She wasn't expecting the click, click, click of heels that tapped against the bathroom floor. She wasn't expecting to glance up to a head of bleached blonde hair. She wasn't expecting to see the one person that she didn't want to see. The girl was there, though, and she was staring at him with a broken face, a shaking posture following the tears. Neither one of them talked, Cassandra couldn't take in the fact that the girl her best friend met two days ago was sitting here, crying, acting as if she had known him her whole life. Finally the tears, the choked sobs, the shaking body, it all hit her and Cassandra couldn't hold herself back. She lunged forward, tackling the girl to the ground. Her hand reaches out, making contact with the blonde's face seconds later, this happens a couple more times before the blonde's hand breaks free and grabs Cassandra's wrist, holding her hand as far away from her face as she could, struggling in an attempt to catch her breath. "You don't have the right!" Cassandra hadn't realized that she had been rambling to the girl the whole time, but she apparently had been, and she couldn't hold back the overwhelming rush of emotions as she climbed off of the girl. "You don't deserve to cry, you stupid-" She couldn't finish her sentence, however, the tears beat her words. "Cassandra?" Cassandra could only nod her head, her words getting caught in her throat. "Why did you attack me?" The blonde whispers, scared to raise her voice. Cassandra could only shake her head, throwing it back against the wall as the tears took over, her body began to shake violently, and she had the sudden urge to throw up. The blonde crawls over to her, wrapping her arms around the tiny, shaking figure.

"I'll call his parents." The blonde says, standing up to grab her phone, but Cassandra grabs her ankle, forcing her voice to stop wavering long enough to speak. "I'll call them, they need to hear this from someone that they know. They need to hear it from me." She whispers the last part, forcing herself to stand and wobble over to the counter where Nick's phone was resting against the countertop. She unlocks the phone, dialing his parents number with shaky thumbs. It rings twice before his mom picks up, Cassandra's heart breaks into a million pieces. "Hello honey, are you okay?" No, he's not okay, he's dead! Cassandra wanted to scream and hang up, but she knew that this wasn't something that she could back out of. "M-Mrs. Johnson." Her voice is barely a whisper, but she knows that Nick's mom heard her. "Cassy? Is that you? Honey I've told you a million times to call me Michelle!" The joke was something that they always laughed at, but Cassandra couldn't bring herself to even giggle. "Mrs. Johnson, Nick.... He, um, Nick-" She couldn't get the words out, she couldn't think clearly, she couldn't do anything but stare at the red smile. "Cassandra, what's wrong. Where's Nick? Cassandra where is my son?" She had to squeeze her eyes shut and take a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "I found him in the bathroom." She whispers, all of a sudden she hears a heart breaking scream, she hears sobs and someone repeating 'no, no, NO' over and over again. The phone hangs up and Cassandra drops it to the sink, bending over the toilet and throwing up her entire breakfast and lunch, and then some.

The blonde had set herself down in the bathtub and was currently sitting under the shower faucet, letting cold water fall on her. Cassandra had curled into Nick's side, locking her arm with his cold one, resting her head on his blood stained chest. They were going to make her move once they got here, but she wouldn't, she couldn't. She squeezed his arm, intertwining her fingers with his unmoving ones, her eyes squeeze shut as she tries to press herself as close to him as she possibly can. She hears the door slam open downstairs, but it doesn't close. She hears their footsteps, and she hears them enter the bathroom, but she doesn't move. She sits there, sobbing, broken, and clinging to their son like he was the only thing keeping her alive-- at one point, before today, he was. She hears a scream, she hears a thud, she hears cries and sobs and no's and she still doesn't move, she couldn't force her legs to stretch out long enough to get her circulation going again, she couldn't stand, she couldn't stretch out her arms, she was completely paralyzed.

She feels two bodies press against her and the cold, un-living body beside her, but she doesn't move, she simply lets them hold her and the body, she lets them cry over her, she lets them speak in tongues. She doesn't know how long they were sitting there, she didn't know if the blonde was still in the shower, she didn't know if the water was still running, she couldn't tell if the two bodies pressed against her and Nick were still crying and shaking or if that was just her, all she knew was that her mind was completely blank and that all she could see was a dark, dark world that she didn't want to be a part of, but somehow she knew she wasn't going to be able to escape it. This dark world was lonely, was dull and scary, it was full of people, but none of those people were her best friend.