The Comeback

Chapter 2 - Second Chances

Chapter 2 - Second Chances

“Come on, nothing will happen,” I tell her, reaching my hand to take hers but she still looks unsure, scared. “I’ll be with you all the time and I bet no one will notice we’re gone,” I insist and I can see how her walls are cracking up. “C’mon.”

“You’re getting us both in so much trouble!” She laughs but takes my hand and I tangle our fingers together, enjoying the bliss of having her hand in mine. “If they suspend us, you’ll have to face Mum.”

“Deal,” I agree and laughing we do it, we sneak out of school without anyone noticing it. Or that’s what we thought.

Still, we have one of the best days. We go to a fair, we go in so many rides, we win prizes, we eat so much and we laugh until our cheeks are numb. I can always have fun with her, that’s why we are best friends. But by now I am already in love with her… I’ve been for years, since she started to become a woman, since I stopped seeing her as a little girl.

She is so beautiful in her own special way and I saw her blooming. I saw the whole process of how she turned into a butterfly. She can look at the magazines and complain because she is nothing like the models on those pages, but I wouldn’t change a thing about her. I love her with her untameable hair, with her green eyes, with all her freckles, with her cat-like gaze, with her sweet smile, with her boyish body. I love her.

“Whaddya lookin’ at?” She asks me, with her green eyes focused on me as she eats cotton candy, her lips pinker.

“How you’re stuffing yourself with that thing but you’re not sharing! Greedy pig!” I tell her trying to snatch some cotton candy but she rises to her feet. “Oi! Give me some.”

“No, it’s my cotton candy. Get your own,” she spats, making me chuckle. I love that she doesn’t get offended if I call her pig, she knows I don’t mean it and she is used to us treating each other like that all the time.

“Cass, give me some cotton candy!” I beg standing on my feet, too, but she turns around and starts running.

“You’ll never catch me alive!” She shouts and laughing, I go after her.

Needless to say I catch her and steal the rest of the cotton candy, but I have to buy her another one later because she wouldn’t stop looking at me with puppy eyes. It’s been an amazing day, we got in a lot of trouble later, but it was worth it.

Cassidy is always worth it.

+ + + + +

I wake up to the beep of the machines connected to me, monitoring my heartbeats and I blink, trying to bring the world into focus again. I still have the dream playing in my head, with the girl who was with me when I woke up earlier, I guess. I don’t know for how long I’ve been sleeping. I look around and I see Mum sleeping on the sofa of the room in a weird position. I cringe; this is not good for her health.

“She wouldn’t listen, I told her to go home,” another voice says and I feel my heart jumping because I recognise her immediately, her voice is as clear as in my dream.

I turn to my other side and I see her again, smiling at me with sympathy. I notice a difference from the girl in my dream, and it’s that this one looks sad, her eyes don’t shine the way they shone in my dream.

“Cassidy,” I breathe out and she approaches.

“How are you feeling? Do you need something?” She asks me and for a second I’m about to say cotton candy, but I shake that thought away.