Beyond This Moment

21 Day Nine- 1:54 P.M.

"You should talk to Gabe," Cassie tells me the next day as we're the only two awake in the car. She's driving with Gabe in the passenger seat and Elias is asleep against the window of the back seat and I'm laying with my head on his lap with a pillow between his legs and my head.

"Why do I need to do that?" I ask her quietly as to not wake up either of the guys.

"Because he feels really bad about what he said yesterday," She tells me. "And you two are so close, it's really weird to see you guys not talking."

"Did he tell you to talk to me?"

"No, I just don't think that it's a good idea for there to be tension between you two when we get to Seattle. For the wedding and everything," She adds. We're apparently about to have a real conversation so I take my ear buds out of my ears so that I stop hearing music over her voice.

"I don't care about the wedding," I remind her.

"Right," She sighs and I think that she's realizing that convincing me to talk to Gabe is going to be a lot harder than she thought that it'd be. "I think that it means a lot to your dad that you'll be there. Whether you realize that or not."

"I think that he could care less if I'm there or not. My mom's the one who made me come, not him," I say to Cassie, wondering why she is bringing this up right now because it seems kind of random. "Listen, I know that you mean well, but you probably think that my dad is some great guy because of all of the things that Gabe has probably told you but he's not the saint that Gabe makes him out to be."

"He's still your dad though," She adds and then I'm thinking that maybe she's trying to push this on to me because of the fact that she was close to her dad until he died.

"Yeah, he doesn't act like it," I mumble.

"Well, I just know that there is nothing that I wouldn't give to have one more day with my dad," Cassie tells me, keeping her voice quiet. "And you're lucky enough to have that opportunity, to start over with your dad. But you can't do that if you're too preoccupied with being angry at Gabe too."

I don't know what to say to that because I don't want to be insensitive to her dead father but I also don't agree with her at all. She has absolutely no idea what she's talking about when it comes to my father. I decide that story time will work best. "When we were little, Gabe and I, Gabe was already playing hockey and I was playing soccer. Our games were never on the same day but he always made it to Gabe's games, he never missed one game. When I asked him why he never came to any of my soccer games, he said that if I wasn't going to take it seriously, neither was he. I was nine, I was trying my best but I wasn't very good at it. I really liked playing though, but I stopped after he said that to me. No matter how hard I tried at anything, it was never good enough for him but Gabe would just blow his nose and my dad would applaud him for doing a good job.

"Look, Cassie. I'm sorry about what happened to your dad but you have no idea how deep my daddy issues run so please just stay out of it," I tell her as politely as I can. "I know that Gabe would like it if I got along with our dad but he's so blind to how much shit I had to take from that man even when I was so young. And I'm not really too concerned about Gabe's feelings right now anyway."

"I know. I know that it's different and I know that it's not fair for me to expect you to get along with your dad just because mine is gone, I just don't think that you realize how jealous I am that you guys still have him around. And about Gabe, he's really upset that you're not talking to him," She adds, changing the subject back to Gabe which is not fun but it's better than talking about my dad.