All Over Again

Part 7

* WARNING SENSITIVE TOPICS COVERED*

Rolling onto my back, I lay flat on my bed and stare at the ceiling.  My vision clouds as I feel tears run down my face, where I quickly wipe them away with my hand.  Sitting up I blink back the tears and swing my legs over the side of my bed.  I sit with my legs hanging down for a few moments before standing up and walking out of my bedroom.  I walk into the kitchen and fill a cup with water, taking a long drink and pushing the glass to the back of the counter.  I lean my arms against the counter and choke out a shaky sob.  They never wanted me, nobody did.  I've been told that more times than I can remember.  I can remember a grand total of maybe twelve times in the last 18 years of my life that my parents ever told me they loved me, and it was only if my grandparents where around.  I try to hold back another sob as I turn to go back to my room.  They didn't care when I left, nobody did.  I went to the wedding and they ignored my existence, my brother didn't even want me there.  His now wife invited me, because she had to.  Because I'm his sister.  I walk down the hallway and pause outside of the guest room, where Matthew is sleeping.  I reach for the door, before changing my mind and shaking the thought from my head.  He'd probably leave and never look back, just like everyone else.  Not that it would matter, it would make giving up easier.  I turn back and stare at the door for a moment before throwing caution to the wind and slowly swinging it open.  I stand in the doorway and watch as Matthews chest rises and falls, with each breath.  I bite my lip and glance back over my shoulder, this was a bad idea.  I can't ruin his life more than I already have.  More than I've ruined everyone's lives.  I was five the first  time my parents told me they hated me, that no one could ever love me.  I thought it was a normal thing, at least until they started telling Jake how much they loved him anytime I was nearby.  I turn around and start to walk out if the room when I hear is groggy voice.  "Cassie?  What's wrong?"  I shake my head, and take another step forward.  I feel the tears sliding down my face and the urge to tell him everything growing.  But I can't.  I can't burden him, not with the troubles of my existing.  "Cas,"  I hear his heavy footfall coming behind me and start walking towards my room.  I feel his hand latch onto my shoulder, as he pulls me around to face him.  "Cassandra, talk to me.  What's going on?"  I jerk away from his grasp and turn to face him, and snap.

"What Matthew,  you want to hear my life sorrows!?  How I've spent the last three years wanting nothing more than to die?  Because that'd be the only way to escape this world, where no one needs me.  Everyone who's ever known me has always wished I was dead.  Why shouldn't I make their dreams come true?"  I slide down the wall in front of him and glare in his direction.  

He starts to talk,  "Cassie, that isn't true.." I cut him off before he can finish his sentence.

"You might say you care but we both know that's bull crap.  Nobody has.  You want to know what the first thing I really remember my parents saying to me?  I was five years old and was terrified that people at school wouldn't want to be my friend.  They didn't comfort me, instead they told me that they hated me so why shouldn't everyone else.  I went to school knowing then that it wouldn't matter what I did, I wouldn't have any friends."  I hear him slide down next to me and scoot along the wall away from him.  "I told Jake, and he told me I must have heard them wrong.  But I didn't.  Every single chance they got they told me how they hated me, and wished I was never born.  I thought for years it was normal, that maybe that was how family worked.  But then I noticed they never told Jacob that they hated him, they always said they loved him."  I lean my head back against the wall and stare at the ceiling.  "The day, you found me in the barn when I was seventeen I was planning on ending it.  I had nothing to live for.  My family hated me and I had no friends.  I had a whole bottle of pills and was ready to swallow them.  But you stopped me.  I thought maybe, just maybe you could care, even if no one else did."   I give a half-hearted chuckle.  "When we started dating, I felt like I mattered to at least one person.  We dated for two years.  I thought you were happy, but you never made a move to tell Jake so I kept it a secret too.  When we got married I was happy.  I loved you more than anything and still do.  I thought you felt the same way.  But, my dad......"  I swallow back the lump in my throat, "My dad told me who ever dated or married me, was only doing it because they felt bad for me.  That nobody would ever want me willingly.  I knew he was right.  I didn't argue, and later that night my mom told me, if anyone ever........"  I close my eyes and squeeze my hands tighter around my body.   "If anyone ever told me they loved me it would be a lie.  That they couldn't even like me for my body.  Because even that was terrible."  I'm in tears at this point, and can feel my body shaking.  "I was so sure that you loved me.  I tried to call you because I was falling apart and needed you to tell me it was okay.  But you didn't pick up.  I knew then that they were right.  Probably always had been, that you hated me like everyone else.  That it was all some joke.  So I packed all my stuff and left.  I came here because I had always wanted too, and I planned for it to be the place I died.  I couldn't do be okay on my own.  I was ready to die.  But then I realized something."

I stop and bury my head in my hands, choking on my tears and wanting him to hold me, but also wanting him to leave me alone.  "Cas, honey.  I'm sorry.  So damn sorry honey."  He pulls me into his chest and rubs circles on my back.  

"I realized even if nobody loved me, I loved them.  I was......  I never told anyone."  I hide my face in his shirt, breathing in the familiar scent of my husband.  

"What are you talking about Cassie?  You never told anybody else that you came here so you could die?"  I shake my head and chew my lip, fighting back another outburst.  "Damn it hon, talk to me.  I'm not going anywhere, even if you try and make me.  I love you, that hasn't changed."

"It might."  I whisper, and pull away from him and face away.

"Nothing you say can change that Cassandra.  I love you.  The only thing I regret is not figuring out where you where sooner.  I should have come after you, sooner."  

"I was pregnant Matthew.  I didn't even know, until I lost it."  I stare ahead of me not daring to look at him.  I can't see the pain I know will be on his face.  "I had just started renting this place, and was sleeping on the couch, when I woke up.  I don't remember what happened for sure I remember the blood, and everything hurting.  I guess I called and ambulance, but I woke up in the hospital and they told me what happened."  I hear him let out a heavy breath behind me and squeeze my eyes closed.

XxXxXxX

There's alot of heavy stuff in this chapter.  But its a longer one then normal.