Caught in-between #Wattys2016

Nina

I stood for a moment, contemplating what course of action to take, when I heard the faint sound  of familiar singing coming from the inside of my apartment.

It couldn’t be……..

I opened the door to be greeted by the sight of my cousin Nina, standing by the window, in one of Adam’s oversized shirt’s. She was leaning precariously out of the large window, trying hard to ensure that the smoke she exhaled did not enter the room. In her hand, she held the remains of a badly rolled joint, and as she took a pull, she hummed a tune that I recognised from our childhoods.

I closed the door loudly behind me. Nina jumped, startled by the sound.

“Cassandra” Nina exclaimed with delight as she caught sight of me.

She placed the remainder of the joint, which had now gone out on the window sill and rushed over to where I stood flinging her arms around my waist. She caught me by surprise and we both fell backwards as I lost my footing. Nina burst out laughing and I soon joined in. Her laugh was infectious- a sound that reminded me of hazy summer days, playing hide and seek.

‘What are you doing here Nina?’ I asked after calming down a little.

She stood up and extended a helping hand, pulling me up off the floor. ‘Well’ she began as she made her way back over to the window, ‘I had a very interesting email from Aunt Shirl whilst on the Italian stretch of my travels.’

Of course, my mother had asked Nina to come check in on me.

Nina frowned dramatically, ‘She’s very worried about her Cassandra-nandra.’

I rolled my eyes, ‘she has no need to be.

Nina picked up her lighter from the glass coffee table and spent a moment relighting the joint. She inhaled deeply and proceeded with her story. Wisps of smoke made their escape from her mouth as she spoke. 

‘I don’t know Cass- I haven’t heard from you in forever and that in itself is out of the ordinary. How are you holding up?’

 I shrugged, ‘Truthfully…I don’t know how I’m holding up.’

I kicked off pumps and joined Nina over by the window. She took another pull from the joint and offered me a share, ‘Care to indulge?’ she asked.

Nina and I spent the next twenty minutes finishing off the joint and indulging in chit chat. Nina filled me in on the last few months of her travelling adventure. She explained that after much soul searching, she had finally decided to leave the beaches of Goa and had begun the European stretch of her tour. Goa had been good to Nina, offering her an abundance of lovers and yoga, but after 6 months, Nina had grown tired of this existence.

This was typical of my cousin Nina. She had first decided to jet off around 24 months ago. The plan had been that she would be gone for 6 months, using that time to explore as many countries as she possible could. She had begged her father, my uncle Andy for the privilege of being able to explore the world on her own. It had surprised us all that such an over protective father had given in to his daughter’s charms so quickly. Uncle Andy had given Nina his blessing and had even provided the funding for Nina’s latest extravagant whim, much to his wife’s dismay.

Aunty Helen, Nina’s mother and Uncle Andy’s on again, off again wife had been livid. She had sought advice from her sister, my mother. My mother absolutely adored Nina and had advised that the best thing was just to let her go assuming that she would eventually tire and come home.

Well that had been roughly two years ago, and Nina was still travelling.  She wasn’t completely absent; she’d come home in a crisis, but she continued to jet around the world, ignoring Aunty Helen’s pleas for her to come home and find work. It was very much the scandal of the family and one which my father had found to be very entertaining. He’d always said all we Scabor women had a wild streak, and I’d always said in response, ‘Well thank God, I’m a Turner.’

He’d been right. The Scabor women all had similar characteristic, and Nina was a personification of these in the extreme. You couldn’t judge her for it though, after all, she was deliriously happy, and in my opinion that made her very rich indeed.

Nina’s words pierced through my stream of thought and I forced myself to pay attention to the rest of her tale.

‘I mean Marco was great, but I don’t know Cassandra’, she mused as she fiddled absentmindedly with her honey blonde curls. ‘I guess I just didn’t love him, but I don’t judge myself for feeling that way. We had a time, and it was magical, but I think that was more Goa than Marco.’

Nina smiled slightly, ‘Anyways, I’m taking a hiatus from men. It’s all gotten a bit…samey. I want heart aching, jaw dropping, indescribable love, and right now, I’m just having great sex, which is fine, but it’s starting to bore me.’

I chuckled. Nina was right. Why settle for less than the real deal? Even if the alternative felt good, it was just a quick fix, a band aid.

I studied my cousin as she made to roll a second joint. I was grateful that she’d come. Her outlook on life was refreshing and perhaps being around her for a little while could help me to grasp the clarity that I had been searching for.

‘Thank you for coming Nina,’ I said. ‘I hadn’t realised how badly I’d needed to see you.’ 

Nina smiled broadly, ‘You are most welcome. Now after we smoke this joint, you are going to tell me what’s going on with you….And I know it’s not just Uncle Jack passing. There’s something else. I don’t care how long it takes Cassandra, you are going to tell me why you’ve taken to marooning yourself on an island all on your own with no life jacket.' 

I knew this had been coming. Nina knew me far too well and had always been able to read me like a book. Nina turn to face me and cupped my face with her hands. Her big brown oval eyes reflected understanding and empathy.

‘Cous, how can we save you if you don’t let us?’

A tight lump formed in my throat and a  single tear rolled down my face. I knew she was right, but where to start?