CHAPTER 24
1115 Words
For a moment, I stared at Dave to see if he was kidding, but when he didn’t smile at all, I was speechless. “Are you serious?” I asked him and he just nodded like it wasn’t a big deal. I turned my back and tried to walk away but he managed to grab my hand and forced me to get inside. “Let me go this instant!” I commanded him and he just smirked.
“Let’s pay our respect to Nancy,” he announced.
“Nancy?”
“Didn’t I tell you that she died a few days ago? It’s on the news,” he reminded me.
How could I forget her death when Keith always reminded me about it! “Do you have an idea why she killed herself?” I asked and he shook his head in response.
“She’s not suicidal, Cassie. Do you know that she’s pregnant? She was happy about it so it doesn’t make sense that she will kill herself,” Dave stated.
“Nancy’s pregnant?” The news shocked me because if she’s pregnant, then, she’s not qualified to join the club. “I thought she’s not married,” I said.
“That’s right but she has a boyfriend.”
When Dave mentioned the boyfriend, I immediately assumed that he was talking about Keith Demakis. “Are you the boyfriend?”
“Yes,” he replied nonchalantly.
“Then why did you ask me for a coffee date?”
“Because I used to know you,” he answered.
I nodded my head in disbelief that Dave never considered me as girlfriend material. “I see.”
Dave ushered me inside the funeral parlor where Nancy’s body was laid in an off-white coffin. I refused to walk another step towards the coffin because I was scared but he kept on dragging me.
“Cassandra Anderson?”
I turned around to see an unfamiliar face. However, I was glad at her interference because Dave let me go for the time being. I smiled at her but she didn’t smile back and I wondered why. “Do you mind telling me your name? You looked familiar but I’m afraid I don’t remember the names clearly.”
“It’s Mimi,” she replied. “I bet that you don’t remember me anymore. Come on, follow me and I will show my picture during high school.”
I followed Mimi outside the funeral parlor but she remained standing in the doorway. “Where’s the picture?”
“It’s been a while, Cassie.”
“Yes, it is,” I replied.
“After all these years, the stairs always scared me to death.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you remember? You pushed me from the fourth floor of the academy.”
When she mentioned someone being pushed in the stairs, I recalled a skinny girl with freckles on her nose. She was known as the student who has the kindest heart and I liked her until she befriended Nancy.
“I can tell you already remember me,” she noticed.
“I’m sorry, Mimi. I didn’t mean to do it before but you and Nancy did your best to ignore me and acted as if I was non-existent on the campus.”
“Still, it wasn’t enough to push me, Cassie. It was rude and out of ordinary. Perhaps, do you have a mental illness?”
A mental illness? No, that’s just next to impossible. “I’m fine, Mimi. Now that I remembered who the f**k you are, can we stop the drama and return inside? My parents will be worried.”
“I see that you’re living just fine even after you tried to harm Dave’s sister back then,” she accused me of hurting Rachel but it was baseless!
“Did you see it?” I referred to the incident that took Rachel’s life including her unborn child and when she nodded, I chuckled. “Then, why didn’t you report it to the police?”
“Are you trying to blame me, Cassie? We have no motives to harm Rachel or her child, but you had a valid reason. After all, she was your father’s mistress.”
I closed the gap of our distances and aimed for her throat. “How did you know, Mimi?”
“Dave told me,” she replied.
“He knew?”
“Yes,” she answered.
Without further ado, I left Mimi and returned inside. Dave was nowhere to be found and I was amazed at his audacity to trick me. So, he knew that my family was a mess and yet he said nothing about it.
It was a sin to be fake with me and he deserved to learn his lesson…soon!
No matter how pretty she was inside the coffin, I couldn’t stay any longer. After I said a short prayer, I was ready to leave. Then, Adrianna Anderson arrived with a young man in tow. I snapped my brows together while I strolled towards the newcomer.
Adrianna was surprised to see me but I was more surprised at how young the man was. If my guess was right, he could only be twenty or twenty-one. For goodness sake, my mother was over forty years old!
“Hanz, can you take this inside? I will just talk with Cassie for a minute or two,” she said then gestured for me to follow her outside. “I was supposed to introduce you to him before but he wasn’t able to come for dinner when I invited him,” she explained, and I had to roll my eyes.
“Is he younger than me?”
“Just one year,” she replied as if it wouldn’t be a big deal in the future.
“Mom! How could you do this?”
“I need him to be happy, Cassie.”
“Meaning, I am not enough to make you happy, but then, you promised! I believed your words even if it was hard to believe them!"
“I’m sorry, darling. I just realized that life will be happier with him on my side.”
“I hate you for this,” I told her before leaving.
- Writer
