She was slim and beautiful, goddess features untouched. Clothes fitted her perfectly, beauty untamed. It seemed like she fell from heaven. She would hush me and brush my hair back to say, “It’s okay sweet baby, everything’s going to be okay. l will protect you.”
How I long for a mother like that. I wake up crying realizing that my dream was just a dream and will be nothing more. I lay there and listen to the silence, a song long forgotten within the house.

    *    *    *    *    *    *

I awake again around breakfast time. I gingerly tip-toe into the still cold of the house. I retire to my room and put on a robe and some socks to avoid freezing to death. I mince back out, taking precaution if no one is awake in the house. On my way to our tall, skinny fridge, I began to pray for there to still be milk left. I am relieved when I peer out some when I opened the fridge. I devour my cereal in peace. Once done, I grab the home phone to call my friend, Merryann. I saunter into the crisp, cold air when I exit the house onto the back porch. Hopefully it will get warmer throughout the day. Mom doesn’t turn on the heater to “save money.” She wouldn’t care if we all froze to death. I dial Merryann’s number and wait for her to pick up.
“Hey what’s up?” she picks up the phone.
“I was wondering if you want to hang out today. I have nothing better to do.”
“Um...not today. There was a heat up between my parents yesterday.”
“How bad did it get?”
“To the point where they started throwing things. So, maybe some other time.”
“Alright,” I say in disappointment as I hang up the phone.
Got to find somewhere else to escape to. I decide to call Xavier to see if I can hang with him.
I dial the phone number. “Hey, what’s up?” I say into the phone when he picks up.
“Hey, nothing much.”
“Can I come over?”
“Sure, no problem, we just have to be outside of the house because I feel like I’m choking in the house.”
“Alright. I’ll be over soon.”
I hang up. What’s going on with everyone today? Why is there so much tension in the household? I hope Xavier tells me what is happening, like he always does.
I dress in dark blue skinny jeans, a dark purple jacket with a black tank-top, and black converse. I leave a note on the fridge saying that I’m going over to a friend’s house. My mom doesn’t really care where I go, as long as I did my chores, come back before dinner, and go to someone’s house that she knows. I love this little freedom that I have.
I head out the house and start my quick walk to Xavier’s house. It was colder than I thought. The cold dried my lips and made my eyes tear up. The wind didn’t make it any better. I see Xavier sitting on his porch slouched over. His auburn hair is covered with a black and green baseball cap. Headphones plug his ears, and you can hear a slight hum coming from them. He looks up at me with his full brown eyes. He takes off his headphones when I approach him.
“You’re here. Ready to go?”
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“To a secret place I found a couple days ago.”
He grabs my arm and we start our journey to who-knows-where.
“So, did something happen in your house yesterday.” I ask. I can always tell when something is wrong with Xavier by the way he walks; tall, stiff and with purpose. I have known him for way too long now not to know.
“It was just some argument about what they think about me and my life.” He always answers me as vague as possible.
“What were they saying about you?” I try to get more information out of him. It’s not that I’m nosey; I just care a lot about Xavier as he cares for me. You don’t let friends keep their problems inside to let them explode later. You try to solve it as soon as possible.
“They were talking about my grades and how I was doing in school.” He pauses. “I don’t get it. I try my hardest to do what I can in school, but I feel like I wasn’t made for anything education has to offer. I breathe cars, Cassandra. I repair, make, sell cars. I don’t really need an education for that, it’s just skill. And I don’t know why they would start arguing about this now. They didn’t care before.”
I feel like we get into this conversation way too many times.
“Well, you need...” I begin.
“Don’t start Cassandra. I know. You say it all the time, but no matter how many times you say it, it won’t change my mind.”
I sigh. I lose as usual. To this point, I doubt his mind will change, but I have to try until the end.
We walk in silence for a while. The wind howls in my ears. In a few minutes, we arrive at our destination.
Trees dance to the wind’s heart-warming song. The air felt warm and soft. Birds tweet along with their soft, gentle voices. The water of the lake holds still as life around it goes on. Fish slowly swim in harmony with each other. The aroma of fresh air fills my lungs. It tastes so sweet on my tongue. My mind is clear and my soul is whole. Here I felt safe. Here I was free.
“This place is magnificent. It’s peaceful, quiet and heart-warming.” I forget everything that happened over the day. I breathe the fresh air in and out. All of a sudden tension and stress leave my body.
“I started coming here every day after a big blow out argument to blow off steam or cool down. It’s been helping me get ahold of life in general,” Xavier explains to me.
“I can see why. It’s so calm here. You can think and take a breather out here,” I comment.
We sit next to the lake and relax. We’ve both been through a lot lately and this is the perfect time to let it out. I watch a white peacock emerge from behind a tree. It shows off its elegant, pearl white tail feathers. It looks me in the eye, and what I see in it is love and compassion, something I always moaned for.
“Do you see that peacock?” I ask Xavier.
“What peacock?” Xavier looks around. “Peacocks are not native to Texas so you wouldn’t see them in them in the wild. Are you okay, Cassandra?”
“Yes. I just thought I saw one.”
We sit in several more moments in silence. We let our souls suck up the nature around us. It’s very rare for me to have this amount of free time and be able to escape from my thoughts. Xavier put an end to that though.
“What’s going on between you and your mom?” he asks me.
“Nothing much. It’s just we don’t really get along. We have a lot of fights and she yells at me a lot of no reason. I always feel like screaming back or explaining the situation to her, but it will never do any good. The yelling keeps going.”
“Why is she like this toward you and not toward your other siblings?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. Was it something I did in the past or something that happened to her in the past? Was it the way she was raised or how she treated herself after she left the house into adulthood?”
“Have you ever tried talk to her about it?”
“Of course I have! She never listens. She just blames me for being a bad child when I’m sure there’s worst out there. I am, at the very least, a bad child. I do all of my chores, follow curfew rules, and do what I am supposed to do in school and home. It makes no sense!”
I can see Xavier trying to come up with something to say, but nothing came.
“It’s like she doesn’t trust me,” I exclaim. “What did I do?” I pull my knees up to chest and rest my head on top of them. A hot stream of tears runs down my ice, cold face. Xavier holds me close to him as whispers softly in my ears. I love Xavier to death, he is always there for me when I need someone to lean on, it’s just that he can be ignorant sometimes.
I fall asleep on Xavier’s shoulder as he hums my one of a soft little tune. He hums smoothly and calmingly. I will never forget his hum for the rest of my life.
I wake up to see the bright, round moon lighting up the sky with it’s fluorescent rays of moonlight. I check my watch to see what time it is and hope my mom cooks dinner late tonight. Xavier slowly wakes beside me.
“Wow, it got late fast or we slept longer than we attended to.” Xavier stretched out his arms and legs and stood up. He reached out his hand to help me up. He stares at me with his brown eyes longingly. I don’t want to go back home or even have this day end.
    We start our voyage back home. Xavier walks me all the way to my house. When we get to my porch, he kisses me on the forehead and wishes me good night. He has been doing that recently when he is in a really good mood or thinks he won’t see me for a while. I wave him off and enter through the threshold of my house.
    Once inside, I see Toby and Crystal sitting on the couch watching TV. Great, back to my boring, old life. I realized how much I yearn now to relive today again and again. Moments like these only happen once, so I have to cherish them.
    “I’m home!” My voice rings through the house. I suspect that they haven’t eaten dinner yet by the hungry look on Toby’s face. He’s the pig in the family, eats everything and will eat anything. He is rarely satisfied in how much mom gives him to eat.
    I walk to my room to find something to do. It ends up being flopping on the bed and falling asleep. Before falling into deep sleep, I hear the front door open and shouts for dad and pizza. I get out of my bed before I hear my name yelled through the house for dinner.
I’m not really hungry so I eat about 2 pieces while I see my mom and Toby eat about 6. How do they not get sick, especially mom? She just eats all day and watches TV. I wonder what she does when we are out in school.
After everyone was done eating, I cleared the table and cleaned the kitchen. Tomorrow is school, so at least for 8 hours I get to escape and be with my friends.
I go to my room, set my alarm to 5:30 am, and fall asleep. Unlike my siblings, I go to sleep on time, in order to last through the school day, because it can be brutal and full of work.

The loud ring of the alarm clock wakes me up immediately, my dream forgotten. I sluggishly get out of my warm bed. Contact with the cold air makes me retreat back under my covers. I look around the room for something warm to wear, but nothing is in sight.
5 minutes later I finally decide to get out of bed and head to the bathroom. I don’t have to worry about fighting Toby for the bathroom because he wakes up much later than I do.
I look at myself in the mirror for about 10 minutes before brushing my teeth and washing my face. After I’m finished with the bathroom, I go to my room to throw together an outfit consisting of jeans and a T-shirt; a regular Monday outfit.
I grab my backpack, shoes, and violin and put it by the door. I sit on the couch and wait for me brother to be ready and for 6:45 to come around.
When it finally does, Toby and I head out the door and start our 20 minute walk to school. Toby is always lazy in the morning and walks really slow. Sometimes when I feel like that I will walk as slow as him, but today I want to get to school, the furthest I can get from home for now.
When I finally arrive at the high school, I go straight to the cafeteria to grab some breakfast. As I sit down and start to eat, Merryann sits down next to me. 
“Hey, what happened over the weekend?” I ask her.
“My parents just got in a nasty argument,” she starts out. “I’m starting to get a little scared, Cassandra. These arguments are happening more often and are getting more violent. My dad is starting to come home really late, and my mom is getting really concerned.”
“Is this happening all of a sudden?”
“Yeah. I think there is something they are not telling me. Something had to happen between them, but they are trying to keep it together for me and my sister.”
It sounds like her parents are breaking apart. My mom and dad rarely get in arguments because my dad is barely even home and when he is, he is eating dinner and going to bed.
Merryann and I walk to our classes when the bell rings. I have to walk through a huge, empty quad to get to my physics class. My school is open floor planned, just like a college. It has its advantages and disadvantages.
“Good morning class!” my physics teacher, Mr. Smith, shouts too ecstatically. Everyone in the class moans. “Today we are going to do a group lab.”
Another one! We did one last week. I can’t go through another one. My lab group sucks. I mostly do all the hard-work.
“So get your materials, and start working because this lab is due at the end of class today.”
More moaning. What a great way to start of a Monday.
The whole class gets straight to work. At my lab table we just stare at each other in silence. This happens every time. Socially awkward, not-so-smart, doesn’t-want-to-be-here, and I stare at each other to figure out who is going to go the lab, and it ends up being me every time. It’s just not a good table mix.
The lab wasn’t completely hard, just finding some data points, plotting them on a graph, and answering some questions about the collected data. The lab just took me forever to do; hence I was the only one working on it.
When the bell finally rings, I hand in “my” completed lab and head out the door. I walk to the performing arts building to go to my next class, orchestra. I love playing the violin. It’s rich, beautiful, pure tone eases me.
I walk in to see that my stand partner, Cynthia, has already taken out 2 chairs and a stand for me and her.
“Today you get the violins,” she says to me as I put my backpack down. I wish we had big enough school lockers to fit our backpacks in. We can only fit our textbooks in them.
“Alright,” I reply as I head to the instrument locker room.
I reach up to locker #101. Thankfully I am not too short because our locker is on the top row. I grab both our violins and head back out to the main room.
I hand Cynthia her violin. “Whoa, you recolored your hair!” She had recolored it bright purple because the purple she had in before started to fade away and turn light blue.
“Yeah, like it?” she responds.
“Yeah, of course,” I start to say until I look closer and focus on her. “Are you wearing a,” I look closer and try to guess, “Kangaroo pajamas?”
“Yes!” She flashes a grin at me.
I got my violin out and rosin my bow. I start to practice a little until our concertmaster, Amanda, stands on the podium to tune us. Amanda deserves it because she has been playing violin for basically her whole life. I’m a second violin since I have been playing for about a year, but I am happy that I’m at least third chair in the second violin section.
Our band director, Mr. Boldin, comes up to the podium when Amanda is done tuning us. The person sitting behind me, Connor, taps me on my shoulder and hands me his violin. He’s been playing since the start of the school year and his tuning is pretty bad, but I don’t mind helping him.
Just when I finish and hand it back to him, Mr. Boldin is ready to conduct us. Right now we are learning how to play a symphony. It’s such a beautiful piece, but when we play it, it sounds like something from a horror movie, probably because of the second violins. We have a lot of beginner players and we are playing a pretty complicated piece of music. So far we have, as an ensemble, half of the first movement down. Just three and a half more to learn.
After one whole class period of playing my heart out, I head to Chinese class. My school only provides 3 languages: Spanish, French, and Chinese. Since I already knew Chinese a little bit, I enrolled in that class, but it is extremely boring. The material is easy and the class moves very slowly.
Our teacher, Mrs. Zhang, greets us at the door. I enter the classroom and take my seat in the back of the classroom, closest to the door. I take out my Chinese textbook and start studying. Last week I was able to convince Mrs. Zhang to allow me to self-study because I told her how useless the class was to me and how I wasn’t learning and improving in Chinese. So, we picked a textbook that I would follow and work on.
“Alright class, settle down and do the warm-up on the board,” Mrs. Zhang announces. You can hear her Guangdong accent through her English and I hate it when people in the class try to do an impression on it through their Chinese.
The class was just loud. Whenever Mrs. Zhang tells them to say it together, they yell at the top of their lungs. Some people are not even saying anything in meaning.
I finish my lesson in the textbook and call Mrs. Zhang over to check it. After, she approves it, I sit back and relax and wait for the bell to ring to end the class period.
When it finally does I head to English class with Mr. Snyder. He is the coolest teacher ever. He wears a suit every Monday with shades. Every student wishes they could have him as a teacher. His teaching skills are amazing and he doesn’t move off a subject or give us a test until everyone has a hold on the unit we are doing. Another bonus is that he rarely gives us homework.
Right now in his class we are writing novels. The word count goal for my novel is 40,000 words. I’m about 40% done and 30% is due Wednesday, so I’m good on English homework for a while.
Lunch is after this class. Everyone rushes to either the cafeteria or food stands scattered around the school. I fast walk to the food stand by the performing arts building because the lines usually get really long really fast.
After I get some pizza and a carton of milk, I head to the picnic table area by the music room where my friends and I always eat and hangout.
“Hi,” my best friend, Shanae greets me when I sit down at the table next to her.
“Hi, what’s up?” I greet her.
“Nothing much, just super tired. I wanted to stay home today by faking I was sick, but I was sick last week, so it would be obvious that I am faking it.”
“Yeah, I’m super tired too, but good thing we only have 2 classes left. I have math and drumline. Not too much to suffer through.”
“Are you going to the pep game this Friday?”
“There’s a pep game? Is it mandatory?” I totally didn’t know there was a pep game this Friday. I thought since marching band season was over, we were done with playing at football games.
“Yeah, it’s mandatory.” Shanae responds.
“Alright. I am probably going to go since it is mandatory. Just have to ask my mom.” Oh great, I have to ask my mom. She always gets antsy when we come back from a game, trip, or competition later than the said time. I always use this reason when I tell my parents that they should get me a phone.
After we both finish eating, we go into the band room. We go to the locker room so Shanae can switch out her textbooks in her trumpet locker. Then, we go to the front ensemble room were people in front ensemble usually hang out. When we walk in, I see my friends Sandy, Dave, Huen, and Derek.
Derek and Sandy are playing marimba and Dave and Huen are doing homework. Shanae and I sit on the floor by the door and start doing physics homework. We help each other because we have the same teacher, just different class periods.
After finishing the physics homework, I try to start my math homework. I remember my last year’s math class, it was so easy. For some reason this year, it is super hard. It could be because our math teacher doesn’t teach us any of the material and also because the new book that the state of Texas made this year makes absolutely no sense. The way it teaches is really weird and it uses “foreign” vocabulary that I would probably never use to teach math.
The textbook combines intermediate algebra and geometry together to learn in one year. Sometimes I think that the book assumes we know a lot of the stuff it’s teaching us. Whenever I ask a higher classman, they can never help me because it makes no sense to them either. I can’t ask my parents because I figured out in the 4th grade that they can no longer help me, due to the fact that they did not go to college and can barely recall what they learned from school.
I quit doing math homework in frustration and get up to see what Derek and Sandy are doing. When I get to the marimba they were playing on, I can hear that Derek playing a marimba solo. Derek is the best marimba player I know. He was front ensemble section leader for marching band this year. He is probably going to be it again next year when he is a senior, but some people are saying that I am going to be section leader next year, like that’s going to happen.
“Whoa, Derek! No need to show off,” I say playfully.
“I’m not; I’m just practicing for an audition that is coming up soon.” He smiles back at me.
“Derek is going to teach me 4-mallet grip so I can play vibes next year during marching band season. Synthesizer was pretty boring this year.”
“What are you guys going to play for winter drumline?” I question them.
“Marimba, of course!” I could assume Derek would say that.
“I’m thinking of going to battery for winter drumline. I want to do either cymbals or bass drum Cymbals are pretty self-explanatory and my boyfriend is teaching me how to play the bass drum,” Sandy replies.
“I think I’m going to try out for snare drum.” I comment. I think I might make snare because the drumline coaches already said they wanted me to play that instrument, but if I can’t I’m think of doing bass drum. If all else fails, I’ll go back to front ensemble and play marimba.
The bell rings, and I lug myself to my math class which is on the complete opposite side of the school campus. At the doorway, I shake Mr. Edwards, my math teacher’s, hand.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Edwards.”
“Good afternoon, Miss Night. How are you?”
“Good,” I respond. Terrible now that I’m here, I think.
I take my seat and get out my materials. My dark green math spiral is running out of paper and my mom won’t buy me another one. I have to find another spiral or resort to loose-leaf paper.
When the bell rings to start the class, Mr. Edwards asks the class if there were any problems with last night’s homework and he answers them, just like every other day.
After we went over the homework, he asks three people to tell the class something good. I really hope it is not me today.
“Sally Mockins, tell us something good.” Everyone looks in Sally direction.
“Uh...We won our volleyball game on Saturday.”
“Well, give it up for our volleyball team.” Everyone claps, like we do every time.
“Jonathan Navy, tell us something good.” Everyone looks in his direction. No, no, no! It’s too close to my name.
“Basketball season is starting next week.” Of course that would be a good thing for him; he is like one of the major freshman jocks in this school.
“Well, give it up for the basketball and the rest of the winter sports that are starting.” Here we go, I think to myself.
“Cassandra Night, tell us something good.”
“Uh…” Think, Cassandra, think! “Uh, marching band season is over and winter drumline starts,” I say in a bit of relief. At least I found something to say.
“And what are you going to try out for in the drumline?” Mr. Edwards questions back.
Why does he always do this to me? Why didn’t he ask what position Jonathan was going to try out for or ask Sally what school they played and what was the score.
“I’m thinking of trying out for either snare drum in battery or marimba in front ensemble,” I manage to mutter.
“Alright, give it up for drumline.” Everyone claps. It seems more to me now like a social anxiety class more than a math class.
“Alright, let’s get started.” Mr. Edwards gives us a lecture on factoring and solving quadratics. I couldn’t really pay attention because I couldn’t stop thinking of something that happened to me when I was younger.
It may have been in elementary school. I remember how easy life was and how easy the school work was. My mom and dad knew I actually existed. They bought me things, took me places, and actually cared about me more than they do now. What happened? I try to breath in the sweet, savory smell of the love and freedom I used to have.
I snap back into reality when I hear the bell ring. “Don’t forget to do your homework!” Mr. Edwards shouts over the bell.
Everyone rushes out of the classroom and to their next class. One more period left, and the day would be over for the most part.
When I finally reach the band room for my next class, I go inside the front ensemble room, and start playing on the marimba. It feels good when you have something you can do to let go of everything in your life and escape. Playing on the marimba reminded me of where Xavier and I went yesterday. The calming waters and soft, warm breeze. Speaking of Xavier, where is he? I at least see him once or twice in a school day.
I hope he didn’t ditch school today. He usually does that when he is not in the mood for anything or when he wants to miss a test for some class. I hope he is okay. Even with my concerns and reasons, he never listens to me. That’s when all of a sudden; he pops in the front ensemble room.
“Hey Cassandra. I knew I would find you here,” he remarks.
“What are you doing here?” is all I can think of saying.
“I don’t want to go to Mrs. Valentine’s English class. Why do I need to go to an English class? I speak English well enough.” he declares.
“Well, you need to take 4 years of English to into college,” my voice fades away and I stop. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? Don’t be.” Xavier walks up to me and puts his hands around me. “Don’t cry.” Cry? Was I crying? It might have been the sniffling that made him think that I was about to cry, but I didn’t physically feel that I was crying. I was crying on the inside because no matter what I do, Xavier will not take school seriously.
He holds on to me longley, and a little too long. When he finally realized how long he has been hugging me, he lets go.
“I didn’t mean...I mean,” he stutters. “It just wouldn’t work.”
“What wouldn’t work?” I question him.   
“Us. We wouldn’t work because of your mom.” He pauses. “She hates me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know. She even told me so.”
“When?” I demand.
“In eighth grade during your thirteenth birthday party.”
I can’t believe what he is telling me. “What did she say to you?”
“She was like, you’re not good enough for her and you will never live up to life making cars. We won’t allow you to be with her even if she loves you.”
It takes me awhile to take this in. Why would my mom say such things to Xavier? He doesn’t have a criminal record or anything; he just doesn’t want to go to school.
“I love you Cassandra,” Xavier confesses. “I just can’t handle any longer. Why does it have to be so hard?” Tears run hot down his face. He wipes them away like they are fake and denies he is crying. “I want to try for you, try at school you know, but it doesn’t click.” You can see in his face that he is almost to the point bawling out. “All this pressure is on me, and sometimes I don’t know how to handle it.” He looks me dead straight into eyes. “You are the only one that keeps me going. Never disappear from my life.” He plants a soft kiss on my forehead, one I will never forget. He rushes out the room before I can say a thing.
I sit down and let my thoughts control my mind. I have so many questions that will probably never be answered. I don’t know how to feel right now. My emotions have gone haywire. Good thing this is my last class of the day or I would not be able to survive the day.
I’m brought out of my head when the bell rings to end the school day. I’m so glad I don’t go straight home after school or I would have trouble thinking because I already have enough to deal with at home. I stay in the band room until my mom picks me up, which is in an hour because that’s when she picks up Crystal.
My friend Maria walks into the band room. “Hey, Cassandra, what’s up?”
“What’s up, Maria. How are you?”
“Ah, good. Just a lot of homework to do, the price of being a junior.”
“Are you staying here after school?”
“Yeah, I have to. I have to go to soccer conditioning at 5 o’clock.” So, Maria and I have time to real talk.
“You want to go into one of the practice rooms to talk?”
“Sure.”
We exit the front ensemble room, cross through the main room into the practice rooms. We get into one and start to talk.
“So, how’s life?” Maria asks.
“It’s alright, just a lot of things to think through. Lots of things on my mind, getting some emotions that I never felt before.”
“Me too.” She thinks for a while. “Can I let you in on a secret of mine?”
“Of course.” I respond.
“I think I am falling for someone in band.”
“Who?”
“Um…,” she hesitates. “Zain.”
“You like Zain!” All thoughts leave my head. “Since when?”
“Since the second-to-last marching band competition.”
“What happened?”
“Well it started with me asking him on the bus ride back home from the competition what music he likes to listen to and he told me he liked rap music and electronic music. I asked if I could listen to what he was listening to at the moment and we ended up listening to music for about an hour. After that, I told him I was tired and going to sleep. He also said he was going to sleep. When I wake up 30 minutes later, he is asleep on my shoulder. He wakes up immediately and apologizes then falls back asleep on the bus seat. After maybe a minute he looks at me and smiles. Out of nowhere, he asks me, can I lay on you? When he asked me that I thought in my mind, okay maybe he's going to lay on my shoulder again like he did before, but in the end he lays on my lap.” She laughs, “I was like, whoa! I didn’t know what to do so I let him. We stayed in that position for 2 hours. 2 hours! When there was about an hour left of the trip, something really weird happened, he wouldn’t stop smiling at me. It was like we were talking with our eyes. I just never felt these feelings and I don’t know how to deal with them.”
“I feel the same between a really good friend of mine. I love him to death, but there are things in the way, and they are impossible to move. It’s like falling down a bottomless pit.”
“Yeah.” She thinks for a second. “You want to walk around.”
“Sure, I’m up for it.”
We start walking around the school looking for something to do. We come across a vending machine.
“You want something? It is on me,” Maria offers.
“Yeah, thanks. I’d like some chips.”
She pulls out 3 dollars to pay for two bags of chips.
After we eat our chips, walk toward the parking lot where my mom picks me up because she should be coming soon.
“Could you do me a favor?” Maria says a little desperately.
“Sure, anything.”
“Can you ask him what he thinks of me? I mean,” she hesitates. “I just want to know, so I know if these feelings are worth it or not.”
“Alright, I’ll see what I can do.” As I say this, my mom pulls up into the parking lot. “Well, see you.”
“See you tomorrow.”
I walk slowly to my mom’s car and immediately feel annoyed when I see Crystal in the back seat.
I enter the car silently and try my hardest to keep it that way by looking like it was an average day at school, but as always, it doesn’t work.
“So, how was the schoolhouse?” my mom asks.
“It was fine, I guess.”
“Oh, alright.”
We arrive at the house, but before I get out the car, she asks me, “What made it a fine day?”
“I don’t know, it was just okay.”
“Why don’t you know?” She starts getting mad for no reason. “You should be able to remember! You should be thankful that I even care what you do at school. Many parents out there don’t even care what their child does.”
This again. She is always using other people as her reference. I get out the car tired of listening to her rant.
“I wasn’t done talking to you!” she yells when she gets out the car. I had it. I’m done. I keep walking to our house.

“Don’t walk away! You better stop right there before I beat you!” I stop my tracks. I look down the street. It was so tempting and so easy to just run away. I think about it again and again, but I have too many people depending on me at school. I couldn’t leave Xavier or the rest of my friends behind. So, I just stood there and waited for my punishment.
“You want to get beat don’t you!” she yells in my ear. “Why did you walk away when I was talking to you?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? I won’t take ‘I don’t know’ as an answer.”
I thought this through diligently, trying to be on the safe side. “I thought you were done talking to me.”
“Well next time know that I wasn’t talking to you. Got it!”
“Yeah.” I walk into our house and walk straight to my room to lie down. They are too many things going on in my head. I need to think them all out one by one.
First is Merryann’s parents and how they were getting in relationship threatening arguments. Second is Xavier’s and my mom dispute some years ago. Third is Xavier’s love for me.
For Merryann, I just hope she is alright and her parents don’t split up because that will cause some serious problems with her and in her family. And if that happens, she would leave me and I would lose a friend so dear to me.
When I start to think about what Xavier told me, all think I could think is why didn’t he tell me earlier and why would my mom say such things to him? What has Xavier ever done to her to make her say that or was it just because what he wants to do with his life?
I love Xavier, but I don’t know what to do with that love. I’m so confused. I don’t know how to deal with these feelings since I don’t have to deal with these feelings at home. I don’t want to treat him the wrong in any way. It’s just that I thought for a while we would be nothing more than really close friends.
I look out the window and stare at a palm tree swaying in the wind. It looked so free, careless, and happy.
I remember 2 weeks ago in Chinese class, Mrs. Zhang talked about past lives and how she thought she was a Mexican man in her past life. I started to hope that I was a bird or tree in my past life. It just felt like I was because I was struggling in this life, no wings, and no wind to blow my leaves.
I snapped back to the present when I noticed how dark it was outside. I looked at the clock in a panic because I still had homework to do before I go to sleep. Thankfully it was only 6:30. Outside it looks like 10 o’clock.
I hear my name called for dinner. I open the door to be hit by the scent of steak and potatoes. I hate steak. I hate eating meat period. I’ve tried going vegetarian multiple times, but my mom wouldn’t let me. She said I was trying to be like those anorexic girls by not wanting to eat meat, but it was just that I don’t like eating animals.
Sitting at the table was just Toby, Crystal, and I, like most days. Dad isn’t home from work yet and mom went to her room to eat. I hand my steak to Toby, finish my potatoes, and head to my room to start doing my homework. I don’t have much to do, but it has to be done.
After 30 minutes of doing homework, I pick up the phone and call my sister, Tatianna. She picks up after a couple rings.
“Hello,” she picks up.
“Hey, Tatianna, it’s me.”
“Hey Cassandra. How’s everything?”
“It’s alright I guess.”
“How’s mom treating you?”
“Same as usual.”
“Something come up?” She always knows when something is up. I always call her when there is.
“Yeah, just a lot of things on my mind.”
“Like what?”
It takes me awhile to figure out how to word things.
“Well you know Xavier right?”
“Yeah, I met him before at a birthday party of yours before I left the house to college.”
“Well, today he told me that he loves me, but he said it wouldn’t work because of mom.”
“What about mom?”
“He said it was because mom hates him and said he would be no good to me.”
“Wow.”
“It’s just...I don’t know. I’m just confused.”
“You should just tell him it doesn’t matter what our mom says. If you guys love each other, be together.”
I take this to heart. I want to be with him, but how would that work? It would be like hiding and keeping secrets and if mom finds out, all hell will breakout.
“I see what you are saying. I’ll talk to him about it.”
“Good. So, how’s school?”
“It’s good, how’s work?”
“I’m coming along. Well, got to go. Talk to you soon.”
“Alright. Love you. Bye.”
“Love you. Good night.”
I hang up the phone and put it back on the phone base. I remember I have to ask mom if I can go to the pep game on Friday.
I enter my mom’s room to see her laid flat out on the bed watching TV. I enter slowly, making sure she wasn’t asleep.
“Mom?”
“Yes, what do you need?” she asks briskly.
“I was going to ask if I am going to the football game on Friday.”
“No, because it isn’t mandatory.”
“Yes, it is mandatory. Mr. Boldin said it was mandatory since it is a home game.”
“No, it isn’t a home game since you guys aren’t playing at your school.”
“It is a home game. We are not playing at our school because the game is at night and we don’t have lights at our school. So, we are playing at a sister school that does have lights.”
“That is not a home game and in the email they sent us, it says it is an optional game.”
“Well, Mr. Boldin said it was a mandatory game. It doesn’t matter what the email says. We need to go by what Mr. Boldin says.”
“I don’t care you think we should do, it say it is optional away game.”
I was getting very angry and annoyed. I tried to keep my cool and not explode, like I do in every argument. “Well then, since it is an ‘away’ game, can I go to it? They say it is a 30 minute drive from here.”
“I’ll think about it.”
I retreat out the room careful not to say anything more or I would ruin my chances.
I return to my room and get ready to go to sleep. I hear Crystal scream “Dad!” and immediately know that dad has entered the premises.
I’m tired and soon enough sleep overcomes me. I’m am awaken and disturbed an hour later when my sister comes in the room, but when she finally falls asleep, I am able to go back to my peaceful world.

My mom woke me up the next morning. Well, it was more like she woke up Crystal which woke me up.
I look at the clock and see it is 5:00. I don’t even wake up this early for school.
“Why are you waking me up super early?” I question her.
“We are going to the doctor,” she simply replies. I hate when my parents do this. They take me somewhere but don’t tell me in advance. Now I have to schedule my time correctly and ask my teachers what we did today in class and what is for homework.
“Get up and get dressed. We are leaving in 30 minutes,” my mom commands.
More like an hour, I think. Mom takes forever to get ready.
After dressing in comfortable clothes, doing my hair, and eating breakfast, I am ready to leave, but of course, neither Crystal nor mom is ready to go.
“When are we going to leave?” I ask my mom.
“When I am ready to leave.”
“But it is already past 30 minutes.”
“So! We leave when I am ready.”
As always, there is a change of plans. I walk to my room and sit on my bed. Before I doze off back to sleep, my mom calls me to leave.
We get in my mom’s jet black, old school car. We start our drive to the doctor’s office. Something was wrong though. Mom looked like she didn’t want to go to the doctor.  She was also driving pretty slowly.
“Don’t you think we won’t make it if you drive this slowly?” I ask her.
“Well make it when we make it,” mom barks annoyed.
Crystal starts ranting in the back about everything and it gets on my nerves. I open the window for the wind to block out her sound, but it was rolled up by mom a few minutes later. Thankfully the ride wasn’t too long because there wasn’t a lot of traffic.
We get out the car and walk to the doctor’s office. I notice that mom is breathing pretty hard to just be walking a block or two.
When we are in the office and check-in and wait to be called.
“Night,” a nurse in an all-white suit announces 5 minutes after we sit down. We get up and sluggishly follow the nurse. The nurse checks our height and weight. I can’t believe that my mom is almost 150 pounds overweight and she is only 5’7”. Something has to be up.
The nurse directs us to the room where we were going to have our checkup at.
“Wait here for the doctor, okay?” she says in the squeakiest voice I have ever heard in my life.
We wait for about 10 minutes before the doctor comes in to start out check-up.
“So, how are y’all today?” our doctor, Dr. Karingal, asks us in a super deep voice. What is up with this place and its employees with super dramatic voices?
“We’re good. We are just here our yearly check-up.”
“Okay then. Who’s going first?”
“Crystal is going first.”
I look at Crystal’s face and only see horror in her eyes. She absolutely hates the doctor. That could be from watching too much TV or from past doctor visits.
“M...m...me? Why can’t Cassandra go first?”
“Fine. I’ll go first.” I always go first no matter what they say or do to get Crystal to go first.
The doctor diligently checks my heartbeat, breath, and all the other things they check in a doctor’s visit, to show Crystal that it is not that bad. Plus she is not getting a shot today so, we don’t have to hold her down and listen to her scream like she is getting chased by someone that is going to murder her.
After Crystal’s checkup, mom’s turn is next. Crystal starts playing with the little toys in the corner of the room because she has no interest in what the doctor has to say about mom. Funny because she is always in mom’s business because she is just like her.
“Mrs. Night, we have a serious situation here.”
“What is it doctor?”
“You are overweight for you age and height and you are not eating properly or exercising enough, if at all.”
“What does mean for me?”
“That means if you don’t lose weight and change your eating habits, you could get a disease and possibly die.”
My mom is panic stricken. If she doesn’t lose weight or change her eating habits, she could die. Now that is a slap to reality. I could only think of one disease that was cause by obesity, diabetes.
Mom couldn’t possibly have it though, I never seen her doing insulin shots or checking her blood sure and pressure. Or maybe I never pay attention to her anymore.
“You need to be cautious. I can find you a nutritionist, but it will cost,” Dr. Karingal tells my mom.
“No, no. I can take this in my own hands,” my mom slowly states.
“Alright then. You ladies have a fine day.”
“You too.”
We leave the office and head back home, but on the way back we stop at a fast food restaurant for lunch. I feel sick inside. Out of all places to choose from, we come here for lunch. I absolutely hate fast food restaurants. They put the nastiest things in their food, it is not even funny.
Then I began to think, why are we eating at fast food restaurant, how unhealthy fast food restaurant are, when the doctor just said to mom that she needs to watch her health and diet.
“Why are we eating at here? Fast food restaurants are disgusting and super unhealthy,” I announce.
“Well that is what we can afford right now and I don't feel like cooking when I get home,” my mom comments back. Like we have anything to cook in the pantry or fridge.
“You can eat some food here or you cannot eat at all,” mom commands.
Guess I'll have to eat nasty fast food, but I am hungry to the bone, so I need to eat something. I tell mom that I want to eat some fries and a fruit smoothie. That's not too bad, I don't think. Crystal gets a kid's meal, like she always does everywhere. She doesn't have to, she out grew the age, she just insists that she gets one. She gets a kids meal with hamburger, fries, apples, and chocolate milk.
Mom orders for herself, two big-macs, two fries, XL soda, and 3 apple pies. It sounded like she was ordering for a whole family, but she wasn't. I would be surprised if she finished it all in one sitting.
Once we get our food we dig in. I finish in 5 minutes, hence the fact I had the least amount in the car. Mom chugs down her food like she hasn't eaten in years. It was quite scary watching her eat. After slurping down her drink, she picks up her cellphone and start to dial a number. Disgust covers my face. How in the world does one finish that much food in one sitting? It seems utterly impossible to me and super unhealthy, I mean to the maximum.
I keep my mouth shut and don't ask any questions, don't want to get in a debate or argument at this moment.
“Hey, what's up girl?” my mom shouts into the phone. I automatically know it is her sister she is talking to because she only says that to her. It was kind of weird listening to their conversation because you can only hear one part of it.
“Really...Oh, okay,” mom is still talking extremely loud.
I decided to tune out of it until I hear, “Why do these children never listen?”
Listen to what, I think. “Yeah, they think they can do their own thing, that's why they end up broke and got no place to stay permanently. I told them what to do, but they just don't listen. If they would have listened, they would have been through college, graduated, and have a job that pays good money.”
I now know who she is talking about, Herman and Tatianna, my older brother and sister. I knew they both didn't graduate college, but I didn't know they were financially in trouble. I want to ask more questions about it, but I stop myself and think about it. If I ask mom about it she would know that I was eavesdropping and that would put myself in trouble. I am going to call Herman and see how he is doing later today.
When we finally drive back home, I walk to my room relieved that I don't have to go to school today. I hope everyone and everything is alright though because whenever I miss a school day, it is like the world is going to end. I also hope Xavier is okay too.
When I enter my room though, I am faced with one challenge, something is missing.

I search my room with a fine-tooth comb, but I can’t find it anywhere. I didn’t move it anywhere; I never moved it since I found a perfect place for it on my desk.
Crystal walks into the room. “Crystal, have you seen my picture?”
“Of what?” she replies.
“Of Xavier and I. It was in a picture frame on my desk.”
“Nope. Haven’t seen it.”
I am getting really frustrated. Who would take my picture of Xavier and...wait a minute. There could only be one person.
“Mom!” I yell at the top of my lungs as I head to her room.
“What?” she yells back.
“Where is my picture of Xavier and I that I had framed sitting on my desk?”
“I don’t know where it is.” I can tell she is lying because she is not looking at me, but away and with a slight smile.
“Yes, you do! What did you do to it?” I was in rage. That was my favorite picture of us. No picture can replace it. “I want to know now!”
“I said I don’t know! Look in your room and see if you can find it.”
“I already looked in my room and I didn’t find it!” I was going to get a sore throat if I didn’t stop yelling. I was almost on the verge of crying because that picture means a lot to me.
I dash out of her room and back into mine. I look again and again, but nothing turned up, until I looked in the trash bin.
There I found broken glass, a broken frame, and the picture, torn into shreds.
I scream at the top of my lungs and weep to the floor. I hug my knees and cradle myself. Hot streams of tears run down my face. I don’t know what to do with myself at this point. I cry and howler until I can’t no more. When I finally quiet down, I can hear mom laughing in her room.
I pick up the phone and call Xavier, but I can barely see what numbers I am pressing because my vision is blurry from the tears running down my face. I can’t calm myself down to be able to talk, but I try to gather myself when Xavier picks up the phone.
“Hello,” Xavier sounds sleepy.
“Hey, it’s...uh...it’s.” I can’t keep myself together. I try to talk again, but no words come out, only a scream of pain.
“Cassandra are you...” I accidentally hang up before he can finish. It takes 3 missed return calls for me to pick up the phone.
“Cassandra, what going on? What’s wrong?” Xavier demands.
I try to speak but nothing comes out again.
“Cassandra, talk to me.”
“I…she...I…” I am unable to speak or explain anything to Xavier, so I just weep.
“I coming over there and you’re going to talk to me. I’ll be there shortly.” Xavier hangs up.
Uh-oh. What have I done? Xavier can’t come over here. It would probably make matters worse. I decide I should meet him on the route to get to my house.
I sneak out the front door and walk a few blocks toward Xavier’s house. After waiting for 5 minutes, I see Xavier down the block, but the sight of Xavier didn’t help me stop crying.
Before I collapsed to the ground in a weeping mess, Xavier catches me and pulls me close to him.
He starts whispering in my ear, but all I manage to hear is, “to the lake.”
He picks me up and carries me to the lake we went to on Sunday. He sets me down in the spot we sat on Sunday. It was still calm and peaceful as it was when we were here before. I start to calm down a little bit.
Xavier sits next to me and holds on to me. He doesn’t say anything. He just waits. He always waits until I’m ready to say something. Apparently it takes me 20 minutes to calm down and be able to talk.
“Xavier?”
“Yes?”
“Does my mom really hate you that much?”
“I guess she does. Why?”
“She ripped up the picture you gave me for my last birthday, the picture of us at the carnival on the Ferris wheel. She ripped it up into shreds.” I mutter. “Into shreds,” I whisper.
“I'm sure I can find the picture and give it to you again. It would...”
“No! It wouldn't be the same!” I cut him off. I taste the grief at the back of my throat and try my hardest not to let it out.
“I'm just tired Xavier, I'm so very tired. I don't know what to do.”
“Hang in there.”
“I have been! I have been for years now. It doesn't help. It is like a disease with no cure and where the symptoms get worse as it develops.” I was practically yelling at Xavier now. I didn't mean to, I was just tired of people saying the same thing: it would get better or hang in there.
Xavier lets go of me and backs away. I guess I have been raising my voice in the wrong tone. He looks away from me and at the lake. We sit in silence for a while with only the birds, the wind, and the lake making noise.
I move towards Xavier and hug him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you like that. I’m just fed up.”
“Aren't we all fed up,” he mutters. “Aren’t we all fed up with life,” he utters clearly now. “Then why do some of us have more strength than others, more strength to live on?”
Now, I am getting worried about Xavier saying these types of things. I remember in the 4th grade when he said he was done with how his parents were treating him so he climbed to the top of the school building during recess, and jumped off. Thankfully he landed on some bushes and broke his arm. For some reason though, I don’t scold him for saying these type of things, I just go along, but on a different topic.
“Xavier, I don’t care anymore, and you shouldn’t either.”
“Care about what?”
“My mom getting in the way of our relationship.” I felt like I just let everything go at that moment. “I love you and I want to be with you no matter what she does.”
Xavier looks like he is taken by surprise. He opens his mouth, but no words come out. He shuts his mouth and looks away for a second.
“It would be too dangerous to take the risk,” he begins.
“I don’t care! I really don’t care what she has to say about us or what she is going to do to us. The worst thing she could possibly do is forbid you from me or never let me out the house again, but you know I will find a way to see you.” By the time I finish saying this, I am already standing up.
Xavier follows me up. I look him straight in his eyes. “I don’t care anymore,” I whisper.
He leans closer to me. I can hear his heartbeat. I can hear him breathe. We breathe as one. He leans in closer and kisses me on my lips; soft, tender, and gentle. It was like I was in heaven. I look past him toward a tree, and there I see the white peacock with its feathers spread wide. I know it’s there, I just have to believe it is there.

    *    *    *    *    *    *

It was well into the night when I got back home. I open the door to only hear silence which is highly unusual at this time of night. I might have missed dinner because there are no dishes in the kitchen in sight. Who would clean the kitchen for me?
I go around the house to see that everyone’s lights are out and everyone is in the bed. I’m starting to get freaked out. What is going on?
I walk to Toby’s room to see what’s up. I figured he would be up around this time working out or doing something. He wasn’t the type of person to go to sleep early.
I knock on the door, “Hey Toby, you there?”
“Yeah. What’s up? Come in.”
I slowly open the door knowing that the door sends a loud squeak throughout the house.
“You missed dinner,” he states.
“Yeah, I know. What happened? Why is everyone already in their rooms at this time?”
“Mom and dad got in a real nasty argument.”
“Dad’s home?”
“Yeah, haven’t you seen what time it is?”
I look at the clock on his nightstand. It’s 10 o’clock at night.
“Whoa, it’s 10! Did mom say anything about me not being at home?” I didn’t notice how long I was gone.
“No. It was like she didn’t even care. Crystal kept bothering her about it, you know to get you in trouble, but it just caused mom to yell at her for annoying her.”
“What was the dispute between mom and dad about?”
“I don’t really know because I wasn’t really paying attention. I heard dad saying stuff like, I’m tired of being the only one that works and why don’t you get up off the couch eating your life away and get a job so we can live in a better house and get a better life.”
“How bad did the argument get?”
“To the point where there was an awkward silence between them. They dismissed us to our rooms and no one said a word.”
“Who did the dishes?”
“Mom did. She did it very hurriedly and I think she broke a plate or two in the process.”
This can’t be good in any way. This kind of reminds me of Merryann’s situation with her parents. I hope this doesn’t escalate too far.
I walk out of Toby’s room and head toward mine, but when I pass my parent’s room, I can hear angry voices. I stop to listen but can’t distinguish out anything. I think as I go to my room, this is the most me and Toby has talked in a long time.

    *    *    *    *    *    *

A peacock with beautiful, colorful feathers stands tall, taller than any other peacock would. He walks with his head high in the sky with the sun smiling down at him. Nothing could stop him, not even the other peacocks that criticized him. One day he met this beautiful peacock, one that stands out from all the others. They fell in love, very deep love, and did everything together. They were inseparable.
But one day, his love was hunted and killed, taken away. He heart crumpled to pieces. He mourned for her. He cried out every day at the moon for her. He was never the same again. He’s feathers wilted and started to lose it rich, elegant color.
He looked up at the sun, but the sun was no longer smiling down at him. It now has a faint memory of what a smile was and how it looked.
Soon enough, the sun didn’t want to come out anymore, so dark clouds filled the sky. The sky wept day and night for the sun as the peacock did for it’s lover. There is no hope left in their hearts.
It was when the peacock was on his death bed when he finally realized that even though something that you cherish with your heart gets taken from you, there is still meaning in life, you just have to find it again.
He looked up at the sky one last time, and there he saw the sun smiling down at him, happier than ever. The peacock down at himself to see that he is no longer multi-color, but crystal, pearl white. All of nature gathered around to look at him, nature from every background, ones that were thriving and those who were suffering.
He sent a message to all of them, one they will never forget. Before they could lay a finger on the peacock, he breathes his last breath and the wind transformed him into a tree. A lake of his tears that he wept for his love rest beside him. The wind whistles the songs the two peacocks always sang to each other. The tree stands tall with the sun beaming down on it. There is still hope in the world.

    *    *    *    *    *    *

I wake up the next morning, with such a beautiful dream lost somewhere in my imagination. There are only some many beautiful things that happen in my life.
I get up and go to school. I am suspecting that it would be a normal, average day at my school.

    *    *    *    *    *    *

At lunch time, Xavier confronts me.
“I forgot to ask you yesterday, where were you all day?”
“I had a ‘surprise’ doctor’s visit,” I tell him.
“Anything turn up?”
“For me, no, but for my mom yes.”
“What was it?”
“The doctor was saying things like she needs to be very cautious of her diet and weight or she will get a disease and possibly die.”
“Whoa, what is your mom going to get if she doesn’t?”
“I don’t know. The doctor didn’t say.”
“That could be scary.”
“Yeah.” I think for a second. “Is there like a certain time of the year when parents get into relationship threatening arguments or something?”
“I don't know, why?”
“Yesterday my brother said that my mom and dad got in a really serious dispute and my dad was saying things like he is basically tired of mom.”
“Whoa. You okay?”
“I don't know. It happened when you and I were at the lake. I don't know how it will affect me yet. Hopefully never.” I sigh. “Toby also told me that mom didn't care that I was out which is highly unlikely of her.”
“Yeah. Something must be up.”
The bell rings and we go our separate ways to class. I wish I had a class with Xavier, but I don't.
The rest of the school day is the same as usual, long and quite boring. I always have mix feelings about school. It is either I wish it is over or I wish it never ends so I don’t have to go home.
    *    *    *    *    *    *

When I return home, I decide to call my older brother, Herman, and see how he is doing. I dial his number, “Hello?” I say when he picks up.
“Hi, Cassandra. What's up? Can't talk long.”
“Okay. Everything a little shaky in the house, but I'm okay I guess.”
“What's going on in the house?”
“Mom and dad got into a nasty argument yesterday and the doctor told mom yesterday during a doctor's appointment that if she doesn't watch her health and stuff, she could get a disease and die.”
“Is mom eating a lot of unhealthy foods?”
“Yeah, that's what she basically does all day.”
“Hm...” It sounds like Herman is thinking on the other line. “Well, tell mom and dad that I am sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“For dropping out of college.”
“What?” I'm so confused.
“Yeah, I dropped out. My grades escalated down to the point where I was failing every class.” Herman sound very depressed. “They spent thousands for me to go to college so I would be the first in the family to go and graduate, but that didn't happen. So, I'm most likely the reason why you guys are in a little financial trouble.”
“Financial trouble? What do you mean?”
“Well the money the money they sent me to college with was the money they saved from their jobs. That's why we ate so very little amount of food and had no new clothes my senior year of high school.”
“Oh.” This is quite a lot to take in.
“Yeah. Is mom still working?”
“No, see stays home all day.”
“Oh. That's not good.” Herman hesitates like he is holding top secret information. Did these arguments just start?”
“Yeah, the ones I know of have. Why?”
“It's just that because during my senior year, they got into a lot of really nasty arguments over money, whether or not to send me to college, and their relationship. It was quite scary. Dad was threatening to leave and mom was on the verge of losing her job.”
“Oh,” I manage to utter. Why has no one told me this before?
“Well, I got to go. Hope to talk to you some other time.”
“Alright, bye.” I hang up the phone. I replay the phone call over and over in my head trying to connect the new puzzle pieces to the ones I already have down. I feel like a lot of things are being kept from me.
I ask my mom if I could use the computer to check my email, and surprisingly she gives it to me to use right away instead of waiting an hour or so to use it.
When my email finally opens, the first thing that grabs my attention is an email from Merryann. I click on it immediately. It reads:

Hey Cassandra,

I haven't seen you for the past couple of days. How are you? Is everything fine? I hope everything is because things are getting better for me. My parents are doing less arguing, which I think is a good thing. There are no more fights or threats between them either. It's like they are sowing their relationship back together. My sister and I are glad that nothing bad has happened or will ever happen. So, hope to talk to you soon. Bye!

Merryann

I feel so happy for Merryann. At least she isn't having the problems I'm having.
I want her to stay happy, so I email her back that everything is alright and I hope to see her around.
Right when I finish, my mom calls me for dinner. I walk into the kitchen, and when I see what we are eating tonight, disgust is the only face expression I can express. We were eating fast food chicken. Two things I hate the most in the world, fast food and chicken. I don't understand why we don't eat anything health or in proportional servings. The doctor told mom to eat healthier, but she isn't doing that at all. What is going on in her head?
Dad walks into the house from work when mom starts serving dinner. Weirdly, Crystal doesn't run up to him like she does every day. Dad doesn't look particularly happy to be home.
Dinner is uncomfortably silent. No one dares to say a thing to disturb the quiet. It seemed like mom and dad were giving each other the evil eyes.
“So, how was work today?” Mom kills the deadly silence.
“It was the same as usual. Still not making the money we need, if someone else would work.”
“Well you job pays just enough.” Oh no, here we go, I thought.
“Funny to hear that coming from the one that doesn't work and just eats, eats, eats all day. No wonder we are going low on money, it's because you are the one using all the money to buy food for yourself.” Dad was standing up now.
“You know that's not the reason why we are in money trouble.”
“Well, it one of the reasons. We wouldn't have been in so much trouble if you just let your stupid dream of Herman being the first one to graduate from college. I told you he wasn't going to make it; I knew it from the beginning. But, no! Someone wanted to give him a try and that was a waste of our money.”
Mom hesitates to find another good point. “Well, if you spend more time with the kids, I would be able to find a job.” Mom was standing up now.
“With me being the only one working all day, every day, do you really think I have time to spend with them? When I get home, I'm tired and all I want to do is eat, then go to sleep. It doesn't mean I don't, it's just I don't have time. But, you barely spend time with the kids, and you’re at home all day. You just go to your room and watch TV and eat. So don't talk to me about not spending time with them!”
Mom looks like she is going to breakdown. There was nothing that she could argue and win over.
There was silence again. Fear and impatience dirtied the air. Things were not looking good.
“Well, if you're so tired of everything in this household, why don't you just leave?” Mom sound really scared when she questioned him.
“Fine! I will!” And with that dad destroys a vase that he gave my mom on their wedding day and storms out the door like a madman. No one knows if he will ever come back.
Mom wilts to the ground like a dying flower and bawls over the vases remains. This is not good. I almost start crying myself. I can feel our family being ripped apart.

    *    *    *    *    *    *

I sprint to my room hoping what just happened was all a dream or a skit or play. Dad can’t leave now. It would just make things harder on me. I don’t know what to do with myself, who to call, or what emotion to feel. I just feel like a mess. I’ve seen this way too many times in movies, but sometimes in those, the family comes back together. That doesn’t seem like the situation here.
I just let my body rest on my bed as my brain thinks over and over. All it could think of was the past.
I remember kindergarten like it was yesterday. Small, white, crystal flakes fill the air. The succulent air tickled my nose and taste buds. Out of nowhere, I get hit with a snowball on my back. I turn around and see that Toby was the thrower. I make up a snowball and throw it back at him. That officially started the snowball fight.
It rarely snowed in Texas, so we made the snow last. Mom and dad came outside and watched us. Soon enough they joined us when Toby ‘accidentally’ hit dad with a snowball. It was, I would say, one of the best days of my life. And to top off the day, they bring us inside and give us hot chocolate. Toby and I joked about how Tatianna and Herman were not 'young enough' to play in the snow with us.
If only these memories could replay now. Christmas is next Wednesday and I feel like it is not going to feel much like a Christmas.
I'm going to see if I can hang with Xavier on Christmas day.
My brain takes a break from thinking about all these happy memories before I begin to cry. I fall asleep from being mentally tired.

       *    *    *    *    *    *

I wake up in darkness. I feel like I woke up because a nightmare, but I cannot recall. I glance at my clock and see that it is only 3 o'clock in the morning. I sigh. I am restless. My body refuses to go back to sleep, so I decide to get up and do something. I walk to the kitchen and get myself some water. It was cold and fresh as it went down my throat. I forgot everything that happened yesterday, just for a second. But it all went away when I almost stepped on a piece of glass. I figured the glass was from the vase and no one swept up the remains.
I pick up the piece of glass I almost stepped on and I see the white peacock staring back at me. I never knew that there were peacocks on the vase in the first place. I look around at the remains of the vase, but I can't not find any whole peacocks like the white peacock I was holding in my hand. And the one in my hand ends up being the only white peacock out of all of them. What was the artist thinking? This question bothered my mind. I had a dream about the white peacock, but I felt like I had this dream more than once when I was younger.
After examining more pieces of the broken vase, I soon discover that this vase wasn't the one that dad bought and gave to mom on their wedding day, this was the vase I made in the 4th grade. I won the art contest with this vase and dedicated it to mom and dad, but I never knew why I painted peacocks, I just had a dream over and over about them and felt like putting my dream on the vase. I start crying to myself. Everything is turning down hill way too fast. I felt like I was going to fall apart if it went any faster. I never had to deal with these things in my life. I thought you didn't deal with these things until you get into adulthood. Now I feel like I am aging too fast, that the Earth's rotation has sped up.
I curl up into a ball and start to wish that Xavier was here, here to hold me, hum quietly into my ear, to whisper good things to me, to kiss me again. I wish I was at the lake, the calm, soothing lake that took me away from this world. I wish I could see the white peacock, the elegant peacock that gave me a lesson on life, but I don't know exactly about what yet.
I get up off the lonely floor and sluggishly walk back to my room. I lie in my bed and stare at the blank wall to the right of me. It too has seen more beautiful and colorful days.

    *    *    *    *    *    *

I wake up to the sound of my alarm clock. I don't remember going back to sleep, but I must have.
It was Thursday, but sure didn't feel like it. I couldn't believe that all this stuff was happening over a course of one week. It's too much to take in. It's like being hit by all of the possible natural disasters at once. I hope this is all that hits me though. I am already an emotional mess.
Today I will try to take my mind off all this drama and try to focus on school. I get dressed and eat breakfast. Soon enough, Toby and I are heading out the door to school. Toby looks worse than I do. It looks like he has been crying all night and didn't even sleep. Someone can mistake him for being hit by a train.
We say nothing to each other on our walk to school, probably because neither of us had anything to say and if we say anything, we might start crying.
I hope no one asks me any questions today. I don't have to worry about Mr. Edwards calling me out in my in math class saying, “Cassandra, tell us something good,” because if he did, the only thing I would be able to conjure is that the sun is up in the sky and isn't going anywhere for billions of years.
When we get to school, I must have been wearing my sadness because right when Xavier sees me, he runs up to me and hugs me.
“Is everything alright?” He asks me.
Not now, Xavier, not now, I think to myself. I nod my head without letting too much time pass. I knew it wouldn't work because he knows something is wrong. I show it too well.
“Cassandra, tell me what's wrong. Let's talk.”
I start to tremble. A stream of tears runs from my eyes. I try my hardest not to let people see or hear me cry. Xavier pulls me closer.
“Want to ditch today?” Xavier questions me. I nod my head slowly. I don't want to ditch, I never ditched in my life, but I need it today, I need to be away from school today. I just hope we don't get caught.
Since school hasn't started yet, Xavier and I walk down to the grocery store down the street from the school. We wait there for about 30 minutes looking around. After the 30 minutes pass, we start our walk toward the lake. We look in all directions for the police so we wouldn't get in trouble.
When we finally reach the lake, we sit where we have been sitting for the past visits. I lean next to Xavier, realizing that I have stopped crying. This is a day I could wish for the rest of my life.
“Something really bad must have happened for you to be willing to ditch school.”
“Yeah,” I start out slowly. I try to say what happened slowly so I don't start crying again. “My dad left us...” Xavier waits for me to finish without interrupting. “My parents got in a really serious argument that made my dad just leave the house. I don't think he is ever coming back.” I look into Xavier's eyes, “I'm scared Xavier, really scared. My mom doesn't have a job and we didn't have a lot of money to begin with. My dad's job was enough to get food onto the table. What will happen to us? What would happen to me?”
I'm crying again, and this time I can't stop.
“Nothing will happen to you, and I’ll make sure of that.” Xavier tries to calm me down. “You’re not going anywhere.”
We sit there in calming silence. I let all my problems go, just for that moment. Time seemed like it stopped. There is nothing that could separate us. I wish I could feel this feeling every day. It is paradise.
I had to watch the time so I could go back to the school in time to reduce my mom’s suspicion of me not being at school.
“What are you thinking about?” Xavier is looking at me now.
“Nothing. I’m at ease. I want to stay here forever.”
“We could if we ran away. Away from all our miseries. We could make it, you know. We could make it with the money I make from selling and fixing cars. It’s enough to support us for a very long time.
The option of running away sounded so sweet at that moment, Xavier and I with nothing to worry about but ourselves. Then I start to think about what my future would hold if I did this. I wouldn’t have the education I needed. I would end up being like mom and dad, the people I tried my whole life not to be like.
“What would that solve? Our miseries will eventually find us and make us feel worse.” I look at the lake. I pick up a rock and throw it into the lake. “No matter how far you throw the rock, it’s still there, it still exists.”
Xavier falls silent for a moment. “I’m just tired of life. It’s not fair. I didn’t ask for this.”
“None of us did. But we have what we have and have to be thankful for it. If things are bad, we need to hope they get better.” I felt like a new person saying this. It is like I solved all my problems. And it’s true; we need to be thankful for what we have even though we are not.
I look back at my watch and see that it was time to leave. Xavier and I start walking back to the school in order for me to be picked up by my mom.
When we reach the school, we part our ways for the day. I wait in the stranded staff parking lot for my mom.
After waiting for about 10 minutes, my mom finally comes. Something is wrong though, I can feel it in my gut. Crystal isn’t in the car and mom isn’t asking me any questions about school.
When we walk into the house, no one says a thing to me. I walk to my room and put my school bag away. I walk out my room to get hit in the face with belt.
“Why would you think it would be a good idea to skip school? Are you out of your mind? You are way too smart to not know how to make the right decisions,” mom was yelling at the top of her lungs.
She repeatedly hit me with the belt all over my body. It was like it was never going to stop. I could feel myself bleeding in some places, but that didn’t stop her. Whip cracks fill my ears. I am beyond the point a crying, I am in pain all over. I just wait until it is over.
Once my mom finishes, I lay there at the threshold of my room, beaten and hurt. I lay there for a while, until my body has the will to get up. Eventually I do and I just lay in my bed. I don’t feel like eating and my mom doesn’t call me to dinner anyways. No one says a word to me for the rest of the night.

    *    *    *    *    *    *

I wake up the next morning aching all over. I don’t feel like going to school again today, but I don’t want to go through the pain I felt yesterday again. Also, I have to do what Maria asked me to do on Monday.
I pull myself out of bed and get ready for school. I skip breakfast because I don’t feel like eating; I don’t feel like doing anything.
When I see that Toby is ready to walk, we leave the house and start our way to school. I felt like I was a walking zombie. My legs ached like I just ran a whole marathon. My head hurt like I hit myself against the wall. My body was sore like I got hit by a bus. I wasn’t in physical or mental shape to do or handle anything.
“Are you okay?” Toby has noticed that I have been walking slower than usual.
“I’m just not feeling like myself today.” I thought about what I said yesterday to Xavier. It’s hard to believe but it is true.
When we reach the school, I walk straight to my first period class, physics. I walk in, get the information on the homework I missed yesterday, and got to work. I could tell that today was going to be a painfully, long day.

    *    *    *    *    *    *

When it is lunch time, I look around for Zain. Eventually I find him in the front ensemble room. I wish I would’ve looked here first, but I have to emit, even though he plays xylophone during marching season, he barely hangs out in the front ensemble room during lunch. The only thing that made it weird is the fact that he was the only one in the room. The rest of the gang was nowhere to be found.
“Hey Cassandra,” he greets me when I enter the room.
“Hey.” I want to get straight to the point because I am too tired of going around the fact and making him guess and all that other secret admirer stuff. “I have something to ask you.”
“What is it?”
“Do you like,” how am I going to word this, “um, anyone in band?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I’m asking because someone in band likes you but I won’t tell you who it is until you answer my question.”
“Um,” he is a little hesitate, “Maria.”
“Cool.” I sigh, but a little too hard.
“Is something wrong?” Zain holds a concern look. Here goes the question of the day, I think.
“Oh, no, nothing’s wrong, she likes you back, perfect match.”
“No, that was not what I was asking about. Is something wrong with you? You look like the walking dead.” I knew I felt and looked like a zombie, I think to myself.
“Just a lot of stuff going on in my life. Don’t really feel like talking about it.” I turn to leave, but Zain stops me in the middle of my turn. I shout in pain. He immediately apologizes.
“I just wanted to say, I have a lot going on to. It’s like everyone does, just some people's are greater than others’. Like at my house, my parents adore my little sister. They see everything in her.” Zain sighs, “They don’t see anything in me. Sometimes I feel like they are ignoring my existence or wish that I wasn’t even born.” Zain’s eyes were red. “What does it take for attention?”
I took in all the information he told me and thought. “That’s kind of like my situation, but not really. My mom doesn’t pay a lot of attention to me, more to my little sister, but when she does, she is very critical about it. She lets my sister do things that she wouldn’t in a million years let me do, and it breaks my heart. When my sister does something certain, my mom doesn’t care, but when I do the same thing, I get called out for it. Sometimes I feel like she is living another life of hers through me. She so critical about me.”
“Oh,” he thinks for a moment. “The only time where my parents really pay attention is when my little sister and I get in a dispute over something or my sister tells on me that I did something bad or annoyed her. My sister gets on my nerves, I hate her.”
“My sister does to. She is always talking back to me or repeating what I say. When she does something she is not supposed to do, I tell my mom and she doesn’t care. But my sister tells on me all the time and I always get in trouble.” I started to notice Zain and I had similarities left and right. “Why does it have to be so unfair? I try to be thankful for in life, but every time I am, I get pushed down deeper into the non-thankful side. Every time I say there is purpose, I lose it. Every time I say it’s going to get better, it gets worse. I just don’t get it.”
“Me neither,” he responds.
We stand in silence until the bell rings. We both learned something today. Hopefully it will help us knowing that we aren’t the only ones with the problems we have.
Along my walk to math class, I run into Maria.
“Have you asked him yet?” Maria confronts me.
“Yeah. He says he like you.”
“Really! Ah, thanks Cassandra. I hope to talk to you later.”
“Yeah, me too.”
And with that Maria skips off to her next class. It looked like I made her day 100 times better.
I finish my walk to math class and sit in my spot. I stare at the clock and wish it would tick faster.

    *    *    *    *    *    *

There is nothing much to do when I get home so I decide to lay down for my body’s sake. I turn on the television to see what is on. I haven’t been watching television lately. I been too busy with school, but whenever I did, it was with my dad. We would watch multiply news channels, documentaries, or sports.
    I turn it to the news to see what has been going on in the world, but it is just the same things that have been happening for years now. Nothing really new.
    I turn to some sports channels and try to enjoy some of my favorite sports teams compete, but I just can’t. Watching TV isn’t the same without dad. He would always make the funniest comments about the news, he would always say stats about athletes, and he would always support or argue about information shown on the documentaries.
    I can say in a way that I miss my dad, that my life seems like it is missing something important from it. Things just won’t be the same again.
    The one thing I forgot though is that I am not supposed to be watching TV without permission. Before I can turn it off, my mom walks into the room and snatches the remote controller out of my hands and throws it across the room.
    I try to scream in fear, but before I open my mouth, I am slapped right across my face. I think it is a little excessive to be treating me this way for having the TV on, my mom could’ve just told me to turn it off and send me to my room, but I got to face what I have to face.
    She yells in my ear about me never following instructions, but I pay no attention to it. I say nothing so it doesn’t make matters worse. She sends me off to my room, and yells at me that I shouldn’t expect to eat dinner today.
    I walk into my room wanting to talk to Xavier, but it’s going to have to wait until tomorrow. I need to gather my thoughts before I go talk to him. Hopefully he is open all day tomorrow because I want to get out of my house as long as I can. I have noticed that I feel more at ease when I am with my friends than at home, which I think there is something wrong with that. I feel like I can be more of myself around them, that I am free. I try to answer the question why I don’t feel this way at home, but I cannot come up with an answer.

        *    *    *    *    *    *   

    I wake up to sunlight shining through my window. It’s only 10 o’clock. I get and go to the kitchen to see if there is anything to eat for breakfast.
I open the pantry to see nothing breakfast-worthy. Our pantry seems like it is running dry of food. That’s when I remember that dad was no longer here and mom doesn’t have a job to support us now that dad was gone.
    I retreat back to my room with an empty stomach. I have been eating less food lately. I decide to give Xavier a call, but when I call him, he doesn’t pick up. He always, for all the years I’ve known him, picked up the phone. I assumed something was wrong. I dial again and again, but no one picks up. I start to worry a little. Maybe I should wait awhile. He should call me back since I left a message every time he didn’t pick up.
    I get bored and decide to do some homework and novel writing, but I am disturbed by a phone call 30 minutes into work.
I look at the caller id and it is from a hospital. I don’t know why a hospital would be calling at this time, but I answer it anyways just in case if it is important.
    “Hello?” I answer the phone.
    “Hello,” it a lady’s voice. “Is this the Night’s household?”
    “Yes it is.”
    “Well I hate to be the bearer of bad news.” I immediately think that this information is about dad.
    “What is it?”
    “Are you close to Xavier Redwood?”
    I panic when I hear Xavier name. Why would a hospital be calling about him?
    “Yes. What is going on?”
    “Xavier Redwood is being held in the hospital he is badly injured. His family got in a deadly car crash this morning and he is the only survivor. We need you to come down to the hospital to speak with the police and doctors. There are very important things to discuss.”
“Okay.” I am shaking and shocked. Xavier’s family in a car crash. That’s crazy. His dad is a professional driver.
“Alright. Have a nice day, bye.” The lady on the other line hangs up.
Have a nice day? How am I supposed to have a nice day with this information?
I run to my mom’s room to tell what happened. At first it looks like she doesn’t care what happened to Xavier. That’s when I wished that dad was here. He at least liked Xavier.
She finally decided to go see what was happening when I got on my knees, cried, begged her, and told her that his parents were dead. It must have meant something to her because in an instant, she is rushing me to get in the car to go to the hospital.
When we finally reach the hospital, we rush inside to see what the deal was. The doctors refuse to let me see Xavier right off the bat. My mom had to do all these id checks to see if we were actually the Night family. When confirmed we were, the police start to tell us what they know about what happened.
It ends up being that the car that Xavier’s family was driving in was hit by a 16-wheeler. The driver of that 16-wheeler was drunk driving. Xavier’s mom died in the accident because the driver hit the car on her side. Xavier’s dad died in the hospital from bleeding to death and brain failure. He hit head extreme hard on the steering wheel and crack it open.
As for Xavier himself, he is in a vegetative state. The doctors said that they will watch him to make sure he doesn’t get worse, but if he doesn’t get wake up in 4 weeks, they will let him go since there is no one to pay the hospital for holding him in and taking care of him. That just shows how corrupt our medical system is these days.
I try not to break down right in front of everybody. I demand them to let me see him. I can barely hold my emotions. This is the worst thing that is happening out of everything that has happened in my life.
After an hour, they finally let me see him. His beautiful, full brown eyes are wide open glaring at the world, but see nothing. I run over to him, saying his name, but it is useless because he cannot hear my voice, nor can I hear his strong, calming voice. I clasp to the ground in a weeping mess.
When I finally am able to control myself, I go up to Xavier and grab his hand. He doesn’t grab my hand back, but I keep holding on. I whisper in his ear I will never let go.
A nurse comes in the room saying that we need to leave. She also says we can come back tomorrow if we like. So, before I leave, I kiss Xavier on the forehead, like he has always done to me, and on his lips.
My mom takes me to an ice cream place in order to cheer me up, but that doesn’t work. I don’t feel like eating ice cream, I feel like being at Xavier’s side until he wakes up.
When we arrive back at the house, I decide to go to the lake. I walk by myself, and along the way there, my mind goes through the life and relationship Xavier and I had. How could this happen is all I could ask myself.
It is out of the sudden. It makes no sense. I arrive at the lake and sit in the spot Xavier and I always sit. I cry and cry, with Xavier being the only thing on my mind. “Wake up, please. I can’t live without you,” I say within the wind. My life will never be the same again if Xavier is gone.
I look over at the tree by the lake. There I see what I was expecting to see, the white peacock.
“What do you want from me?” I shout at it. That’s when I remember the dream I had about it. I don’t want Xavier to die or is the peacock sending another message? I don’t know; I’m so confused. I don’t know what to think.
The white peacock walks closer to me until it is right by my side. It lies in my lap like it is tired too.
We sit there while the wind sings a song, while the water keeps the beat, while the trees dance along. Life doesn’t feel real anymore. My heart aches.

    *    *    *    *    *    *

I return home, hoping the world has nothing else to throw at me today. When I enter through the door, Toby immediately comes up to me and hugs me. I was taken by surprise at first and thought it was a joke until he started talking to me.
    “I’m so sorry about what happened to Xavier. I hope he gets better. Are you okay?”
    “Yeah, I’m fine, just shocked,” I lie.
    “Well if you need anything or want to talk, just knock on my door or come find me, alright?”
    “Alright.” Toby has never said those type of things to me before. He actually hasn’t been talking much since dad left.
Before he leaves I quickly ask him, “Are you okay?”
    “Yeah,” he responds, “Just trying to get used to our new way of life.
    Me too, I think. Things have been changing and happening way too fast. I hope this is all we have to deal with.
    I enter my room and lay in bed. That’s what I plan to do for the rest of the day.

        *    *    *    *    *    *

    I wake you the next morning with sorrow and grief in my heart. I want to see Xavier again, but I want to see him awake, the way I knew him. I didn’t want to see him in a vegetative state.
    I get up to exit my room, but before I make it to the door, Crystal starts questioning me.
    “Where did you and mom go yesterday without me?”
    I am not in the mood to deal with her, so I exit the room and go on with what I was doing. But I should have known better. When Crystal asks me a question, she will keep bothering me until I answer it.
    She follows me. “Where did you and mom go yesterday?” I just keep going on with my business.
   “Where did you go? Where did you go? Where did you go?” It now sounded like she is more commanding me to answer her instead of just asking a question.
   But when she saw that I wasn’t going to answer her, she went to her other option of getting me to answer her, crying like a baby to try to get me in trouble. She could cry all she wants, I don't care. She could ask mom where we went yesterday because mom was there too. I don't know why Crystal does this. She never thinks things through.

    *    *    *    *    *    *

    Mom doesn't take me to the hospital to see Xavier for my own sake. So today is just another weekend day. After dinner I go to sleep. Hopefully my thoughts and dreams would want to too.
   
    *    *    *    *    *    *
   
    I wake up to the sound of my mother's voice. It's sweeter than it usually is. When I lay my eyes on her, she's dressed up in a bright colored dress and dress shoes. “Get up,” she commands me. “Get dressed quietly, don't wake Crystal. We are going somewhere, so hurry up.” Even though she said those words in a soft tone, they still managed to hurt.
    I get dressed quickly and quietly, just as my mom instructed. I go out by the front door to see her waiting for me.
    “Ready to go?” she asks.
    “Yeah, where are we going?”
    “You'll see when we get there.”
    We get in the car and start driving. We get to the destination in 30 minutes. I look at the sign of the building. “Therapy” it reads. Why is mom bringing me here for therapy? Nothing is wrong with me, I don't think, I just have a lot on my platter.
    We enter the building to be greeted by a petite lady with short, straight, black hair. She looks very intimidating with her firm muscles and facial expression. You wouldn't want to set her on the wrong foot.
    “Well, hello ladies. My name is Dr. Smith. I have a Ph.D. in psychology and specialize in family therapy. Follow me right this way.”
    We follow her to a small but tidy room. “So who is Tameria Night who is Cassandra Night?”
    “I'm Tameria, this is my daughter Cassandra,” my mom introduces us.
    “Very well. So, why did you two come here today?” Dr. Smith looks at me like I know, but I keep my mouth shut because I don't.
    “Well, it's our relationship with each other. It's not healthy. I want to fix it.” Mom was having a hard time saying this in front of me. She looks me in the eye, “I want her to appreciate me before she goes off into the world on her own. I want to stop hurting her, but every time I try, I just hurt her worse.”
    “Do you talk to each other?” Dr. Smith asks.
    “Not a lot,” my mom starts out.
    “If we are, she's yelling,” I admit. It's true. Most of our bonding time is her yelling at me to do the chores or do something for her or me getting in trouble for something I did wrong.
    Mom sniffles and nods in agreement.
   “So, what has happened between you two?”
    “I've just closed my heart and love off to her, I guess. I didn't mean to, but I just did. My discipline for my other children didn't work so I thought if I discipline her differently, she would come out better,” my mom responds.
    “How did the other children turn out?” Dr. Smith asks right back.
    “They ended up dropping out of college, in abusive relationships, broke, low paying jobs, and have no permanent place to live.”
    “But that doesn't lead to how you treat your children. It's how your parents treated you when you were a child. Depending on how your mom and dad treated you, you're going to treat her the same way.”
    “I want to fix it,” my mom says quietly. “I want to fix it before I will never get the chance to fix it.”
    “Then, you need to start today. You need to accept how your parents treated you. You need to accept how you treated your daughter. Your daughter needs to accept how you treated her. And you guys need to work it out together. Talk to each other. Bond with each other. Be there for one another. You as a mother need to know that children will be children and will make a lot of mistakes. They will be rebels at times. They will feel like they don't need to obey you. But you have to accept that they are children and you need to teach them the way, not force your way into them. Do you get what I mean?”
    “Yes ma’am,” my mom responded.
    Dr. Smith is looking at me now. “You as a daughter need to call out her faults and tell her that you’re just a child and you'll make mistakes or break the rules. But it is your job to make sure you fix what you are doing wrong so you don't take those habits into adulthood.”
    “Yes ma’am,” I responded.
    “Now I’m going to leave you two today to fix this relationship. You should know what to do now.” Dr. Smith gets up and leaves the room. My mom and I sit in silence until my mom says it’s time to go.
    We get in her car and start driving. We start talking, but with awkward silences. We pull up to a coffee shop and go inside. My mom buys us two Frappuccinos. We sit down at a table and begin to talk again. Slowly the awkward silences get shorter, but you can tell that this one day of talking is not going to fix our problem. I can tell mom is trying and I give her credit for it, but I feel like she has been waiting too long to be fixing this problem now.
    When we drive home, she cooks dinner and actually sits at the dinner table the whole time to eat with us. Automatically the mood of the table changes. It is starting to feel like old times again.

    *    *    *    *    *    *

    I wake up today feeling better than I have been in years. I still weep for Xavier and I still weep for dad, but this was a different feeling. It was the same feeling that the white peacock gave to me.
    Today, mom let us play video games since it is Christmas break. We played for hours since we rarely get the chance to play video games. Mom seemed to check on us every hour, but after 5 check-ups she stopped coming which bothered me.
    I decide to go into my mom’s room to see what’s up, but when I enter the room she is on the floor. I run over to her and see what happened. Her breathing was very scratchy and she wasn’t responding to me. I screamed to Toby for help. Toby ran into the room immediately. I pick up the phone and call 911.
    The ambulance arrives shortly and packs us all in the ambulance truck. We rush to the emergency room.
    When we arrive, they take my mom to a patient room to see what’s going. They put Toby, Crystal, and I in the waiting room. A nurse tries to calm down Crystal, but she is not going to stop until she knows mom is okay.
    After about an hour of waiting, a doctor comes out to tell what is happening, but it is not some hospital doctor that we don’t know, it is our doctor, Dr. Karingal.
    “Well hello the Night family,” he greets us, but we don’t greet back. We want to know what happened.
    “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I have to.” He waits. “You’re mother has diabetes, if you didn’t know that. She suffered from a heart attack today. She is suffering from heart failure and we don’t think she will make it. We will let you see her in a bit now.”
    I can’t believe what he just told me. It has to be a lie or joke or something. My mom has to make it. We just started to fix our relationship. Thinking about it, now I know why she said she wanted to fix it before she didn’t get the chance to. She knew her day was coming, but why didn’t she tell us. Why didn’t she tell us she had diabetes, we could’ve helped her. Why didn’t she tell us? Why?
    I start to cry uncontrollably. Toby holds on to me, but soon enough he is crying. What is going to happen?
    Dr. Karingal comes back out in 10 minutes. He shows us the way to her room. When we entered, all we could see was mom laid flat on the bed, dying. Crystal runs up to her, we all do.
    My mom hugs us all and tells us she is sorry and loves us. We tell her we love her too, but these words sound so foreign on my tongue because I think the last time I told her this was when I was way younger.
    She tells to stop crying, but we just can’t. Something in our hearts hurts and yearns for our mother. We don’t want her to leave. I don’t want her to leave. I want to fix our relationship. I want to get to know her better. I don’t want her to die, not yet.
    “Ah, look at my children. I wish I could see all of them and my husband. But only God knows where them they are and I hope he protects them.” Mom takes a long deep breath like she is running out of them. “I want you guys to live your life in happiness and joy. I don’t want you mourning all day for me.” She takes another huge breath.
    “I wrote in my will giving you guys all the money we have left, and money from the house being sold. I also put that I want to be cremated and I am giving my ashes to Cassandra to either hold me or put me with the ocean.” Another large breath. “I love you all equally and I hope you long, beautiful lives.”
    All we could manage to say during the time mom was talking was things like, “Mom, don’t go.”
    Mom orders Toby and Crystal to leave, but for me to stay.
    “I love you Cassandra, I hope you know that. I am sorry for the years you had to suffer through my wrath but I wish I realized earlier what damage I was causing. When you have children, treat them well and full of love, you promise?”
    “I promise,” I manage to utter. There was a quick pause. “I forgive you, mom. I forgive you for everything.”
    “I know,” she says. She closes her eyes, and her chest stops rising. I hear a long ring in the background. My mother was gone right before my eyes. I couldn’t believe it. I yell and yell her name, but I knew it wasn’t going to bring her back. If only there was more time.
    I walk out the room, and the look on my face gave away the news to Toby and Crystal. We sit on a bench outside of my mom’s room while a tall man in a suit talk to us about foster homes to Toby and I.
I wasn’t really paying attention because I couldn’t accept that my mom was gone. All I heard was that we were being separated and our homes will be determined tomorrow.
    No one said anything; there was nothing to be said. Someone would say they were sorry for our loss, but they didn’t know our mother. They knew nothing and her death wasn’t their fault.
    The man in the suit drove us home to get what we wanted to bring. I didn’t want to bring anything but pictures and mom and dad wedding vase. I wanted every memory I had of the life I wished I loved but now is gone. I’ll never get it back. I might not see my life-long friends again or anyone that I commonly see and know. It is like a punch in the face when I realize the reality of it.
    When we finish getting what we want to keep, the man in the suit drives us to a hotel. He says this is where we are going to stay for the night.
    He says we should get a good night’s sleep for tomorrow, but we all know that we aren’t going to sleep.

    *    *    *    *    *    *

    The man in the suit wakes us the next morning. He says our foster homes have been determined. I think to myself that them finding a foster home that fast is pretty unusual until the man says that our mom has been planning a foster for us. She knew ahead that her time was coming around.
    He tells us all the information about our new families, but no of us look like we can take it in. Everything is happening really fast. There is barely any time to wrap your head around things.
    I figure out my new family lives in California. Crystal’s new family lives in Georgia, and Toby’s lives in New York. The spread us out across the country.
    We checkout the hotel and head to the airport to go to our new homes. I’m beyond saying goodbye to Crystal and Toby. I wish I could relive life with them, to do things differently, but I think we all do.
    My flight leaves an hour after both of theirs leave so I wave them goodbye. We will see each other again one day, I hope.
        Before I board my flight, the man gives me a phone and says it’s from the hospital.
“Hello?” I say.
    “Hey. Where do you think you’re going without me?” It was Xavier’s voice. “I heard what happened. I’m terribly sorry.”
    I feel a little cheered up to hear his voice, to know that he has woken up from his vegetative state. “I feel terribly sorry for you.”
“Yeah. They got ahold of my uncle so I am going to stay with him. They finally found him after search all over.”
    “Well good for you.” I started to cry when I remembered that I was leaving Xavier.
    “Hey, don’t you cry. We will see each other again, and I promise that. I will search the whole world to find you if I needed to. You know my phone number, so just call. But if you don’t, you should be able to find me online.”
    I smile. There is at least some of my heart left.
“Well, I have to go now. Talk to you soon.” Xavier says. “I love you.”
    “I love you too,” I say and with that Xavier hangs up.
    “It’s time to get on the plane,” the man in the suit tells me.
I take a deep breath. I am about to leave my old life and enter a new. At least I have all my friend’s contacts.
        Before I hand my boarding pass to the gate attendant, the man in the suit runs up to me and gives me a small box.
    “Your mom wanted me to give this to you. Have a safe flight. Your foster family should be waiting for you by the exit. They should have a sign that says your name on it.” And like that, he leaves.
    I board the plane and wait for it to leave. I have a window seat, but I shouldn’t worry too much about getting up and stretching because the flight is not too long.
    When the plane finally takes off into the air, I decide to open the small box that was given to me. It ends up being a ring. A beautiful, peacock ring, like nothing I have ever seen before. In the box, there was a note that read:

Merry Christmas Cassandra!

I wish you a Merry Christmas and a long, wonderful life. This ring originally was my grandmother’s and she past it down to my mom and past it down to me. So I decided to pass it on to you. I hope you pass it down for many generations to come. I don’t know why, but that ring has given me so much strength. It has given me a feeling that made my bad days better. I hope it will do the same to you.
I love you and have a Merry Christmas.

Love, Mom
Tameria Night
            
I was in tears after reading this. The ring was beautiful and it reminded me of the lake and all of the appearances of the white peacock. I could hear the song the 2 peacocks made. I could feel the sun beaming down on me. I could see the tree, oh the gorgeous tree. I am now, a pearl, crystal, white peacock.