“Do you guys wanna eat with us?” Cassandra asks in an adorable voice. Zayn was trying his best not to burst into his feels as Ronan lifted his eyebrow at her.
Alex on the other hand, was totally whipped for the little girl.
“Why yes, little girl. I’m famished.” As he says, Ravine lifts her eyebrow at them as Cassandra skips away to get three more sets of utensils for the table.
On the table which could hold four more people apart from the duo living in the house, Zayn and Cassandra sit side by side as they begin talking about the recent news of the acid rains and it’s increase of global risk.
Cassandra was beyond wild for this idea.
Zayn almost didn’t accept her ideas, thinking it would be too childish.
But, she assures him with the best words he could hear from her, “Zayn. I know my mom. She would believe the radio over anything and I’m sure she wouldn’t even guess that it was us producing the rain outside. Trust me.”
He trusted her.
Cassandra and Zayn were in a conversation, talking in hushed tones. The sounds of cutlery hitting the ceramic plates were like background music for the couple.
Ronan was growing bored out of his mind.
He couldn’t join the older adult group who were looking away from each other and neither was he allowed to join the other couple. He, out of frustration, kicks his uncle’s foot as Alex jumps in his seat.
“Are you alright?” Ravine asks, noticing something move against her leg.
“Y-yeah! Yeah, I’m alright. I just have a little ahem… spasm.” Alex lies.
“Spasms? Already? I thought you were healthier than that. Because come on, you were a football player all through your twenties.” The woman says.
Cassandra and Zayn pause their conversation to look at the other couple. Zayn gives her a high-five under the table.
Their conversation goes on, and after a long, long time, Alex was witnessing the smile against her face.
After dinner in the house, Alex watches the woman walk outside to smoke a blunt.
Cassandra and Zayn were busy in their own conversation with their eyes. Ronan almost puked at their chemistry.
Alex suddenly remembers that his family was outside and responsible for the ‘acid rain’. Ravine shouldn’t be allowed to step outside and discover that their production of ‘acid rain’ was fake.
Louis couldn’t make the whole neighborhood rain, and that was one of the drawbacks of the plan.
“Hey, hey! Um… don’t go outside. I- I heard it’s a little too acidic today.” Says the old man.
“I don’t think so. It’s always been 6 or 5.” She replies to him.
“But… wait a second, would you? Why do you even smoke at this age? You’ve got a little girl I your house and-”
“Alex, it’s none of your business to worry about my health or my daughter’s. I know exactly what I’m doing and I’m not ruining anyone’s health.” She says, talking about the smoke.
Cassandra simply stares at them both.
She vividly remembers her asking her mother to stop smoking
But one time in the past, Ravine’s reply made her realise to never question her and stop her from consuming that.
“This…” she rolled the blunt between her fingers, “This is the last memory I have of your father, Cassie. He was a great man, and every time I remember him, I remember about his passion for this as well.” She had said, when Cassandra asked her to stop smoking after Louis’s incident.
She realized that her mother was broken at that time, and nothing, nor anyone could heal her shattered and butchered heart except for the memorial connection she shares with the blunts.
She gave up on trying to persuade her mother singe that day.
And now, Alex was trying to stop the old woman from reducing her life even more. Alex was true with his words. Cassandra was impeccably young and needed her tough mother’s love at all stages of her life. She was only a seventeen year old kid, without a father and without a brother.
What Cassandra wanted was a complete picture of a family in her mind. Even if it was for only 2 years of her experience, Framton Johnson was one of the greatest people she’s ever lived with.
She wanted to feel the love of a father, constantly. Not just for two years or for a few months anymore.
She wanted to have a brother as well, and going back to the Johnson’s household was like a well knit dream for her.
“Mom…” Cassandra voices out.
“Um… I’ll make the guestroom.” She points behind as Ravine nods.
“Stay away from my matters, Alex. We aren’t related anymore.” Ravine says in a whisper, not wanting anyone to hear her as she walks into the common bathroom beside the kitchen.
Zayn and Ronan awkwardly look at each other.
“Way to go, uncle Alex.” Ronan tries to discourage him, but Zayn was having none of that.
“She is just being protective of her little sunshine. I mean…” Zayn looks up at Alex who nods. He joins them on the couch as he sighs.
“The bed is ready, people.” Cassandra informs after awhile.
“Yeah.” Following the girl, Zayn and Ronan check out the room as Cassandra insisted.
Alex walked into another room, switching the lights on.
It was a plain cream walled room with photoframes of the mother-daughter duo arranged on the blank wall.
He was walking around the room aimlessly, he stops at a small photoframe by the side of her working table.
“I would appreciate it if you place it down, Alex.” Ravine’s tough voice says to him.
“Yeah, sorry. I couldn’t help it. Your family is beautiful, Ravine.” He comments on the wide smiles of her kids and herself. Eugene was a cool headed man, he in the picture held his baby girl in his arms as Louis climbs on his mother’s back to pose for the picture.
It was taken on a beach, the waves and their clothes suggested that.
“Thank you.” Ravine says nonchalantly.
“Ravine… I want to be a father for Cassandra-”
“I thought I told you not to talk about it anymore, Alex. Don’t even think about it.”
“But… she’s told me that herself.”
Ravine widens her eyes.
Her baby girl spoke with another man, asking him to be her father while Ravine was trying so hard to play both roles and more in Cassandra’s life.
She is her best friend, her mother, her father and her coach as well.
When Alex says the truth out, Ravine couldn’t help but feel inferior in her mind.
She had lost to fate.
Again.