𝐈'𝐝 𝐁𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐈𝐭 𝐓𝐰𝐢𝐜𝐞

𝑓 𝑖 𝑓 𝑡 𝑦 𝑒 𝑖 𝑔 ℎ 𝑡

Cassandra's Pov
((January 5th 2022))

"These buildings could drift out to sea, some natural catastrophe, still there's no place i'd rather be.." I quietly mumble along with Lauryn Hill's voice as her song plays gently on the speaker my dad gifted me for Christmas. I carefully write down my pre thought out answers onto the homework sheet assigned by my science teacher, Mr. Harvey. "..Cause there's no place I'd rather be, cause nothing even matters to me.."

There's a knock on my door and when I look up my dad leaned against the frame of the door itself. "You up doing Homework on a Thursday night?" He asks, crossing his arms across his chest.

"I mean.. it is a Thursday night. Those tend to be pretty bland." I reply, giving him a weak smile and he grins in return, sighing a bit. "You're right." Recently I been trying to repair my relationship with my Dad.

I can tell everything going on with my mama and the 'divorce' really getting to him, plus all that stress with work, so I just try to talk to him sometimes. I truly won't forgive him for all the shit him and Mama put me and Henry through, especially the assault with Uncle Randy's friend but I'll still be civil towards him. There was a time I thought he was the most greatest man on the earth, but then money became his priority and not his kids. Which is supposed to go the opposite way, by the way. Now I think my Dad pretty mid. I'll probably be think of him this way until the rest of my life.. and I'm fine with that.

"You can't go hang out with one your friends?" He looks at me. "Julia, maybe?"

Why he want he want me out this damn house so bad?

"She's having dinner with her grandparents." I answer simply. "And I'm actually okay with being by myself for the night. I can get some work done. I can find some new shows, do a lil more research on the colleges I had picked out, listen to music.." I trail off and he nods. "Basically mind your own business?"

I might smoke too, but he don't need to know all that.

"Something like that," I shrug my shoulders and he nods, softly clapping his hands together.

"Well, I'll be in the living room. A friend might come over and a few minutes but don't pay her no mind. She just gonna be here to talk for awhile. Nothing too important." He explains and I nod briefly, going back to my homework sheet.

He exits the room and his irritating ass end up leaving my door cracked, not closing it the whole way.

I sigh deeply and just go ahead and answer a few more questions. The questions really not all that hard.

All you really gotta do is read the article. Simple shit.

I answer five of the questions and while I do that I let, like, three songs play on my speaker but then some song start playing and I'm honestly not rocking with it. Hailey be adding her random ass, punk, emo, goth songs to my playlist, so all types of random shit just be playing.

'it's these substandard motels.. on the corner of 4th and Fremont Street..'

'Appealing, only because they're just that unappealing..'

I can't lie and say I'm not familiar with it, cause I am. Hailey played it in the car and tried to put me on a couple times, but I'm just not a fan. The vibe the song supposed to be giving, don't be giving for me.

Most of the time, she do be having good song recommendations but this just not one of them.

I lean over to my nightstand and press the forward button on phone, skipping the song, and leaning back over when it starts playing the intro to Kaash Paige's 'Soul Ties'.