Your Life Is A Dream. Mine Is A Nightmare.

Your Life Is A Dream. Mine Is A Nightmare. - Chapter 5

Suddenly I heard laughter. It seemed like a familiar laugh. I sat up and saw Yuki and Cassandra playing on the swings. Cassandra was pushing Yuki who wanted to go higher. Their laughs created a smooth harmony to it. Cassandra noticed me and waved. Yuki wondered who she was waving to. She followed the direction in which she was waving.

She smiled and yelled, "Chesa!" I pulled myself together making sure I didn't look like sad or gloomy, not wanting to worry them. I jumped off the roof

and stuck the landing perfectly like a gymnast. I also made a big deal out of it by putting my hands in the air and finishing like a gymnast. Yuki giggled, pranced over to me, and gave me a hug.

"Chesa! You came to play at the park too?" She smiled at me. I just nodded my head.

"Yuki! Chesa!" Her mom was by the ice cream vendor waving to them, "Come here! I'll buy us some ice cream," Yuki screamed for joy and galloped over to her mom, excitedly pointing at the different flavors that she wanted to try. I slowly walked near them, hoping that the ice cream might cheer me.

"Chesa, sweetie. What do you wanna have?" Cassandra asked with a motherly smile.

I looked at the kind ice cream man and said, "I'll have strawberry ice cream with chocolate syrup and oreos in a waffle cone, please,"

"Sure thing my lady," He gave me a kind smile, tipped his hat, and worked on my order. He handed me the delicious cone wrapped with napkins just in case. Yuki asked for the same thing, but Cassandra made sure it was in a cup. To my surprise Cassandra got just vanilla ice cream in a cup. We all walked over to the bench to sit down in the shade. Yuki would go play on the playground and every now and then she'd skip towards us and take a bite of her ice cream.

"It'd be nice to be that young again. No care in the world. No worries," I spoke softly.

At first Cassandra's facial expressions looked like she was worried, but then she smiled softly and said, "Everyone wishes they were that young again, but the reason why it's hard when you get older is so you grow from that scared little child into a strong person. Even as you get to my age there'll be hard obstacles,"

"Cassandra, can I tell you something?"

"Okay, shoot,"

"You know ever since I met your family they'll given me the warmth I needed ever since my mom died. Your son even helped me solve a lot of things with my dad,"

"That's nice to here," she smiled, "Actually you've helped us in a way also,"

"Really?!" I asked shockingly. Cassandra laughed.

"Chris used to be a very serious quiet guy. He would barely interact with anyone. Including Yuki and I, but I was really surprised to see him playing tag with Yuki and you. I guess you kind of opened a new door for him or at least helped him to see some light," Her eyes glistened with pure happiness.

"I'm happy to hear that I helped you guys in someway," I smiled, "Might I ask why Chris was like that?"

She sighed and looked onto the horizon as if there was something she was trying to reach, "Well it's hard to say. I think it was something to do with his father who is always busy with work, never home enough to spend time with the kids,"

In a low tone I said, "Probably," I guess Cassandra heard it because she chuckled.

"You ran into both of them, didn't you?" I nodded. "And that's probably why you seemed a bit down when I saw you gazing up at the blue sky," I nodded. "Did Chris say something?" I slowly nodded and before I realized it the tears started coming.