Cassie Wilson's Story

The date was Friday June 7, 2012 at 5:37. Everything seemed like a perfectly normal Friday; Cassie was playing in her room and Ronnie was waiting for Max to come pick her up. The only thing that showed how unusual this day was was how clean the apartment was. Usually, the small, two bedroom apartment was littered with clothes and toys. However, Veronica had been on a cleaning spree all day, so all clothes and toys were put away where they belonged.

Why was Veronica going on a cleaning spree? No one was injured, nothing was broken, nothing imminently bad was going on. However, Ronnie was pregnant...again. Yes, she loved Cassie to death, and would do absolutely anything for her daughter, but at the same time she did wish she would have been older and settled down in her life. When she had found out she was pregnant with Cassie, Max had been great and supported her, even married her. After all, they had been in love for so long and there had been a point in time when she had wished she would have been with him her entire life, but things had changed. Being a wife hadn't worked out, and being a mother was a lot harder than she had expected it to be, especially since she had never had a mother to look up to. Now, although she was older, she wasn't any more settled down. She had a steady boyfriend, but at the same time she had steered clear of anything that would make a huge commitment, like telling him she loved him, even though she felt it, and now she had to tell him she was having his child!

Those crazy thoughts were what drove Ronnie to the insane cleaning. She had text both her brother and her boyfriend telling them she needed to talk to them, and figured she would tell whoever showed up first, first. She wished she didn't have to tell Max, but she knew he would know her well enough to know that something was clearly bothering her, especially as soon as he failed to spot any toy or article of clothing that was not on a body.

Sighing, she walked over to her daughter's small room. Veronica hated that she couldn't afford them a bigger place, but she was struggling as a single mom. Max tried to help her out but he had his own expenses, and a girlfriend, to take care of. And her boyfriend tried helping, but Ronnie was stubborn and he had his own life. Now, not only was Ronnie trying to keep her apartment and give her daughter as much as she could, but she had a newborn on the way to worry about.

Trying to pull herself together, Ronnie sat down on Cassie's bed. She wanted to tell her daughter, but she didn't know how to tell either her or Max, and she knew she couldn't ask the little girl to keep something like this from her father. "Hey Cassie, sweetie. Ready to go with daddy. I think he's going to take you out to dinner tonight, that place that opened with the big playground. That should be fun, yea?" She said, attempting to be cheerful for her daughter, waiting for a knock on the door that would announce the arrival of either her ex husband, her boyfriend, or her brother.

Cassie was off in her own little world when her mother came in the room. She smiled and ran to her mother. Her mother spoke. "Hey Cassie, sweetie. Ready to go with daddy. I think he's going to take you out to dinner tonight, that place that opened with the big playground. That should be fun, yea?" Cassie perked up. "Playground? Daddy can't go in a playground! Silly mommy! He break it and then OOF! He fall on his butt!" Cassie jumped up and landed butt first on her pillow. She continued bouncing on her pillow saying "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" When the knock came, she squealed and ran around in circles.

Hearing what her daughter had to say, Ronnie chucked. One of her favorite things about being a mother was listening to her child talk, because she just said the most adorable things. "Well I think you are the silly one. I'm sure he won't play with you, you can play with the other kids and Daddy will watch." Veronica said, watching her daughter bouncing on her pillow. Then the knock on the door came, and Cassie went crazy from excitement. Still chuckling, she walked over to the door.

The smile was still on Ronnie's face up until she saw the look Max was giving her. Damn, she didn't even fool him for a minute. Then again, if anyone knew her it was her ex husband, they had only been together just about 6 years, and married for 2 of them.

"You might as well come in and have a seat." Ronnie said. She fetched a towel and placed it on the couch for him to sit on, as was usual when he ever actually came into the apartment and was wearing his work clothes. "Hey, Cassie. Can you go put your toys away while Daddy and I talk? Then you can go with him and have fun, ok?"

Ronnie busied herself with fixing her ex a glass of water. She took her time filling it with ice and the water before walking over to him, setting the glass down on the little end table that was next to the couch. "I'm not really sure how to tell you this. I haven't told anyone yet." The woman wasn't sure if she could do this; she started feeling sick and wasn't sure if it was from the pregnancy or the nerves she was feeling from saying these words. Her mind went back to how she had told him she was expecting a child when the child was his. After all this time, she couldn't think of any other words to use. "Sometimes things happen, unexpected things, unplanned things." She wasn't sure if she could find it in herself to finish telling him, and grabbed the glass she had poured for him to take a sip of water. "Well...I guess you can figure out the rest, I don't know if I can actually say those words to you again." Veronica said, looking down.

Sure, Maxwell had reacted fairly well when she was telling him she was pregnant with his baby, but how would he react when she was telling him it was someone else's. There was still a part of her that loved her ex husband, and there were still moments every now and then when she wished things could have worked out between them, and she wasn't sure of his feelings for her, but she knew she didn't want to hurt him and wasn't sure if that fact would hurt him or not. Oh well, he probably could have figured it out by then, so there was nothing else for her to do but wait for his reaction.

Cassie giggled and ran into her room. She started putting her toys away quickly. Tucking in her dolls in their crib, setting the animals on the toybox to keep the monsters from stealing her toys. It was the way she always did it. But today she did one thing different. Instead of taking her favorite doll with her, she put her in the toddler-sized rocking chair in the corner. Her doll had been bad, so she had to stay here while Cassie had all the fun. She began to give her toys instructions on how to be when she returned. "Daddy is taking me to play. I don't want no monsters stealing my toys when I with Daddy. So Mr. Fluffy needs to watch the toybox. And Mr. Teddy, make sure Sally stays in the corner. She is grounded. And Ms. Giggles, take care of all the babies cause I gone." Mr. Fluffy was her toy lion with a top hat. Mr. Teddy was a prince panda. Ms. Giggles was a monkey with a sound box to make it laugh. Cassie had put one of her old frilly tank tops on her as a dress. Cassie went to her closet and saw a cute purple outfit she wanted to wear. She reached up high, only to barely touch the pant leg. "MOMMY!" she yelled. "I'M TOO SHORT!"

Michael was leaving the office at the late hours of the night after spending the day organizing security contracts, sifting through piles of paper work and trying to get the air conditioning working. Michael's life was going well at that moment with his business doing successfully and he had his own house. He even had enough money to spend in the local bar most nights with his old army buddies. However no matter how well he was doing he felt that something was missing in his life, like there was a hole in him. It left him feeling empty. Maybe it was that he missed his old army life or was it something far deeper.

Michael had left his phone off all day because of his stressful work day but when he turned it on he must of missed a lot that day because he had 2 missed calls and 8 texts. One text was from his sister Ronnie, she was asking to see him. It was a strange relationship between him and Ronnie, they were never really close which was because of Michael's resentment towards his sister over the death of their mother. It meant that he had to grow up alone, without any help. However a lot had changed from when they were kids. Both of them had grown up a lot, Michael had been in the army and the sights he'd seen around the world had changed his view on his own life and Ronnie had grown up a lot after the birth of her daughter Cassie. He still felt the resentment for her but now felt he needed to protect Ronnie because he might not always be around.

Ronnie only lived a couple of blocks away from the office so Michael felt he would drop by to see whats wrong. He texted her saying "I'll be around in 5 minutes just finished work." so she would know that he was coming. He wondered to himself what was wrong because Ronnie never usually asked to see him without giving him some sort of hint to why she wanted to see him. He wondered whether something was wrong with Cassie. He felt a slight worry inside him which made him eager to see Ronnie and he felt himself speeding up. He turned the corner and came to the door of Ronnie's place, he knocked on the door waiting for a response.

All of Ronnie's thoughts were still running around wildly, chasing one another across her mind. Her mind was still on how Max had reacted when she was telling him she was pregnant the first time. So much had changed since that day, yet so many things had stayed the same as well. She heard her daughter's yell for help and then jumped when her phone vibrated. After checking her phone, Ronnie sighed.

Mike. Her brother. That was another complicated relationship. Growing up he had always hated her, made her life harder than it had to be after having to grow up without a mother, especially when the rest of your family blamed you for the fact. However, after he had gotten back from the army, and when she got pregnant with Cassie, things had changed a little. She figured it was mostly because he wanted to know his niece, and nothing more than that, but they were talking and she would take that much. No, they weren't best friends or anything, but she now felt comfortable in going to him with something like that, especially when all else she had was an ex husband, a six year old child, and a boyfriend she was terrified would run away when he found out the news. Yes, he was great with Cassie, but a six year old who wasn't his and a newborn who was were two completely different things.

When Max placed his hand on her knee, her eyes met his. He always had been supportive, no matter what was going on. "Thank you. I'm kind of counting on that." Veronica said. Max had been the only one who really supported her through the entirety of her first pregnancy, and she knew he really would know what to do and how to help her, and she still wasn't sure if the baby's father would be supportive or if he would get scared and run away.

"I'll get it, but thanks." Ronnie said, getting up and going over to Cassie's room. "Is this the one you want?" Ronnie asked, getting the purple outfit down and handing it to her daughter. "There you go sweetie. You going to get dressed all by yourself?" She asked. "Uncle Mike will be here soon too. Maybe Daddy will let you stay a little to say hi to him." She suggested, doing her best to be happy for her daughter even with her wrecked mind.

Then she heard the knock on the door. "I guess that's him." She said, taking a deep breath. While Max had known something was wrong as soon as he saw her clean place, she figured that her brother, Mike, wouldn't know something like that about her. Taking another breath, she opened the door. "Hey Mike. Come on in." She said, letting him in before opening the door. The sick feeling was back and she felt she was going to throw up.

Cassie nodded and jumped up and down when her mother pointed to the clothes. She pulled the clothes off the hanger and put the hanger on her bed. She giggled and ran to her daddy. She tossed the clothes at her father and smiled. "Daddy! Dress me!"[\b] She pulled at the hem of her shirt. Then her mother opened the door and Cassie squealed. [b]"Uncle Mikey!" She ran to his side and hugged his leg.

Michael looked down at Cassie after she hugged his leg and picked her up and gave her a kiss on the head before putting her down again and said "Arn't you lucky, daddy's going to take you to the museum".

He listened to Ronnie, Michael looked at her in disbelief of her admittance that she had gotten pregnant again. He suddenly had a bunch of emotions shooting through his head. He didn't know what to think about the situation, sure he was disappointed that Ronnie had gotten herself into this situation again and angry at her boyfriend, but he could see that Ronnie was worried, so Michael just stood up and hugged her, he even surprised himself that he was doing this. "I'll be here for you" he whispered in her ear. Michael wanted to be angry but he knew now wasn't the time, not when Cassie was around. He felt it was best just to be compassionate for the moment although he didn't know how he would react when he next saw Ronnie's boyfriend. He stopped hugging Ronnie and went back to sitting down.

"Does he know yet and what are you going to do?" Michael said referencing to Ronnie's boyfriend.

Cassie giggled and nodded furiously, her long hair getting messy. "Okay Daddy!" Cassie hugged her uncle tight, then when her mother mentioned pregnancy, which she had heard on shows where girls go to doctors, Cassie looked at her confused. "What's pre-ra-gant mean Mommy? She asked, saying the word all wrong. She had known her mother was upset lately, quiet and sad, like when her and Max got into an argument. Maybe it meant she was sick. "Is Mommy dying?" She looked to her uncle with tears in her eyes. "People on tv go to the hos-ip-ital when they are pre-ra-gant. Is Mommy ok? I don't want Mommy to die!" She started to cry softly, the tears rolling down her cheeks, nose, and lips. She reached for her mother to take her.