The run around the home always seemed never ending. I supposed it would seem more logical to gauge my approach and simply wait till she exhausted herself and then approach her in some non-chalant manner.

Maybe I enjoyed the tete-d-tate. The soft giggles she would let fly as the sound of her bare feet slapped against the house’s old wooden floors. Deductively, there were really only a few pathway’s to take and she always headed through the foyer into the study and then through the back hall and back into the kitchen.

If I simply waited for her in the kitchen eventually she would arrive at her final destination. Panting, parched and momentarily exhausted. When her mother died, I worried about the impact her untimely death would have on Cassie. She was always the one that felt the deepest, and her fragility was no secret amongst family and friends alike. I heard the news from outside the window as I came to see her. She sat, with her hands in her lap and listened intently from the dining room table as her Father tried to mask his own palpable pain and, with a brave front offer Cassie some explanation that wouldn’t like a brick through a plate glass window shatter her completely.

Her father despite his good and noble intentions, didn’t realizes how thin the glass of her mental state truly was. She wasn’t shattered; instead a small fracture was created. A hairline break that slowly grew until it obscured the view and demanded acknowledgment by one and all.  In my mind’s eye, even this flaw as tragic as it was, adorned her like a vast array of precious stones draped about her person; a visage of twinkling shimmers and cascading colors.

Shortly after the funeral, Mr. Billows’, Cassie’s father returned to what he knew best and threw himself into his work. I supposed this was his means of mourning or escape, but it left poor Cassie with no one to turn to but her Nanny and the family cat whiskers.

I was too young to offer the sort of support she needed, being only a boy of 15 myself. I sat for hours sometimes with Cassie, wishing I knew more and could be more for Cassie. Truth was, I had my own demons to vanquish.