Chapter 10: Here Comes The Sun

Alice eventually left me to clean up my mess. But it wasn’t long before I had another visitor.

“Hey.” I heard Cass call from behind me.

“Hey.” I matched her energy, or lack thereof. “I’m cleaning your floor.”

“Thanks.” Cass shuffled her feet and turned away. “I was about to make lunch, do you want something?”

I was hungry. And even though I didn’t admit that fact, I followed her down the stairs and into the kitchen. “Don’t feel obligated if you just feel bad for hitting me. I deserved that.” My face burned. “I’m sorry, Cass. I should’ve called.”

“You should have just told me you were leaving.” Cass snapped. “That’s all. Just an inkling of decency.”

The doorbell’s clang startled both of us. Cassidy walked past in a huff, ignoring me, out of the kitchen and towards the door. I clenched my fists, irritated with her dismissal, and followed. I stopped in the hallway as she addressed a tall man wearing a shiny badge on a chain.

“Cassidy Black?” The man asked with a sterile voice as he loomed over her. Cass nodded and accepted the envelope he extended. “You’ve been served, Miss Black. Please sign here and have a good day.”

He left without another pleasantry. Cass closed the door and stared at the envelope. It seemed to call to us, louder and louder, like a telltale heart.

“Who do you think it’s from?” I finally asked, bewildered. “Who’d want to sue you?”

Cassidy ran her cautious fingers across the half-opened envelope before slowly tugging at the page inside. She unfurled the triple-folded paper, and her tired eyes began to read. My heart pounded as the silence dragged on. “It’s Brandi.” Cass finally said. An exasperated exhale followed. “She’s petitioning to establish paternity for my baby.” She blushed.

“What?” I gasped. My surprise grew to anger. “She knows that’s not her baby. You were only off our birth control for our date.”

“Yeah, about that,” Cassidy’s voice sounded detached. She tried to busy herself, returning to the kitchen.

“Don’t we?” I asked. My chest tightened. I chased her like a desperate puppy. I shook my head. “Cass, I’m confused. W--we don’t like her. Why would she be asking about our baby?”

“I--I was angry.” Cassidy stopped and shrugged. Her face turned bright red. “My mom died, and right after you left, Brandi—the first thing Brandi did when she heard, came to hug me; Hold me. She told me how sorry she was and how she knew how I felt. She was so fucking nice to me, and I felt so lost.” She shook her head and cursed. “I knew she’d do something like this once she found out you were back.”

“Wow.” I shuddered. It was like she hit me again, but this time in the stomach. I couldn’t breathe for the life of me.

“I didn’t tell her I stopped taking my birth control, not at first anyway,” Cass recalled with such casual cruelty, I just knew she couldn’t have meant it. But then she looked up and stared right at me. “I wanted to feel good, but I also wanted to hurt you.”

“Mission accomplished.” I felt my burning face. Funny, I didn’t even know when the tears started. I sniffled and covered my face. It would have been so easy to hate her had I not been so deserving of this pain.

“Sunny?” Cassidy’s voice snapped me from my gaze. “Sunny, are you okay? You’ve been staring into space for over a minute now.”

“It’s fine.” I lied, my voice cracking under my sopping wet sniffling. “I understand what I did was fucked up, but I never thought you’d be the kind of person that would want to have a baby with my lifelong bully, Cass.”

Cass shook her head. “I wasn’t myself.”

“Yeah.” I mocked. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her. “So what happens now?”

Cassidy shifted her shoulders in a halfhearted shrug. “She deserves to know if she’s the futa-mom.” She said. “And you deserve to know, too.”

“FINE.” I don’t know when I had balled my fists until I slammed the wall where I stood. “But I swear to god, Cass, if you have a baby with Brandi, I’ll never talk to you again.”

“Oh,” She cocked her head, looking at me inquisitively. “So just like when you ran off and left me?” She stared daggers at me--I’ve never seen her look so angry; Not aimed at me, at least. “Don’t ever threaten me like that again, Sunny. We’re not playing our game anymore.”

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. My frustration boiled over, and I had to get away from Cass. The petulant child in me expected Cass to chase me. My ears perked, listening for her pleas for me to return--they never came. I stormed up the stairs and ensured the entire Skye estate heard me slam the door.

I was still such a child. I would have thrown such a tantrum if I thought anyone would care.

So, after submitting to an amniotic fluid test, Cass agreed to meet with Brandi and her lawyer at their office in the heart of downtown Toronto. I tagged along with my heart firmly lodged in my throat. I trusted Cass enough not to submit a DNA sample. If her baby wasn’t Brandi’s, she was mine. It was that simple to me.

Cassidy and I traversed to the 10th floor of this building. I could make out the sleek curves of our beautiful Toronto City Hall a few blocks away. In a sprawling office, we met with Manfred and three nondescript, greying white men in charcoal suits; They flanked Brandi Syke. My cousin looked nothing like herself; She wore a slim pinstriped back skirt suit with her dark hair straightened and pulled and braided into a regal pointail. This version of Brandi frightened me more; This one would take over the world.