18th February 1996

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"It's beautiful," Cassie exclaimed with a brilliant smile on her face as she stepped into the cozy, almost empty apartment. She could already picture a bed and wardrobe, bringing the place to life.

Trisha smiled and nodded beside her. "It really is. At least, for the price."

Cassie turned to face her. "Thank you so much for helping me rent out this place. I think we're going to find some peace here." She placed her palm on her belly and rubbed it gently.

She'd been struggling to conceal the pregnancy from her foster mother for fear that she'd be compelled to give the baby up but had put on so much weight now and it was almost impossible. That was why with the help of Trisha, she'd run away to start a new life in a new environment. She longed for this nightmare to be over. 

"Sure," Trisha replied. "So... Have you tried contacting Logan?" She inquired and earned an eye roll.

"I went to his house." Cassie frowned and stepped forward. "That woman didn't even let me in. She told me Logan was not there anymore. I asked if there was any way I could reach him, and..." She sniffed, struggling hard to hold back the tears.

It was about time she stopped crying and feeling bad about herself.

"And?"

"She told me he would never accept my baby. He doesn't want to have anything to do with me. It... It hurts."

Trisha shook her head in devastation as she closed the gap between them and pulled Cassie into an embrace.

"We are going to get through this together," she whispered into her ears as she stroked her hair gently.

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20th April 1996

"Trisha..." Cassie groaned in a silent whisper as she shuffled her eyes open. The contractions were back and even more frustrating.

She struggled to sit up and turned on the light on her lampstand. Turning over to Trisha's empty bed, she sighed in disappointment.

Her eyes traveled to the wall clock and she observed that it was already 4:00 am.

She used her fingers to massage her temples, trying to relieve herself from the pain, anxiety, and anger she was feeling.

Why was it almost impossible for Trisha to act responsibly? How could she be out partying till this late, completely disregarding the fact that they had a job to get to in the morning.

She reached for her cellphone and dialed Trisha's line.

"Hey, you better get back here right now. Have you bothered to check the time?" Cassie scoffed, hating to babysit a twenty-year-old girl.

"Hellooo..." A rather slurred voice replied from the other end.

Cassie frowned and there was a look of confusion on her face. The voice sounded nothing like Trisha's.

"Hello?"

"Hey... I don't know what's going on... I just wanted to use the bathroom. There's this lady lying here... I don't... I don't know if she's breathing. Do I need to call the police? Oh my God! Oh my God!"

Cassie sat up on her bed and placed a hand on her chest to feel her heart that had begun pounding hard against her chest. "Can you calm down and please tell me what exactly is going on? Who is lying there... Where?"

Everything in her told her that Trisha had gotten herself in trouble. Big trouble.

"The lady with... With the red hair. Oh, God! She's not breathing." The girl at the other end whimpered and began crying.

"Tell me where you are please and call 911 immediately."

Cassie could not believe what was happening.

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7th June 1996

Cassie repeated her breathing exercises as suggested by the elderly nurse standing beside her. Her eyes were fixed on the white ceiling as she was being moved on a gurney towards the theatre.

She could hardly perceive any sound, even any smell as though she was intentionally keeping everything out.

The only feeling she let in was the pain coursing through her veins. It was a welcome distraction.

After two months of feeling empty and lonely, dealing with immense sadness, guilt, and ceaseless emotional torture, physical pain posed a relief.

"Keep breathing, Cassie. You're doing just fine." She heard the voice of the elderly nurse that had taken care of her since she arrived at the hospital that morning.

But that was not the voice she longed to hear.

Trisha should have been standing there, offering comfort as she'd promised. They were supposed to get through this together. Yet, just like everyone else, she was gone.

She died as a result of respiratory failure from a drug overdose. It was later discovered that her boyfriend had been the one to supply her with the drugs and he'd been apprehended.

However, it neither did any justice to Trisha's death nor Cassie's agony.

Cassie felt completely guilty for being oblivious to the obvious signs; The withdrawal, the excessive partying, the undue attachment to her abuser.

Trisha had been drowning helplessly in addiction and Cassie had done nothing to save her. She'd failed her.
Just the way she'd failed everyone. And what seemed to sting her the most was the fact that the child in her womb that was trying to make a way out, was not going to be an exception.

If only the little girl knew, she'd have picked a better mother.

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Cassie did not know how long she'd stayed unconscious, but it was more peaceful and comforting than anything she'd experienced in a while.

As soon as she awoke, the nurse greeted her with a smile.

She tried to shift on the bed but could not. She winced due to the pain and the nurse moved even closer to her.

"Gentle please," she said kindly as she assisted her. "Are you ready to meet your baby?" She asked.

The young girl hesitated before nodding.

The nurse moved away and returned a little while later, holding a little figure wrapped in a white shawl.

She stretched out her hands and took her child.

"She's so beautiful," the nurse said with a smile.

Cassie had dreamt this moment almost every day for the past nine months, but she'd never expected it to manifest as her blandly staring at her child with no emotion whatsoever, only feeling the emptiness that had consumed her since Trisha's death.

Cassie managed to stifle a nod as she tore her eyes from the sleeping child. Although she wasn't brave enough to say it aloud, she could not find a single beautiful thing about the child in her arms.

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August 2002 (7 years later)

The unapologetic sound of her alarm clock reinforced her headache by a thousandfold. Cassie reached for it on her bedside table and threw it across the room, wondering how peace had become such a rare phenomenon.

She opened her eyes slowly and massaged her temples with two fingers. With a sigh, she dragged herself to the bathroom to brush her teeth and sprinkle some cold water on her face, which usually helped with her routine hangover.

As soon as Cassie was done washing her face, she looked up and caught sight of her reflection in the mirror.

She stripped off her T-shirt and pants to take a better look at her oversized body. She used her fingers to trace the stretch marks around her abdomen.

Tears found their way out of her eyes and streamed down her cheeks as she stared at her pathetic image in the mirror.

Her attention, however, was evoked by a loud crashing sound coming from the living room.

Cassie reached for her bathrobe and put it on immediately, before hurrying out of the bedroom.

Standing almost in front of her door was a tiny girl who was almost in tears as she struggled to clean up the spilled contents of a mug that lay in pieces on the floor. Despite the fact that one piece had pierced her finger and it was bleeding, she kept going at it.

"Lucia!" Cassie exclaimed and the frightened, little girl lost her balance, slipped, and almost fell had her mother not be quick enough to catch her.

"Mom, I'm so sorry. Please, don't be mad at me." Lucia pleaded, looking up to her as tears strolled down her cheeks.

Cassie sighed as she helped the girl to her feet and then folded her hands across her chest. "What exactly were you trying to do?" She inquired with a frown.

"You were drunk last night and I wanted to make you some coffee to-"

"Well, you see what happens when you do things you're not supposed to do." Cassie was almost yelling and she could see the little girl shaking frightfully. She exhaled to calm herself down. "Let me see that," she said reaching for her daughter's hands and inspected the cut.

She took her into her bedroom and made her sit on the bed and then she grabbed some ethanol, cotton wool, and a bandage from the first aid box.

Cassie knelt in front of her daughter and tended to the wound. She could see that Lucia was hurt but struggled to be as quiet and still as possible.

"Does it hurt?" Cassie looked up at her daughter.

Lucia tucked her dark blonde hair behind her ears and her brown eyes watched her mother. She appeared a little shocked which was only a normal reaction given that they barely spoke to each other.

The little girl shook her head in response and it tore at Cassie's heart that her relationship with her daughter was barely hanging by a thread and it was never going to get better.

"I'm sorry, mommy," Lucia reiterated with a quiet voice as she got up from the bed. She was quite small for her age and Cassie blamed herself completely for it. Her daughter was not properly breastfed or weaned or even taken care of.

"I'm sorry," Cassie said as she got up. Lucia might've felt she was sorry for almost yelling earlier, but her apology was for so much more than that.

If only there was a way to break the barriers between them. If only she knew how. But she didn't know what to do or whom to ask. She'd lived in solitude behind firmly built walls for the last seven years.

The only thing she let in was alcohol. It offered her safety and put away her sorrows, silently whispering into her ears that were more than willing to listen, "why feel bad today when there's always tomorrow?"

For the fact that she was overweight and unattractive, she had a child she could not take care of, and when she wasn't drunk, she was shuffling between her two jobs, working too hard so there wouldn't be any room for stray thoughts, she was going to feel bad only tomorrow with hope that tomorrow would never come.

"Mommy, I think there's someone at the door." Lucia pulled her out of her reverie.

"Really?" she furrowed her brows and listened.

The knock came again. 

"I'll go see who's there," she said picking out some clothes to wear.

Cassie walked out of her room and into the living room. Asides the broken glassware that was still lying on the floor, every other place was without a shred of evidence that someone lived there.

One would be happy that she didn't have to deal with the perks of having a growing child around, but it made her feel even worse than she had one that was too scared to live or express herself.

It made her feel like her mother had made the right decision to dump her in an orphanage. Maybe she should've done the same for her little girl. Who knows? Lucia might've been lucky to get better parents.

"Who's there?" Cassie asked as she strolled towards the door and then opened it gently. She hardly got any visitors and assumed it might just be a nosy neighbor or someone from work.

However, it was none.

The sight of those piercing green eyes almost completely ceased all her oxygen. She had to cling to the doorpost to keep on her feet.

It was as though there was a ghost standing right in front of her.

Logan.

"Cassie..."

Her name rolling off his tongue added to the evidence that this was not a nightmare. It was happening. This man that she'd blindly and stupidly given all herself to and had ripped out her heart and tore it to bits was standing right there and calling her name.

Without thinking any further, she slammed the door shut in his face and hurried away from it.

"Mom, who was that?"

"Nobody. No one!" She yelled at her unsuspecting daughter as she made her way towards her bedroom with blurred vision.

A/N

Burn Out made it to the second round of the contest. Yayy! I guess that gave me some motivation to put together this chapter that has been a piece of work. Now, I've got two weeks to complete this story. Let's see how that goes 😅

Thanks for all your support so far. I appreciate each and every one of you 😃😍