Chapter 3

I'm glad you're still with me. It would have been a shame to lose a friend. I've lost plenty. I'm not going to go into that sob story. This is not the time for you to pity me. I don't want your pity. I want your faith. Your belief. Your attention. 

Do I have it?

Well, at least your attention?

Good.

Finally.

It was just like any other Saturday morning. I was home from college for the weekend. I had just started the second semester of my junior year, and I felt like I was finally getting into the work I had always planned on studying. I was working on a research paper about the Book of Kells and the significance of the mythology that was drawn on its pages. I would have stayed at the college but it was unappealing to me. 

I should have known it was strange. My college was my home. It was where I finally felt like I belonged. It was a liberal arts college about two hours from my hometown. It wasn't the exotic international university that I had hoped for, but it was mine. It was filled with the works of Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, Woolf, Christine de Pizan, Whitman, Lord Byron, and other authors that I just couldn't get enough of. Ultimately, I decided that I was going to study them all. Since the discovery of fiction and my classical counter-parts, I knew I was going to be an English major. I think I was about eight-years-old. They day I decided to declare my major to my parents did not go as planned. I ended up calling them, excited to tell them that I was going to study Literature. 

Boy, was my dad thrilled to hear that. 

"Stories?!" He fumed over the phone.

"You want to study stories? Why, in God's name, would you want to do that?"

I could hear the frustration in his voice and I left the air pregnant for a while. I didn't really have an answer for him. I never knew what I wanted to study, not really. I poured over AP Chem textbooks, AP Lang essays, AP Spanish conjugations, and not to be immodest, excelled at them all. So I went to school hoping to just "find myself" and go from there. That, apparently, was not what my parents had expected from me, and I was just finding this out. 

"Why would I want to do that? Seriously, dad? You were the one who always listened to my stories, who gave me books as presents for as long as I can remember. Why wouldn't I want to study books and stories? Don't books show humanity who they really are?" I countered. I was so ready for this fight.

I had read up on why English majors would save the world. Why we needed fiction in our lives to rationalize the crap we had to deal with on an every day basis. I scoured the internet for some kind of explanation that would allow me to explain to my "the world is black and white, Cassie" dad, why I needed to study literature. 

"I thought I was doing you a favor, as a child, Cassandra."

Oh, lord. He only called me Cassandra when he's mad at me. How could he get mad? I was basically groomed for this. Years of solitude in reading nooks, years of book projects and library cards should have warned him that his precious daughter was destined to become an English major. 

I had nothing to say to him. I didn't know what I could say at this point to make him understand why I needed this. Why I needed to do this. For me. 

"We talked about this, sweetheart," my mother's voice cooed over the phone.

She was the calm one of the two. It's why she was a successful shop owner. She was good under pressure.

"I thought you had decided that you were going to study business or marketing so that you would one day run the coffee shop."

I sighed into the receiver. I did not want to have this conversation. It had not gone as I had imagined. In my brain, both parents where like "That's wonderful, dear. I hope you enjoy your books!" I was so stupid to think it would have gone my way. I should have known. I should have seen this coming. There were numerous discussions about me getting a business degree. Each time the same, boring lecture came up; I would take out my binder of evidence, and convinced them to see it my way. It would last until they forgot about my research and got on my case again. I told them numerous times that I wanted to become an English major. They just wouldn’t listen.

"I'm not arguing with you." The volume of my voiced dropped -- hoping they would understand why this was about me, not them. At that moment, I did something so very unlike me.

I hung up.

I couldn't wait for their response. My father would try and use reason -- his black and white world -- to show me that I was making the "wrong" decision. I didn't want reason. I wanted unrealistic stories of witches, wizards and things-made-right-by-love. My mother would try to calm him down, but in her own way, make me feel guilty for not taking over the shop in the process. I hung up because I knew I couldn’t handle either of them.

I needed to control my own destiny. I needed to be in charge of my life, for this once. It was time for me to become independent and handle my own decisions. 

Like the ebb and flow of the ocean, the urge to return home was not something that I could ignore. Like a moth to a flame, I packed a bag and made the journey home. 

My car ride was like a dream, I truly think that humans have a natural "autopilot" so when you go along a route time, and time again, you won't make any stupid decisions. I jammed along with Adele, grooved with the Beatles, and laughed to myself when Bon Jovi said, "Who says you can't go home?" Because, at the moment, it didn't feel like I had one. 

When I walked through the front door, I noticed that my parents were both waiting for me in the living room. It's my favorite place in the house, so I wasn't surprised that they were there. The room smelled of old books and apple pie candles. It has floor-to-ceiling book shelves lined with every volume of fantasy I could get my hands on. They were sorted by genre, then by size, and I loved to go though and make sure they were all in the right spot. I had to make sure my friends were okay. Today, they were not there to comfort me, they were there to watch. 

"Hello." I stared into the center of the room, daring myself to not make eye-contact. I lowered the bad of clothes in my hand, and shifted my feet uncomfortably. What do you do with your hands, again?

"Cassie." My father's voice filled the room. "I'm glad you're home." Ugh. Not what I wanted to hear. I was prepared for a knock-down, drag-out fight. I did not want to hear that they were glad I was home. 

"Hi." I repeated, not trusting myself to put together full sentences. 

"Your father and I have something we would like to say to you," my mother got up from her seat and walked towards me. I immediately tensed up. When she toughed my shoulders, I wanted to sink into her touch and sob. I didn't want to need my mother, but it was nearly impossible to resist. I had to stay strong. 

"How are your classes?" What?!

"Huh?" I asked before I knew what I was saying. Way to stay cool, Cass. 

"We've decided that you were right." I was? "You need to do what is best for you. If you think that studying literature is where you need to be, then you have our full, and unwavering support." I cried.

I don't think you really care about the moment I had my parents support. Sorry for the following tangent. It's important. It's important because you needed to know why I was reading Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It was for class. 

After the conversation with my parents, I was left alone in the living room, being cheered on by my oldest friends. I suddenly felt like I needed to do something that didn’t involve thinking. I shut the doors to the room -- a universal "try not to disturb" sign, and I opened up a book that was just lying on the coffee table. Which was weird. My parents are super anal, and they don't just leave things lying around. I hadn't read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in years, and it just happened to be the next book for my class. 

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the riverbank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice, 'without pictures or conversation?'

That’s when the strangest thing happened. It went from being a sunny New England day, to a stormy one. Which, I know doesn't seem weird for some, but here? You can see a storm rolling in for miles. It doesn't just change. 

I ignored it. 

I wished I were on the riverbank with Alice, and her sister, and her cat Dinah. I sighed the sigh of a wish and shut my eyes, trying to drown out the thunder and pounding of rain. 

When I opened them, I was not on my couch. Which was not okay. It's a really comfortable couch. 

I was on a riverbank, staring at a young blonde girl who was asking her sister about the use of a book without pictures.