The next morning, Mercedes was in the kitchen with Nicole making breakfast when the phone rang. Mercedes offered to get it. "Hello?" she said.
"Hi, please don't hang up on me," pleased a tensed voice.
"What do you want?"
"I need to talk to you."
Brian walked into the kitchen. "Honey, who's on the phone?"
"Oh, nobody. Don't worry about it."
Brian shrugged and walked back upstairs. "I'll be back when breakfast is ready."
"Mercedes, we need to talk, in private. Now."
"No, Eric! I don't want to see you. Ever again."
"But why? You're going to love to hear what I have to say."
"What?"
"Mercedes," he said slowly, "it's about Chase."
Mercedes' mouth dropped and she felt faint. She knew that she had to meet Eric and keep him quiet. Brian could never find out about this. He would leave her if he knew. Cassandra had kept her secret so far; she'd probably already forgotten by now. But Mercedes could never forget the pain and the loss that eight years ago. She had secretly grieved since then and had never forgotten him. She could never forget her Chase.
Eric continued on and Mercedes' face became whiter by the second.
"Okay," Mercedes finally agreed. "I'll meet you at the airport in an hour."
Since Nicole was the only one with her at the time, she told her that she was going away for a couple of days and that she was taking Charity. When Nicole questioned her, she explained the short version of the story. "Please, please, please don't say anything yet! Especially not to Brian. You can ask Cassandra and she'll tell you the whole story."
"She knows?"
"Yes. I barely told you anything. I don't have enough time. I have to go pack me and Charity's things. Excuse me and please, keep this quiet."
Nicole nodded as Mercedes ran out the door and to the other house to pack.
When Mercedes arrived at the airport an hour later, with her bag and Charity in hand, she spotted Eric and felt her anger rising. "What the hell are you trying to do?" were her first words to Eric.
"Well since he is my son, I wanted to meet him and since he's your son, too, I thought you should come."
"I can not believe that I'm going to meet him after eight years."
They took their stuff and immediately boarded their flight without another word to each other.
Nicole ran up the stairs and knocked on Nick's bedroom door.
"Come in," she heard Cassandra say, so she walked in.
"Hey Cassie," she said, seeing that her cousin was reading.
"Oh hey Nicole. What's up?" Cassandra said looking up from her page.
"Who's Chase?"
Cassandra dropped her book and sat up. "What about him?"
"Who is he and why did Mercedes just have to leave to go meet him?"
"Oh my God, she didn't! He didn't!"
"Why? What happened? Where is she going?"
"I can't believe he's doing this to her-"
"What?"
"Did you tell Brian that she left?" Cassandra asked, more calmly.
"Yes. I just called him and he totally didn't understand. And neither do I! Did Brian do something wrong?"
"No, he didn't. Okay. I'm going to get right to the point."
"Good."
"When Mercedes was fifteen years old, she and Eric were boyfriend and girlfriend and they went to a winter ball together. He was a couple years older than her and they had sex after. But she got pregnant. Her parents kicked her out of the house so she went to live with Eric for a while. When I graduated from high school, my parents bought the other house for Isabella, Coreene and I, as you know. I didn't know about Mariah then. Mercedes had been living with her Aunt for a while until I asked her to come with us because we were getting lonely and bored with each other. Then came you and Emalia. Mercedes had just enough time to name her child, Chase, before she and Eric put him up for adoption."
"That is terrible!"
"I know. Mercedes destined herself to find the perfect man, which would be Brian, so she changed herself and became the way that she is now. Very reserved. She felt that if she stayed the way that she was before, her life would be a mess until she died. And that's the story."
"Wow, I never knew," Nicole said, getting up.
"Neither did I," Isabella said standing there.
"Neither did I," said Nick, sitting next to Cassandra.
Neither did I, Brian thought as he stood outside the door.
Sitting on the plane, Mercedes looked out the window as her mind drifted. She drifted back to a time eight years ago.
"What's so important that you pulled me out of class?" Eric asked Mercedes.
"You remember two months ago? After the winter ball?"
"Yeah. It was great wasn't it? What about it?"
"There's no good way to say this, but I'm pregnant."
Eric stared at her for a minute. "Um, don't worry about it. Wow, um, we'll work it out."
"My parents kicked me out."
"I'll take you care of you forever and ever, don't worry."
"I love you."
"I love you, too."
Mercedes then remembered when she came to the town where she lived now and saw Cassandra. Cassandra had said that she moved there because her parents had bought the house for her and her sisters. Mercedes had introduced her to Eric as her boyfriend that she had met in school, but in private, explained the real reason why she was living with Eric. Cassandra had then asked her to become a roommate. I can't believe this, Mercedes thought as the plane began its decent into Savannah, Georgia.
Jason walked into the girls' house and shut the door quietly behind him. He went through the house and searched for Cassandra. He walked down into the living room but stopped when he heard a noise coming from the kitchen. Walking into the kitchen, he stopped in the doorway and smiled to himself as he saw Cassandra closing the dishwasher door, humming some song. When she turned around and saw him, she gasped. "Jason! What are you doing here?"
"I came to ask you a favor."
"Shoot."
"Well I saw a picture of all of you guys at this beach. I was wondering if you would take me up there."
"Oh Jason, I don't know."
He stepped into the kitchen. "Oh come on. From what I heard, you love going up there."
Cassandra looked at the clock. "It's four o'clock It takes an hour to get up there."
"So?"
There was a silence between them.
"Okay," Cassandra reluctantly agreed. "Let's go." Cassandra quickly wrote a note to everyone telling them where she was going, threw it down onto the counter, and ran out of the door to her car grabbing her keys on the way. From the open window in the kitchen, a cool breeze blew in and blew the tiny piece of paper upside down on the floor.
Driving up to the beach, the sun was being crept upon by a batch of dark storm clouds. When they finally reached the beach, though still warm out, only a dim ray of sun still shone through the clouds. They both climbed out of the car and Jason walked towards the beach while Cassandra placed her sunglasses on the dashboard of her car.
"Cool, boat!" Jason said.
"I'll go get the keys," Cassandra mumbled. She went to the door of the beach house, unlocked it, and went to grab the boat keys. She stopped and looked down at the keys. She realized that the last time that she had been on the boat, had been with Nick. Tears stung her eyes but didn't fall. She shook her head, ran out of the house and ran down to the dock. She stopped and looked down at the water. The waves were crashing up on the shore, higher that usual. Shrugging it off, she ran down the dock and to the boat where Jason was already on board.
Isabella, A.J. and Nick entered the girls' house.
"Cassandra!" Nick called but stopped and looked down at his feet. "I keep forgetting." They walked into the kitchen and Nick noticed a piece of paper on the ground. Nick read it outloud: "Dear guys, bla bla bla, Jason and I went up to the beach, bla bla bla, Cassandra." Nick filled with rage. "God, I'll kill him."
"Now, Nick-" A.J. started. He stopped when he heard laughter enter the house. Kevin, Emalia, Howie, Angel, and Brian ran down into the living room and jumped on the couch.
"I just wanna check the weather real quick," Kevin said. "It looks like it's gonna really storm out." Kevin clicked on the television and threw his arm around Emalia's shoulders.
"We have a severe storm front moving into our area. People are advised to stay in their homes as they may lose power. This storm may bring torrential rain and severe lightening. More at six o'clock."
Kevin turned off the television and the five of them started talking.
"You guys," Nick said worried, "Cassie."
"I'm sure she'll be fine," Isabella said.
"No, I'm serious. I have a bad feeling about this."
"Honey," Emalia said to Kevin, "I'm going to get something to drink. Do you want something?"
"No, I'm fine."
Emalia flashed him a smile and ran into the kitchen.
"Good," said Nick. "Emalia will find the note and-"
"What's this?" Emalia bent over and pulled a piece of paper off of her shoe that she stepped on.
"Yes, good Emalia," Nick said. "Wait, wait, no bad Emalia-"
Emalia crumpled up the piece of paper and threw it away. She grabbed a can of Sprite from the fridge and ran back down into the living room.
"You guys," Nick said, "we gotta get to the beach!"
"Nick," A.J. said, "come on now-"
"Shut up!" Nick yelled. "Isabella, you told me that I was her angel, and that's exactly what I have to be. Isabella, can't you feel it too?"
Isabella looked down. "Yes, I can."
"What?"
"Yes I can!"
"Good, let's go."
Cassandra and Jason were out a ways and it was getting darker out. Cassandra looked up at the sky and then down at her watch. Something's not right, she thought. It's too dark out to only be quarter till six. Nick would know. She slowed the boat down and turned the wheel.
"Where are we going?" Jason asked from the front of the boat.
"Back." She almost lost her grip on the wheel when the boat was suddenly jolted from a wave crashing against the side. She felt tiny rain drops on her face but they got larger and hit her harder and the waves got larger and beat the sides of the boar harder. Absentmindedly, Cassandra looked up into the sky and whispered, "Nick, help me."
"Isabella!" Nick yelled. "That was her, it was her!"
"Nick, what are you-"
"Cassandra! She just called to me to help her."
"Man, you're paranoid," A.J. said.
"Shut up, A.J! I can't say that enough!" Nick turned to Isabella. "Take me up there. I don't know how to. I will run up there if I have to." He took deep breaths and his eyes pleaded to her.
"Yes," Isabella said. "Let's go. I feel it, too."
Cassandra brushed her soaked hair out of her face and slowed the boat down even more.
"Why are you slowing down?" Jason asked her panicked. "We have to get to shore!"
"The waves are getting higher and I can't drive at a high speed!" Cassandra explained.
Jason clutched the side of the boat as a crash of thunder rattled the boat.
We're not gonna make it, Cassandra thought. She pushed that thought out of her mind and focused her attention back onto steering. Jason stood up and started to take small steps over to Cassandra, but the boat suddenly jolted and Jason began to stumble. He tripped over his own feet and slipped over the side of the boat and disappeared underneath the waves. "Oh God," Cassandra whispered. She turned the engine off, just in case, so he wouldn't get caught in the propellers and ran to the edge. "Jason!" she screamed over the thunder.