Chapter 2: Cassidy

"Mom, are you serious?" I whine to the front seat, where my mother and sister, Courtney are sitting. Normally, my stepfather and baby sister Chloe would be with us, but he was tired after a long day of work at the office, because it's so tiring to be an accountant, and Chloe was cranky.

"I have hockey practice in twenty minutes; do I really have to greet the Wongs' stupid new neighbors?!" I plead, running a hand through my short red hair, tugging haphazardously at the ends. Ever since my mother made me get it cut in New York, she's been obsessed with keeping it short and pristine. Just like her blond, celebrity life.

Courtney rolls her eyes at me in the side mirror.

Ever since the Hawthornes' moved to do the family swap program, which turned into a two-year deal after striking it big internationally, I had gotten off the hook of mother-daughter book club meetings. Life was just getting hectic for me, after being accepted into Division 1 and I'd started Chicks with sticks, so I got to focus on what I loved: hockey.

To be fair, I admit that sometimes I miss my mother dragging me off to one of my soon-to-be friends' houses to reflect on a chapter we read, but then I look at what happened to Megan and Jess, and I realized I didn't really want to be involved with them anymore. Not after the salty breakup of our friendship.

"Yes, it's mandatory, Cass," she smiles at me in the rearview mirror, as she turns into the million dollar community of Strawberry Hill, "When Lily, Shannon and I heard that the Hawthornes were returning, we immediately thought of a welcome back party!"

"Mom, I haven't talked to Megan, Jess or Emily for two years; they're all completely different!" I remind her, as I have ever since the fourth of our quartet moved across the globe, and I first came home to my mother, ranting about how much of a bitch Megan Wong was-

"Emma, dear. Her name is Emma," Mom reminds me politely, glancing at me in the rearview mirror with a pained expression, "and she's going to Alcott with you girls this year."

When we pull up to the Hawthorne estate, the first thing we see is Megan, in her trendy- slut decor, strutting across her land, crossing driveways, to Emma's. It's weird seeing Megan without her flock, thoughts fleeting whether or not she's vulnerable without her brainless cohorts. Folded over her arm is a long white dress, lined with small Chinese characters with their English meanings on the bottom.

A tall, teenage boy with long chocolate curls opened the door for her. He was decked out in a neat mint Oxford shirt that highlighted against his tanned skin, and a pair of dark wash jeans. To say simply, he was gorgeous. He was also Darcy Hawthorne.

Darcy treats her with a friendly smile, but I can't see her reaction as we climb out of the minivan. Even after she enters, he still holds the door open for us, leaning against the brick wall, a small smile lit on his face.

Trailing behind my mother and sister, I duck my head as we get up to the long porch, a sudden feeling of excited nervousness tittering in my stomach.

"Hey, Cass." I look up to see his smile, as he holds the door open for me and we head inside. The air-conditioning is ice cold as we step through the threshold to the kitchen, where people are milling around and sipping from neat glass goblets and spooning pure health food into their mouths, laughing and reminiscing. Mrs. Delaney immediately bombards my mother with a huge bearhug, and immediately I smell the barnyard faint on her form.

The first thing I see when I step into the room is Jess.

She's leaning against a cabinet next to the stoves, on the far side of the room, sipping from a red plastic cup and playing with the cuff of her black hoodie. A simple black skirt and patterned tights line her legs, and a pair of Converse don her feet. A small silver ball pokes out of her lip, and she spins it with her tongue. Alone, she stands, occasionally glancing at the clock as if waiting for this party to end.

I hear you, I think as I cross the room to fill a cup. Megan lines up behind me, saying nothing as I quickly fill the cup to the rim and snatch a cucumber off the vegetable plate. My mother meets my eyes across the room and smiles. She's a healthnut and is obsessed with me gaining muscle, not fat.

Just as I step away from the keg, Mr. Hawthorne bombards Megan and I, pressing a hand to each of our shoulders. There's the faint scent of whiskey on his breath, but he is clearly only tipsy. "Will you girls wrangle Jess and go up and get Emma? She's refusing to come down." he asks, breathless, as if he just ran a marathon with one breath.

Neither of us want to approach Jess, so Megan chooses to speak before I can even muster a word, "You go get her. It's not like we have to hang out with her." And with that, she spins on her heel, curling a strand of fire-engine red hair around her finger as she surveys the room. A group of Darcy's old hockey friends pile in, shaking hands and fist bumping. Megan spies her prey, and goes in, leaving me alone.

Slipping through the hefty throngs of people, I cross back into the foyer and climb the grand staircase to the second floor. In the distance, I see a white door at the end of the hall. It's wide open, and in the faint distance I hear wind whistling and the click-clack of what I can only assume is a typewriter.

Bingo.

Cautiously, I creak up the stairs and into the room. The window is wide open, shining light over the queen sized bed, with its white covers and puffy pillows. The wood paneling in the room makes it darker, but there are windows banding all aroudn the room, letting in the light. Emma is sitting at her desk, eyes fixed on the key as she works.

"Emma?" I ask, knocking on the paneling on the stairs, "Your dad wants you downstairs."

It takes me a moment to hear her sobs.

"Em?"

"What? Oh, yeah, downstairs. Fine." she stutters, tearing the sheet out of her typewriter and cramming it in one of the desk drawers; it sticks out, but she doesn't seem to care. She stands up. In her short, frilly black skirt and striped shirt, she looks like she stepped out of a fashion catalogue, minus the dripping tears and puffy eyes.

"I'll be out in a second." she tells me, and crosses the room to a door which I immediately take note of that's the bathroom. When the door is shut tightly behind her, I carefully open the drawer that stuck out and retrieved the torn paper she'd hidden so briskly. After smoothing a few creases, the words become more readable.

What am I doing here?

The world has moved on without me

and I have no sense to be

in this twisted dimension.

I watch what I used to call friends pile into our drive,

obviously not caring to be here.

One looks at me like I'm scum,

the other spares me a blank look.

The third I have yet to se-

"What are you doing?" Emma asks, a look of betrayal painted on her face.

I open my mouth to speak, but no words come out, so I shut it. Finally, I muster an, "I'm sorry."

She crosses the room in three strides, wrenching the paper away from me. It tears in half, and I let mine fall to the floor; she kicks it under the desk and stuffs the other half into the drawer, her look crisp and angry.

"Let's go." It's more of an order. The footfalls of her sneakers haunt me as we wrangle down two flights of stairs, back to the party, where everyone's waiting for a new Emma to join this foreign dimension.

A/N: Revised; I own nothing.