"Who are half of these people?" Faye asked.

Cassie shrugged. "I don't know, your mom and Diana's dad helped me compile a list of people Jane knew and we invited them."

"Seems like every person above the age of sixty in our town is here." Faye said.

"Well it is a small town." Melissa added.

"I'm gonna go mingle. I am the granddaughter after all." Cassie sighed.

"Ok." Diana said.

Cassie turned around and started walking towards a group of people she saw standing in a circle telling stories about Jane.

"Amelia?"

Cassie froze.

"Amelia!"

She turned around slowly to see a woman staring at her bewildered.

"My name isn't Amelia. That was my mother." she corrected. "I'm Cassie." She extended her hand.

She ignored her attempted hand shake. "Well where is Amelia then?" The strange woman asked, obviously not aware of Amelia's death.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Cassie asked, clearly irritated now.

"I'm Julia. I've known Amelia since we were kids."

Cassie softened. "I'm sorry, Amelia passed away.."

Julia looked as though someone had just ripped her heart out. "No..." She started shaking.

Cassie placed a hand on her shoulder to try and comfort her. "I'm so sorry."

Tears welled up in her eyes. She ripped her self from Cassie's grip and ran out the door crying.

"Wait!" Cassie yelled and turned around to run after her but she ran into Jake.

"What was that about?" He asked confused.

"I don't know.." she shook her head. "She thought I was my mother. She didn't know she was dead."

Dawn couldn't help but overhear their conversation and walked over to them. "I'm sorry, who are you talking about?" she asked.

"She said her name was Julia." Cassie answered.

Dawn's face turned from concerned to angry.

"Do you know her?" Cassie asked.

"Yes. Stay away from her." she ordered. "I'll take care of it." Dawn walked away and went over to Charles.

Cassie was already extremely stressed with her grandmother's death and now some strange woman thinking she was her mother and she just felt so alone. She just wanted to talk to her mother and ask her what to do but she can't and never will be able to.

"I can't deal with any of this right now." Cassie ran upstairs to her room and slammed the door.

Jake ran up after her. He slowly opened her bedroom door and Cassie was curled up on her bed, crying.

"Cassie it's ok." Jake came over and sat next to her on her bed.

Cassie sat up and leaned her head on his shoulder. Jake put his arms around her and stroked her back slowly.

"I'm sorry, Jake. I'm making such a big deal out of losing my grandmother and you lost both your parents at the same time."

"It's ok, It happened 16 years ago. Remember when I told you 'time heals all wounds'? It's true. When you first lose someone it hurts so bad. But with each day that goes by, it hurts less. And less, and less, until it doesn't hurt at all." Jake said.

That wasn't entirely true. Although Jake had a skill of hiding is feelings, he really did miss his parents. When they died, his whole life changed. He never really had anyone in his life that he truly cared about other than Nick, until he met Cassie. And vise-versa. When he met Cassie he felt an instant connection to her. That kind of connection where you would even put your own life in danger just to protect that one person because you loved them so much. Suddenly Jake's eyes flew open. I love Cassie. I love her... He couldn't believe that it took him that long to realize it.

"Jake?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you just hold me for a little while?" Cassie whispered.

Jake leaned back and pulled Cassie along with him and put his arm protectively over her and pulled her in close. Cassie felt completely safe in his arms, like nothing could ever hurt her. It felt like the entire world had stopped and it was just the two of them.


"Where'd Cassie go?" Diana asked.

Faye was pouring whiskey in her coke. "I don't know." she said uninterested.

Melissa grabbed the whiskey from Faye. "Come on, not at Jane's wake!" she scolded.

"Oh please, a little whiskey never hurt anyone!" Faye laughed.

Diana, annoyed with Faye's behavior, turned around to go look for Cassie. Then she noticed her dad talking to Dawn and walked over to them.

"Hi Dad, Mrs. Chamberlain." Diana greeted.

"Hello, Diana" Dawn smiled.

"Hi sweety." Charles said. "Cassie certainly did a wonderful job decorating." he turned around and looked at all the beautiful assorted flowers and pictures of Jane.

"Right?" she agreed. "And actually I was going to look for her right now. I haven't seen her in a while and I want to make sure she's ok. I'll see you later!"


"Where's Jake? I thought he was coming." Faye said.

"Jake was invited?" Melissa asked.

"Yeah, Cassie said she asked him to come."

"Ah, that would explain why your wearing that." Melissa pointed to Faye's outfit and laughed.

Faye gave a wicked grin. "You know me so well!" she winked. "Well, I'm gonna go look for Cassie and see if Jake was gonna come."

She walked around the whole house and still didn't see her. Oh she did not ditch her own grandmother's funeral! She looked around more. Maybe she's upstairs. "Cassie!" Faye called as she walked upstairs. She knocked on her bedroom door. "Cassie are you in there?"

Jake's eyes flew open. Oh shit, Jake thought. He quickly moved Cassie off of him and hid in her closet. If Faye sees me in here with Cassie she's going to get the wrong idea and tell Adam.

Faye opened the door slowly and peaked her head in. She saw Cassie laying on her bed and walked over to her. Faye nudged her. "Cassie are you awake?"

Cassie opened her eyes and yawned. "Huh, what is it? Is the wake over?"

"No," then Faye noticed Cassie's makeup was smudged and knew she was crying. "Are you ok?" She asked sincerely, remembering when her grandfather had died and how much it hurt her.

"Yeah I'm ok. I just needed a break. How long was I up here?" she asked.

"Oh I don't know, an hour?" Faye guessed. "Anyways, I was looking for you to see if Jake was coming. I remember you said you were going to invite him."

Cassie sat upright and looked around her room. "Wait where is Jake? Last time I remember he was in here with me."

"Oh really?" Faye said "And what exactly were you two doing up here?"

Cassie rolled her eyes. "Nothing. He was just comforting me. You know I would never cheat on Adam."

Faye looked at her suspiciously. "I guess.."


Hi, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please review, it is highly appreciated! :)

~Kate