Cassandra's Pov

Me, Reign, and Lori really didn't end up doing anything too special. We just walked around and talked with each other, occasionally stopping at some gas stations to get snacks. Reign would complain about the prices but still end up buying more stuff than all three of us combined. I really feel like she got some type of sugar addiction but I ain't TLC so we not finna get into it. We talked about school, dream cars, pets, family, commented on the houses we walked by, basically all types of stuff. Eventually I had to part ways with them because I had to go to work. I said 'bye' to them and left, letting myself in the house with my keys since nobody was home.

The house wasn't too far from where we were chilling at and even though I wasn't sweaty, I took a shower before changing into my uniform. The uniform Mike updated by the way. I'm so serious when I ask what possessed him to change them. Like, what was wrong with the old ones?

The pants wasn't anything too complicated. Just your standard pair of khakis. The red shirt read 'SillyGuys Entertainment Park & Attractions!' written in red, blue, green, and yellow, graffiti letters giving off some type of early two thousands feel to it. The back boldly displayed the sentence 'Ask For Assistance If Needed' written in white letters. I wasn't too fond of that 'ask for assistance' part but my Mama sum type of drunk and bills need to be paid.

I slipped my black and white Chuck Taylor sneakers on and laced them up. I grabbed some perfume I had on my dresser and sprayed some on my body, then grabbed some lipgloss and applied it to my lips. I didn't really know what to do with my hair so I just ended up combing through it and putting it in a ponytail last minute.

Checking myself out in the mirror, I decided this was the best it was gonna get. I grabbed my phone, my purse, and did my usual routine of pecking the photo of me and Hailey before rushing down the stairs.

Already opened mail that contained past due utility bills littered the coffee table with bottles of nearly empty alcohol standing by. Seeing that is actually depressing.

I grabbed my fully charged AirPods and made my way out the door, locking the house up behind me.

It's actually a little chilly out here so I'm glad I brought a jacket. I slip on the jacket a couple blocks after I realize I don't have to withstand this cold ass weather, and a car slowly halts to a stop next to me, rolling the window down.

That's all it takes me to fly off running. Not ashamed either. I'm saying I flew thee fuck off.

Who finna get shot up? Not me! Who finna get kidnapped? Aht, not me.

"Cassie, where are you going?" I heard a familiar voice ask. I whip around to see Francessa standing at the driver side of the car with a confused look on her face.

"To work," I reply a lil loudly due to the distance. "...if you had been somebody with criminal intent I probably would have been somewhere to seek a safe place to hide out."

"I can give you a ride if you want." She offers.

"No, it's okay. The walk isn't really that far." I shrug. That was kind of a lie. The walk was walking distance but it was the worst kind of walking distance. The far kind.

"Are you sure? It's not a problem, I'm not doing anything." She offers again. I don't really know why I'm declining, but I guess it couldn't hurt. I nod, making my way to the car being welcomed by the smell of cinnamon and the warm temperature.

Once I put my seatbelt on and get settled she starts driving. "So, you're at SillyGuys?" She asks after a few minutes had passed and I mumble a 'yeah'.

"Nice, my little sister loves that place."

"Maybe you should bring her sometime. I think we just added a new ride extension by the laser tag arena. I can give guys a discount." I suggest and she looks over at me with a smile. Something that makes me wonder if what I said was too friendly or not.

"Maybe we should," She looks down at her phone for a while, returning them to the road a few seconds later.

The ride goes on silently after that. I don't mind it either. I swipe through Instagram and watch as my silent notifications pile up by the every passing second. If I could get the chance to interact with Kali Uchis through her friends I would try to take that opportunity, but not like this. I'm not around Hailey every second of the day, but some fans certainly think like that. The DM's I'd get would be asking me stuff like 'Do you mind asking Hailey when she tryna to release the album' or 'Can you ask Hailey if she'd post a fit pic' like, what the fuck? I'm not no damn messenger.

It takes fifteen more minutes for us to pull up at SillyGuys and I see kids piling in with their parents already. I had hoped with school starting back business would slow down a lil bit but I guess not.

"Thanks for the ride," I give Francesa a smile and in my head I realize how tired I am of saying that to people. I want my own car. AS soon I get done paying these bills that's the first thing I'm gonna try and invest in.

"It was no problem." She smiles and we just sit there. I reach for the door handle and she starts talking again. "Um, I actually wanted to ask you about that date we had planned."

I turn around to face her. "A date? We didn't have a date planned, did we?"

"We did. I asked you out before you went to California and you said yes." She explains and that's when I remember bits and parts of that conversation.

Dang.

"Oh, yeah.." I trail off. Ain't no way in hell I'm going on a date with somebody who ain't Hailey. "I can't go. I actually have a girlfriend now so.."

"How about we just hang out as friends then?"

That shouldn't be a problem, right? Me and Hailey never really had that 'you can't hang out with people who show any kind of romantic interest in you' talk yet. But the more I think about it, I realize it really shouldn't be a problem.

I've set a boundary and Francessa knows not to cross it. If she does, I'm gonna simply stop associating myself with her. Period.

"Yeah, that'll be okay. I gotta check my schedule though." I tell her and she nods.

We say bye to each other and I walk into the building.

I flash my worker's ID card to the security and he lets me through the back. I say 'hey' to the people I know and clock in, putting my things in my locker. I sit at the break room table until it's time to start my shift.

Eventually five o'clock rolled around and it was time for my shift so I left the breakroom and made my way to the go kart area, seeing it was what I'm supposed to be doing right now. I walked over and Lamont was gathering his things. "Aye, you ready?" He glanced up at me and I nodded. "Ayana supposed to be coming over to work with you. She just started but Abel was helping her out so she know what to do already." Then he walked off.

I stepped in where he was standing and started up the controls. I let the kids in and only when I was about to complain about how late Ayana was, she rushed through the crowd with a laugh. "Oh, girl, I'm sorry. I was at the food court outside fucking up that pizza. That shit was bussin', y'know?"

Not responding, I went over to check the security of the seatbelts and when I made sure they all were secured I had Ayana start up the controls and everyone started riding around in the carts.

"Who all these people on yo homescreen?" I hear Ayana ask and I do a double take when I see she got my phone all up in her hand.

"Girl, what is you doing?" I take my phone from her hand.

"Dang, I was just trying to start conversation." She huffs, pulling out her phone and we don't say anything as we wait for the ride to end.

"Billy, move back a space! I can literally feel you breathing on my neck!" Some white lil white girl whined, scrunching up her face.

"I'm not breathing on your neck! This is breathing on your neck!" And the lil white boy opened his big ass mouth and literally started breathing on her neck.

"Why you little-" The girl reached forward, clawing at his neck and the group of kids started going crazy. "Break it up!" A security clapped and they continued. "I'm serious! If you all don't I ain't scared to escort y'all lil ass outta here." And when those words came out his mouth they all gasped. "What?"

"My mommy said ass is a bad word," A boy stepped forward, fiddling with his fingers.

"What's a bad word?" A girl with bright green hair asked curiously.

"A terrible thing you shouldn't say." Ayanna jabbed a finger at all them and they all glanced up at her with wide eyes.

"Your face is a terrible thing you shouldn't say!" A boy shot back and Ayanna went to take off her hoops.

"Oop, boy, you done messed with the wrong one. I ain't no punk, everybody gets they ass whooped when you messin' with me, you hear?"

"Let's go. I ain't scared." He mugged her, yanking off his black leather jacket.

"Okay okay, okay.. let's not" I attempted to grab Ayanna back away from the boy who had gotten all the other kid's to join in with what he was planning.

"Get them!" One kid screamed and all hell broke loose.

I wish I could tell you that I came out of that thing all heroic and whatnot, but as soon as it started I fled to the bathroom and watched CoryxKenshin videos until it was over.

"C'mon, girl, you know my mouth messed up." Ayanna complained and I pressed the ice pack against her bruised jaw. They really did a number on her ass. Those lil ass kids were ruthless.

We were sitting in the break room trying to get Ayanna back on her feet. "Ice supposed to help it," I sighed, going back to my phone.

"I can't believe you didn't help me." She shook her head.

"Ok, no. By the time I got back they already did what they had to do."

"Cassie, O'Sean here." Chris tells me, peeking his head in the door. He steps out and I stand up, getting my phone. "Where you going?" Ayanna asks.

"Just to tell my friend bye. Don't get beat up by middle schoolers while I'm gone. We monitoring the roller coaster after this." I joke and she rolls her eyes. "Ha, Ha, Ha. You're not funny." I hear her mumble bitterly as I leave the room. Not my fault she got beat up like that.

I pass out the kids and games and stuff when I get out the door, the cold air hits me like a truck. A mean ass, irritating ass truck. I see Asia, Alaska, Julia, Chris, and Christiana, standing at O'Sean car with O'Sean and Ms. O'Leary talking amongst themselves. "You leaving already?" I ask, getting his attention.

"Tell me how much you're gonna miss me." He smirks.

"Boy, hush and say goodbye to these kids so they can go back to work." Ms. O'Leary hit him across the head with her hand. O'Sean gave me a hug and I sighed. As much as I'm gonna miss him I really am happy he's moving on and going on to start his life. "I'mma miss you."

"We been knew." He replies and I pull away rolling my eyes.

"You better go to a lot of parties man and you better send me videos too." Chris laughs and they dap eachother up. "Mhm, you already know."

"No, the hell you ain't. Study, study, and find a good christian, college girl." Ms. O'Leary smiles and O'Sean eyes her weirdly.

"Quiet college girls don't be into the same thing I'm into."

"You're a black educated brother, no?" She asks and O'Sean thinks. "Uh, yeah-"

"Then you'll be fine."

We all talk and eventually it's time for O'Sean to leave so everybody says their goodbyes.

"I wish I knew you earlier. I'mma miss you, Sean." Alaska smiles, wrapping her arms around him.

He says something that sounds like a 'thanks' and after everybody is officially done saying 'bye' O'Sean gets in the car, getting ready to start his drive.

"You know, Grandma, I'm only an hour and like fifty minutes away so if you need me, call me." He reminds to Ms. OLeary. "Mhm, no go ahead on. Call me when you get there, Love you."

"Love you too. Love y'all." And then he drives off and he's gone.

"Messed up how we keep losing friends like this." Alaska mumbles, as we walk into the building.

Chris goes to the side to help Ms. OLeary a taxi but other than that everybody right here.

"Losing friends? We didn't lose anyone. O'Sean going to college." I furrow my eyebrows and lets out a huge as breath as if she's the one who's annoyed.

"I'm just saying. First it's college, then it's new friends, people getting new girlfriends. That shit just not giving." She tries to walk away but I grab her hand and yank her back towards me because at this point I'm sick of this shit.

If she got something to say she just need to say it.

"What is your problem?!" I ask, and at this point I'm irritated with her.

"Guys, what are you doing?" Christiana asks and Alaska yanks her hand away from my grip.

"It's not about O'Sean. It's you. First, you go out and get a girlfriend then you start hanging out with a new group of friends. It's so obvious you don't wanna be around, Cassie. You need to figure out what you wanna do."

This bitch got the nerve. The audacity.

"Girl, bye. This my group of friends. You lucky I even let yo ass around me. If you feel some type of way because I have a life that doesn't revolve around my friends, that's not on me. That's on you." I tell her harshly and she lucky I stop myself from saying too much.

"Cassie-" Julia tries to talk but I don't hear anything she has to say and just walk off.

I don't know what's going on with Alaska but she better find out and fix it because the next time she comes up to me with an issue it's really gonna be a problem. And it's so crazy too because I used to love hanging out with her. Now she just wanna be irritating and off. I'm not with anything negative she got going on. I got too much negative stuff to deal with going on in my life as it is.

I pull out my phone to see if Hailey returned my message cause I really wanna talk to her as I finish my shift. I go to iMessage and check our last conversation. Our completely one sided conversation.

Me
I know you saw that
Read at 4:22 PM

Hailey💕
i literally didnt but ok

Me
Did you eat?

Hailey💕
yea

Me
Facetime me while I get ready for work
Read at 5:23 PM

Me
I have work so we can just talk later
Read at 5:23 PM

Me
Kisses
Read at 5:23 PM

The way she didn't respond and just left me on read is weird but she might have forget ot something, so I try not to let it bother me too much.

"Aye, Cassie!" Ayanna called from the upper floor where the futuristic laser tag, rock climbing area was.

It was basically laser tag but there was no rules about climbing, jumping, running...etc. It was really fun but the tickets for it was a bit expensive.

"What are you doing up there?" I ask, being equally as loud.

"..Girl, I had Lamont switch monitor shifts with us. We up in this intergalactic bitch, c'mon!"