Florida Heat: Book One in the Clearwater Pack Series

Chapter 9: It's Time's Like These

Cassandra’s Point of View:

What an exhilaration, when I get off the stage and hug Harper. I whisper into her ear, “Thank you.” She hugs me back tighter. I do have her to thank for everything, she knows that…I make sure she does frequently.

Without her I might still be curled up somewhere, instead… here I am. The weeks after the event took place and Jamminz I have been a bit of a recluse. Locking doors, watching my surroundings if I do need to go out of my house in fear of everything around me. Not knowing if he would jump out of the bushes and abduct me and or finish the job.

A couple days after the incident he banged on the door for over an hour trying to get me to come out, sent me 100’s of text messages and called me more times than I can count. I let them all come through though so I could create a PPO against him if that was the way I wanted it to go. I let my neighbors in the apartment call the cops on him banging on my door and they asked him to leave the area. The text messages consisted of:

-Cass, I’m sorry. I need to explain, please let me explain this to you.

-I know you are in there; your car is here. Please, lets talk this out.

-Please let me in, Cass I can’t live in a world where you and I are not together.

-There are things you don’t know and reasons the way I acted the way I did the other night. I need to be the one to tell you, please let me tell you.

-I need you in my arms again, please come outside. Please let me see you.

Instead of answering any of those text messages or responding to him at the door I did something that my mother always told me to when ever I’m in doubt. “Sometimes, people write the things they cannot say,” so I started writing:

Landen,

I want to first point out the words/phrases you mention to me the night that you assaulted me:

“If you go out that door we are done.”

I was doing my f*****g job. It was my job to find talent like Mason, so I won’t feel guilty for doing my job the way you did that night.

“You can stop using me as your excuse, as your f*****g safety option. I don’t deserve this s**t damnit Cass!”

You know what, you are 100% right. You saw apparently what I failed to end. I’ve been pushing you away for what seems like years. Ever sense the night when I was puking, and you blamed me and verbally assaulted me that evening. As for the safety option, you are right. I did I was afraid to end things, to hurt you but damn it – I never would have hurt you the way you’ve hurt me. But, in the end you didn’t deserve what I put you through and for that I am sorry. I won’t apologize for protecting my heart in the matter because at the time I was more confused than anything.

“Why are you doing this to me, you are creating me into this person. I’ve only wanted you to love me as much as I love you.”

I am creating this person. Or have you always been this person? This sounds like a psychopath Landen. Then you said, the next part… and I knew it then as much as I do now that you would have killed me that evening if it wasn’t for Mason. You were out of control because the fact of the matter is. I do love you, I’m just not in love with you. But, to make claims and plead like that was downright pathetic when your hand is squeezing the life out from me, that’s not love Landen.

“Don’t you understand Cassie. I have to have you. I have to. I will do literally anything to keep you. I just want you to want me like you used to.”

This is why I will filing a restraining order against you. You DON’T GET TO HAVE ME ANYMORE! Anything you LITERALLY do at this point will be held in junction with the law up your ass because I don’t want any part of this f*****g mess that you’ve put me in. I WILL NEVER love you like I used to.

Now, let me very very clear. I am utterly disgusted with you in this very moment. Part of me wishes Mason and whoever else was with him beating the s**t out of you that night actually killed you because then I could just Mourn you instead of being scared of you. I think that is part of what you wanted though…You wanted to scare me enough to keep me. Wild enough, it backfired. I don’t think your intentions were to actually kill me or hurt me for that fact but that something deep inside you finally came out. I don’t know what it is, but it was not anything I want to be apart of.

If you so much as show your face to me or I see you in public, I will call the police. I’ll be giving my apartment your picture and if they see you, they too will be calling. My work, all of it. Stay the f**k away from me. I was told recently that pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional…I refuse to suffer over this.

Up until today I had planned on asking to meet with you in a very public place with Harper or a cop nearby… to talk and for me to understand what it is you are going through. I used to idolize you and claim to everyone that you were perfect. You never were, I painted this beautiful picture in my head of you and worshiped the ground you walked on for a time… that night when I got sick, it was the same feeling I got the other night when everything happened. You’ve felt this type of rage before…I’ve felt this weird sensation before – and whatever it is…it was my gut telling me this is wrong, and you are wrong. So, I’m removing myself from the equation.

I don’t know if you thought you could come here from the slammer after having assault me and I would just take you back. But you are wrong. I’m stronger than that. I might not have appeared to be from where you have been sitting this entire time… but, when the man who supposedly loves you has his hands around your throat – you pony up really f*****g quick.

Good by Landen.

P.s My father wants to kill you now too, congrats.

I slid this under the door and walked away placing my headphones over my ears and walk back into my bedroom and shut the door. That evening when Harper came home, I was singing with my headphones on in the Kitchen and she appeared in front of me sitting on the couch and it scared the s**t out of me. When I took my headphones off, she started clapping and screaming, “OH MY GOD YOU CAN REALLY SING!!!!” I laugh and she told me that I needed to sing in front of people because my voice was a gift. I laughed at her in the moment. Because she caught me singing Colbie Caillat, "I Never Told You". To be fair, its a great song to sing when you are trying to cope with the loss in a relatioship, at least it was for me.

Later that week I stood in front of the executive leadership team and told them I was quitting. I was going to try and become a talent manager for a band I found or maybe even do a little singing of my own. They laughed, instead I tossed them a CD and walked out of the building not looking back for a second. The corporate lords surely thought they would get the last laugh, the truth is, once they hear the CD and my singing, they will regret laughing. I am exactly what they want on that show, I just never opened my heart to believing it. If this is any type of eye opener for myself, I never want to work for a major corporation again – climbing the ladder and becoming the suit worthy woman… for who? The drive back to Clearwater from Orlando was the most rejuvenating experience I’ve had in a long time.

In the same breath of me leaving my job and breaking it off with Landen – both of those things resided in Orlando and now I was going to be a decent hour and thirty-minute distance from those things… it felt good in my soul. In the couple weeks after I’ve spent a lot of time with my grandma, my parents had come down too to spend time with the both of us. I explained to them everything that happened and how Mason saved me and how I told Landen off. They were all so prod of me and desperately wanted to meet Mason and thank him I hunched my shoulders and thought I might not ever see him again. My father wanted to ring Landen’s neck, that picture was difficult to get out of my head once my father painted it for me.

The next week I created my own business cards and started creating a website platform promoting myself as a talent manager, changed my profiles on Linked IN and other websites to get my name out there. I have a lot of credentials having worked for Disney and have worked with a lot of top talent in the industry – but I just wanted to work with people who wanted to sing because they loved it not for a paycheck.

Harper behind my back sent my CD to handful of lounges, bars and small outdoor venues to see if they would be interested in having me perform. Almost all of them encouraged me to attend their open mic nights and for me it was a win either way because maybe I would find talent, or I could become the talent. It was difficult to build up the courage to come out of the house and back into a crowded venue after everything that had happened, but I’ve been taking walks with Harper and trying my best to keep my life moving forward.

I’ve received one text from Landen, and it was today. He knows he’s not supposed to be talking to me at all, I open the message reluctantly and find:

There is going to come a time in your life when you wake up and have this same pain in your chest like I do. I miss you ever f*****g day. I wake up and sometimes I just lay in bed because the ache in my chest is too much to bear and I know that when I roll over you won’t be there. You will never be there and that’s when I find my fight every morning – How can I win her back? I will do anything to have you come back to me, to have you back in my arms. To the nights we spent making love for hours on end, to remember what our bodies felt against one another. The night I told you I loved you for the first time while we road “It’s a small world”, the first time I kissed you outside your grandma’s house… those things they meant the world to me. Every single day spent with you was the best day of my life. I’ll never give up on you.

There comes a time I suppose when our lives go off course, and we have to make decisions, choices on which path is the right one – which one offers the one of least resistance. That’s a lie. There are always paths and the beauty of taking those paths is that you never know what will happen along the way – that’s called our journey and when we reach the end of the path, we all would like to look back and hope that the path we chose fulfilled us with happiness and joy. The conclusion of this is that either path is the right path – its how you handle the journey that allows you to live.

My path with Landen is closed, it has been for a time now. The words he said in the text message though brought sadness into my heart also brought a sense of worth. I’m better than that. I deserve better than that. I’m not the girl who goes back to a guy because of some sappy words and expressions. I base my decisions on actions and right now – he cannot be by me and for the first time in my life I feel free. I feel like I’m destined for greatness if I allow myself the opportunity. So, I’m seizing the day.

Singing Half of My heart with Mason opened a piece of my soul that I’ve never shared with anyone else. He protected me, then he sang with me and not only sang with me he again seduced me with his eyes that didn’t leave me the entire bit of the song. He is swoon worthy and honestly, I will take it. I’m going to have fun, and not let the scum bag that showed up here and stayed even though he has a restraining order get to me. Karma is a b***h, I keep thinking to myself.

I’m pulled out of my daze when I her my guitar start strumming yet again trying to find the right tune he wants to strum and he begins to sing, “Jumper” by Third Eyed Blind, looking directly at me:

I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend

You could cut ties with all the lies

That you've been living in

And if you do not want to see me again

I would understand

I would understand

The angry boy

A bit too insane

Icing over a secret pain

You know you don't belong

You're the first to fight

You're way too loud

You're the flash of light on a burial shroud

I know something's wrong

Well, everyone I know has got a reason

To say

Put the past away

Wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend

You could cut ties with all the lies

That you've been living in

And if you do not want to see me again

I would understand

I would understand

And well, he's on the table

And he's gone to code

And I do not think anyone knows

What they are doing here

And your friends have left you

You've been dismissed

I never thought it would come to this

And I

I want you to know

Everyone's got to face down the demons

Maybe today

We can put the past away

I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend

You could cut ties with all the lies

That you've been living in

And if you do not want to see me again

I would understand



His voice is like velvet chocolate, you can not get enough. I could listen to this man sing everyday for the rest of my life and I don’t know if it would be enough. I never stop smiling the entire time he sings that is if I’m not singing along with him and before he exits the stage he adjusts the guitar and says, “I have one more song and I’m dedicating this song to the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, I’m not going to sing the entire song just a tid bit, because it’s on the tip of my tongue and I need to get it out.”

He strums and I easily recognize it, Foo Fighters, Times Like these:

I, I'm a one way motorway

I'm the one that drives away

Then follows you back home

I, I'm a street light shining

I'm a wild light blinding bright

Burning off and on

Ah-ah-ahh

It's times like these you learn to live again

It's times like these you give and give again

It's times like these you learn to love again

It's times like these time and time again



He walks off the stage and brings me my guitar. He places a hand on my cheek grabs my hand with his other. He pulls my hand up to his mouth, “Let me quote some Edward Cullen for you, ‘Your fairly Ideal in every way.’ To be fair, I’m more of a 'Team Jacob' type of man though” He then kisses the inside of my palm and electricity reverberates up through my arm and right into my heart. He drops my hand and face… “Goodbye Cassandra.” Then he walks away to meet up with his friends.