Nick remembered fondly the day that Cassie came. At the time, he was not exactly fond of her. Then again at the time he was fond of almost nothing. He was 22 years old, selfish, and fairly emotionally damaged. If he were a can in a super marked he'd be in the Damaged Goods bin, dented and missing a label. People would pick him up and think "Hm, do I want to chance it? It could be spicy re-fried beans, and I could make chalupas* and it would be great. Or it could be spinach." and they would put him down. Cassie, however, was like a cracked and leaking bottle of organic raspberry lemonade. The kind of thing you had to acquire a taste for anyway, and here she was making a god-awful mess.

Needless to say, the first year was rough. She was so tightly wound, and she went off at everything. Somehow she seemed to think that regardless of what she had Seen, he would tell her to leave at some point, and everything would come falling down around her. Funny thing was, he came closest to kicking her out one of those days that she was trying to force her way into his life and make him bend to her will than he ever would've dreamed of if she had just trusted herself and chilled out. But he didn't. Somehow, he knew that that demon he saw so frequently was just the hurting part of her, begging him to love her. So he tried. And kept trying. Come to find out he really sucked at loving people. Somehow though, she seemed to sense that he was trying, after awhile, and that was when they clicked. Suddenly she was easy to love, and in turn, he was almost good at it. They still argued almost constantly, but more because they could, not because they actually disagreed. So really, he guessed he was only fond of the day that she came because it meant that she was finally there.

Its funny how he thinks now that she was 'finally' there. He had never felt like anything was missing before she came. Guess it just proves how you can't miss what you never had. Now, though. He remembered less fondly (read: with extreme distaste) the short time after he and Cassie had found her mother, when Cassie had gone to live with her. Looking back, it was like "Duh, of course she had to try it out" but at the time he was so lost in his own fear of losing her that he couldn't see her pain in making that decision. He woke up to her perched on the edge of his bed, saying "Mom and I are going apartment hunting today. You can come if you want." Then she stood up and left. He felt like he had set a ton of bricks on his chest, in an effort to keep him from coming with them, and it was highly effective. He didn't get up until he heard them leave, and then he got in the shower and cried. Two days later Cassie and her mother were in their new apartment, and he was getting wasted in the bar across the way. The entire time he and Cassie had lived in that apartment he had wondered what it was like; it was disgusting. He stayed there till closing, and then tripped home, wound up passing out on the landing down the hall from their door. He woke up nauseated and alone, and it was easily the worst morning of his life since Cassie. She came back a week later, turns out her mom was hard to live with. She was aware enough that she could feed and bathe herself, but the rest of the time she sat in her room drawing through notebooks.

So 19 year old Cassie had let herself into his apartment at 7am, feeling embarrassed and defeated, only to find the place completely wrecked. There was mud tracked everywhere, the kitchen was nearly radioactive, there was a pile of wet clothes next to the tub in the bathroom that was getting a little funky, and then… There was Nick. He was asleep on his back, laying diagonally across the bed, still in his jeans. The quilt was bunched up between the mattress and the wall, and his pillow was on the floor. There were a few things that were worrisome about this: Nick never slept in his jeans, and he never slept without a blanket. Cassie remembered the way the muscles across his stomach jumped as he shivered. She had been horrified. She was also as exhausted as Nick looked (she would learn later that that was the first time he had slept since getting over the epic hangover from the first night), so she had picked her way across the studio, carefully crawled into bed, and pulled the quilt across them.

Nick remembered feeling the bed shift slightly under him, and his blanket floating over him. He was shivering, and thought it odd that he was apparently subconsciously Moving the quilt until he felt the heat of another body next to him. He had turned and reached for her, pulling her against his chest. "What are you doing here?" he'd mumbled into her hair. "Figured out I don't need my mom like I thought I did. She doesn't need me either, I guess." she had said quietly. "Well, I need you." he yawned. She had laughed and said "I can see that." but he'd felt her grow serious, and just barely heard her say "I need you too" as she snuggled closer. He had breathed deeply for the first time all week, noticed that the scent of her had chased the vise-grip feeling away from his ribs, and gone to sleep.

*AUTHOR NOTE* For those of you that aren't familiar with Chalupas, they're TexMex, the tortilla is deep fried so it becomes crispy and chip like, and then any variety of other things are piled on top. Beans, cheese, lettuce, tomato, meat, avocado, all kinds of stuff. They're yummy.