White Space Season 2

Hamilton Island burnout loser … like you , Cass.” He laughed louder. “You think you’re any different from me?”
    Cassidy said nothing, wanting to push past the asshole and fly out the front door. But he blocked her way, determined to finish what he wanted to say.
    “He comes around, slums it with you and shit, then what? Now you think you’re Conway royalty? Ha, get real, sister. It’s only a matter of time before Jonny Hollywood’s walking the long, red carpet back home with the latest 18-year-old supermodel. You’re a memory waiting to be banked, a good time and nothing more.”
    Cassidy smacked Craig across his face, so hard he nearly stumbled back into the wall. She wanted to hit him again, longed to unleash a string of obscenities, anything other than what she did.
    Cassidy’s shoulders collapsed, and she fell into tears.
    Craig reeled, face crimson and angry, likely ready to smack her right back, but when he saw Cassidy crying, vulnerable in a way he’d never seen — she had shown that side of herself to no one but Jon — he froze.
    “Sorry,” he said, reaching to touch her.
    Cassidy pulled back, then shoved past him, leaving Craig’s shit studio without another word. She got in her car, slammed the door, checked the rearview to make sure Craig hadn’t followed her outside, then closed her eyes and sobbed as she pounded the wheel with her fists. She reached into her purse, grabbed the bottle, then paused, hating herself too much to continue, yet so desperate to muffle her sorrow that she craved the noose at her neck.
    Not now.
    Not now.
    As her hand hit the bottle, Cassidy saw her cell sitting at the bottom of her bag. She grabbed it and turned it on for the first time since silencing Jon’s incessant calls from the night before.
    Twenty missed calls from Jon, with 20 matching messages.
    She synced the phone with her car and played his voicemails starting with the first as she pulled out of Craig’s apartment complex and started for home. Each message was more of the same, Jon wanting to know where she was.
    “I’m worried, I went by your work, and nobody knew where you were. I went by your mom’s and your house, and nothing.”
    In Jon’s final message, left at 7 a.m., three hours ago, “Please, call me. Even if it’s to tell me to fuck off. I just want to know you’re not … Well, to know you’re OK. Please, Cassidy.”
    Not what? Overdosed somewhere?
    Fuck you, Jon.
    Cassidy was angry, but knew she would have been angry had he not called at all. Cass was irrational and knew it. A wreck, and an addict, just like her mom, with no emotional fitness.
    Cassidy prayed she could get her shit together before Emma’s funeral tomorrow.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 2 — Sarah Hughes

    A week ago …

    Emma ran to Sarah, throwing two arms around her mother and squeezing her hard.
    Sarah couldn’t believe it. She held Emma tight, inhaling her daughter’s scent — the smell she thought she’d never inhale again, one she worried she might forget.
    “Oh, God,” Sarah whispered repeatedly while rocking her baby girl.
    “You’re alive!” Emma said, tears streaming down both sides of her face. “We thought you were dead. We had a funeral and everything. Aunt Cassidy and my dad were there.”
    “Your dad?” Sarah said, pushing Emma far enough from her body to clearly see her face.
    “Yeah, I met my dad, Jon Conway! Why didn’t you tell me he was my daddy? Or that Blake was my grandpa!”
    Sarah turned to Blake, standing in the garden, watching their reunion with a smile. She wanted answers, wanted to know everything there was to know, but didn’t dare to cut a sliver from Emma’s moment.
    Sarah tried thinking of answers for Emma regarding her father, she certainly deserved them. Though Sarah had scripted responses over the years, she couldn’t remember any of them at the moment. Her memories were hit and miss with all the stuff the doctors were putting her through.
    “I don’t know,” Sarah said. “It’s complicated. We can talk about it another time, I promise. How are they? How’s Cassidy? Grandma? How is your father?”
    “They’re good, but everyone misses you so so much,” Emma said. “We cried a lot. Why didn’t you tell us you were alive?”
    “I wish I could have,” Sarah said, wondering if her daughter even knew they were in a space station. How had Blake brought her up? And, more importantly, why was she here? Was she “dead” too, like Sarah? She had so many