11WHAT I WOULD DO FOR YOU
ONE
CASSIDY P.O.V
"Wake up, Cassie. Wake up, wake up NOW!" A voice murmured urgently into my ear. I groaned and tried to curl deeper into my cave of darkness but before I could actually get comfortable, a hand shot out and ripped my covers from above, leaving a shivering fourteen year old girl.
"Leave me alone," I moaned, trying to grab my duvet back, which caused me to sit up properly. I rubbed my sleepy eyes seeing my frantic mom before me and I knew instantly something was wrong. First, my mom never wakes me up (usually she gets my siblings to do that) and she was biting her nails. "Mom, it's the middle of the night and I want to sleep, can't this wait till morning?"
"This is important Cass, get up and get dressed." Now I was definitely alert, most of the time when my mom gave an order she meant business, being firm and in control; but when she spoke these words, her eyes were searching wildly around the room, not looking at me, and her voice broke until… tears were streaming down her face.
"Oh Cassie," she whispered, my heart beating fast as she sat besides me on my bed, completely breaking down and sobbing. Not really knowing what to do (I mean what can I do?), I tried to comfort her by wrapping my arms around her neck and rubbing her back.
"Mom, tell me what's wrong? I can handle it, whatever it is. I can handle it."
She looked at me before nodding and taking deep breaths to try and calm herself, "honey it's about Shawn. Earlier in the night there… there was some sort of accident. A mad man with a gun tried to rob a shop, things went badly and situation got out of control and Shawn… he got caught in the crossfire. Honey Shawn got shot."
My mother turned to me, starting to cry again. "He's in the hospital now and they're not sure if he's going to make it through the night…"
She was still talking but I didn't hear anything else, I couldn't. My ears had stopped listening to anything, leaving the same words to echo emptily inside my head, "Shawn got shot… not sure if he's going to make it through." My heart stopped beating and I swear I could breathe. My light red room started to spin, the same room I had spent literally millions of times with Shawn, the room he had helped to decorate. I couldn't see anymore, all I could see was Shawn, my best friend, the person I have known since birth, the most important person in my life…is lying on his death bed. I can't breathe, my chest hurts and don't even realise I was crying until the tears fell on to my palm.
It took me hours to finally stop crying but though no one could actually see my tears anymore, I wasn't finished crying, far from it actually. I was practically tearing up in the inside and every time I thought about Shawn… I felt unbearable pain. We went to see him in the hospital, staying with Sha- his family and doing the best to comfort them and each other.
Days later, he had surgery. Weeks later, the doctor told us he was going to get better. I think that was the best news I ever heard and I couldn't stop smiling even when I went to see him. He was lying on a plain blue hospital bed, sleeping. I walked over to him and sat down on the chair besides the bed. I put my hands in his and looked at all the tubes and other things stuck on him, trying not to cry.
I think it was then that I knew things would never be the same for us. Everything had changed. Everything was going to change.