{the secret circle} a life best forgotten
Title: A Life Best Forgotten
Author: Aaronlisa / Secret_Witch
Fandom: The Secret Circle
Pairing/Characters: Cassie Blake, Grant and mentions of other canon characters.
Rating: FR13
Disclaimer: The Secret Circle belongs to LJ Smith, The CW & company.
Prompts: Written for prompt #4 (forget) at promptwriting.
Notes: Set post Season One.
Summary: Cassie decides to run away to try to forget her new life in Chance Harbor.
Word Count: 1663
She just wants to forget that she ever came to Chance Harbor. She wants to forget all of the deaths that have surrounded her since her mother died. She wants to forget about Adam and Jake. She wants to forget about magic: light and dark. She wants to forget the family she found and the family she's lost. In the end, she just wants to forget and she wants her old life back.
* * *
It's been two weeks since Diana left town with Grant, and three in total since her Circle had defeated John Blackwell and had been unbound. And in that time, things have gone from bad to worse. None of her former Circle's surviving parents seem to know what to do with her and those remaining members of her grandmother's Circle avoid her. She's left to falter on her own without any support. The members of her own (former) Circle seem at a loss with what to do with her.
Adam has changed and Cassie knows that it's not just the elixir but she doesn't know how to approach him to bring it up. She worries that the events of the last few months have hit him harder than he lets on. Faye and Melissa have become as tight as they were when Cassie first arrived in town and the only person they seem to have time for is Jake ,who seems to be rather good at avoiding her even if they are neighbours.
It's the fact that Diana is gone, off with Grant pretending that she's not a witch, pretending that she's not a Balcoin, and no doubt pretending that everything is the same as it ever was in Chance Harbor (before Cassie arrived that is) that inspires Cassie. If Diana can just up and leave what's to stop Cassie from leaving. There's nothing really left for her in Chance Harbor. And she doesn't really want to wait around for more witch hunters to show up on her door step or worse for any other skeletons from her father's closet.
Leaving is easy enough to do. She packs up a bag or two, sticks them in her car, locks up her house, leaves a note at the abandoned house (she can't help but wonder if it's actually her house now since her father is really dead) and then she gets in her car and drives. No one tries to stop her, then again no one seems to notice what she does as of late. Cassie can't help but think that anyone who actually did care what she did is dead now. It's a morbid thought that she chases away by tuning in some pop radio station and blasting the music as loud as she can.
If she can't actually be happy, she'll force herself to smile until the smile painfully stretching her lips doesn't hurt anymore. Just like how she plans on driving until Chance Harbor is nothing but a distant memory behind her and she can try to forget everything in the last few months.
* * *
That first night she doesn't get as far away as she wants to. She ends up spending the night in a cheap motel. The hot water runs out in the shower just as she's washing the conditioner out of her hair. Yet she feels a sense of peace when the ice cold water hits her skin. She's doing something for herself and Cassie refuses to look back. Instead of going to the boat house where Adam's father will give her sad looks but won't manage to do anything other than tell her he doesn't know how things went wrong yet again, she's on her own. When she curls up on the bed in a pair of pajamas, she doesn't have to deal with the fact that Jake won't even look at her when she happens to see him leaving his house.
She's free and she can finally start healing.
* * *
Cassie's been gone from Chance Harbor for two weeks when she finally gets a phone call from her supposed friends. She ignores the call and lets it go to voicemail. She's on the highway, listening to Katy Perry sing about candy-pink confections, and as she turns up the music she tells herself that it'd be unsafe for her to pick up the phone. When the phone rings half an hour later, she reaches over and turns off the ringer. She ignores the caller id because it doesn't really matter who's calling her, it's two weeks too late.
It's not until she's settled in the motel for that night that Cassie actually looks at her phone. Her resolution to put Chance Harbor behind her weakened by the night and the lack of something to focus on. She goes through her missed calls, surprised to see that there's calls from Jake, Faye, Melissa and even Diana. It's the one from Diana that makes her listen to her voicemail.
When she's finished listening to the voicemails from her former circle, Cassie can't help but wonder if it's her dark magic that's left her feeling unmoved by the messages. There was a time not that long ago when she would have cared that her Circle was worried about how Adam was behaving. When she would have immediately called them back and told them she'd be on her way. But now, she just deletes the messages and considers blocking their phone numbers from her phone.
What she won't admit to herself is the fact that not one of them said anything about being worried about her stung more than she thought it would. Cassie knows that part of it has to do with the fact that they grew up with Adam, that they've only known her since her first arrival last September, but nonetheless it hurts that not one of them says a thing about her being gone. It's as if they're okay with it but they only need her to complete their circle again because one of their own is in trouble. (Just like before.)
* * *
The next couple of days follow a particular pattern: she wakes up, packs up, hits a diner for breakfast and then gets into her car and drives as far as she can. During that drive, she gets phone calls and text messages from her former circle that get more and more desperate as they plead with her to come back just to help with Adam, at the end of the night when she's found a cheap motel to call home, she plays the message and reads the texts before deleting them.
She justifies her actions in two ways:
It's not like they actually care about her.
It's just the dark magic in her.
Cassie doesn't care because there's no real reason to. If they didn't need her because of this new crisis with Adam then they would never have reached out to her. And maybe it's okay for her to be selfish, at the end of the day it's not as if she's the good witch of the tale.
* * *
It takes a while for the members of her former circle to start playing dirty. When Cassie listens to the message from Adam's father and Faye's mother, she supposes she can't really blame them but it's easy enough to ignore Ethan Conant when he goes on about how her destiny is back in Chance Harbor with Adam. And Dawn Chamberlain can don her principal voice all she wants but it's not enough to force Cassie's hand. Deleting their messages are easy and she doesn't even feel a twinge of guilt. Where were they when she was struggling back in Chance Harbor all by herself after her grandmother's death?
For some reason it's Royce Armstrong's message that gets to her and almost changes her mind. His message is simple and without any tactics to make her feel guilty. He asks her to come back to bind the circle again because she's the last Blake witch. He asks her to come back because the others need her to stand against John Blackwell's other plans. He doesn't make it about anything other than what it is: the circle needs her.
The fact that she's two days away from Florida is the only reason why she doesn't go back.
* * *
In Florida, she manages to find work and a cheap apartment. She powers off her phone, messages from Chance Harbor ignored, and then tucks it into what she decides will be her junk drawer in the kitchen. And for a while she forgets who she is, what she is and best of all she can pretend to forget Chance Harbor.
* * *
It's Grant who finds her almost six months after she's left Chance Harbor. Somehow she had hoped that everyone had forgotten her just like she had tried to forget them but when Grant recognizes her in the coffee house she works at, everything comes crashing back. Her first thought is to run instead she stays when Grant asks her to have coffee with him.
He tells her about Chance Harbor without making her feel guilty. He knows now what Diana had been hiding from him and he seems rather accepting of it. Cassie doesn't ask if he was purposely looking for her or not and he doesn't ask her why she left nor does he beg her to come back. When he tells her that he's going back home, Cassie sighs and asks to go with him. She can't read if Grant is pleased or not but he agrees to let her come with him on his boat.
Once again Cassie finds herself packing up her things and leaving a life that she'll have to forget. She knows that once she arrives back in Chance Harbor, there's no way that she'll be able to return to this blissful, ignorant life.
((END))
Original post can be found here.
Author: Aaronlisa / Secret_Witch
Fandom: The Secret Circle
Pairing/Characters: Cassie Blake, Grant and mentions of other canon characters.
Rating: FR13
Disclaimer: The Secret Circle belongs to LJ Smith, The CW & company.
Prompts: Written for prompt #4 (forget) at promptwriting.
Notes: Set post Season One.
Summary: Cassie decides to run away to try to forget her new life in Chance Harbor.
Word Count: 1663
She just wants to forget that she ever came to Chance Harbor. She wants to forget all of the deaths that have surrounded her since her mother died. She wants to forget about Adam and Jake. She wants to forget about magic: light and dark. She wants to forget the family she found and the family she's lost. In the end, she just wants to forget and she wants her old life back.
* * *
It's been two weeks since Diana left town with Grant, and three in total since her Circle had defeated John Blackwell and had been unbound. And in that time, things have gone from bad to worse. None of her former Circle's surviving parents seem to know what to do with her and those remaining members of her grandmother's Circle avoid her. She's left to falter on her own without any support. The members of her own (former) Circle seem at a loss with what to do with her.
Adam has changed and Cassie knows that it's not just the elixir but she doesn't know how to approach him to bring it up. She worries that the events of the last few months have hit him harder than he lets on. Faye and Melissa have become as tight as they were when Cassie first arrived in town and the only person they seem to have time for is Jake ,who seems to be rather good at avoiding her even if they are neighbours.
It's the fact that Diana is gone, off with Grant pretending that she's not a witch, pretending that she's not a Balcoin, and no doubt pretending that everything is the same as it ever was in Chance Harbor (before Cassie arrived that is) that inspires Cassie. If Diana can just up and leave what's to stop Cassie from leaving. There's nothing really left for her in Chance Harbor. And she doesn't really want to wait around for more witch hunters to show up on her door step or worse for any other skeletons from her father's closet.
Leaving is easy enough to do. She packs up a bag or two, sticks them in her car, locks up her house, leaves a note at the abandoned house (she can't help but wonder if it's actually her house now since her father is really dead) and then she gets in her car and drives. No one tries to stop her, then again no one seems to notice what she does as of late. Cassie can't help but think that anyone who actually did care what she did is dead now. It's a morbid thought that she chases away by tuning in some pop radio station and blasting the music as loud as she can.
If she can't actually be happy, she'll force herself to smile until the smile painfully stretching her lips doesn't hurt anymore. Just like how she plans on driving until Chance Harbor is nothing but a distant memory behind her and she can try to forget everything in the last few months.
* * *
That first night she doesn't get as far away as she wants to. She ends up spending the night in a cheap motel. The hot water runs out in the shower just as she's washing the conditioner out of her hair. Yet she feels a sense of peace when the ice cold water hits her skin. She's doing something for herself and Cassie refuses to look back. Instead of going to the boat house where Adam's father will give her sad looks but won't manage to do anything other than tell her he doesn't know how things went wrong yet again, she's on her own. When she curls up on the bed in a pair of pajamas, she doesn't have to deal with the fact that Jake won't even look at her when she happens to see him leaving his house.
She's free and she can finally start healing.
* * *
Cassie's been gone from Chance Harbor for two weeks when she finally gets a phone call from her supposed friends. She ignores the call and lets it go to voicemail. She's on the highway, listening to Katy Perry sing about candy-pink confections, and as she turns up the music she tells herself that it'd be unsafe for her to pick up the phone. When the phone rings half an hour later, she reaches over and turns off the ringer. She ignores the caller id because it doesn't really matter who's calling her, it's two weeks too late.
It's not until she's settled in the motel for that night that Cassie actually looks at her phone. Her resolution to put Chance Harbor behind her weakened by the night and the lack of something to focus on. She goes through her missed calls, surprised to see that there's calls from Jake, Faye, Melissa and even Diana. It's the one from Diana that makes her listen to her voicemail.
When she's finished listening to the voicemails from her former circle, Cassie can't help but wonder if it's her dark magic that's left her feeling unmoved by the messages. There was a time not that long ago when she would have cared that her Circle was worried about how Adam was behaving. When she would have immediately called them back and told them she'd be on her way. But now, she just deletes the messages and considers blocking their phone numbers from her phone.
What she won't admit to herself is the fact that not one of them said anything about being worried about her stung more than she thought it would. Cassie knows that part of it has to do with the fact that they grew up with Adam, that they've only known her since her first arrival last September, but nonetheless it hurts that not one of them says a thing about her being gone. It's as if they're okay with it but they only need her to complete their circle again because one of their own is in trouble. (Just like before.)
* * *
The next couple of days follow a particular pattern: she wakes up, packs up, hits a diner for breakfast and then gets into her car and drives as far as she can. During that drive, she gets phone calls and text messages from her former circle that get more and more desperate as they plead with her to come back just to help with Adam, at the end of the night when she's found a cheap motel to call home, she plays the message and reads the texts before deleting them.
She justifies her actions in two ways:
It's not like they actually care about her.
It's just the dark magic in her.
Cassie doesn't care because there's no real reason to. If they didn't need her because of this new crisis with Adam then they would never have reached out to her. And maybe it's okay for her to be selfish, at the end of the day it's not as if she's the good witch of the tale.
* * *
It takes a while for the members of her former circle to start playing dirty. When Cassie listens to the message from Adam's father and Faye's mother, she supposes she can't really blame them but it's easy enough to ignore Ethan Conant when he goes on about how her destiny is back in Chance Harbor with Adam. And Dawn Chamberlain can don her principal voice all she wants but it's not enough to force Cassie's hand. Deleting their messages are easy and she doesn't even feel a twinge of guilt. Where were they when she was struggling back in Chance Harbor all by herself after her grandmother's death?
For some reason it's Royce Armstrong's message that gets to her and almost changes her mind. His message is simple and without any tactics to make her feel guilty. He asks her to come back to bind the circle again because she's the last Blake witch. He asks her to come back because the others need her to stand against John Blackwell's other plans. He doesn't make it about anything other than what it is: the circle needs her.
The fact that she's two days away from Florida is the only reason why she doesn't go back.
* * *
In Florida, she manages to find work and a cheap apartment. She powers off her phone, messages from Chance Harbor ignored, and then tucks it into what she decides will be her junk drawer in the kitchen. And for a while she forgets who she is, what she is and best of all she can pretend to forget Chance Harbor.
* * *
It's Grant who finds her almost six months after she's left Chance Harbor. Somehow she had hoped that everyone had forgotten her just like she had tried to forget them but when Grant recognizes her in the coffee house she works at, everything comes crashing back. Her first thought is to run instead she stays when Grant asks her to have coffee with him.
He tells her about Chance Harbor without making her feel guilty. He knows now what Diana had been hiding from him and he seems rather accepting of it. Cassie doesn't ask if he was purposely looking for her or not and he doesn't ask her why she left nor does he beg her to come back. When he tells her that he's going back home, Cassie sighs and asks to go with him. She can't read if Grant is pleased or not but he agrees to let her come with him on his boat.
Once again Cassie finds herself packing up her things and leaving a life that she'll have to forget. She knows that once she arrives back in Chance Harbor, there's no way that she'll be able to return to this blissful, ignorant life.
((END))
Original post can be found here.