Cass talked with her fists and kicks, and right now she was wailing. Bruce’s hold on the duffle bag tightened as Cass accelerated her punches. Soon enough, her attacks broke its rhythms and ended up a mess of noises and forces until the first missed punch. The momentum pulled Cass’s body. Her stance shook, and went limp as she allowed her body to drop like a rag doll on the floor.
Bruce stared as his daughter, both of her hands crossing and shading her eyes from view. He knew between the two of them neither talked, but he had hoped at least the pseudo training session has lent Cass a relief somehow. Nonetheless, as he watched Cass’s limbs curled ever so slightly and her chest pressed down on the floor, he felt uncertain, inadequate.
“Has something happened at school?,” prompted Bruce. Perhaps it’s true that he rarely talked with his children, but no better time to start than today.
‘No,’ signed Cass. Bruce wondered if he had made a wrong move. Cass turned her body a little. ‘Do you remember-‘ She held her hands mid-air. Bruce waited expectantly.
“The girl that talked to you on your first day?” Out of the people Cass could have mentioned, that girl weirdly stood out to him. Perhaps that’s because Bruce was elated when Cass told him of her, that Cass was well-received at her special-need school and that Cass had made a friend. He saw her shuffle, and nod, each motion filled with uncertainty and bitterness.
‘I confessed to her today,’
Bruce felt his heart stop.
‘rejected.’ Cass folded her hands together atop her chest. Her brows furrowed as she stared at the ceiling. Still, the corner of her eyes was prickled with something like tears.
“Love, I’m so sorry,” squeezed Bruce. He felt as though Cass was still swallowing back words, and he gazed at her absurd stillness. Cass tied herself in a knot when she felt overwhelmed.
‘I know it’ Cass’s sign was getting too fast for Bruce to read well, and if he’s allowed one guess, Bruce thought Cass didn’t want him to read too clearly truthfully. ‘I know it,’ she signed slowly this time, like a defense, or a reasoning. Frankly, he had very little idea what she could be talking of.
Hands still in mid-air, Cass wrangled, “she cried.”
Her voice pierced her own chest, and she dropped her hands to cover her throat. She wanted to cry with her hands, throw a few more punches even because her muscles felt pulled, and she knew for a fact none was pulled.
At times like this, Bruce felt his inadequacy at parenting in his bones. He dropped down by her head, picking the stray hair that covered her dampened forehead. He patted his daughter’s head, tentatively at first. Cass pulled her hand over her eyes, and from under the shade of her arms, streaks of tears flowed on her face. Bruce stroke her hair as her body shook with each silent sobs. A heartbreak’s cry invited its own heartbreak. Bruce gazed over his daughter’s pained form, the shadow cast over his face, and hope what he was doing was enough for a small comfort.
The cry tired Cass’s heart out soon enough. Her breath evened, still sounds much nasal. On the right of her head, Bruce still sat, stroking her hair diligently, quietly. Cass felt like sleeping. She told Bruce so, at which he suggest her take a warm shower, and drink some herbal tea for a a borrowed calm. Cass felt that’s a reasonable course of action, but the soothing motion of her dad’s hand on her hair didn’t quite stop. So she felt spoilt to let herself be calmed by him a little more.
That night, she received a text from Harley, filled with suggestive emojis. ‘Girl’s night out?’ it read. Cass chuckled. She sent Harley an ok emoji and a devil emoji, stuffed the rest of the unfinished cookie and ran to the cave. By her stand, a bag of cookies sat, attached to it a neatly written note, ‘Have fun, dear. Share these with the girls.’ Cass smirked. Only If I’m feeling kind, dad, she thought, only if I’m feeling kind.