While he cooked, Cassidee’s mind, as it always did, began to pretend she had a camera in her hands. Her gaze made its way to the windows and stared out at the rain. How would she capture such a beautiful, complex thing? She would probably want those two sharing an umbrella to be present. It showed how rain created bonds. Or maybe, she would want one walking away from the other. In this, the rain would symbolize a parting, a sorrow. It was so easy, to make rain mean whatever you wanted. It was flexible that way, as if it wanted to please everyone, give meaning to everything. For her, she realized, it symbolized a washing, a cleaning. If she would let it, the rain could wash every pain in her past and let her start over, here possibly.

Her musings were interrupted, when Rhett placed the placed the plate of pancakes in front of her. The smell made her stomach again, and again a blush painted her cheeks pink. It didn’t help that when Cass placed a bite in her mouth, a satisfied sigh escaped her. She hadn’t eaten real food since she had left home, and this was the best thing she had ever tasted. The bread, butter, and syrup combo melted in her mouth. Cassidee only shook her head at his question, and shoveled the food into her mouth in a way that she was sure was unattractive. This wasn’t only because she was starving. The young woman planned to get an early start tomorrow. After all, if she was going to stay, she would need a job, and in a small town it would probably not be easy to find one.

When she was finished, Cass walked over to where she’d left her backpack and pulled out her credit card. Inside, she worried slightly over this. She’d brought the card because she’d known her husband wouldn’t be able to check the history to see where she was using it, but his personality made people want to please him. He often doing things he shouldn’t have been able to. Cassidee shook her head, letting his image disappear from her mind and pulled one more thing out of the pack.

She made sure to hand the card to him, before turning her attention to her still dripping jacket. She raised the camera to her eyes and smiled slightly at the image she saw. In this cozy diner, it looked so out of place. Like her, it didn’t belong here. At least not until it dried.