Free Chasing Cassidy by D. Kelly

you want to talk to her tonight?” No, that would not be a good idea. I shake my head no and he smiles.
    “Good choice. As far as I could tell when I left, she still hadn’t turned on her phone but she did have a pretty decent panic attack.” His eyes meet mine to assess my reaction. Hearing she had another attack makes me uneasy. Maybe my coming here wasn’t a good idea.
    “Hey, stop slouching in your chair like a defeated man. I don’t think this is because of you necessarily. She said she’s been having them since you started planning the wedding?” The questioning tone in his voice makes me wake up and flag the waitress for more coffee.
    With a sigh, I fill him in a bit. “Cassidy had a messed up childhood and used to have panic attacks often. I’ve always been able to talk her through them, for the most part, but once we went away to college and moved in together they stopped. She didn’t have any for seven years, and although I knew they had started again, I never put two and two together that they were related to the wedding planning until you just said it.”
    “She mentioned she suggested eloping…” His statement is open-ended, waiting for me to fill in the rest.
    “You’ve met my mom. She’s high maintenance and utterly ensconced in high profile society. And I am the stupidest son of a bitch on the planet.” I release a long sigh and run my hands through my hair, feeling like I should kick my own ass at this point.
    “Anyway, I was trying to keep the peace between my mom and Cassidy. We agreed on a huge wedding but I had to handle all the details. Cassidy didn’t want it. She doesn’t have any family other than a few cousins and she’s happy keeping things low key. But she agreed because she knew it would make my mom happy and in turn, that would make me happy.”
    “But she was miserable,” Pete replies, stating the obvious.
    “Yeah, she was, and like a fool, I was doing all the things behind the scenes to make her happy but was not paying attention to her feelings at all. It wasn’t intentional. I was just trying to keep the peace between her and my mom.”
    The waitress drops off our food and we both take a few bites before continuing. This burger might be the best burger I’ve ever had but then again, I’m so hungry a Spam burger would probably taste amazing right now, too.
    “So, anyway, I was fighting my mom on details behind the scenes, making sure everything Cassidy could have wanted was happening. Chocolate cake, instead of vanilla, with champagne filling, an outdoor reception in a garden setting filled with thousands of white twinkling lights instead of a ballroom in some stuffy hotel, a honeymoon at our own house instead of The Four Seasons or some shit. You know, just little things I knew would make her happy since she had to sacrifice the intimacy she craved and didn’t get.”
    Pete sips his Coke and looks at me thoughtfully. “Obviously, I didn’t spend a lot of time with her but from what I could tell, that girl is head over heels in love with you. She’s got a lot of regret and anxiety about today and it seems about your family, as well.”
    “I found out today my mom has been feeding her all kinds of bullshit for God only knows how long. It’s taken me years to try and integrate Cassidy into my life a little bit at a time. My dad and my sister, Ry, adore her. My mom even loves her, but not as my wife… only as Ry’s best friend. If I had known…”
    Pete looks at me skeptically. “What could you have done, Zack? Seriously, Priscilla Stafford is a force all of her own making. One way or another, she would have tried to get this to go her way.”
    He pauses for a moment, tapping his fingers against the table. “You’re going to have to go in there with a plan, Zack. Cassidy needs reminding, dominance… Fuck, I’m not sure exactly, but you’re going to have to take every ounce of determination you’ve got and sink it into this. Consider it the biggest case