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So I'm writing this for school. Any and all suggestions will help a lot.





Trying to Fly



When Cassandra was eight years old her mother took her to the public library, and told her that she could check out any book she wanted. She wandered around, marveling at the rows upon rows of colorful children's books, captivated by the seemingly endless ocean of new worlds. She ran her hands down the rough spines and closed her eyes, imagining that each book had a life, filled with magic.

Cassandra loved the library. Her pink flower sandals were silent against the carpet, her blond pony tail pulled carelessly behind her ears. Being in the library made her feel like a grown up, smart and pretty. She imagined herself a scholar, like her brother away at college, skimming through books happily as she made her selection.

The book she choose was a large colorful book about ocean life, with glossy photos of dolphins, sharks and clown fish. She loved that book. She would stay up far past her bedtime rereading the info boxes and captions and fall asleep dreaming of coral reefs.

She ended up hiding it in her closet so her mother had to buy it from the library. Her mother never let her check out another book. From then on, any library books Cassandra wanted to read had to be read inside the Library while her mother worked on her papers for her graduate school.

Cassandra's favorite page was the one about the angler fish. At the bottom of the endless ocean, those monster fish dangled their little ghost lights in the all consuming dark and lured innocent little fish just close enough to eat them whole. It was sad that the little fish died, but she couldn't help but think that if she born and raised in the deep darkness, seeing that little glowing sun would be the happiest time in her life, even if it foretold the end.



Her older brother Timothy had stared at her strangely when she told him that, holding up the glossy picture to show him the angler fish page. He had placed his hand on her head and laughed. “You're such a weirdo, Cass.”

“I'm not weird! You're the weirdo!” She shot back, sticking out her tongue. Timothy laughed at that and picked her up, holding her against his chest. He carried her off to watch TV with him while he studied. Cassandra spent every spare moment she had with Timothy when he came home. He was off at college most of the time, a place that seemed impossibly far away to Cassandra, so when he came home for the odd weekend or holiday she was loath to leave his side.



“Do you have a girlfriend yet?” Cassandra would ask him every time her brother came home.

“Why is that all you think about?” Timothy would shake his head and ruffle her hair. Sometimes he would look up and make awkward eye contact with their father before shaking his head and telling her, “No. I don't have a girlfriend.” and changing the subject quickly.

Timothy was an Engineering major, so he had lots of big heavy books and long boring homework. Cassandra wasn't quite sure what an engineer did but Timothy said it was a lot of work, and maybe he should have just been an Art major after all, but then their father would scowl and mutter about how Art wasn't any kind of real major and Timothy would be best to stop whining about it and that would be the end of the conversation.



Sometimes when Timothy was home he would hide up in the attic so he could smoke without their mother lecturing him. Cassandra would go up and sit with him, watching the smoke dance through the dusty air. Like silk in water, the gray ribbons would slide back and forth, folding over on themselves, twirling in unseen and unfelt air currents like magic. They would often sit in silence, Timothy slowly releasing his stress with every breath and Cassandra letting her mind wander in the warm smoky air.

“Why do you come up here?” She asked him once.

Timothy sat with his knees pressed to his chest, his cigarette hanging loosely in his left hand while he drew spirals in the dust on the floor with his right. “Sometimes I just feel a little trapped.” He whispered. “I just wish I could fly away from here, Cass. Right up to the moon or something.”

Cassandra giggled. “You're such a weirdo sometimes.” She
said softly and smiled at him. “Besides, you couldn't fly to the moon. You wouldn't be able to breath there.”

“Excellent point, little sister. Excellent point.” Timothy conceded and gave her a small smile back.



Then Timothy would leave and go back to college and Cassandra would have to amuse herself after school. She would skip home from the bus stop and be greeted by her mother with a snack then be sent off to play quietly and read until dinner. Day after day, Cassandra would live out the boring rhythm of her young life, diving from book to book, story to story, from Narnia to Hogwarts. No matter how many lands she traversed in her dreams, she was still pulled back to the ocean book by the magic of the deep dark monster fish and it's little lights again and again.



One night, when Cassandra was sitting in the living room, a book spread out on her criss-cross apple sauce knees, the phone next to the TV rang.

“Hello?” Cassandra said, cradling the phone and whispering so that the sound wouldn't disturb her mother while she studied.

“Cass?” It was Timothy. His voice sounded weird, stretched, like he had been crying. “Hey. I'm glad it's you.” He said with a little laugh. “I...I was hoping you could tell me about angler fish.”

Cassandra thought it was an odd thing to call about at almost 9:30 at night, but she ran to her room anyway and pulled her stolen library book off it's shelf. “Sure.” She told him and flipped to the page. She read aloud all about how the angler fish have big scary teeth, and liv at the bottom of the ocean and about how they trick the little fish into getting eaten.

“And what about the little fish? How the light would make them happy?” Timothy asked, his voice calmer now than it had been when he has first called. “Remember? You told me once about the little fish.”

Cassandra frowned. “Is everything ok, Timothy?” She asked.

“Please Cass. I just want to hear about the little fish.”



A few days later, when Cassandra bounded home from school, she found her mother sitting on the living room sofa, clutching an old photo album for dear life and crying into it. There are few things scarier for a child than watching their parent cry, hunched over, desperate and inconsolable. Her mother didn't respond when she walked up to her, said her name, tugged on her sleeve.

“Mom?” She said softly, dropping her backpack on the ground. “Mom, what's wrong?” But her mother just sobbed, eyes squeezed shut. It wasn't until Cassandra turned to walk away, to go find her dad for help, that her mother looked up, tears stained on her cheeks and pulled her daughter into a fierce and protective hug.

Cassandra knew that something was horribly wrong, but even then her mother wouldn't answer her questions. They sat on the sofa, Cassandra in her mother's lap, petting her hair while her mother cried for nearly an hour. Finally her father appeared, his steps uneven like he was dizzy, and picked Cassandra up, holding her tightly against him and carried her to her room.

“Timothy is gone.” Her father said softly, setting her down on her bed. Cassandra knew that it wasn't the normal kind of gone; the kind of gone where Timothy had woken up early and left without remembering to say good bye. This kind of gone was much worse. “ He...was very sick.” Her father explained. “He fell. Off the roof of his dorm building.” His voice sounded tired in a chillingly empty kind of way.



So her brother was dead. No one would say those words, but she was a smart girl. She knew. She didn't have to go to school that week. Her mother sat around the house all day, not reading or studying like she normally did. She would simply stare into space, or flip through photo albums and cry until Cassandra's father would appear and lead her gently to bed to sleep. Grandma and Grandpa came down and slept in the guest bedroom for a while, cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner for them. Aunt Harriet rented a hotel room just a few blocks away and came over every single day to do the laundry for them. Even Oma and Pop-pop who lived in the far away land of Washington State, flew down to be with them. Timothy was dead.

At first Cassandra was worried that she might be broken.
She couldn't cry and normal people cried when the people they loved were dead. But she didn't feel sad. She just felt confused and lost. She sat up all night, reading and re-reading her stolen library book, trying not to think about how her brother was never coming home. She read about how sharks lost teeth all the time and kept regrowing them, and how dolphins slept with half their brain still awake and how clown fish lived symbiotically (a word Cassandra had to look up in the dictionary the first time she read it) with the sea anemone, and about the angler fish, down in the deep dark, shining it's pretty little light to trick the poor little fish into getting close enough to eat.



They had a funeral for Timothy, with big white flowers everywhere and people saying nice things about him and lots of people crying. A small man with a wheezy voice who had never met Timothy stood in front of everyone and spoke in a soft voice.

“We are here to grieve the passing of Timothy David Summers,” He wheezed, “A boy who touched so many of our lives. Though he gave up on himself, the Lord will bring him peace in heaven.” He began. Then he talked about God and Angels and Heaven and how Timothy was in “a better place” now for a long time. None of it meant much to her. Cassandra sat there in her new black dress and new black shoes that Oma and Pop-Pop had bought for her, thinking about how Timothy always hated it when he had to dress up, and the way he wrinkled his nose when their mother tried to brush his hair and make it lay flat. That was when she finally cried.



The next Monday, after all her family had gone back to their homes, Cassandra went back to school. Everyone talked in hushed voices around her, quietly, like at any moment she might start crying again. When she drifted home from school, her mother sat there waiting for her and hugged her tightly as she walked in the door.

“Mom?” Cassandra said softly. “Did Timothy kill himself?” She asked, her brown eyes crinkled with questions.

Her mother sucked in her breath, tears welling in her eyes. “Oh honey....why do you think that?”

“Dad said Timothy was sick, and the man at the funeral said he gave up on himself.” Cassandra explained very calmly. She had given this a lot of thought. “I was just wondering why Timothy didn't want to live anymore.”

“Cassandra, baby, like Daddy said, Timothy was sick. He killed himself because he was sick in his brain, ok?” Her mother said it gently and hugged her again.



Cassandra was not convinced. Timothy did not seem sick in the brain. Timothy was her brother and if he had killed himself then he must had had a reason. This required more thought, she realized. Later that night she went to her room, pulled out her 25 favorite books from the shelf and laid them out around her. Directly in front of her, she placed the book about ocean life, open to the page about angler fish and stared at it.

The sun dipped below the houses across the street slowly, letting Cassandra's room sink into the dim twilight. She lay on the floor, staring at the monster angler fish, thinking about her brother, too distracted to be bothered to turn on the lights.

She thought about how he never talked about any friends he had in college, how he never had a girlfriend, how he didn't seem to like what he was studying and how their father pushed him to do it anyway. She thought about how he hated dressing up, how he would sometimes skip class in High School, pick her up early from her classes and get ice cream with her and say with a wink that he just needed to get some air. She thought about how the dust danced around him and how he felt trapped and wanted to escape, how he wanted to fly to the moon. She thought about the last time Timothy had called her, asking about the little fish in the deep dark.

She nearly fell asleep on the floor, her face pressed into the glossy picture of the angler fish, when her father came in the room to get her for dinner.

“Cassie?” He said softly, picking her up. “What are you doing on the floor?”

“Research.” She said, rubbing her eyes. One of her two pig tails had fallen out, making her lopsided.

“Research about what?” Her father asked, giving her the first small smile she'd seen from either of her parents since Timothy had died.

“I don't think Timothy wanted to die.” She said, rubbing her eyes with the palms of her hand.

“Oh, Cass.” Her father sighed.

“No, no, listen.” She insisted. “I'm sure Timothy knew he was going to die if he jumped off the building, Daddy. I think he knew it was going to happen. But I dont think that's why he did it. It's like how you know you'll have to walk all the way back up a big hill when you roll down it, but you still roll down it because it's fun.” She explained as her father set her down on her bed.

“I guess that makes sense,” Her father conceded. “So...why?” He asked. Cassandra could see that her father was no longer just humoring her. He looked as lost as she had felt when she first found out about Timothy.

She looked back down towards the open book on the floor, the angler fish winking at her.

“I think he just wanted to fly.”

I almost cried.
This was so sweet.
I had a feeling he was going to die; ever since Timothy appeared in the story, I knew he was going to die. He just seemed like that odd character....

but it still.. wow. So touching. So sad. Brilliantly written. I loved this.

(And it wasn't a fanfiction.)