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Back story - Novel

 "I wish I was in heaven...then at least then I could watch over my sister and her little girl," Cassie wrote.

No one knew her pain, nor did they ever ask. She was too young to understand. Only the lined pages of her journal listened to her. Page after page she poured her little heart out as she watched her troubled sister fall apart.

Her sister was being abused by her husband. He never allowed her to visit the family. And on the odd occasion when she had (with him of course), it was brief and she was never able to do so freely.

Sometimes she had bruises. Other times scratches and scars on her wrists from her own attempts at numbing her reality. Other times, it appeared as if she hadn't slept or showered in weeks. Her mangy brown hair hung over her palish sullen face.

Cassie could see the shame, the self-doubt and fear in her sisters eyes. Cassie may have been young, but the innocence of a child can see through many masks a person may wear.

"I miss my sister. I wish she would come back to us and not be mad anymore."

It was a low point in Cassie's life. A time when she needed her big sister more than anything.

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