Cassie woke to her mother gently shaking her. Her eyes were sore and swollen and glued shut by the salt from the tears she cried herself to sleep with and the last thing she wanted was to wake up.
“Cassie, honey,” her mother said softly, “you need to get up. There’s a delivery for you.”
Cassie sat up and rubbed her eyes. Her head felt foggy and her body felt sluggish.
“Okay mum,” she said and yawned. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
Her parents lived in a small single-story house in Nambour, a once bustling cane town that had seen a financial downturn in recent years because of the closure of the town’s sugar mill. Both her parents had steady jobs and lived a comfortable life, but Cassie had always yearned for more. Now she wondered if maybe the heartache wasn’t worth it.
She pulled on a ro
