In this chap­ter “Cas­sidy” from the book “When the World Tips Over,” the pro­tag­o­nist, Cas­sidy, deals with com­pli­cat­ed emo­tions sur­round­ing her tumul­tuous rela­tion­ship with her moth­er, Marigold. Spend­ing her hours at RV parks, Cas­sidy escapes her real­i­ty through com­put­er search­es for nor­mal­cy in fam­i­ly dynam­ics and ani­mal res­cue videos, which pro­vide a sense of com­fort. Unlike the joy she finds in online con­tent, her real­i­ty is marked by Marigold’s strug­gles with alco­holism and neglect, which Cas­sidy feels bur­dened to nav­i­gate alone.

Cas­sidy grap­ples with feel­ings of respon­si­bil­i­ty and guilt, believ­ing she is the only one who can care for her moth­er. Dur­ing par­ties, she finds her­self iso­lat­ed, often hid­ing under piles of coats, seek­ing solace in the weight of them. This false sense of safe­ty is shat­tered when she expe­ri­ences a trau­mat­ic event at one of these par­ties, which she inter­nal­izes with shame and con­fu­sion, fur­ther deep­en­ing her sense of iso­la­tion.

The ten­sion builds towards Cassidy’s four­teenth birth­day, where her mother’s reck­less behav­ior cul­mi­nates in an encounter that forces Cas­sidy to con­front Marigold’s denial of her prob­lems. After a poignant fight, Cas­sidy final­ly reveals her trau­ma to her moth­er, trig­ger­ing an emo­tion­al exchange that leaves both of them recon­sid­er­ing their strained rela­tion­ship.

In the after­math, Marigold attempts to off­set her neglect by tak­ing Cas­sidy on a trans­for­ma­tive birth­day trip into nature, where they enjoy sim­ple plea­sures, momen­tar­i­ly allow­ing Cas­sidy to feel the love and sup­port she longs for. How­ev­er, the illu­sion of sta­bil­i­ty van­ish­es when Cas­sidy awak­ens to find that Marigold has desert­ed her, leav­ing behind a note indi­cat­ing she seeks help.

Cas­sidy’s reac­tion to her moth­er’s aban­don­ment is char­ac­ter­ized by pan­ic as she fum­bles through real­iz­ing she has been left alone, grap­pling with emo­tions of betray­al and loss. Deter­mined to find Marigold, she takes the RV, pur­ple Rain, in a des­per­ate bid to chase after her moth­er but quick­ly gets lost in a whirl­wind of chaos—culminating in an acci­dent that forces her fur­ther into a world where her auton­o­my is chal­lenged.

As Cas­sidy nav­i­gates this unset­tling real­i­ty filled with raw emo­tion, self-dis­cov­ery, and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, she is faced with the harsh truths of her life—ultimately lead­ing to a poignant reck­on­ing with her iden­ti­ty amidst dis­tress­ing cir­cum­stances.