I can't explain it. Just a response to the dark one shot challenge. Casey being OOC is noted. It's not my best or my favorite, I just sat down to write.
Summary: She's told a handful of people that all she feels is failure, pain, loneliness and betrayal but they never moved to fix it. Nobody ever came to help.
Answer to DarkFairy72's Dark Oneshot Challenge.
Disclaimer: I do not own Life With Derek.
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Prompt: Thunderstorm
The Happy, Bubbly Girl Died
Thunderstorms were really a regular occurrence in London. Sure, there were spring showers, and in the summer it wasn't uncommon to get rain with a little bit of rumbling from the dark skies. But it wasn't often that there was a storm that knocked out the power, turned the world as dark as night, and threw lightening around enough to drive people inside.
Casey McDonald welcomed the angry, violent storm today. It voiced all of the hurt that she couldn't find words for. It blocked out the knowledge of the rest of the family just one floor away with heavy, oversized raindrops smacking her window. It distracted her from trying to figure out a way to fix it. Fix everything.
She lay on her bed, slightly entertained that at three in the afternoon in summer that it was dark enough outside to make it seem like it was the middle of the night. The electricity had gone out about five minutes into the lightening show, and her small bedside lamp flickered off, leaving her in the dark.
Casey ran a hand across her forehead and sighed. She was disgusted with herself for being so pathetic. She was laying across her bed in the wrong direction, her knees bent slightly as she faced the door expecting no one to open it.
She was too mean to talk to.
Senior year of high school. Amazing, right? The best time ever? A new path opening up in front of your eyes, taking the plunge into real life, realizing that the world is at your fingertips.
Casey thought it was just a bunch of lies that the three people in history that actually had a good time in high school made up to promote reunions.
Sure, grade eleven had been fun. Casey had maintained her grades without inflating the grade-grubbing reputation that she had earned in grade ten. She had solidified her relationship with Emily and dipped her fingers into the popular pool with Max and cheerleading. Home life had been okay during her junior year, a silent agreement between her and Derek left them only truly fighting occasionally. It was more common to see the two of them bickering over trifling issues, pranking or conspiring than actually screaming at each other.
But, lo and behold, the summer before senior year brought every positive aspect to Casey McDonald's life to a halt. Schlepper, Tinker and Kendra had all moved to different parts of Canada before the year started, and while they weren't her best friends, these were all people that Casey had become close enough to for her to miss them a lot.
Not that it mattered, though, because even Emily left her. Only two weeks after the school year started, Emily's dad got transferred and she was now living in the states. She and Casey had made an effort to talk every day for exactly eight days before the conversation dwindled. The last time Casey talked to her best friend, she had been grumpy, biting, and realized after she hung up that she had dished a whole lot of drama onto Emily that she didn't deserve. Emily made no motion to call back, and Casey refused to take the initiative herself.
So now, school was awful. Casey considered becoming closer to Amy, Max or Noel, but she found that she lacked the willpower to reestablish the friendship that she knew couldn't be replaced. Slowly, and quietly, she let the people at school slip away and she found herself eating, studying, and walking alone in SJST High.
Home wasn't the solace that she desperately needed it to be. Casey had gotten in a fight with her mom around the middle of October over something that she couldn't actually pinpoint. Casey wasn't positive, but she figured that her bad mood and long days at school left her irritable and looking for a fight. Her mother had just been the one to have a knock-down, drag out fight with. The fragile and questionable relationship Casey had developed with George slid downhill fast after that. The two of them barely knew how to exchange forced conversations with Casey at the dinner table anymore.
She couldn't remember the last time she had spoken to her own dad, but she was certain that she had treated him just the same as she had treated everyone else. That's probably a big part of why he hadn't called. He probably just didn't know what to say anymore.
Casey was sure that the same went for Lizzie. Although Casey wasn't sure how or when her baby sister took a step back, she just knew that their close bond had been broken. They didn't talk about boys, they didn't conspire against the Venturi's, and they certainly didn't take trips to the mall together anymore. It broke Casey's heart to know that every time she opened her mouth it was to argue or blame someone for something, but couldn't muster up the energy to apologize to anyone.
She didn't know how to fix it. She didn't know what to apologize for. Casey had no idea how to feel better.
Thunder clapped outside of Casey's upstairs room and she blinked, surprised as a tear she didn't know had pooled in her eye fell down her face. She was sick of crying. She cried because she was lonely. She cried because she fought with her mom, because she lost all contact with all her friends, because no one was there for her.
Two days before she had fractured the connection between her and her mother, Casey mentioned that she was sad, tired, and painful. She made a quiet remark about not knowing what to do, and that maybe she needed help. Her mother took it in stride, and if the comment was even processed, Nora had said nothing back. No action had been made.
A flash of lightening lit her room for a split second, and Casey sighed. The storm was close now, and that meant that it would be passing soon. Maybe when the lights came back on the family would look around realize that Casey had slipped off. They'd take time out of the hide-and-seek game they were playing to keep Marty from being afraid of the weather to come and check on her.
Maybe they'd come up stairs and tell her to come down to eat. She'd refuse, and they'd persist. Maybe then she could talk to her mother alone, and she could recommend something, anything to make it better. Then they'd start playing a game to focus on making Casey feel better, make her feel like her life hadn't dissipated into nothing but emotions and tears.
Casey rolled onto her back and popped her right hand's knuckles to relieve the pressure of laying on it for over an hour.
No one would come up. They'd learned their lesson. They'd open the door, ask if she was okay and wanted to come watch a movie, or play a game, and she'd snap. She'd bark that she was fine and that if she wanted to come down she'd have already been there.
She'd throw some snark at Derek that would be below the belt, and while if taken out of context would only be a comment, it would cut, blame and burn. Then she'd find something she didn't like, a new pillow, a new recipe, a different way that someone had decided to conduct normal life. She'd freak out, say things like, 'Who does this, seriously?' and 'You've got to be kidding me.' Casey would hurt everyone, alienate the children, snarl at her mother, and move back up to her bedroom or into the back yard, and they'd leave her alone again.
Last Tuesday, someone had decided that the washcloths should be one drawer up, and the cooking items that weren't often used should be on the bottom. "This is ridiculous." She'd said quietly, and while it wasn't a direct comment, Lizzie, who figured it'd be easier to put the regularly used items higher, felt the heat of her sister's impatience.
Lizzie hadn't said anything, just lowered her head and continued to eat her cereal.
In short, Casey knew that no one would be knocking on her door.
Here she was, almost eighteen and staring graduation in the eye, with nothing to aspire to anymore. It was obvious to Casey that either no one cared, or no one noticed. Bubbly happy Casey had been gone. No one understood how exhausting it was to put on that mask for so long. To be the one that saw a positive note in every day, no matter how forced, now matter how silly. Casey was tired of being the one to mediate, to clean up after her family, to inspire everyone to keep up whatever they were losing the will to do.
No body made a comment when the happy, bubbly girl died.
No body went looking for the old Casey that would make lists and chore wheels.
No body tired, because whenever they had before, they were attacked.
The rain slowly became less violent, and the dark gray lightened slightly. Casey rolled back over to her side and let her hair fall over her eyes to pretend that it was still dark. She tried desperately to stop her ears from straining to hear any footsteps coming up the stairs.
Nobody would come. She told them not to.
...
It's off, I know this, and it's choppy, scattered, and pathetic. There's no climax or moral or solution, but hey. That's exactly how depression goes, right?