Your mother left you before her father left her. For some reason you've always felt a nagging sense of scorn about it—a completely illogical fault but, once found, one you could at least hold on to regardless of circumstances. It's morning, and you're lying in bed and resolutely putting off getting ready. You can hear the shower running through the thin walls of your room and even though you aren't fifteen any more the knowledge of who is in there makes you flush hot and kick off your blankets.
Goosebumps rise all along your skin, down your arms and across your chest and down your legs. It still doesn't bring you relief and a chill runs up your spine; your blush is spreading splotchy down your chest and you hate it, that she has such an effect on you but no matter how hard you try you can't seem to get to her.
It's your senior year and, in fact, your last month as a high school student. This knowledge should be great news but there is a lingering dread that settled over you last summer and hasn't yet lifted. Everyone keeps using words for how this year is supposed to feel; transformative and fantastic and nostalgic, but the only word coming to your mind is 'final.' And you know, you know that realistically not much will change. That there's still months of summer between you and college and that even still you both got accepted to Queens—news she met with a grim and tight-lipped smile—so it isn't like you'll be too far apart. Something still feels like it's coming to a close and you aren't sure you want it to.
By now your skin has returned to its customary olive and the patch of hair down your torso is no longer marred by splotchy red. The shower switches off. With a sigh, you pull yourself up out of bed, pulling shorts on over your underwear, and head out into the hall just as she leaves the bathroom wrapped in a towel. Your eyes meet, for a second, and static jolts through your body. You must have visibly flinched because she averts her eyes at the same moment and, without a word, heads to her room. Your shower is short and perfunctory—punctuated only by a short and mostly angry jerk off.
Your room is cold. This isn't a surprise, you've kept it cold all year, but it always hits you hardest after the scalding showers you've taken to. Now your skin is red again. You dress quickly.
Downstairs, it's just her still home. She's sitting at the table and eating cereal like she has thousands of times before, and you join her quietly. "Are we gonna talk," she says, "or just stare at our breakfast?"
"It's all the same to me," you answer. She shakes her head, eyes rising to meet yours in a dare. Minutes pass in silence, and finally she says, "we'd better go. Don't want to be late." You're still trying to figure out what to say, angry that she's still the only one who can render you speechless. You follow her, backpack haphazard over one shoulder, and open the passenger door of the Prince for her. Since you turned sixteen first George gave it to you but only on the condition that you give her rides. Not that you minded back then. At sixteen it was all hormones and desperation that led you two to the backseat on more than one occasion and in more than one isolated parking lot.
It was then, back even before the bruises in backseats in summers and before anything had ever been made vicious or jealous or cruel between you, that you realized you loved her. Even before that, though, you were already confused. Stricken by her on first site. When she showed up in your life…
At fourteen you had it all. You were popular, a notorious lady killer, and completely sure of yourself. You'd been the first guy in your grade to make it anywhere past kissing a girl and it earned you a solid place at the top of the heap. But since she and her family moved in, once she gave you a shy smile and said, "I'm Casey," you've been lost. No girls made much of an impression, after her, and that should have been a sign. She became such a clear counterpoint that your life seems to be split into two halves—before and after meeting Casey McDonald. Immediately you could feel the pull, the magnetism, drawing you together and felt that you were linked. A long year spent orbiting each other, drawing closer and closer until meeting, explosively, at last. That came later though. At first you thought you could hardly stand her but then, you thought, why can't I stop thinking about her? Why would you lie awake imagining the delicate hairpin of her smile and the smooth swell of her breasts, your hand fisted down your shorts and biting out the name on your lips. Why would you put yourself through so much guilt, threatening to swallow you whole and all the while your heart pounding in your chest and your mind rife with torturous thoughts?
You feel foolish, driving on autopilot with her silently fuming across the width of the car and all the while you wax philosophic about your short and sordid history. One year spent teasing and prodding at each other, falling into a comfortable push and pull. One year wasted. Your thoughts keep you occupied until you're pulling in to the school parking lot. You've no sooner turned off the Prince before Casey is out the door and walking towards her class in a huff. Figures, you can manage to piss her off without even having to say anything.
You hit the steering wheel in frustration, saying "Fuck!" and slamming your palm down repeatedly. You dig your pack out of your backpack and light up a cigarette, smoking hurriedly before class starts. Taking angry huffs of smoke it isn't long before you hit filter and pull out the ashtray, stubbing out the ember and feeling hope die with it.
Classes are boring, and easy—at this point in the year there's really nothing to do but finals—and the day passes mostly without incident. Once, the two of you brush against each other in the halls and the shiver that runs down her spine is victory enough to lift your mood for the rest of the day. When she corners you by the Prince after school, backing you up against the door that you went to open for her, and demands that you "just drive," it feels like a punch to the gut. When you drive in silence for twenty minutes before pulling up in a parking lot your palms are sweaty and your nerves are shot. When she grips into your hair, all pretence of romance long gone, and drags your head over to her for a rough and spiteful kiss you start to bloom, and your lips are just ending their long treck down her body arriving at the tight seam between her legs and her pants are open but not down and you can't get close enough and even the smell of her- much less the taste- is enough to have you growling out her name and licking a long stripe across the front of her underwear. But then all at once it's winter and she's back in her seat and her pants are done up and the frost culls your smile. The drive home is just as silent.
If the rest of your family has noticed the feud they are resolutely remaining uninvolved. Just as well, it's not like either of you are in a rush to tell them what the past three years have entailed. Of all of them, Marti was the only one to ever broach the subject and even then it was incredibly vague. Two years into your affair and two months into your third and 'final' breakup and Marti simply walked into your room one night, and as you hastily wiped at your eyes she wrapped her arms around you and said, simply, "it's going to work out for the best you know. I can tell you love each other." You shrugged, morose, and then held onto her like a lifeline while you cried. It felt weird, the roles reversed and your younger sister rubbing your back consoling you. Before leaving she turned to you and said, "depression isn't a good look on you Derek. I thought we'd all learned that already." You laughed, an absurd noise bubbling up in your throat, and she closed your door behind her.
You find it almost suspicious that no one else has noticed, or if they have that no one else is getting involved. Dinner is, as always, a tense affair that has everyone going about their business and chatting idly all while giving you the distinct sense that they're walking on eggshells and quietly avoiding the elephant in the room. At one point Casey says something that's so obviously a set up for you to tease her, to keep up the pretenses, but it flies right past you and you only notice because everyone—even George and Nora—are looking to you expectantly. You just get up and take your plate to the kitchen, heading silently up to your room.
You wake from a restless slumber to see Casey silhouetted against your open door. She can obviously tell that you've woken up, because she takes a few tentative steps into your room before closing the door quietly. In the dark you hear her breathing, taking several false starts and finally saying, "are you ok?" It's a reflex but you still feel bad for laughing bitterly. "Just peachy, princess. Why do you ask?" She's at your bed and sitting down, now, grabbing your arm and pulling you up so your noses brush each other.
"Don't bullshit me right now, Derek. Everyone's starting to worry." You shrug and hope she knows it, from her deep sigh you think you succeed. Her hand is still on your arm, on your shoulder, and you can feel it becoming heavier with each breath. You lean in and kiss her, once, gently. Then her palm is splayed against your chest, her other hand fisting in your hair and pulling you in hungrily. Then she stops and stands, taking a few steps back in the darkness. "How long were you watching me sleep?" You ask, but there's no bite to it. You wait out her collecting herself and finally she says, "long enough to know you were having a nightmare." You lay back down and will her to move—either into your bed or out of your room—and she must, because when you wake up you're alone.
The week passes in more or less the same fashion; the two of you drowning in the frigid sea of radio silence, the family steadfastly ignoring the issue, even Marti has resumed the increasingly worried looks which preceded your previous encounter with her, and you and Casey bruising each other's lips and egos at random. To be fair, when you kissed her that night it was the first touch you initiated since your latest and longest-lasting breakup. She just can't seem to make up her damn mind, breaking things off and then kissing you whenever she's hungry only to pull back just as suddenly.
You can't fault her for that. You're just as addicted as she is, craving the taste of her every hour and you know that she is still in love with you. It's honestly painful how much you want her. Can't look at her without craving the sweet taste of her pussy, or the feeling of her quivering around your fingers or your dick. Just looking at her makes you hard and flushed like you're twelve again. You'd laugh at how pathetic you are, but you don't know if you're really capable of humor at this point. You can feel yourself plunging into another depression, worse, you think, than when your mom left. You realize why Marti is worried but you shouldn't have to tell her again. Last time…
Last time you were young and stupid and you'd told her, laying in a hospital bed with her little hands running slowly across your bandaged wrists that it was a mistake and it won't happen again. You meant it. You'd promised yourself that you'd never give anyone that much power over you ever again but somehow Casey had just snuck in under the radar and managed to bring you down from the inside without even trying. It makes you feel clownish, how infatuated you are. It makes you feel like a buffoon. Like a child.
School is coming to a close and with it an important chapter of your life. You don't like not knowing what's going to happen—have never liked surprises—and that sour feeling of dread is around you like a caul at all times. You wear anxiety like a jacket and regret wraps around your legs like chains.
It was hard, at the beginning, and really it still is. It was hard to sit across from her at the table and eat a meal with your family when all you could picture was the way she looked when you made her cum. Her eyes fluttering open to lock with yours, impossibly dark and pupils blown wide. Her lips parting and chanting your name like it's a curse and a prayer at the same time, then clamping onto your shoulder and stifling a moan with a bite.
It still is hard, not being able to get over her; not wanting to. And fuck you were both so stupid, doing this in the house, in your bedrooms, everywhere you could. Pure luck kept you from being found out and you loved how uncharacteristically risky she was being.
By your sixteenth birthday, early in August, you've spent just over a year guilt ridden by your feelings for Casey. George officially gives you the Prince but makes you promise to give Casey rides whenever she needs. Predictably, Casey responds by being as demanding as possible, forcing you to give her rides to the mall or the library or the museum 'Come on Derek you're already here won't you just come in with me?' or to the fucking library AGAIN and it isn't long before you've had it. You spend a full month arguing incessantly over which one needs to use the Prince when and it isn't until September that you shock her by beginning to acquiesce quietly every time. Once you've given up the fight she seems almost timid about asking you, starts taking the bus, and you realize that she enjoyed the arguments. She corners you in your room one evening and demands an explanation.
"For what?" you ask and she flinches, obviously not having thought the conversation through. "You're just… You're acting weird!" she replies and your eyebrows raise toward your hairline. She seems to realize the irony of her accusation and her eyes drop to the floor. You aren't sure what's going on but your heart is racing and your hands are trembling and so is your voice when you ask, "what is this really about, Case?" She stares at the ground for a full minute and then raises her eyes to meet yours. "Meet me in the garage later," she says before turning and walking out. She closes the door behind her and you look at the ceiling and drop backwards on to your bed, mouthing 'What the fuck was that?' to yourself before hearing her say "watch your mouth, Derek." from outside your door. You roll your eyes.
The garage is cold, your hands are stuffed into the pockets of your sweatshirt until you decide to pull out a cigarette and light up. Casey's kept you waiting for almost an hour; except, you realize, she never told you a time to meet her. You're taking turns inhaling smoke and frigid air but it isn't the off-season chill that's making you shiver. It seems like all of this with Casey has been building up to something and you can only hope that it's what you think it is. That she wants you too. You're still smoking when she opens the garage door, flinching at the smell and saying, "Gross Derek. When did you start smoking?" You shrug. You started at 14, but she doesn't need to know that. "Don't I look cool?" You ask sardonically.
"No. You look stupid. And that's going to kill you." She replies; not a trace of humor. "Good." You say.
She looks almost stricken when you say it, how casually you say it, and you could swear her eyes flicker down to your wrists but there's no way she knows. Marti wouldn't have told her and Edwin wouldn't have told her and George wouldn't have told her and you certainly didn't tell her. Now she's staring up at the ceiling, staring at the floor, at the Prince; everywhere except you.
"Have a seat, princess," you say after putting out your cig, gesturing at the hood of the car that's yours now, "you wanted to talk? Let's talk." She huffs, but obliges you. She's wearing a light blue sweater, and it keeps riding up. You can see her hipbones and her belly button and when she reaches up to stretch you can see the hem of the cotton panties she's wearing. You hope you don't blush. You hope your voice doesn't shake and you turn your attention resolutely forward and away from her and then you say, "Well, get on with it."
She stares at you for a while, you can see it from your peripheral and you still won't look at her and then she sighs. She seems to open her mouth to say something but the words keep dying on her lips and you finally turn to look at her and your eyes meet and nothing happens.
And nothing happens.
You don't know what to do—don't know what this is—and your head is swimming but you haven't been drinking and your fingers are twitching towards the pack in your pocket but you know if you light up she'll leave and this seems so close, so precariously on an edge that you can't let her leave but you don't know what to say and you're scared to do anything in case it tips and comes crashing down. "Casey—" You say at last but then she does the most absurd thing of all time. Casey McDonald says "Oh fuck it!" And then she kisses you. You kiss her back, of course you kiss her back, even if it takes you a second to get over the shock you are kissing her with every ounce of gusto you can muster.
It seems to last forever and only seconds long somehow simultaneously but then she pulls away, her eyes boring into yours and you're both breathing heavily—but all you did was kiss!—and then you see her realize what she's done. You see in her eyes when it hits her that whatever is happening between the two of you, there's no more deniability, there's no backtracking from here. So she panics, you can see her starting to panic and you reach out, to put a hand on her shoulder but she flinches and it hurts you so fucking bad that you storm out, lighting a cigarette on your way out the door and lighting seven more before you make it home early in the morning. She's in bed, everyone's in bed, or so you think. As you're closing the front door behind you, George coughs quietly from the living room. He looks mad until he sees your face and the tear tracks down your cheeks and the angry flush to your skin and then he just looks defeated; scared; mourning all over again. You tug the sweatbands up and show him that your wrists are clean—a custom that fell out of practice by the time you were 13—and he seems less sad; now he's angry though, and he goes to question you but you don't know what to say and you don't know what's going on so you just shrug and laugh bitterly, "Girls, right?" And George seems to understand, on some level, what you mean. So he just echoes your bitter laugh and waves you up the stairs. Your room is cold.
You wake up on Saturday after spending a week lost in nostalgia. You shuffle downstairs with pajama pants slung low around your hips. Casey is sitting at the table, reading. She glances up at you—her eyes meet yours then drift down, following the line of hair down from your belly button and then along your waistband; her eyes shift back to her book but there's a rigid tension in her posture you hadn't noticed before. You pour yourself some coffee and take a sip. It's cold.
"I was thinking about starting a band," you say while you brew a fresh pot. Casey holds up a finger, finishes the paragraph she's on, and then chuckles, looking back up at you. "You were what now?" She asks, and you roll your eyes. It seems almost like a return to whatever you two used to call 'normal.' You repeat yourself. Casey laughs and then, her eyes a dare, she says, "do it." She returns to her book. You head back up to your room but something feels different. Something is shifting and you don't know where. The two of you go back to your usual banter, and the family seems to heave a collective sigh. Tension leaves the household altogether and things are better than they've been in a long time.
You blink and it's Monday. You blink and it's Monday. You blink and it's been a few Mondays and now the two of you have graduated. Summer is setting and you and Casey are getting along great. For the most part, things are back to normal. You seem to have reached a truce; you aren't together again, and you aren't fucking, but you're friends. It seems nice, but you know deep down that the two of you were never, and never will be just friends. You can tell that with the two of you it's all or nothing. For now, though, you seem to be fine. At times it feel precarious, but most of the time you've been relaxed and happy in a way you'd almost forgotten about.
You're sitting in the park. A cigarette is in your right hand but it hasn't been lit because Casey's head is in your lap and your left hand is running through her hair and your back is up against a big tree and it's nice. She's halfway through her third book of the summer when you decide you're bored. You grab the book from her and she scrabbles up, shouting "Der-ek" in the way she used too. She reaches out for it and you hold it behind you. She's smiling and laughing. She leans in again but this time you lean in to meet her. Her smile dies and she shifts back, her lips drawing away from yours. You see her eyes glancing around, assessing the group milling about. She stands up and brushes off the back of her skirt. You're staring at her long legs as she says, "meet me in the garage later," and walks away. You light your cigarette.
It feels like déjà vu, chainsmoking in the garage and waiting for Casey to show up; this time, though, the garage is stifling hot instead of cold. Even still, you feel frigid air in your lungs. You're leaned up against the Prince's hood, stubbing out your fourth cigarette when Casey walks in. She won't look at you and she's quiet and you can feel your gut turning into lead. She's leaning next to you, and it's so silent your ears are aching. Finally, she says, "Fuck it, wanna get some beer?"
It's certainly not what you expected, but you'll take it. You follow her out around the back and head for the little corner store near the park. It's not quite your birthday yet, but you've had a fake ID for years and are no stranger to this particular store. The two of you continue on, sitting again beneath that big tree, and you clank your cans together and swallow. It's been quiet since you left the house; you aren't exactly sure what to say since Casey called this meeting. You try to relax but the tension has you shivering in the heat. "I don't know what to do, Derek," she says and you can't help the laugh you choke out.
"That's your game changing revelation, Case? That we both have no idea what is going on between us, or how to fix it? Did ya miss the memo? We've known that since this started, sweetheart." You can't help but vent now, after all the build up and anxiety. You finish your beer and grab a new one, handing one to Casey too. She swallows the dregs of hers, making a sour face, and cracks the second. "Look, Case. I don't know how this is going to turn out. But I love you. I know that., And something else I know is that love is always worth it. Stop fighting this, Case."
She's quiet again, but now she's looking right at you. She's thinking for a while, and you both keep drinking in the mean time. She makes a few false starts and then collects her self, taking in a deep breath and releasing it in a long sigh. "You know, I don't think you've ever said it to me before." She says. You feel odd, having finally said everything you'd wanted to, and the entire situation suddenly amazes you. "This is absurd," you say and then you're laughing. And she's laughing. And you keep drinking.
By the time you reach your final two beers the two of you are laying side by side, abs sore from laughter and cheeks wet with tears, brainstorming names for your band. "Full Monty." You say and Casey laughs, "no that's terrible," and you both laugh. "How about Escapism." She says and you pause, nodding sagely. "Definitely more of an album title," you say. "You should just name it after a celebrity," she says.
It's July, the night is warm and your spirit feels light. The stars are out, but you aren't looking. You're walking home with someone you love and your hands are wrapped up together and you remember joy. Inside the house is quiet, and your footsteps sound like cannons. At your door you stop her with a hand, and you lean in and kiss her. Quietly, quickly. And you go to bed. Your room is cold, but your blanket is warm, and your pillows are soft, and you dream about her eyes.
