"You've been waiting a long time to see this, haven't you? Your big brother dating your big sister," Cap says to me amidst the preparations for the first and probably ever early KT graduation.
He's been smiling since the day after Thanksgiving, glowing from every angle of his body, and barely spending anytime without the fairer Cartwright attached to his hip. But Cap is correct.
I remember the first time that I saw Cappie and Casey look at each other.
We were at Dobler's the day after I hit Evan with my Omega Chi pledge paddle and decided to rush Kappa Tau. Cappie was already hazing the shit out of me, a mere twelve hours after taking me up as a pledge. So I was standing there in my dress, wig, and pearls, when Casey and Evelyn Lame-bers approached. While I groaned internally and imagined 47 different ways to remove Evan's head from his body, I noticed Cappie seethe outwardly.
"Hey Case. Evan."
"Wow, Dad would be so proud." She giggled and continued. "Evan and I talked, and we agreed that since you're both going to be in my life, you guys should try to get along." Casey hugged Evan's arm, giving Cappie more unnecessary ammunition.
"Look Case, it's not that Evan and I don't get along—" Cap's sarcastic rhetoric flared up.
"She wasn't talking to you, jackass," Evan spat, barely glancing in Cappie's direction, attempting to make allegiance with me. Too bad I had already picked my enemies and my allies at this point.
Right there. That's when I saw it.
Casey peered up from her eyes into Cappie's. And I realized why Cap was so pissed. Why he would do anything to destroy Evan Chambers. Why he would do anything to make sure that Casey or I never got hurt or in trouble. All it took was one look at my big brother (though at the time he hadn't become that yet) and my big sister.
Green met blue, and it seemed as though they were suspended in time, creating their own gravity. I would come to see more of these what I could come to call "Case and Cap moments" over the next two years. They were hard to ignore because they happened almost every time green met blue. At the gym during intramural floor hockey, when Evan lavaliered her, at the Greek Ball round dos, during spring break over sandcastles, at Casino Night, the first time he saw her with Max, in the KT living room during midterm week, after the End of the World party in the chem lab, in Dobler's during a buzzing happy hour, and ultimately at Thanksgiving. There green met blue, and the world stopped. Cause my big brother and big sister had finally figured it out.
But right then and there in Dobler's, during my first week of freshman year, I knew why Cappie would battle Evan Chambers for the right reasons for the two following years. All it took was one look of green meeting blue.
"You've been waiting a long time to see this, haven't you? You're big brother dating your big sister," I said to Rusty, dropping a box full of Cheesaritos on the ground next to the staircase. It still amazed me that Heath was graduating, and early at that. He still didn't know which way was left and which was right.
I was glowing. I couldn't help it. I finally, after three desperate years of pining and waiting, was with the girl.
"Maybe," Rusty responded, big old grin slapped across his face.
I remember the first time that Rusty saw Casey and I look at each other. He once told me that from the first instance that he saw the token "Case and Cap moment", he knew it was only a matter of time. When green met blue, Rusty asked me if the world stopped and melted. He asked if Casey and I created our own gravity. Though I laughed at his ridiculousness, I knew what he meant. At the gym during the intramural floor hockey game, when Evan lavaliered her, at the Greek Ball round dos, during spring break over sandcastles, at Casino Night, the first time I saw her with Max, in the KT living room during midterm week, after the End of the World party in the chem lab, in Dobler's during a buzzing happy hour, and ultimately at Thanksgiving.
Imagine what it felt like to be in my shoes. Powerless before her leaf green siren's gaze, it wasn't that the world stopped and we created our own gravity or other some weird science thing. It was like gravity moved and the world had a new center point: her and nothing else.
And it was terrifying because nothing else mattered. I'd be anything that she wanted me to be, just to make her happy. And after three unsuccessful years, her gravity had whirled and come full circle. Because finally green met blue again, and we finally got it.
All it took was one look.