She finds it buried beneath a stack of sorority t-shirts, college yearbooks, party invitations and other relics of her Cyprus Rhodes past. It's been years since she looked in this box, a collection of memories from a lifetime before this one. Casey hardly remembers what it's like to be that girl. She hasn't been the golden girl of ZBZ in a decade. She's just a mom now, a lawyer and a wife. And yet, as soon as she finds that long-forgotten lavaliere tucked in a velvet bag, she is transformed back to a warm September afternoon in a driveway, staring up into a pair of blue eyes she knew as well as her own.
Casey has known this moment was coming for weeks. She had discussed it at length with Ashleigh on more than one occasion over drinks at Dobbler's and a few sleepless nights at the house. Between classes and ZBZ duties and putting up with Rusty, it felt like the only bright spot in her life sometimes. She had so much hope for a future with Evan, an optimism she had never quite had with Cappie. It wasn't that she hadn't loved him – she had loved him more than she could ever quite explain – but that relationship had always felt like it had an expiration date. With Evan, she could see the future that they would have someday.
And that's why she isn't at all surprised but completely exhilarated when he pulls out the gold necklace and clasps it around her neck. It had been official for awhile, but this was a Greek right of passage that every girl on Sorority Row waited for. "I love you, Case," he whispers as he pulls away and then leans down for a kiss. As if on cue, her sorority sisters filter onto the lawn and his frat brothers come out of the bushes. There is applause and she blushes and he laughs because he's pretty sure she's the most beautiful girl he's ever seen.
Casey pulls the necklace out of the bag and hands it over. Her daughter turns it over in her palm and smiles at her as she tells the story about how she once knew a boy named Evan who gave it to her. Then the girl next door comes over to ask her daughter to play and Casey is left alone with her box of memories. It's been a long time since she thought of that moment, this one day that had been so randomly perfect that she still cherished it years later. And when her husband comes in, she is still holding that necklace in her lap.
"What do you have there?" he asks as he slinks to the ground next to her, kissing the side of her neck while looking over her shoulder at the piece of treasured jewelry. "That looks familiar."
"It should, it was the first piece of jewelry you ever gave me," she grins. Evan takes the necklace from her and clasps it around her neck just as he had so long ago. And then he leans forward and whispers that he loves her and kisses her soundly in their sunny attic. "I love you, too, Ev. We should probably get started on dinner."
He smiles at her and nods, helping her to her feet while talking about a case he is working on with Legal Aid. She nods in all the right places and murmurs her opinion a time or two, but mostly, she's just caught up in those blue eyes. She still remembers what it's like to be that girl – the one that he is looking at now with that smile and she knows that this moment is so much better, just a cool April evening in a kitchen, staring up into a pair of blue eyes she'll know for the rest of her life.