Let Your Hair Down
Oranges and Cigarettes
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Full Summary: In between their last exams and graduation, Casey and Cappie convince each other to go on a road trip that leads them across the country and straight to Sin City.
Author's Notes: My first 1st person POV! And most of it's in past tense, which is also rare.
I'm not exactly sure how I got here. I mean, I know how I got here; I put one foot ahead of the other until I reached the alter, and now I'm waiting for the wedding, my wedding to start. But the rest of it happened so fast that I think the only thing I am sure of is that it started with me heading to the library and somehow ended up with me trying not to trip as I walked down the aisle.
I still have no idea what it was that compelled me to head to the library. I rarely, if ever, went there; every paper I wrote was 40 percent bullshit, 30 percent things I read off of wikipedia, and 10 percent facts I remembered from class, high school, or reruns of Jeopardy. And so the library was the one place on campus I was rarely seen. But I'd taken my last exam and had two weeks to kill before I finally graduated. Most of my friends still had exams to take and were trapped in the KT house, memorizing the answers to the old tests I'd given them. I was bored out of my skull and took a walk, hoping to find something anything exciting.
For some reason, my feet interpreted those thoughts as a subconscious desire to go to the library, despite the fact that it is, with the possible exception of a Psi Phi Pi party, the least interesting place on campus. I had nothing better to do, though, so I headed inside to escape the boiling heat. I went up to the top floor, by the paleontology textbooks, the only place in the library I'd spent any significant amount of time. It's where I met Becca for our library rendezvous. I suppose I was feeling a little nostalgic; I hadn't been with anyone seriously since she broke up with me halfway through last summer. She'd said something about refusing to be dumped for Casey and that she was leaving me before I left her.
I didn't expect anyone to be up there and was surprised when I heard muffled cries coming from behind one of the stacks. I was even more surprised when I saw it was Casey Cartwright holding back tears. She was sitting on the ground, her arms wrapped around her legs and her face pressed into her jean-clad knees. I'd never seen her so small, so vulnerable. She looked lost. The whole thing felt foreign to me; Casey was almost always in control. Even if she had no power to stop what was going on around her, she always acted like she did. She never hid in the library, crying where no one could see her.
I sat down beside her and gingerly patted her on the back. "Case… what's wrong?" She didn't move or speak. She acted like I wasn't there. I moved to crouch in front of her, taking one of her hands and using the other to lift her face up from her knees. "It's me. You can tell me anything. What's wrong?"
It took her a few seconds in order to calm down enough to be able to talk. "I finished my last final today and I came her to print out a paper for extra credit, and I realized that it's all over. And in a month, I'm moving to New York to work with this company, and I don't know anyone there and I can't do it."
I almost laughed at how ridiculous she was being, but I held it in. "What are you talking about? You're one of the most capable people I know."
She shook her head. "It's not the same, Cappie. The real world isn't like CRU. I'll have to find an apartment and make new friends and buy new winter clothes and I don't know how to do any of it."
I couldn't hold back a smile this time. There was no way Casey couldn't handle that stuff. "Buying an apartment is easy, Case. You just look through the paper, find one you like, pay for it, and move in. And making friends? Don't be ridiculous, you've never had trouble making friends."
"Yeah, because I'm in a sorority. One of the reasons I rushed was to make friends. It's a lot easier when you're forced to be around them."
"You made friends with Ashleigh before either of you joined ZBZ."
"That doesn't count; we just started talking in the laundry room one day."
I let go of her hand and scooted over next to her. "That's how friendships work. You meet someone and talk to them, and if you want to, you keep meeting up with them and talking to them."
"And what about winter clothes? It never gets below 65 degrees here! I don't even have a jacket."
I snickered and she looked almost offended. "Oh, come on, when have you ever had trouble shopping."
She started laughing, too. Finally, I thought, she's back to normal. "Thanks, Cap."
I stood up, and extended her a hand. "Anytime, sweet heart. So, are you busy? We can go to Dobblers and celebrate the end of exams."
I expected her to say no, that she had to meet Ashleigh or Spitter or someone, but she agreed. She dropped off her paper and we walked over to our favorite bar. I tried not to think about the fact that I would only be back here a few more times.
"So," she said, turning to me, "what are you doing next year?"
"I'm actually moving to New York, too. Wade's older brother has a party planning business there, and who knows more about parties than us?" I hadn't focused on the fact that she was moving to the same city as I am when she was melting down earlier, but now that I thought about it I realized that it was a ridiculous coincidence.
She squealed, excited, and then smacked me on the arm. "You idiot, you couldn't mention that when I was freaking out about not having any friends?"
I laughed a little, only have joking when I rubbed the spot where she slapped me. Girl can pack a punch. "It slipped my mind, what can I say? Come on, I'll buy you other drink to make up for it."
One drink became six, then eight over the course of the night. Dobblers was slowly emptying as we sat there, drinking ourselves silly. "You know what'd be fun?"
"What?" I asked, smiling. I loved Casey when she was drunk. Sober, too, but that was I thought I didn't let myself dwell on too much.
"If we took a trip! We have two weeks until graduation, let's go somewhere!"
That's the last thing I remember. I recall random flashes, hopping a bus, stumbling out of a cab, trying eight times to open the motel room door before realizing I was using my house key, but the rest of it's a blur. The next thing I can truly remember is waking, fully clothed, on the bathroom floor of some motel.
I sat up too quickly, which only exacerbated my pounding headache. Casey was in there, washing her face and looking as miserable as I felt. "Where are we? And why am I in the bathroom?"
She jumped a little when I spoke. I guess she didn't realize I was awake. "We're in Tennessee. I don't why we're here, though. I think last night we wanted to go on a trip."
I started to piece together the night before. "I think you wanted to go on a trip. And the bathroom?"
She blushed and I grinned. Hopefully this was a good story, one that involved her drunkenly showering in front of me, or something like that. "I uh… started throwing up. And you held my hair back and then we decided to just lie down on the bathroom floor. And you fell asleep."
Damn. "Oh well. Come on, let's get out of here." We made sure we had all of our things (apparently we'd drunkenly packed for our trip last night, as we both had bags with a few changes of clothes and at least a months worth of underwear. I also had one flipper, for reasons unbeknownst to me. We slowly made our way out of the motel and into the bright sunshine. The bus station was walking distance away and so we headed down the sidewalk.
On the way, a bright yellow sign for a car rental company caught my eye. "Casey," I said, stopping short and grabbing her hand. "Why do we have to go back right away?"
"What are you talking about? Of course we have to go back." She let go of my hand and started walking up the sidewalk
"Why? We have classes, no exams, nothing to do for two weeks. Why don't we take a real trip? One we remember?"
She stopped. She was listening to me, at least. I ran over to her. "Come on, unwind a little bit. Let your hair down. It'll be a last hurrah before have to work for the rest of our lives." She was wavering, I could tell. "We'll go to Disneyland…" I knew that would get her; she's been dreaming about going there since she was five.
"Alright, I'm in. But you're paying."
So, it starts. I'm excited for where this is going to go. I know I'm a bit vague when it comes to Casey's major and profession, and I know that the fact that they're both going to NY is a bit of a stretch, but work with me here.