Returning Home

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Life With Derek, which includes original settings, plotlines and/or characters. What I do own is whatever my imagination produces for you all to read.

Author's Note: I am trying something a little different. I will only post the first chapter here. The rest will be found at the site named on my profile.

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Prologue

It was a somewhat cloudy day when she entered the office of one of the university's guidance counselors. She had never felt the need to visit one, not since she left the insanity that was her life in high school. Her life had become pretty stable since then and the need for third party advice in her life became nonexistent. However, that all changed the afternoon before when her doctor called her to deliver the shocking results of the test that was to determine the cause of her supposed flu.

The guidance counselor sitting behind the maple desk was an older balding man with wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. His office was cluttered with paperwork, books and other various items. The man looked up from the notebook that he had been writing in and smiled at her, beckoning her to come further inside with a wave of his hand. She gingerly took a seat in one of the armchairs across from the counselor and waited expectantly for the man to talk.

"Hello, I'm Howard Jacobs. Is this your first time coming to a guidance counselor?" the man asked.

"No, but it has been a while. I'm not really certain how or where to start."

"Why don't you start with your name and a little about where you grew up?" Howard suggested.

"My name is Casey MacDonald. I grew up in Canada, Ontario to be exact. I spent fifteen years in Toronto and three in another town called London. The number of people in my senior class that actually made it to graduation was minuscule, only seventy-one of us were included in the ceremony. I was not the valedictorian like I'd always dreamed of being; some confusion with one of my transferred credits prevented it from happening. However, it was a gift in disguise because it allowed for there to be less pressure put upon me and I was able to just enjoy our senior activities."

"And what was your family like?"

"It depends on which family you mean. There is my biological family and there is my stepfamily. And then there's the side of the family which belongs to Lizzie's father but I never discuss them because neither my sister nor I ever felt welcome around them," Casey replied.

"Then how about you start with your biological family," he said.

"My mom is one of the most beautiful people that I have ever seen in my life. A lot of people say that I take after her while Lizzie, my sister, greatly resembles her father. My mother is an intellect above all and prides herself on the greatness of her intelligence. My sister is a sports fanatic and has been for as long as I can remember. She's eighteen now, in her senior year of high school and on her way to getting more than one offer to play on a university soccer team. She just realized that boys can be used for more than teammates last year and has been dating off and on since then."

Howard smiled. "And what about your step-family? What are they like?"

"Well, there's Marti who was the only girl in a family of boys until we came along. She would be about twelve now and in grade six. I talk to her at least once a week, mostly because she's the one who always answers the phone when I call home. Then, there's Edwin who is one of my stepbrothers and only a little younger than Lizzie. I think he might be more into girls than his brother was at that age. He's got a new girlfriend every other week and those are just the ones that I know about. George is my stepfather and he's like a big kid himself. He's great with Lizzie and although I consider him more my mother's husband than my father, we've had our own little moments. And Derek, my other stepbrother, is someone I'd rather not talk about right now."

"Now, tell me a little bit about your father."

"I can assure you that there isn't much to tell about him. He got my mother pregnant with me then decided that he just couldn't handle being a father so chose not to be one. I've never met him and I've never really wanted to meet him," Casey replied with a shrug of her shoulders.

"And what about Lizzie's father? You've mentioned him a few times."

"My mother married him when I was three and I thought he was my father until I found out differently at fourteen. He walked out on us when I was twelve and Lizzie was nine. Neither of us fully understood what was going on at the time, we only knew that our parents wouldn't stop fighting. Only a week after the divorce was finalized, he married his mistress. He tried to include us in his new life at the beginning but when our new stepmother got pregnant, the calls became fewer and the visits even less. Lizzie was heartbroken when they ultimately stopped but I...I think I had numbed myself as much as any teenage girl knows how to do. I just accepted things as they were and moved on."

"When was the last time that you saw your family?"

"That would be the night that I finally left Canada. I got a scholarship and early admittance here. A lot of things were going on right before I left so I would have pretty much jumped at any chance to escape. When I was younger, I studied hard because I thought that was what good little girls were supposed to do. I stopped obsessing about school and all that went along with it when I hit junior high because of my parents' divorce and the fact that I felt the need to be a little rebellious. But it became prudent again when I moved in with my new family because I wanted an out and I saw college as my out. And it especially became more important my senior year."

"Earlier, you said that you'd rather not talk about your stepbrother Derek. Did he have anything to do with how desperate you became to leave home?" Howard inquired.

Casey nodded. "Yeah, it had a lot to do with Derek. Our relationship changed that last year I spent at home. It went from being a sibling rivalry to being so much more than that. It spun out of control real quick and I don't think either of us knew exactly how to deal. So, I decided that it would be best if I just bowed out. He never even knew that I was planning to leave until the night before I did."

"Have you seen him since that night?"

"Once, I saw him once in the three years since leaving. It was a brief sighting that I'm not even sure happened. I was visiting a friend in New York during our winter vacation and we were out shopping. We were just heading into a small café for lunch when I spotted Derek across the street. When I looked back, there was no sign of him and it was as if he had completely disappeared off the radar. I never questioned it. I just took the sighting as a figment of my overactive imagination."

"Casey, it sounds as though you still have a lot of unfinished business that still needs to be dealt with back home. Do you plan to go back there sometime in the near future?" he questioned.

"Actually, I am already planning to go. I've already worked it out with my employer and I'm going to spend the holiday there instead of here working. I need to tell them some things, some news that I don't think they'll take very well and could very well kill my mother. And not only am I worried about the reaction that she will have, I'm afraid of what Derek might say or do. I still care about him. The feelings that we shared don't go away as easily as one might want them to. And the news that I have for him will be something that will most likely make him look at me more differently than he ever has before. That's something that scares the shit out of me."

"And what kind of news would that be?"

"My news is that I'm twenty-one, halfway through my third year of school and I'm pregnant. The father of my baby is married with no intention of leaving his wife, which is something I know I never should have expected to happen in the first place. And since I have no one here, I am crawling back to my family in hopes that I'll have someone there," Casey confessed.

After she spoke those words, she watched as an expression of stunned surprise came upon his face. "And are you going to keep the baby?" he asked.

"I never gave any thought to giving him or her up for adoption. And abortion is out of the question. Don't get me wrong, I believe that a woman has the right to choose what she wants to do with her body and that includes the whole issue of abortion. But it's not the right option for me," Casey told him. "Well, I better get going. I still have things to pack and I leave on the first flight out in the morning. If I do decide to come back for school, I'll be sure to contact you and let you know how everything went. Thank you for your time."

With that, Casey stood and walked out of the office.