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"You've never wanted to hurt me," Sally says quietly in her ear. "I know that. Thank you for having me."

Then the hug ends and Sally opens the door. She says nothing about Derek directly, and Casey has no reason to believe that she spoke to him before leaving, either. Lyra talks with Sally about the dorm assignment issue at her 'real' school-the issue that kept her here so long-and the other girl's big blue eyes display both relief and discomfort as she speaks. She hugs Lyra, who does her eye-rolling, I'm-too-cool-for-this thing, and makes sure to look back-and-forth a bit between her two roommates, embarrassing them both. It's all so anticlimactic but undeniably uncomfortable that Casey doesn't know what to do with herself after Sally has started down the stairs at the end of the hall. She feels so guilty.

Lyra closes the door and leans against it, focused on Casey.

"What happens now?" she asks.

She wants to hide, to sleep, to have a slow, gentle make-out with Derek, to pretend that there never was a mess to begin with, or perhaps to rewind time. Thinking of "Fringe", she wonders if her alternate universe self would handle this situation differently.

"I don't know yet," she says to Lyra, her fingers tracing her cell phone in the privacy of her sweatshirt's big pocket. "It's too soon to tell."

Lyra scoffs and walks away. Now she's alone at last.

Casey holds her textbook closer to her face, muttering, "Me gusta leer en la biblioteca en mis días libres de las clases," then closes her eyes briefly, sighing. "Es decir, he leído en el día tengo libre de la escuela y la irritante Derek."

The door to her dorm room is closed and locked.

"What're you doing, geek?" asks the aforementioned young man's voice.

"Go away."

"And spread further awareness of my good looks and solid muscles? I'd like to, but my dad and Nora wouldn't like that; not when their little Casey is-"

"I'm not debilitated, Derek. Que estoy haciendo realmente bien."

"So you say. Speaking of which…how well did you drag your way through classes yesterday? Did you pass out on a guy?" Derek sits in his damn armchair, facing her directly. "Please say you did."

"I'm not 100% yet, but close to it!" Casey retorts.

"You're out of turkey."

"Fascinating," she answers, and with that, she's reading again.

"You should get more, since some people like turkey sandwiches."

"Leave me alone, Derek."

"I need to make sure you're not starving and pale, curled up in the corner with a book. I see you're halfway there, though, so…points for taking a step back."

Casey sets her book down, her fingertip tracing the aged binding.

"Stop it!" she shoots back, trying not to get loud. "Don't you have things to do? You must have a test you could pretend to study for, or girls to hit on, or keg stands-"

"It's not even noon yet."

"That encourages my surprise that you're here, since…it's morning."

"Just eat something and I'll go."

She tilts her head. "What? You wouldn't make it that easy. Where's the catch? Did you booby-trap the refrigerator?"

"There is no booby-trap," Derek replies, a grin working its way across his lips. "There is only Zule."

His step-sister groans, leaning back dramatically. She lets her head flop against the cushioned back.

He reiterates. "You eat now, I leave."

As Casey stands and moves toward the fridge, she thinks about Derek's hair, the way happiness sometimes warms his eyes, the fact that she blacked out in front of him just two days ago, and…it's just so unfair that he's bossing her around in her own dorm room.

"Who bought this 'I'd Rather Be in Paris' pillow?"

She opens the door to the refrigerator and tries to pay attention to the task at hand.

Apparently Derek isn't giving up easily. He has taken to meandering about the room, taking in the two CD stands and the magazine pages taped to one wall. "Who would name their kid Ingrid? That's just mean."

Casey sighs and looks through her eating options.

"Who is Ingrid Michaelsen anyway?"

Now she caves. "Der-ek!" Then she imagines he's smirking and decides to have one of the microwavable pasta meals she keeps in a small stack in one of the kitchen's few cupboards. "Just leave it alone."

Once the machine's proper buttons have been pushed, Casey turns to face the other room, kind of slow like she's seen in high-tension reunions in movies. Right on cue, Derek is staring directly at her.

"You really have changed the way you look at me, and not in a good way." He tells her, his voice lower than before.

The moment is now uncomfortable for Casey, like the times she watched "Coffee Prince" or "Tool Academy".

"Is that…" Casey reaches up to push hair behind her ear. "What's bothering you?"

Derek sighs and rubs the back of his neck. "I don't like the changes between us," he says. "But…" His eyes flick to the picture wall and back to Casey. "Um…Just eat something so I can go."

Derek hasn't brought an elephant into the room. He brought a whole zoo.

He's tinkering with his roommate's remote control car when she shows up. Something's off about the energy that floats between them, and Casey hasn't even stepped through the doorway yet. As she takes off her jacket, her gaze never leaves the subtle movements of Derek's face as he focuses on the little remote control car.

"You…" she closes the door to his dorm room as quietly as she can. "You called me…?"

"You kicked me out yesterday," he says calmly. "I had more to say."

Ah, yesterday, when he wanted to stake claim on some of her groceries and play nurse for a second and-oh yeah-pull a Sex and the City 2 Carrie act by calling Casey out on their recent lack of relationship, as if things between them can be mended by togetherness and jewelry. Derek has [in a fashion she's accustomed to with guys], left her to decide whether or not they would try to be an item. He put his hands into the pockets of his Army fatigue jacket and gave up the say he could've had. Moments like the basketball game throw her off of that thought and once again make his name synonymous with 'uh-oh'. She has no interest in feeling the confusion of that and the life-changing night ever again. The uncertainty, the idea that Derek may have only wanted to date her out of misplaced, false nobility-Casey remembers clearly that it made her cry, made her feel used.

These days, she wants to bravely forge ahead and ignore the questions that her step-brother's behavior brings up.

Derek is holding her gaze now, so she reaches up to play with a few strands of her hair.\

"I…I don't know what you want from me exactly. Do you…" Her throat is now suspiciously dry. "want a girlfriend or is this pity?"

His forehead relaxes somehow.

"You've been pushing the world away," he tells her, getting to his feet, the little toy car forgotten. "I know it's because of things between us, and whatever happened, it's not over."

She swallows. "When will it be?" she inquires, her voice unusually quiet. "I thought it was up to me, and it seems like you've changed your mind. What does that mean?"

"What does it mean?" He sounds confused.

She takes a deep breath. "Yeah, you want something from me, but I think about…that day…when you made it sound like there might be pity or this awful sense of obligation. I mean, you assumed we'd be together after that, and…I don't know where that came from, with the way you were talking."

This has to be one of the toughest conversations she's ever had with Derek.

"I'm the villain, then?" he replies. "Where's my animal sidekick and song-and-dance number?"

She rolls her eyes, but avoids meeting his gaze. She's sick of letting him see her tears.

"I was giving you what I thought you wanted." He tells her.

She studies the wall, the doorframe.

"Casey, say something."

"Shut up, Derek. You always want to take charge like this, but…we went about this the wrong way. In the…motel room…after…" she makes a very vague hand gesture. "We handled that so badly. Do you want us to be together properly, where you aren't such an ass#%&? That's hard for me to wrap my mind around, but if that's what you intended to offer the first time around, tell me now! If you still want that, tell me now!"

Horror of horrors, she sniffles in that telltale way.

"There's a tissue box over-"

She glares at him. "I know, Derek."

"I haven't really left you alone-"

"I noticed."

His eyes narrow. "That should be a sign."

"So you weren't toying with me that night?"

"No. I was being a wimp, but no, I wasn't trying to be a bastard…not really," he gestures. "Take the couch. I know that getting angry takes a lot out of a person."

"After some of our fights, I took naps." Casey says as she sits down, the remote control car on the cushion between her and where Derek stands.

He moves the little car to the small coffee table nearby.

Things are getting better.

That following Thursday, Casey is heading to her friend Mandy's dorm, hoping to watch a couple of weird movies and listen to Mandy's clever jokes that have as many pop culture references as Annie the Orphan has freckles when she sees Derek sitting in a lawn chair in front of his assigned dormitory, a nearly-full bottle of beer in his hand. She doesn't understand why he's chosen to do this or how he gets to chill in a foldable chair like that without an R.A. or dorm mail room girl stopping to check his forehead. He's watching the sun set, its path leaving behind a large array of purples bruising the sky in sensuous shapes. There's no way that Derek could have missed that she was approaching him, considering the direction she'd come from, and now she doesn't know what to do with her hands as she steps from loose gravel to grass, getting closer to him. She hasn't seen him move in at least a minute.

"Casey," he says, standing. "'S up?"

She tilts her head like a puppy would, hoping it looks just as cute on her.

"I'm okay. How are you? How did that test go for that graphic design class?"

He shrugs, subconsciously also moving that attractive hair of his and makes the following sound like one word: "It was all right; Look, I want a beer-you thirsty?"

It has to be just after 4pm. Casey wrinkles her nose.

"Oh, that's right," he says. "That wouldn't be lady-like."

"Shut up, Derek."

"Where were you headed?"

"I was going to see my friend Mandy."

"A surprise visit, maybe?"

Casey tries not to show that she's the one surprised. "What makes you guess that?"

"Honestly," Derek replies, rubbing the back of his neck and simultaneously giving that very male upward head-jerk of greeting to a passing blond guy in a polo shirt. "I saw her kissing Dave from down the hall just about thirty minutes ago. Y' know, before I came out here."

"So you think she's busy right now."

"I don't remember seeing her pass me to walk back to her dorm."

"Maybe she's stealthy."

"Do you mean Operation Purple Fog Part 2?"

Casey gulps. Like, literally gulps…when she doesn't need to swallow.

"How would you…" she trails off when a genuine smile appears on his face. "I…What made this…" She clears her throat, shakes her hair. "You know what? I'll take that drink."

"You will? I'll make your usual, then; a double of Maker's Mark, up."

She ignores that last one as his hands warm her lower back and she kisses him (a kiss that's innocent but sound).

This page was last modified on 24 October 2010 at 4:08pm.