This appointment she's doing alone. She doesn't need the boys going to blows over who the father is any more. She doesn't need the stress. She doesn't need the puppy dog eyes and the ex-boyfriends hanging around just because they might have knocked her up.
She doesn't even want to think about them hanging around because they still love her.
So she's doing this alone, which was the plan all along, until Wade and Beaver told Cappie and Cappie told Rusty and Rusty told Evan and…everything blew up in her face.
"Casey," Julie says opening the door to the exam room. Casey hadn't heard her knock and is caught a bit off guard. "Are you ready?"
"Ready as I'll ever be," Casey mumbles back.
It takes forty-eight hours for DNA testing to be complete, so Casey's a bit surprised when she gets a call from Rose at Cyprus Women's Health Center asking her to come by the office on Sunday afternoon at six-fifteen. Surprising because first of all, the appointment is after hours and secondly, the time puts it at forty-two hours since the test.
"Hi, Casey," Julie greets as Casey opens the door to the waiting room. She's alone, except for Rose, whose packing up her stuff and heading home for the day. "Why don't you come on back?"
Casey dutifully follows the doctor back past the exam rooms and the nurse's station to her office and Julie motions for her to take a seat.
"Is…is something wrong?" Casey asks as she sinks into the chair across from Julie's desk.
"No, there's nothing wrong with the baby," Julie assures her as she opens a manila folder and Casey sighs with relief. "I got your paternity test results back."
"Those weren't supposed to be in until ten tonight," Casey reminds her.
"Well, apparently, there isn't a lot of DNA that needed processing in Cleveland this weekend. Must be the criminal's labor day weekend," Julie says trying to get a smile from her very nervous patient. "So we got you're results back early."
"Okay," Casey drawls out as she chews on her bottom lip.
"As you know, they took the baby's preliminary DNA and compared it to yours to rule out…"
"I know how it works," Casey snaps before her voice softens out of desperation. "Can…can you just tell me who it is?"
"Okay," Julie says nodding her head. "Casey, it's…"
"Casey," his voice calls out to her as he attempts to catch up to her. "Casey!"
She pulls her half-chewed finger nail out of her mouth as she turns around to face him. He shakes his head with bewilderment at her tear stained face and puffy eyes.
"Are you okay?" He asks lifting his hand to touch her face before he realizes what he's doing and drops it back to his side uselessly.
"I'm fine," she assures him but he doesn't believe her for one second. "Whadda need?"
"I just wanted to give you the heads up that Kyle is going to stop by and invite the ZBZs to mix with us in honor of restrictions being lifted and all."
"Ashleigh already told me…but that's not why you've stopped me in the middle of the sidewalk."
"No," he says. "My parents are going to be heading through Cyprus on Wednesday and I thought that this would be a good time to tell them."
"Tell them what?" Casey asks, although she is pretty sure she could guess what he means in less than three tries.
"About the…you know," he replies eyeing her stomach.
"Don't worry about it," she says shaking her head and begins to turn back around before he grabs her arm to stop her.
"I know you're putting the baby up for adoption but I have to tell them. I want to tell them," he says dropping his gaze so his connects with hers.
"You don't understand," she replies. "You don't need to."
"Dammit, Casey, I want to," he replies, his voice full of frustration.
"No," she replies as almost a whisper. "You don't have to because you're not the father."
"What?" he asks his voice cracking.
"You're not the father, Evan," she repeats as he sinks down onto the bus station bench and she shifts from one foot to the other unsure if she should sit down next to him or keep walking.
"How…how do you know?" He asks her and she decides to take a seat next to him.
"I took a test and the results came back today," she replies.
"Oh," he whispers and they both let this realization sink in without another word between them.
"I kinda figured. We were having so many problems and…"
"Weren't having sex frequently," she mumbles.
"I guess I was just holding on to the idea," he replies. "That I could have you. But it's him. It's always been him, Casey. I don't even know why I even bothered."
"Evan," she starts but he cuts her off.
"It's okay. I thought if I…" he trails off.
"Evan, I never meant to hurt you."
"I know. But when it comes down to it, you grabbed his hand first," he replies staring off towards the Psi Phi Pi house, whose members are currently racing robots across the front lawn. Shaking his head, Evan stands up and, without looking at Casey, begins to speak.
"See you around campus, Casey."
"See you around," Casey replies as she watches Evan continue down Greek row towards the Omega Chi house.
She thought that telling Evan would be the hard part, that telling Cappie would be easy. But she's standing at the top of the stairs watching Cappie pull Rebecca out of the house and, suddenly, she can't stomach the idea of telling him.
As the door slams, an overwhelming need comes over her and Casey drops to her knees as she vomits on the ZBZ staircase twice.
"Casey!" Some of the girls shriek as the few on the second floor and those passing through the foyer rush to her side. Ashleigh grabs her arm to steady her swaying body and Frannie pulls back her stringy, blonde hair to keep her from vomiting on it as Casey's body shakes with sobs and her stomach wrenches again.
Twenty minutes later, after stripping Casey of her clothes through sobs and helping her slip into a t-shirt and a pair of Soffe shorts, Frannie and Ashleigh quietly talk in the doorway of Ashleigh and Casey's room.
"She's killing herself," Frannie says darting a look at Casey, who's passed out from exhaustion on top of her bed. "What are we going to do?"
"There's nothing we can do. We can't make Rebecca break up with Cappie…" Ashleigh trails off as Frannie raises her eyebrows. "And what do we say with Casey starts going out with him? Besides, we don't even know if that's what caused it."
Frannie snorts and Ashleigh rolls her eyes.
"Dumb comment, I know. But next week is summer vacation and Casey will be back in Chicago. All we can do is get Casey through this week, especially on Friday since we don't want a repeat of the last Omega Chi mixer, and let her sort everything out on her own terms."