Five: Casey
It wasn't really like me to be sarcastic. I knew that. He just gave me the perfect opportunity and I really couldn't resist and… oh my god I sound like him.
This was not good. Derek was rubbing off on me. Maybe I could convince my mom that having separate houses was good for married couples and we could live down the street or something.
"Casey. Hello? Casey!" I was suddenly aware of Emily snapping her fingers in my face. We were having lunch and talking about… I actually had no idea what we were talking about.
"Sorry, Em. What were you saying?"
She sighed, apparently not thrilled at having to repeat herself, "I was just asking if you'd started that project for Mr. Harper's class yet."
I stabbed at my salad, pushing the lettuce around my plate in an effort to think of a discrete way to change the subject.
"I, uhm, yeah, I started it. We have awhile, though, so it's not really that big of a deal. Let's talk about math. How did you feel about the lecture today?"
She raised her eyebrow in suspicion. "Casey, you're being weirder than normal. I hate math, you hate math, why do you want to talk about the math lecture?"
"I just found Mr. Jasper's lecture fascinating. The whole pi think really is amazing, don't you think so?"
I was digging myself in deeper, but I really couldn't stop now.
"I mean, who decided that we were going to just use the first two of the decimal places? Why not three or four or even eight? I wonder how many I could memorize…"
"Casey! I don't care about pi! If you really don't want to talk about the project, it's fine, but let's talk about boys or clothes or, I can't believe I'm saying this, whatever annoying thing Derek did to you today. Anything but pi and its many many decimal places."
The project. I really didn't want to talk about the giant, half of our grade, multi-genre self-examination we had to do for our final English project. Not after last night.
"Sorry, Em. I honestly haven't really seen Derek today. I bumped into him this morning, and he bumped into me this afternoon. There were some snide remarks, but nothing eventful," I said, deciding to just play it cool.
"That's it? I figured there would be more. What's your big hang-up with the project, anyway?" She wasn't letting it go. Damn.
I'd stalled as long as I could. I sighed, putting my fork back down on the table, done with my salad for the time being. "I started my self-examination last night and I don't know what happened, but it started this huge fight with Derek, and not a normal fight where he tells me I'm ugly and I tell him he's immature. This was different. This was more… real, I guess."
"More real?"
"He said I was selfish, Em."
"Okay…"
"Emily!"
"What? It's not like it's that big of a deal, is it? I mean, it's Derek; he insults you all the time. Why are you so concerned with this particular insult?"
"Because. I just am." I picked up my fork and returned to stabbing the leaves of my salad, this time with a bit more force than was probably necessary or helpful.