Disclaimer: All characters recognized in the Faculty movie are under copyright of Robert Rodriguez and Dimension Films.
-oOo-
Chapter 8 – Confused
"Ow!" Casey hissed, dropping the blade onto the bed and clutching his arm with a tissue, gnawing his lip and wincing in pain as he collapsed into the covers. It really hurt. How was this supposed to help? It just felt as if he'd made things worse.
He groaned as he pulled back the tissue from the wound, the paper sticking a little before he managed to pry it off. Staring at it, it seemed to take a while to realise that this substance had just leaked out of his own body.
"Uhh..." he moaned in disgust, finding it hard to flex the weak muscles in his fingertips. His forearm throbbed and he could imagine the veins pumping more fresh blood inside them. He felt sick. The whole idea of what he had just done made him feel sick. The pain from that blade hadn't helped at all. Not one little bit.
He chewed his lip and drew his knees in close, looking like a shivering foetus buried in the duvet. How had it not made things better? He had read about stuff like this in magazines all the time – all these teenagers – they all claimed that harming yourself made you feel better, and that it distracted you from emotional pain by replacing it with this.
Why the fuck didn't it work?
And the worst part about it was that he still felt terrible. He still felt the bite of his father's words, not two minutes ago, and now, to top it all off, his skin had been torn apart by a shoddy blade.
Seriously, he thought with a sigh, sitting up, still clutching his arm. What the hell went through my head to make me think that this would work? Did I really get driven this far?
He jumped a little as he heard a knock on the door. His eyes darted to it immediately and he rushed to grab his jacket, which was slung over his chair.
"Casey, honey," called Lorraine through the door. "Dinner's ready. Are you sure that you don't want any, now it's done?"
The boy swallowed bile and tugged on the jacket, being careful to conceal the wound beneath it. He never thought to put a bandage on it. He would have to do it later. He made sure to hide his cast as well. He still couldn't bear to look at it.
"Casey?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you want anything?"
"Um..." He hesitated, clearing his throat a little and trying to slow down the rapid beating of his heart. It was then that he realised he was still trembling. He ensnared himself in folded arms, wanting his voice to sound as casual as he imagined. "Um...yeah, sure, Mom..."
Was he even hungry? He didn't feel it. There was a sort of rotten, empty feeling at the bottom of his stomach, but he was sure it wasn't hunger. He closed his eyes, feeling a cold rush sweep over him, as if someone had just thrown a bucket of icy water over the top of his head.
"Oh, are you feeling better?" The relief in her voice made Casey cringe with guilt.
"Y-yeah, a little...I think..."
He could almost picture her smiling on the other side of the door. "That's good. I've made some beef casserole. I'll heat some up for you. I bet you're starving."
Ugh...he felt his stomach turn at the mention of "beef casserole". He knew that just by looking at it, it would make him want to turn on his heel and chuck everything inside of him into the nearest toilet. Starving? Even the mere thought of shoving something down his throat made him feel queasy.
"Sure, Mom...it sounds great..."
He wanted to kick himself at how shaky his voice was coming out. It sounded as if he had been lying on a vibrating bed for the last twenty minutes. He hoped that his mother couldn't make this out from where she was standing, but it was likely that she had disappeared into the kitchen again by now, anyway.
I can't let them find out what I've done, Casey told himself frantically, pulling back his sleeve with a grimace for another look. I know what they're like...they'll send me to see some shrink or something – that's their answer for everything these days. They think it will be some fucking mental problem.
I guess they need some excuse, came the bitter words.
"Fuck you," the boy mumbled, this time, cursing his own self. Deep inside, he was angry. He was angry at himself for letting himself go so far as to hurt himself over this. He thought that it would have made him feel better, but it just made him feel even more horrible than before.
I can't do anything right.
Sighing, he opened the door and trudged down the stairs, his eyes refusing to look up at anyone and anything. He just wanted to sink through the floor and die.
He knew that dinner would be even worse. He would already be able to hear his father's thoughts wafting over to him from the other end of the table, and if they were guaranteed to be anything like they were earlier, then the chances of getting "food poisoning" tonight would be pretty high.
-oOo-
Casey had barely spoken all through dinner. Most of the communication between the family had been rather one-sided anyway (and some part of him knew that his parents were expecting that to begin with). However, he had managed to swallow half of the sloppy beef casserole, while the rest of it floated on the plate after a continuation of stabs with his fork.
I guess it's something, he thought bitterly, scraping the rest into the bin and turning towards the stairs, traipsing back up to his room with his sneakers scuffing the carpet.
Luckily, his parents hadn't asked about (or possibly noticed) the fact that he was wearing his jacket at the table. All throughout the meal he had been expectedly waiting for the comment about getting it covered in mincemeat, but it had never once come into play.
"You look a little pale, Casey," Lorraine had brought up at one point, wanting to break the silence. "Are you sure you're feeling all right?"
"Um hum." He had lied, playing with his food. The mince now looked like how he felt inside – all churned up and gross.
"Sure?"
"Uh huh."
That was it, as far as conversation went. Casey had never felt so dull and unimportant all at once during a meal. His parents never mentioned anything about his broken wrist, or about why he was wearing a garment that was in danger of getting covered in disgusting beef sauce – his mother actually didn't even mention the name "Grace".
The whole thing had felt like one big funeral reception and he just wanted to scuttle away into his room and hide there, at least until school came tomorrow. He finished his science homework at least. Luckily, he had no other work for tonight. He had finished it in second period when Miss Burke had to escort some smartass from the English class.
Good thing too, he thought, his eyes blinking with stickiness. I guess I need some sleep if I want to survive at school.
Hours later he flopped onto his bed, the pillows cradling his shattered wrist and he stared glumly at his clock, which glowed neon green in the dim light. It read twenty-two minutes past one in the morning, and Casey didn't even feel close to being sleepy. He had managed to change into his boxers and kicked his trainers into the corner, in an attempt to make him a little more tired; but with no luck.
He started at his digital watch on the side, the alarm set for seven thirty in the morning. He was going to be shattered tomorrow.
It is tomorrow, he thought, with a roll of his eyes. He flung his face into the pillows and groaned as his arm gave another twinge of pain. He cursed his mother for making him take those painkillers after dinner. Somehow, they seemed to affect his arm all the more.
And to top everything off, Delilah wanted to meet with all the school press tomorrow to come up with the layout of the next issue. He didn't want her nagging at him if he was too tired to concentrate. That was all that he would need. He laid his camera by his chair so that he wouldn't forget it in the morning.
He had barely managed to close his eyes when a loud ringing suddenly jolted him out of bed. It took him a while to realise that his phone was ringing madly on his desk.
Huh? He thought groggily, staggering to his feet and snatching it to his ear with a small yawn. Who could be calling me in the night?
"Hello?" he croaked.
"Casey?" A whisper slithered down the line.
"Who is this?" the boy answered quietly, noticing that his clock now read four fifty-six and he knew that his parents would be sound asleep.
"It's me," came the voice, giggling with amusement at how tired that their receiver sounded. "Sorry, did I wake you?"
Casey could have boiled over with rage. That stupid bitch... He gripped the phone tightly in his good hand and snapped: "Grace? What are you doing calling me – ?"
"I just had to see if you were okay," she replied, a little sheepishly. "You looked a bit sick before you left...and...I dunno, you just looked..."
"Just looked what?"
"N...nothing. Forget it...I just thought you didn't look so good, that's all..."
Casey blinked. "Well, I'm fine."
He heard her sigh gently. He couldn't tell if it was from relief, or that she was still not persuaded by what he had just said. "I just couldn't sleep...you know, I thought that there was something on your mind...and...well, that you might do something..."
Do something? The boy stopped breathing for a second, as the words floated around in his head like a runaway balloon. Do something? How...how did she know that I was thinking those things...? How could she tell?
Picking up his resolve, he swallowed and pressed the receiver against his ear, feeling it begin to warm up. His cut tingled and he glanced down at it. It looked a lot darker now that it was beginning to scab. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, it doesn't matter. I'm just glad that you're okay..."
"How did you get my number?" he asked quickly, in a much harsher tone than he had intended.
"I just called the operator and asked for it. There was only one Frank Connor in this town, so I guessed it had to be your place..."
"And you just had to call me up at five in the morning?" He felt a little awful for sounding so cross with her. After all, she had called him up out of anxiety and not for her own humour (as he guessed that some people might have done). Still, he was annoyed that she had woken him up when he was just starting to drift off.
Besides, he didn't want her to have his number! He didn't want to have anything to do with her!
"Hey, I was worried..." she said, sounding a little hurt. "I'm sorry if I wasted my concern on you, or anything. I was just..."
"I don't know why you would be worried about me in the first place," Casey said quietly after a long pause, sighing and flopping down on his bed with his cast dangling over the side. "No one else ever is. Besides, I'm okay."
"Really?" she almost whispered. She didn't sound very convinced.
He flipped the underside of his arm with the cut on it over, secretly wondering if she could sense it was there by just talking down the phone to him. "Y-yeah. Really. I'm okay."
Am I trying to convince myself as well as Grace?
-oOo-
School had been as hellish as he had imagined it would be the next day. Despite the heat of the day being pretty immense he wore his jacket, hoping it would help to hide the cast a little more, and, more importantly, the scabbed scar. Hiding the cast made walking down the hallways painful, as other students were in such a rush to get to class they didn't see he was injured, and smashed him into the wall numerous times.
He didn't see Grace all morning. Secretly, he was a little pleased. At least she wouldn't fuss over his wrist or insist on walking him to his classes. It was bad enough that she had called him up in the early hours of the morning, just to see if he was "okay", but he didn't need a guide dog leading him around the school.
Even though I get battered in the hallway, it doesn't make me blind, he thought sadly, shuffling his sneakers along the hard floor with his eyes on the ground. It just makes me invisible.
"Whoa –" he hadn't walked very far when he collided into someone and went crashing to the ground. The hallway was practically empty, and yet he still managed to fall down! He must have really not been paying attention.
"Ow!" he groaned, as he had landed on his arm to support his fall. It throbbed with fresh pain and he winced, clutching it tightly. Tears sprang into the corners of his eyes as he sat up, feeling his whole body blush. This was just too much for him to take anymore! How much more pain would he have to endure before God gave him a break?
"Watch it, Casey!" came Stokely's icy growl. "Other people are using the hallway too, or haven't you noticed?"
The boy glanced up at the soft-spoken girl. Her ash brown eyes, ringed with thick, black eyeliner glared down at him sprawled on the floor, looking as pathetic as always. He shivered a little under her stare. Somehow, it made him feel as if he were nothing more than a child who had lost its way. The tears built up behind his eyes.
Shit.
"Sorry, Stokely," he mumbled, attempting to rise to his feet. "It was an accident..."
"As always," she retorted, a small, apathetic grin forming at the corner of her mouth.
Why does she have to make me feel even worse than I already do? he thought miserably. I've already been through a lot in the last few days...why does she have to...
"Hey," she murmured a moment later, in a much kinder voice. "Are you okay?"
He kept his eyes on the ground, looking away and nodding glumly. He sniffed and wiped the tears from his eyes, not wanting her to see him break down like this. "I'm fine," he choked.
"You should think about getting up off the floor, you know," she sighed. "Not a good spot to be in a place like this."
It didn't sound as if she were joking around with him, and all of the colour from her voice had been lost. She shrugged her book bag onto her shoulder, her black shirt slipping a little under its weight. There was no effort to try and help him up. She just simply stared at him, almost wondering what he was going to do next.
Don't bother to help me up, then. Just carry on staring at me. Everyone else is.
His cheeks burning, he flinched as he scrambled to his feet, his sneakers skidding a little. A faint grimace of pain passed over his features as he clung to the wall, pulling himself up and limping to his locker.
Thanks for nothing, he thought unhappily.
"What happened to your arm?" she asked quietly, in an emotionless monotone. She brushed a strand of short, ginger hair out of her eyes and stared intently at it, looking him up and down.
"I broke it," he said simply.
"How?"
How? Who the fuck cares? What kind of question is that?
He gazed back at her, not really knowing how to reply, or how to take in what she had just asked. How? He noticed the overhead lights reflecting from her black nail polish as she idly scratched her neck. The heavy, silver chains lying there forced him to pull his eyes away and focus on something less foreboding.
"I...I fell down the bleachers."
She raised an eyebrow. "Oh."
She almost looks amused by that, he thought angrily. Oh, well, she probably gets her humour around these days on things like tortured baby animals, or something...or seeing me in pain. That's all I am to anyone – one big, fucking joke.
He was just about to walk away when he heard her speak to him again: "Having some problems lately?"
Her voice had returned to that impassive state again. He hated it when she did that. He didn't know what she meant exactly when she was talking, or what she was thinking about.
"You could say that," he replied, not looking at her. "What else is new, anyway?"
My problems have more or less come from the embodiment of one person, he thought viciously. Stupid bitch...everything just got worse after she came along...
"Dealing with them in a new way?"
Something in her words made him freeze inside. He chewed on his lip, glancing at his watch and seeing that it was almost lunchtime. He wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but by the time he had turned around she was gone. It was so strange – it was as if she had never been there at all.
"At least I'm dealing with my problems," he grumbled to himself, making his way to the library and checking to see that his camera wasn't broken.
-oOo-
"Well, it's about time you got here," sneered Tina as he finally reached the library, just as the lunch bell rang. "We've all been waiting for you!"
Casey gasped for air. "S-sorry...I –"
"Delilah's totally fumed," she scolded, dragging him by the sleeve of his jacket, almost causing him to stumble face-forward onto the floor. "She's so pissed at you –"
"Sorry."
"Don't you know any other words?" she spat, giving him a dirty look before opening the door to the library.
It was very rare that the librarian let them use the facilities like this for the paper, as they didn't always like to keep quiet about it. However, there was a small private room for study right at the back that was usually saved for when students practised for presentations and for the paper's meetings. At least, in this way, they wouldn't have that snotty woman glaring down her nose at them whenever they raised their voices above a whisper.
"He's finally here," announced Tina with a roll of her eyes, entering the back room. Casey followed suit, a faint blush on his cheeks.
"Well, well, well," Delilah's voice scorned at him, turning up her perfect nose as she shuffled through several sheets of paper, with outlines of black boxes printed on them. "Look who thinks he's so important he just had to show up fashionably late."
Casey said nothing. He simply kept his eyes on the ground and slumped clumsily into his seat. He didn't want to object. After all, he thought, chewing his torn nails. It's my fault anyway.
The meeting seemed to go on for a while, but for some reason, Casey just couldn't concentrate on anything that anyone was saying. It all seemed that they were speaking some dead language, or perhaps it was because Casey was still drowsy after he had been woken up by Grace's stupid phone call.
How is it that everything bad that's happening always leads back to her?
"Ow!" he suddenly cried out, receiving a nudge in the arm from Tina. The small stabs of pain vibrated up his wrist and he clutched it, wincing.
"Pay attention, dork-wad," she sneered.
Casey sighed. "Sorry, I –"
"Quit daydreaming already, we're actually trying to do some work! And stop saying that Goddamn word!"
"Casey," and this time, it was Delilah's smooth but spiky voice, dripping like honey (or was it poison?). "Did you even hear what I just asked you?" She sounded unimpressed; almost as if she would throw something across the room at him if he said 'no'.
Casey swallowed, biting his lip from his throbbing wrist. "I..."
However, just then, the whole atmosphere changed between them. Casey saw Delilah's dark eyes flicker to his wrist, and her glare softened. "Oh, erm," she mumbled, tapping the cap of her pen against her cheek thoughtfully. "Casey...what did you do to your arm?"
The boy blinked in surprise. Did she just ask me...what I think she just asked me? "Um...I broke my wrist," he said slowly.
She clenched her teeth, imagining the scene in her head. Casey couldn't tell if she was sending across sympathy or pity. He hoped that it wasn't the latter. The last thing that he needed was Delilah feeling sorry for how pathetic that he had been.
"Bad luck," she said quietly, then: "will you still be able to take the pictures?"
"Pictures?" Shit. Was this what she was talking about before?
"The pictures for the pep rally, stupid," Tina grumbled under her breath, rolling her eyes in his direction.
Casey felt his cheeks burning. "Oh...right..."
"I need a group photo of the football team, and one of the cheerleaders as well for the rally page," Delilah explained, with unexpected patience in her voice. "I was just wondering if you could still do it, since your arm –"
"No, it's okay," he blurted out, still gazing into her calm face. "T-that...that would be okay..."
She cares? he thought, his heart pounding. She noticed that I was hurt? She actually cared about it? He couldn't even believe what had just happened. Did I imagine all of that? Was I really daydreaming, like Tina said?
But he knew that he wasn't. He swallowed his breath and paid full attention to his crush as she continued with her meeting. There was a strange kind of ringing in his ears, but he chose to ignore it, letting Delilah's sweet voice block it out.
-oOo-
He actually, for once in a very long time, left school that day feeling a little more enlightened inside. Delilah had noticed him – she had even worried about him hurting himself even more, because of his injury! When had she ever noticed him before? In a good way?
Practically never, he thought, with a small smile. Until now.
He shrugged his bag onto his shoulder, feeling happier than he had felt in a long time walking out of the school gates and heading for home. His heart felt lightweight, and yet heavy at the same time, and there was a strange, giddy feeling in his stomach. Just thinking about what Delilah had said made him smile shyly to himself.
He was just about to leave the main exit when he heard a familiar voice coming from his left – a girl's voice. Furthermore, it sounded as if she was giggling nervously, and that she wasn't alone in the corridor. Another voice, a little deeper, was muffling inaudibly along with hers.
Curious now, Casey peered around the corner, expecting to see a couple – perhaps even Stan and Delilah – leaning against the wall, gazing into each other's eyes and completely lost in their own little, perfect, happy world. But it wasn't Delilah's voice.
He felt his mouth open in surprise when he saw her, tucking dark strands of hair out of her eyes, smiling flirtatiously. She was clutching a bunch of science textbooks to her chest, seeming to be teasing the boy in front of her as she blocked him out. She kept staring at the floor, in an attempt to hide her blushing face as the boy moved in closer, so they were barely inches apart.
It was then that Casey recognised him from Miss Burke's English class. He was that smartass kid that she kicked out for being so rude, and for disrupting her lesson. He had never found his jokes to be particularly humorous. He stood watching him now, with his slightly baggy clothes and his perfect, spiky hair.
He looked like the kind of guy that any girl would love to be seen with.
All at once, for some strange reason, the glorious, excited flip in Casey's stomach fluttered into a dissolve, feeling hollow and hard. He glanced away at his untied sneakers, lurking behind the wall. The sounds of her giggles floated viciously through his ears and he spun away, heading towards the exit.
What did she think she was doing? he wondered, a rage filling his insides, igniting spite. I didn't think that she was the kind of girl to be doing things like that – and especially with jerks like him! What's her fucking deal?
The boy stormed away, pushing open the back door with a small growl. His spirits had completely fallen from the pedestal that they had been held so high upon not five minutes ago, and were now settling in the bottom of his chest like dust. He was angry – angry at Grace for making him feel so terrible, and angry at her for behaving this way.
I don't want her to be like Tina, or all the other girls in this school, he thought bitterly. I want her to be what that I thought that she was – different! I want her to stay away from punks like him...I want her to show everyone that...
Suddenly, he stopped, thinking hard. What was he doing? Thinking about what he wanted from Grace? Grace? He didn't want her for anything! Why was he thinking this now? Why did he even care at all?
Jesus Christ, haven't you figured it out yet? came his spiteful thoughts, echoing triumphantly in his head.
Figured out what?
Oh, come on, kid! It's so obvious that you're jealous!
Jealous? The word followed Casey home, until he opened his front door, ignoring the blunt greeting from his parents and as he dumped his bag onto the floor, staring out of the window.
What the hell am I jealous of?