Again, I apologize for the last chapter, I know a lot of people were upset but I promise I'll make it up to you.
We decided to leave Detroit the next morning instead of staying another night. The car ride felt awkward and silent, even with the radio playing. After about half an hour of neither Casey nor I saying a word I turned down the radio.
"Is something the matter?" I asked Casey.
"Huh? What?" she asked snapping her attention from out the window to focus on me.
"I asked if you were okay."
"Oh yeah, fine." She said and turned back to the window.
"Are you mad at me, did I do something?" I asked thinking back to the night before. I hadn't thought I had done anything wrong. Maybe it was just that time and she was just a little cranky.
"What? No, not at all." She exclaimed, she seemed almost surprised that I would suggest that. I opened my mouth to reply when a sound very similar to a gun shut rang out on the empty highway. The car started to shake and I had to resist the urge to slam down on the brakes, I pressed down quickly but evenly and pulled onto the shoulder. The car finally stopped and I looked over at Casey who was shaking in her seat, her face pale.
"Casey, are you okay?" I asked, she didn't answer just opened the door and threw up onto the side of the road. Oh crap what do I do? I considered holding her hair, but it was already up in a ponytail, I started rubbing her back, trying to be soothing like Nora had done for me when I had the stomach virus last winter. Casey finally finished and I handed her a napkin from the glove box and respectfully turned away as she wiped her mouth and drank some water. "Are you okay?" I asked turning to look back at her and she gave me a small smile and nodded. "Okay, wait here." I got out of the car to try and figure out what had happened, it didn't take long. The rear driver's side tire had blown out. "Fantastic." I muttered under my breath.
"Oh shit." Casey said, standing next to me, I didn't even bother to remind her to wait in the car.
"Did you just say shit?" I asked, she responded with a shrug. "We should probably call a tow truck to take us to a tire place. Except we don't know any numbers in the area." Frustrated I kicked the tire rim. I pretended it didn't hurt. Casey went to the trunk of the car and pulled out her backpack and grabbed a slip of paper from it.
"Actually we do. I figured I would get a couple for each city we were in, just in case." That woman is a genius.
"Okay they said they could be here in an hour, they were the only one available right now." Casey said hanging up her phone. We should call mom and Nora and let them know what happened. I nodded and she went to make the phone call. "George said they would send us the cost of what the towing was, because it's always 'ridiculously overpriced' but said we were on our own for the new tire because you should have replaced the tire instead of driving on the spare in the first place. He also said not to let the tire place take advantage of us." I rolled my eyes, Casey and my dad had told me several times before leaving to get a new tire so that we would have the spare, and I just didn't think anything would happen.
"I'm sorry Case." I said.
"Is Derek Venturi actually taking responsibility?" she asked with a smile. "You must be really growing up." She said softer, her eyes warmth with pride. I liked that she was looking at me like that. The first time was when she realized I was actually trying in school and was starting to get good grades. I was really only doing it to impress her. Then Michael came into the picture and she only had eyes for him except during our frequent spats. This as luck would have it, seemed to occur more often when he was around, not that I had anything to do with it. "Derek, are you okay?" she asked, I realized I had kind of spaced out.
"Yeah, was just trying to think of what we could do for an hour." She shrugged.
"We could talk." It was my turn to shrug. Then I remembered Emily's advice and decided this would be a good opportunity to ask her about what happened with Michael.
"Oh, now you want to talk?" I asked giving her a smirk, referring to the silence in the car. She slapped my shoulder playfully and grabbed some snacks from the cooler as I reclined on the hood of the car. Moments later she had climbed up next to me. She handed me a snack bag full of Oreos and leaned back.
We had been talking for about twenty minutes when I figured it would be safe to approach the subject of Michael.
"Casey, I heard about you and Michael. I'm sorry it ended, I know you were I guess really into him." I felt her shrug beside me. "What happened?" I asked turning to face her. She was chewing on her bottom lip, something she always did when she was nervous. I was starting to wonder if there break up actually did have some kind of connection to me.
"I… umm." She hesitated and then was interrupted by a honk. We turned to find the tow truck was pulling up, early. "Hey look," she said "tow truck." She sounded almost relieved. Casey hopped off the hood of the car to go talk with the driver and I was left wondering what she was keeping from me.