Senses
::Smell::
Derek knows that Casey's moved on the moment she walks down the stairs and he smells That Perfume, the one she wears whenever she goes out on a date. It's light and girly and very Casey-esque, and as she passes by him in the living room, he can't not get a whiff of it.
And for a moment –just one moment—his mind goes blank.
(For the record, he let his mind go blank. It wasn't involuntary or anything. Really. Because he's lived with Casey for a few years now, so he's learned all too well that anything involuntary that involved Casey McDonald was dangerous. Very dangerous.)
"Don't you ever want to live a little dangerously?"
(His own words suddenly spring back into his mind, and in this moment, yep, he's pretty sure that the universe hated his guts.)
The moment they see her, the whole family tells her how pretty she looks (Keyword being: Family. As in, not including him. Because come on, since when have the both of them considered themselves to be family, anyway?) and he can see her smile widely out of the corner of his eye. She chats with Lizzie, and after a few minutes, Lizzie asks her sister if that perfume she's wearing is new.
Of course it's not new, he almost says out loud. How could you not notice it? She's been wearing the same thing whenever she has a date, ever since she and Sam first started going out.
It takes a split second for his brain to register that out of everyone, he's the only one who noticed it. Appropriately, the thought freaks him out, because he doesn't want to think of what that might mean, and he tells himself that the family's probably just forgetful. Because of course they've noticed it before, they just forgot it. Because if they didn't, then…
No, he tells himself. There is no way he's going there; if there is ever anything that currently screams, "Unsafe Territory" to him, then this is it.
Her mom asks Casey where she's going again (And Derek wonders if being pregnant makes you forgetful) and she replies that she's going on a double blind date with Emily and two of Em's childhood friends who were in town. Nothing over the top, just a casual dinner, a movie, that's it.
"It's sort of a last date before we say goodbye to summer and start to get ready for college," she explains. "Besides, Truman and I are way over. It's time I stopped moping and started moving on."
He doesn't know what pisses him off more: That Casey beats herself up every time she gets heartbroken, or that she's willing to put herself through all that bullshit and do it all over again.
Wow, this was...short. Anyway, Hearing will be coming up shortly. Thanks so much for reading/reviewing guys! *sends virtual chocolate chip cookies to all* :)