Chapter Four

Dad had to leave on some business trip this morning; Nora and everyone were crowding by the door, saying goodbye. All of us, except for me and Casey. The girl didn’t come home yesterday, leaving all of us very nervous, particularly me and Nora. And I wasn’t really in the mood for goodbyes.

Now we’re all sitting around in the living room, watching TV to distract us. For once, I don’t care when someone, can’t remember who, takes the remote and changes the channel away from sports.

Nora notices the bandage first. “Derek, what happened?” she asks, worry in her voice.

Of course, my cut is on the cheek facing them. Figures. Everyone else looks and starts asking a bunch of questions. I feel myself sinking back into my chair, my knuckles turning white as I grip the armrest harder and harder. Finally I snap, “Nothing happened, okay? I just… accidentally… cut myself all right?! Just shut up about it!”

Everyone goes quiet, surprisingly, but the tension is still in the air, and I can’t take it. I can still feel Casey’s cool fingers on my skin, her nails slicing clean into my cheek, my blood sliding down my face…

…her tongue on my cheek…

I wince and within a moment I’m flying up the stairs, nearly tripping at the top, and slamming my bedroom door shut. I lock it and slide down against the door, putting my head in my hands.

“Be… nice…”

How could I be nice when I feel like I’m going to die every time she’s around? If not by a heart attack because my heart is beating so fast, then by her somehow killing me.

Somehow I think the latter is most likely.

Why do I feel so weak? Why does this… bother me…?

Tears slide down my face and my mouth opens in shock. Why the hell am I crying?! But instead of suppressing it, I let myself cry silently into my hand.

“What have you done to me, Casey?” I whisper under my breath.

xXalterationXx

Sleep brings nightmares even worse than my current reality. I toss and turn, sweating like crazy, unable to wake myself up. Scenes I don’t understand flash through my dreamscape, visions of forests, a lot of people, machines, a dark pit with no bottom… and Casey.

The real Casey.

“Derek…”

She murmurs my name. Dark figures hold her down to a table and she struggles like mad.

“Derek… Help me! Help— no! STOP!”

I see her eyes filled with fear, so much terror, as she sees something I cannot. She screams my name one more time, louder, with more urgency and horror, before she goes limp and her eyes stare blankly upward.

I sit straight up and gasp for air; I feel like I’m drowning. After several minutes, I’m breathing somewhat normally again, and I slowly lie back down. I stare at my ceiling, thinking. What was that dream?

I see in my mind’s eye Casey again, the real Casey, my Casey…

Edwin was right. He usually is.

I’m in love with Casey.

Somehow, this knowledge doesn’t make me feel any worse, or any better. It just is what it is. Is this what acceptance feels like? I wonder.

Still… I can’t just sit around and wait anymore. I have to know what happened. I have to know what changed the woman I love so drastically.

I don’t even scoff at that. ‘The woman I love’.

It’s decided. I swing my legs over the side of my bed and silently get dressed. I carry my shoes in my hands and put my keys in my pocket. As quietly as I can, I sneak downstairs and look for the brochure to Casey’s camp thing. It’s not hard to find; Nora kept it in the same drawer all summer. I stuff it in my coat pocket and slip out the front door, locking it behind me. I put my shoes on, then get into my car and start it up. It isn’t very loud, and I ease out of the driveway and down the road.

“Damn it Casey, I will find out what happened to you,” I mutter bitterly, looking at the directions to the camp Nora had written down on a sticky note still attached to the inside. The clock on the radio tells me in blue numbers that it is almost three thirty in the morning. I stifle a yawn and continue to drive.