Page 6 of Defending Casey

“You told me that what we did… that what you gave me… didn’t mean a thing.”

Her virginity.

Well, it had been his too.

“I said a lot of things, Hale, but I didn’t mean any of it.”

Before she realized what she was doing, she was close enough to touch him. Her hands scant inches from his chest.

And if experience had anything to teach her, all she had to do was touch him and they would go up in flames like a bonfire at the lake.

But she didn’t get the chance.

Thankfully, Hale pulled away. She couldn’t imagine what she was thinking to try to touch him.

Not when he was upset.

Angry.

“Why would you… if they were lies… why say them?”

“Your dad, Hale. He wanted me to break up with you.”

“Wait, what?” His laugh wasn’t one of joy. It scratched up and out of his throat like glass. “You and my dad plotted this together? I can’t believe you?”

And that was the truth. The idea that she’d even listened to his dad would sound like a lie.

“All that time when we were becoming friends… becoming more, or so I thought, you were what? Planning this with my dad? What kind of sick joke was this supposed to be?”

“No,” she shook her head. “It’s not a joke. It wasn’t supposed to be this way, Hale. I love-”

“Don’t.”

He didn’t shout.

He hardly even made a sound, but she heard the raw scrape of his voice and could see the pulse throbbing in his neck. The look in his eyes was wild, like a wounded animal.

“Don’t lie to me again, Ca-”

He pulled his forearm across his mouth like he was wiping her name from his lips.

Taking in one shaking breath after another, he looked at the picture on the wall behind the cash register, the one that showed Nora smiling. When his eyes came back to her she pulled in a gasp of air, scared at the rage she saw in their depths.

“I need to think.” He said the words, but she was fairly sure they weren’t for her, but for himself. Hale had always liked thinking on his lonesome. “I’m going to go now, but I’m going to come back tomorrow, during school.” He gave her a glare that told her exactly what he was thinking, and she was glad. Nora shouldn’t be there to hear the fight she knew she was going to have. “And I swear to God, Casey. I swear on my mother’s grave. If you try to keep Nora from me, I will do anything…. I will do anything it takes to get my daughter.”

She wasn’t sure if she said a word in reply. She wasn’t even sure if her lips had moved.

But Hale looked satisfied enough when he turned on his heel and left the store.

Casey didn’t even know that she was crying until the wind blew in and she felt the hot fall of tears on her cheeks.

How had they gotten here after all of these years?

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