nine thousand miles | cazzie

twenty three

The air around me felt different. It was more quiet, more dark, more cold, and definitely more lonely.

I sat up on my bed, back propped against the headrest, and stared into space. I had no energy and no intentions of leaving this bed. I knew that Erika and Quinn were out on a date and they definitely were not planning to return to the room any time soon. That meant that the night would just be longer... and more lonely by the minute.

At the back of my mind, I was screaming at myself, hurling insults at myself, for shutting Casey out like that. But I also knew that I was in no state of mind to have sex with her. The few moments we shared before I pushed her away were pure bliss. It served as my temporary resignation from my dark thoughts about Jarvis.

I'm so angry to admit it but for a split second, I didn't feel Casey on top of me. I felt Jarvis. And it sickened me to the core that I felt like that. I wanted to go to her room so bad but I knew that the only way I could explain myself was to tell her the truth. And that would make everything even worse.

Casey was the one who told me not to see him for tutoring. Erika and Quinn said the same thing. I should have listened to them. This is all my fault. Maybe I'm the one who put myself in that situation.

And then I was crying. Crying because right now, Casey Gardner thinks that I am absolutely disgusted by her and don't want to be touched by her. Crying because I allowed myself to get assaulted by a guy who's older than twice my age. Crying because I was so conflicted and didn't know what to do.

That's why when Erika returned, I didn't bother to hide my tears and allowed her to embrace me. She didn't say anything but kept her arms tight around me. I held onto her hands and sobbed louder as she put her chin on my shoulder in an attempt to pull me even closer to her.

"It's okay..." She whispered, patting me lightly on the head while I choked on the tears.

The tears slowly stopped but I was still shaking, unsure of how to start talking. Erika placed her hand under my chin and onto my left cheek, pulling me closer to her chest. Being my best friend, Erika has seen me at my worst multiple times. She's been there every time I looked at the Clayton kids with their mums for a little too long and with a little too much jealousy. She was there when my dad was so sick I had to take care of both of us. She was there when Casey and I broke up. So she's pretty much equipped to know how to handle my downfalls and how to make my tears flow a little bit less.

"Talk to me when you're ready," She said. "How... how was your date with Quinn?" I mumbled, looking up at her and she smiled at me. She knows I always need to talk about something else first before directly getting into it. "It was great. We got takeaway and just went to the park. It was really nice," She said and I cracked a smile at her but it was immediately replaced by tears again as the pain returned.

Her embrace tightened and it made me strong enough to finally talk to her. "Did something happen with Casey?" She asked. I thought about it for a while before nodding. I figured answering yes or no questions would be easier than having to open up about everything.

"Did she do something?"

I shook my head no.

"Did you do something?"

I nodded, my breathing becoming rapidly faster. "Ok... do you wanna tell me what you did?"

"I... we were making out and... we were gonna do it and I pushed her away."

She didn't seem fazed or reactive to what I said. "That's fine. You don't need to have sex with her."

"Yeah but that's the thing. I wanted to!" I sat away from her and crossed my legs. We were now facing each other, the dark of the room making this more intimidating than it already was.