nine thousand miles | cazzie

twenty seven

I spent the rest of the night on her lap. My lips seemed to never leave hers and she had absolutely no problem with that. She would tell me stories about her training in between kisses and I would tell her all about my experiences with patients and then continue to deepen our kiss.

I simply couldn't let go of her. The last time I kissed her was at the airport when we said our last goodbye. The same way I couldn't bring myself to let her leave, I just couldn't stop kissing her.

"How did you spend your birthday?" She asked. "Thinking about you..."

She looked at me with both love and guilt.

"Well I did go to the bar with some friends from work," I said. "Oh yeah? What friends?"

"Evan and Zahid. They're really chill."

"What about Erika?"

"I only called her in the afternoon."

Casey continued to meddle with my fingers, stroking them ever so gently. I reached up to her face and stroked her cheek, my eyes subtly glancing at the scar on her head. Although she had fully recovered from the accident, the process was painful and difficult and there were still scars that remained. It reminded me of the period before she left for training.

Casey couldn't run for a year which really put her in a depressive mood.

When we had returned home from Sydney, Casey was stuck in bed all day. She couldn't return to school for months and did all her classes online. I would bring her homework for her everyday and walking into her room to see the dead look on her face broke my heart every single time. There were some times when she would skip classes altogether and Elsa would tell me to leave the homework in the living room because Casey just didn't wanna see anyone.

She faced some trauma from the accident too. She barely talked about it but it was obvious she was scarred.

Some days she wanted me around all the time and other days she wanted to be completely left alone. But no matter what, I was willing to give her as much space and time as she needed.

The one day I remember very vividly was when she messaged me to come over to stay. I was surprised when she asked because I knew Casey needed the entire bed. It was painful to sleep and she moved around a lot. I figured I would sleep on a mattress.

When I came over, she was already tucked in bed, the same blank expression on her face. "Hey..." I whispered and she looked up for a while before returning to the same position. "How you feeling?" I asked, sitting down next to her on the bed. "I can't eat... it hurts to eat..." She mumbled.

"Did you drink anything?" I asked and she shook her head no. I sighed when I looked at the glasses of water on her table, still full to the brim. "Can you sit up for me?" I asked softly and she didn't reply. "Babe, I know it hurts but you have to at least drink something."

I noticed the tears start to fall from her eyes and my heart immediately broke. I moved closer to her to lie down next to her, allowing her to slowly turn onto her side and rest her head on my chest. I was careful to not touch the wounds on her body from the surgery.

"What if I don't get better Iz... I hate being stuck in this room. I hate that I can't go to training. I hate that I can't go to school to see you..."

"Casey... alright yeah, we don't know when you'll be completely fine but we know that it'll happen eventually. And I know that this entire thing is really killing your mood but... you are the strongest person I know. And I know you're not gonna let this pull you down. You just have to promise me and promise yourself that you'll do whatever the doctor has told you to do. Because you can't recover otherwise."