Matt Casey's nieces and nephew

Chapter 48

Grace walked up to the house with Severide. She wasn't sure if he was going with her to help and offer support, or if he was going to make sure she went through with it. She didn't want to tell them. But when she walked into the house and heard the fighting, she really had no choice but to come clean.

"You brought drugs into this house?" Casey was yelling. "After everything we've been through with your parents, and what happened with Grace and Tyler."

"I didn't take any Uncle Matt, I swear." Jake said sounding like a little boy in front of his family.

"How am I supposed to believe you, huh? This isn't the first time you've tried drugs." He continued to yell. "You expect me to believe these were just given to you but you didn't take any?"

"There not his." Grace interrupted as she walked into the living room and all eyes turned to her. Dawson was standing between Casey, who was raging mad, and Jake, who was desperately trying to defend himself while covering for his sister. "There mine."

"What do you mean there yours?" Casey turned to her, his anger clear in his eyes and voice.

"I've been taking them for two weeks so that I could stay awake to study." She explained. "Jake took those from me last week but I got more."

"How did you get them?" He demanded and Grace hesitated. "Grace Amanda Casey, you better start talking right now."

"A girl in my SAT study group gave me two when I was complaining to her about how I was exhausted from studying." She said. "And then I got the bottles from Tyler."

"He assaulted you when he was on these and you go and ask him for them?" Casey threw the bottle across the room, his anger exploding as the famous Casey temper came roaring out. "How could you do something so stupid and so dangerous? Have you learned nothing from your parents? What the hell were you thinking?"

"I was so stressed out and I tried to tell you but you didn't listen to me. I got a few B's and everyone went nuclear. The teachers, the guidance counsellor and principal put all this pressure on me because they want as many Ivy League students as they can get so they can brag. And then they tell you two and you tell the whole fire house and you tell Antonio who tells everyone at the station and it's so much pressure that I couldn't take it anymore. Ellie gets 100% always."

"So you take drugs?" He yelled.

"You always tell Jake that doing his best is enough so why can't that be enough for me too?"

"Straight A's is your best." He argued. "You've been a straight A student your whole life."

"I got straight A's because I had no life in LA, no friends and nothing else to do but study. And I did it because I knew that the only way to get out of that hell was to get a scholarship and get as far away from it as I could. But then I came here and I have you, and friends and a boyfriend and cheerleading and dance and I was happy, really happy for the first time. And then you threaten to take it all away if I don't get all A's so what was I supposed to do?" Grace was yelling now too. She was frustrated and she was scared and she felt like no one was listening to her.

Casey was silent for a moment as he tried to calm down. "I watched my sister get dragged down this road by a guy. I watched her throw everything away for him because of drugs. I'm not going to watch history repeat itself." He said. "I thought you were smarter than this, that you had learned something from all the hell they put you through. But I guess the only thing you learned was to take drugs when life gets too hard."

"I take a few pills to study and suddenly I'm a drug addict?" Grace said. "Last time I checked I'm not snorting cocaine or shooting heroin into my veins."