Roses aren't always Red

Dress Up

A few hours later I hear a very soft knock on the door, I don't bother to get up and ignore it instead. There is another knock and I yell GO AWAY! Suddenly the door opens and Casey steps in walking towards me.

"You have been here for five and a half hours. I thought you might come out for dinner but you didn't. I decided I should just come to you since Isabelle wasn't much help telling me what was wrong," she says pulling up a chair and sitting in it backwards.

"I'm okay," I say, avoiding looking into her eyes.

"That's bull and you and I both know it. What happened Ari?" She asks sounding genuinely concerned.

"I got a letter from my sort of ex-girlfriend back home and Isabelle read it. Is and her never got along and I don't know why, but she was just pissed off about it," I say honestly.

"Well, That sucks," Casey says quietly obviously unsure of what to say.

"Yeah. It does. But I got some alone time to think everything through, that was nice," I reply.

"That's good. So are you still up for that party tonight? It may help you forget about all this, but if you don't want to I won't force you," Casey questions.

I think for a moment and look over at Isabelle's bed. I bite my lower lip habitually thinking deeply.

"Um, yeah I'll go. She won't be there right? I don't think we're ready to talk to each other about it yet, it'll be nice to have some fun." I decide out loud.

"Awesome. I'm glad, you look like you could use a break. Do you want to hang in my room? I'm guessing Isabelle may be coming back soon," Casey says glancing at the door.

"Uh, sure. Yeah. I don't have anything to wear so could I borrow something?" I ask putting away my sketch pad and tucking it away under the bed with the box.

"Yeah, for sure. Cmon I'll find you something cute," she says taking my hand as I stand up. We walk across the hallway hand in hand towards her room. She slides her ID across the scanner and it unlocks the door. She opens it and we walk in to the empty room.

"Do you have a roommate?" I ask stepping inside.

"Alex is my roommate actually. Her stuff is over there," she points to the other side of the room.

"Oh. That's cool. Is she nice? We haven't talked much honestly," I say while casually looking through Casey's closet.

"Yeah, she's cool," Casey says coming up behind me touching my arm gently and muttering to herself, "though you might have a few problems with her when you find stuff out."

I turn around to look at her.

"What stuff?" I demand.

"Uh, shit. Well. That's not for me to tell you," she says realizing I actually heard that statement.

I try a different approach. I put my hand on her cheek and trace her lips with my thumb looking at her intensely.

"But you already brought it up, you can trust me," I say barely above a whisper. I watch as her eyes narrow down to look at my thumb on her lips and her eyes filled with desire.

"She's dating Isabelle," she says quietly without really thinking much. I stare at her.

"Seriously? Why hasn't Isabelle told me that?" I say, absentmindedly still tracing Casey's lips.

"She probably didn't want you to know because she wanted to take advantage of it," Casey says as blush rises to her face realizing I haven't stopped yet.