Blue

Casper's Past

BIG TRIGGER WARNING. LIKE, THE BIGGEST IMAGINABLE.
Leo's Perspective
I sit at the booth, next to Casper, but I'm not paying attention to what he's saying to the Oranges. I wonder what his parents were like. All his siblings are quite close, and none of them spoke about their parents. Casper knows how bad my family was, and yet he doesn't want to talk about his? How could his family be worse than mine? What caused the disassociation and depersonalization? The anxiety?

Casper waves a hand in front of my face. "Leo, are you okay?"

I tune back in and nod. "Yeah, fine."

He kisses my cheek. "What are you going to order?"

"Probably a cheeseburger." I quickly glance at the menu.

"Good choice," Casper says, "I'm gonna head to the bathroom real fast."

He scoots out of the booth and walks off. Ethan looks me in the eyes. "What's going on with you? You keep spacing out."

I lower my voice. "What do you guys know about Casper's parents?"

All their faces immediately drain of color. "Why?" Chrissy hisses quietly.

"I don't know I just... I don't like there being secrets between us." I respond.

"That is something he has to talk about on his own time." She says harshly.

I lean back and decide to drop it. The night goes quite smoothly, and I grew a lot closer to the Oranges. They're good people, and good company.

We get back home and I flop on the bed. "Tired?" Casper asks.

"Always." I respond.

I get up to take off my shoes and get into pajama pants. Casper changes in the bathroom, like usual. I've figured out it's something about taking off his shirt. I mean, I've seen him without his pants so clearly he doesn't mind that. Whatever, it's his business. What if it has something to do with his past? He keeps getting more and more mysterious.

I lay down on the bed and he eventually cuddles close. I kiss his forehead. "You seem off today, is everything alright?" He mumbles.

"Yeah, it's fine." I yawn.

Casper fully sits up and looks at me. "So there is something going on."

I look up at him. "What?"

"You said 'it's fine.' What is 'it?'" He squints at me.

I chuckle. "'It' is nothing. Let's sleep."

"Well, I won't be able to sleep until you tell me. Did you cheat on me or something?" He seems worried.

"What? No! When would I have? I just..." I trail off, deciding if I should tell him or not.

"Just what?" He asks, squeezing and releasing his fists, which is a sign of his anxiety.

I sit up. Clearly, we are not sleeping. "I want to know about your past. You know everything about me, and I know next to nothing about you."

"Oh." Is all he says.

"Why don't you talk about it?" I ask.

He sighs. "You won't get it."

I'm taken aback. "How would I not get it? If anything, I'm the number one guy to go to about shitty families! And it seems like you've already told a lot of people."

He takes a few breaths. "You think I'm hot."

Huh? "What? You lost me."

He awkwardly shifts his weight. "When I tell people, they look at me like I'm a baby pug. So pathetic it's precious. So ugly it's cute. God, everyone thinks I'm cute. But you, you think I'm hot. And I'm not ready for that to change."

I kiss his cheek. "I will never not think you're hot, Casper. You're not pathetic."

"If I tell you, you have to promise it will not affect how you see me and it will not affect our sex life." He holds out his pinky.

I intertwine my pinky with his. "I promise. You are hot, and sexy, and I will not pity you."

He sighs. "Where do I start? Okay, so I was raised by a single mom. She had Leah, then me, then Henry. She told us she worked at a hotel. She told us our father was an astronaut. Then, one day in 3rd grade, some dickhead 8th grader tells me my mother is a whore. He explains what that means, and that I was most likely a product of that. I'm horrified, and I ask my mom that night if it's true. She admits that she's a prostitute, and that we have different fathers."

I take in the information. "Wow, that's a lot."

He rolls his eyes. "Honey, that's the prologue. But yeah, my world comes crashing down. I start to see the signs of... other things. I notice the marks on her arm from needles. I notice the bruises, and the small cuts. Leah tells me that she thinks a man hit her. My mom starts to slow down. She gets sloppy. Then everything gets worse, by a long shot. She gets busted, and the hotel tells every hotel and motel in town what she does. She has no choice but to quit."

I nod. "Okay, that's good."

Casper catches his breath. "Stop talking. There's no happy ending. Anyway, she works as a waitress for a few months when I'm around 11, Leah's 13, and Henry's 10. But then she goes to work high. So she gets fired. It wasn't paying the bills anyways. She has an apartment and three kids, her babysitter quit once she heard the news, so she has only one choice. She goes back to selling herself. Thing is, she has no where to do it. So she starts working from home. She buys us all the best headphones and earplugs she can afford and she starts working. Leah, Henry, and I share a room. We do our best to ignore it. Here's where things get sad."

He reaches out and holds my hand. He doesn't look at me when he speaks. "She got paid in either food, money, or drugs. When it was food or money, she would gladly accept it, walk the man to the door, and then make sure we were all asleep. But sometimes she got paid in drugs. When she got high, she was practically gone to the world. So the men would leave. Or they... wouldn't. There were very few clients who would open up the door to our room. The brave, the cruel, the confident."

The breath caught in my throat. I squeezed his hand.

"Leah got the worst of it, as she was the only girl. Henry was the only one who fought back, so the only ones that went for him were the ones who... liked that he fought. There was one guy who consistently went for me. I was the one who didn't scream, and he liked using a knife. It continued for years. Mom still loved us, and I do believe she did her best. But we needed to eat. And addiction was infecting her brain."

I think about my own addiction and feel shame. He continues, and I kind of hope he's nearing the end.

"A few more pieces to the story before I'm done. I was around 13 when my mom started distancing herself from me. Not all of us, just me. I didn't figure out why for a while. One day, when I was 17, I came home and my mother was slumped against a wall. The needle was still in her, so I knew immediately that it was bad. I carefully took it out and she looked at me. She looked at me with confusion and disgust. She asked me, 'Jameson, why are you here?' And then it all clicked into place. Mom had blonde hair, so did Leah and Henry. Blue eyes, so did Leah and Henry. Their face structure, their height, their weight. I was the odd one out. Which meant one thing. I looked exactly like my dad. So she hated me. Then she died. Her last words were asking her client why he was at her house. She was not surrounded by family. She didn't think she had any family in the room with her at all. She was alone when she died, even if I was there."

I look at him in shock. He makes eye contact with me. "Okay, that's it."

"Casper..." I begin.

"No pity, remember?" He cuts me off.

"Casper, let's sleep. I'm tired. We can talk in the morning."