He didn't come back that week. Nor did he return the week following that. But I refused to give up hope. I took care of Annie at the castle. She took lessons and started to do some extra schooling. She turned ten on July 7th. It was the saturday Casey was supposed to come back. Annie insisted that we wait to have her party when her dad came back; thats why on July 7th, I secretly went to the King and requested that he had people search the Kingdom for Casey. I was researching about my mother and the mock gods for most of the days, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get Casey off my mind.
The search came up empty on the Friday following Annie's birthday. The King told me that his men couldn't do a full kingdom search without alerting the civilians, and said that if I thought of anywhere he would be, he would send me to go find him.
It took me all of 3 seconds to remember where Casey said his favourite place in Hell was. That night I drove out while Annie was sleeping. It took me about an hour to get to the edge of the orchard and I saw a trail of what looked like where a car might have passed through. I took a deep breath as I made the turn off road and into the orchard. My stomachs jolted with the car at every bump and I felt my heart beating, not only through my chest, but throughout my whole body. After about half a mile of following the trail, I saw Casey's car sitting underneath a cherry tree, right next to the start of a vinyerd. I parked the car and walked down one of the rows of seemingly endless grape vines.
Not after 10 minutes of walking I heard music blasting in the distance. I began running towards it as it grew louder and clearer. Soon the words were clear enough to where I could make out what song it was. King for a Day by Pierce the Veil featuring Kellin Quinn.
I ran faster to get closer to the music. Peirce the Veil and Sleeping with Sirens were some of his favourite bands. I ran until I saw a small house not too far from me. It wasn't large by any means, only the size of an average garage. I ran over to it and peered into the open window.
Sure enough, Casey was laying down on a beat up couch sketching a picture. His back was towards me so I could clearly see what he was sketching: a picture of me and Annie. An overwhelming dose of joy and sadness came over me and I ran to the door. I contemplated knocking for a good 2 seconds before remembering that I was pissed and didn't really feel like knocking at that moment.
I swung open the door and Casey looked up in an instant.
"Lizzie?" He got up and turned off the music. He looked up at me before putting his hands in his pockets and looking down. "I guess youre pretty pissed huh? I didn't come home cause-" I threw myself into him and wrapped him into a tight embrace.
"I don't care. Am I pissed? Hell the fuck yes. But I'm more pissed that you thought for a single second that I could live my life without you than I am about anything else." I looked up and kissed him. "God I missed your stupid face!" A single tear dripped down and Casey wiped it away from my face.
"And I missed your beautiful self. " he leaned down and kissed me back. "But as beautiful and romantic as this moment is I have to ask; how did you find me here?"
I looked down at my feet and tried to remember how exactly I knew. "In the car ride down here, you said thus was your absolute favourite place. When no one could find you, I almost considered coming here to figure things out for myself. I guess that's when I thought, that if there was any good place in hell to go clear your head, it would be here." Casey held me tighter in his arms and Christina Perri's A thousand years. Holding Casey closer we started swaying to the song. "Is this our song?" I whispered to him as he spun me around.
"No. She says that she is going to love him for a thousand years. And then for a thousand more. I could never love you for only 2 thousand years. It seems too short of a time frame."
"Then how long would you love me for?"
"Let's start with forever, and end with time."
