Everyone

Part 6-Casey

Casey was probably the most broken of us all. Which is saying something. He was probably the sweetest kid in the entire school, but if course no one dared to pay attention to him. Dekota was the one who introduced me to Casey. When I first met him, he was sitting in the very corner of the playground with his head in his lap.
"Hey Angel, this is Casey. He likes anime too. I think you two would make good friend," said Dekota that day. And man, she was right. Casey and I were so weird. But only around each other.
"You sure do like the emo corner a lot, don't you Casey," I'd tease him. I loved the emo corner. It was relaxing to me. No one bothered to pay attention to us, not even the teachers. Over the years our little group grew slowly. But it was always down to the five of us. We were inseparable.
Casey had short-ish blond hair. He was pretty skinny, but that was because he was bordering on having an eating disorder. He had an older sister with autism, so he understood the torment I got. In fact, he got it worse. Casey was really sweet, as I mentioned before. But, everyone seemed to be a little scared of him. I need knew why. Since most people have either a fight or flight reaction to a possible threat, Casey got beat up a lot.
I remember one time that will forever be drilled into my brain. You see, Casey wasn't the most athletic. None of us were. But one day in P.E. was particularly unbearable.
It was a Wednesday. We had to play dodgeball, an iconic game determined by the popularity food chain. Casey and I were on separate teams, but we had vowed to not get each other out.
Sadly, none of the others on my team made that vow. I watched as a good 75% of them targeted Casey directly.
There was a substitute teacher that day, and she was old and frail and had no idea how to deal with kids. It was therefore disastrous. Kids were acting like they ran the school, which to some extent, they did.
Casey immediately fell to the ground. He layed there while kids continued to throw the red balls at him. I remember a couple of the balls had hit him in the head. That's when I ran over to him and tried to keep people away from him. He was crying, obviously upset with the kids in that dumb class. He looked at me with red, puffy eyes.
"Leave me alone!" he said. "Just go away!" Right there, a pit in my stomach grew. I realized that this entire time, I had gotten in his way. Caused him some sort of trouble every time I saw him. I kicked all the balls to Casey's side and sat in the corner. I wanted to help him so badly. I wanted to make him feel better. But I had gotten him more upset and paranoid.
I volunteered to take Casey to the nurse. I thought if I could try and apologize, I could maybe help him. He didn't want me to take him though. Instead he requested that another girl walk him down.
Her name was Destiny. She was on Casey's side of the gym during the game. Everyone knew that Destiny liked Casey. She was quiet so I'd never talked to her, but it was obvious that she saw him in a completely different light. I watched silently as those two walked out of the room.