Always Cas | ✔

CHAPTER FIVE; part two

     I'm heading into the kitchen Friday morning when Dolores breezes past, wearing the kind of guilty expression you could never miss. I half suspect it's a Cas thing, but she said she wasn't getting involved and I believe her. I wonder, then, if she's even seen him. I stop. "What did you do?"

     Her tone is too innocent. "What do you mean?"

     "Dolores," I warn. But before I can say anything else, my phone is ringing.

     "You should get that," she says.

     It's Amelia.

     I take the call as I walk into the kitchen. "Now tell me why," Amelia says before I've even given a greeting. "I have to hear from dear old mother three weeks after the fact that Cas has returned."

     "Because it's not a thing," I respond quickly.

     "Like hell it isn't a thing," Amelia barks back. "Mom says you're not sleeping."

     "Why is everyone so concerned with my sleep patterns," I respond, disgruntled.

     "Because that's how it started last time..."

     "This isn't that," I say heatedly. "Anyway. I was prescribed sleeping pills."

     Amelia makes a sound. "It's that bad?"

    "It's not. It's just cautionary. Really, this is not a problem."

     "So have you talked to him?"

     "Who?"

     "Cas, who else? Come on. Don't make this difficult now. I don't want to have to come over there. You'll be paying my travel fees."

     "It costs you like ten bucks to commute home."

     "Okay, but I'm a starving artist."

     "Who's choice was that?"

     "The best art is starved," Amelia says her tone stuffy. "You didn't answer my question. Which means you have."

     "Yes, I've talked to him," I say.

     "And? I'm serious, D. If you don't start giving me deets I will uber there under your account. It will cost you a whopping hundred bucks in Friday rush hour."

     I can't help but smile. "He's angry. I'm working on it."

     "What does that even mean? Working on what?"

     "I don't know, getting him to stop being angry?"

     "Why is that your responsibility?"

     "Because I'm the reason he's angry." I add, "Please don't give me a speech about me being self sacrificing or a glutton for punishment or something. I've heard it from quite literally everyone at this point."

     She doesn't make that comment. Instead she asks, "Do you still have feelings for him?"

     I go still, wondering if you ever really stop having feelings for people or if you just learn to quiet them? Maybe you just learn to let them go but you never stop carrying the actual feelings themselves.

     "Dres," she groans before I've even responded. "You told me you were moving on!"

     "When was that?" I ask.

     "Fourth of July."

     "We were drunk."

     "Exactly."