Insanity

by Kira Moericke

  “Hello,” I greeted shyly, biting gently down on my bottom lip.

  A warm smile filled Casey’s face, and my heart fluttered.

  Whoa, what was that? I had never felt like this before.

  Casey came toward me. “So, what would you like to do, Miss Knightley?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged my shoulders. I was suddenly really nervous. And I didn’t even know why. I had never acted like this with Casey before, so why now? Was it because he saw me naked?

  I blushed lightly, remembering the incident.

  Casey raised an eyebrow. His eyes glinted and his smile turned sly.

  Uh-oh.

  “Tell me about yourself,” I said quickly. That look he was giving me was making me dizzy. I quickly moved to the piano, putting some space between us.

  “I have already told you about me,” he said.

  “You’ve only told me about your grandfather.” I sat down on the piano bench, facing the window, and twisted my upper body to look at Casey. “I want to know about you.”

  “What would you like to know?”

  “Anything. Anything at all. What’s your favorite color? What’s your favorite memory? What’s your middle name?”

  “Okay, well, my favorite color is Aegean teal. My middle name is Alexander. And my favorite memory…” His voice trailed off.

  “Your favorite memory is what?” My eyes grew wide with wonder. “Tell me.”

  “My favorite memory is not for me to tell,” he replied. “But you may ask me any other question that your heart desires.”

  I stared at him. Between his sultry British accent and poetic words, I was melting.

  “Oh!” His face lit up like a child’s on Christmas morning. He came closer to me. “I remember when I got my first foal. It was this tiny little Peruvian Paso. Calypso, her name was.” His eyes glazed over as he lost himself in the memory. “I was so happy; I finally had my first horse. I had stayed with her in the stables all day with the scent of hay and worn leather filling my nose. When my mother called me for dinner, the stableman found me asleep in the hay with Calypso curled next to me.”

  I smiled, picturing a little Casey asleep in a warm bed of hay with a little horse curled around him. It made me all warm inside.

  “Where did you grow up?” I asked. “I noticed you have an accent.”

  “I was born in St. Albans, and when I turned eleven, my family and I moved to London. It wasn’t until I was nineteen that I moved to America.”

  I looked at Casey, studying his face. His eyes were vibrant, full of mirth and light. He had boyish dimples on both sides of his face. And his lips…Oh his lips. They were full and looked so, so desirable.

  Whoa…Get a hold of yourself, girl! Don’t cloud the room with your pheromones.

  I blushed, feeling completely embarrassed.

  “How old are you now?” I asked, trying to distract myself by asking more questions.

  “Twenty-one,” he replied.

  “Four years older than me,” I pointed out.

  Casey smiled lightly.

  We were silent for a moment, then I turned and looked out the large window. I stared outside, taking in the serene image of silver moonlight illuminating the backyard in a romantic glow.

  “I love nighttime,” I said. “It’s so peaceful. Calming.” I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. I could almost smell the cool, wet scent that only night could carry.

  “And the stars.” Casey sat down on the piano bench beside me. I was hyperaware of how close we were. “Have you just ever stared at the constellations until you felt lost in their holy abyss?”

  I shook my head and looked up at the stars. There were thousands, no, billions of them just scattered across the black velvety canvass.

  “I could not help but notice the moles by your eyes,” he started.

  “Oh, these?” I quickly reached up and covered them with my hand. I suddenly felt self-conscious. “They’re nothing.”

  “No.” Casey gently took my hand and lowered it. Using his free hand, he traced the line of moles. I shivered at his touch. “If you connected these spots with a line, they would form a figure similar to the constellation Andromeda.”

  “Who is she?” I asked, scooting just millimeters away. I needed to put some space in between him and I so that I could think clearly, but I didn’t want to move so far away that it would seem like I was repelled by him.

  “She was the daughter of King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopeia. According to Greek mythology, Cassiopeia boasted that her daughter was so beautiful that it offended the Nereids. Poseidon sent a sea monster to destroy Cepheus’s kingdom. Andromeda was then chained to a rock to be eaten by the sea monster for a sacrifice, but before anything could happen to her, Perseus flew by on his Pegasus, fell in love, and rescued her.”

  “Wow.” I pulled my head back a little, just enough that I could turn and look at him. “I didn’t know that you knew so much about stars.”

  “Well, I had a very good education growing up,” he replied simply.

  I smiled lightly, then looked down. His hand was resting close to mine. I had a sudden urge to grab it. Raising my eyes, I saw that Casey was looking at my mouth, as if he too could feel our connection.

  “Casey…” I said, my voice coming out in a breezy whisper. I leaned closer to him, closing my eyes, waiting for his touch.

  “Em…”

  Sensing something was wrong, I let my eyes flutter open and saw that Casey had pulled away from me. Confusion swept through me. What was wrong? Didn’t he want to kiss me?

  “Casey,” I started, watching as he got up from the bench and moved closer to the window, “what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” But even as he said it, he didn’t look at me. Instead, he kept his eyes gazing outside, and crossed his arms behind his back.

  “Is it me?”

  “No.” He spun to face me. There was so much tenderness in his eyes. “No, there is nothing wrong with you. You are absolutely perfect.”

  Seriously; heart melting.

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  “It’s…It’s getting late.”

  “What?” I frowned.

  “It’s getting late,” he repeated. “And don’t you have classes tomorrow?”

  I stood up, feeling crushed and rejected. “Yeah. You’re right.” I sucked in a deep breath and stared at Casey, willing him to turn and look at me. He didn’t. “Um…Have a goodnight.”

  Turning, I hurried to the door, my feet sounding against the marble floor. I could feel tears prick the corners of my eyes. I felt so embarrassed!

  Reaching the door, I turned back to look at Casey. He was still standing by the window, looking out over the backyard. Swallowing a lump that was starting to build up in my throat, I turned around and left.

  FOURTEEN

  “WHAT’S UP WITH you today?” Lena asked at dinner the next evening.

  “Yeah, you’re acting…strange.” Nova sat across from me and kept taking food from my tray. Whenever I looked at her, she just gave me a look, meaning that this was payback for making her go Internet shopping with Lena yesterday.

  Jayden kept silent next to her.

  “Oh, I know!” Lena beamed next to me. “It’s a boy, isn’t it?”

  “Lena…” I really didn’t feel like talking about boys. They were frustrating and complicated. First they act like they want to kiss you, then the next they’re basically telling you to leave.

  “Oooh!” Lena squealed. “Who is it? You’ve got to tell me.”

  “Lena, I’m not going to say anything,” I said. I watched as Nova plucked a grape from my tray.

  “Fine, then I’ll guess.” She looked around the room, then pointed to a boy with short red hair. “Is it Hudson Browning?”

  I shook my head.

  “What about” –her finger swiveled around the room, then stopped on a boy with long blond dreadlocks– “Damian Lowe?”

  I sighed and stood up, grabbing my tray to dump it.
“It’s nothing,” was all I said before I hurried to the front of the cafeteria where the two garbage barrels sat.

  “Hey,” Jayden greeted as I pounded my tray against the side of one of the barrels. He started to dump his tray too.

  “Hey,” I greeted back. Once my tray was empty, I placed it on top of a pile of others.

  “Um, I was wondering if I could talk to you?” Jayden questioned. He placed his tray on top of mine, then looked at me.

  “Um, yeah, sure.”

  He quickly turned away from me and started through the cafeteria to the hallway. I followed.

  “What did you want to talk about?” I asked when we were finally alone.

  Jayden stopped and turned to me. He cast his eyes downward and ran a hand nervously through his springy brown curls. “I wanted to talk about the dance.”

  “What about it?”

  “Well, I was wondering if you’d like to go…with me?” His eyes shot toward me.

  I could see the nervousness swimming in his chocolate brown eyes. It reminded me of the time I asked Winston Epworth to the Junior High dance back in seventh grade. He had turned me down, and the sting of rejection had scarred me for several months after.

  Not wanting to have Jayden feel the same way I had, I nodded. “Sure. I’ll go with you.”

  Jayden smiled at me, and I felt myself smiling with him. His smile was warm and contagious.

  The bell rang, shrilling loudly over the PA system.

  “Well, I’ll see you later, Em,” Jayden said.

  “Okay. Bye.” I watched as he disappeared into the sea of moving bodies until I could no longer see him.

  Suddenly, there were arms around my shoulders, pulling me down a little. I gasped in surprise, yanking myself out of that someone’s grasp. Whirling around, I saw that it was only Lena with an extremely big grin on her face.

  “I know who the guy is,” she said in a singsong voice.

  “Who what guy is?” I asked. What was she talking about?

  “The guy you like.”

  Fear spiraled through me. “How did you–”

  “Nova told me,” she said.

  Nova, I internally growled.

  “What are we talking about?”

  Lena and I turned and saw Lexi. Her two blond minions were standing on either side of her.

  “Talking about the guy that Em likes,” Lena replied.

  “What guy?” Lexi’s delicate shaped eyebrows furrowed slightly.

  “His name is Casey,” Lena continued. “According to Nova, Em has been meeting him in the ballroom a few nights a week.”

  “Huh.” Lexi raised one of her eyebrows and pressed her tongue against her bottom right teeth. She looked upset. Bitter even.

  “Well, we have to go,” she said after a moment. Composing her face, she raised her chin and moved around Lena and me with her two woman posse trailing behind her.

  “So what were you and Jayden talking about?” Lena asked, changing the topic. She and I started to make our way through the hall toward our rooms.

  “Well, he kind of asked me to the dance,” I replied sheepishly.

  “The dance?” She looked slightly confused. “But I thought you weren’t going to go.”

  “Well, I wasn’t, but…Oh, Lena, you should have seen his face.” Jayden’s puppy-dog eyes resurfaced from my memory.

  “Ooooh, do you like like Jayden?” One of her auburn eyebrows shot up.

  “I like Jayden,” I said cautiously. “But not like that.”

  “Why not? Is it because of Casey?”

  Casey.

  My heart fluttered.

  “No,” I started slowly. “But I haven’t even been here a month. I still don’t really know anyone very well.”

  “Well, if it’s true love, then you don’t need a month,” Lena pointed out.

  True love? I don’t think I really believe in true love, especially with what happened with my parents.

  “What?” Lena stopped and turned to me. “You don’t believe in it?”

  I shrugged my shoulders but kept on walking. Lena quickly followed. “My dad had an affair when I was really young. Now, how can his and my mom’s love be true when he could do something like that?”

  Now it was Lena’s turn to shrug. “True love isn’t always perfect. We’re humans. We make mistakes.” She paused. “Did your mom forgive him?”

  “Yes?”

  “Did your father ever cheat again?”

  “No?”

  “See.” We were coming to Lena’s room. I remembered the way from when Jayden and I hauled her back after the party last Saturday night. “Your mom forgave your dad after he did something terrible. She could have called it off and filed for divorce, but she didn’t. Now that is true love.”

  “Maybe.” I still didn’t fully believe in true love, but she did make a valid argument.

  “Well, wish me luck tomorrow,” Lena said when we got to her room. She hurried to the door.

  “Why? What’s tomorrow?” My brows furrowed lightly in confusion.

  “Detention, remember?”

  “Oh. Right.” I had forgotten about that. I had been so caught up with Casey that it had totally slipped my mind. But now that I did remember, guilt washed through me. “Are you sure you don’t want me to help?”

  “For the hundredth time, yes,” she insisted.

  “Okay, then. If you’re sure.”

  She nodded.

  “See you later, Lena.” I took a step back, then another, starting to make my way back toward my room.

  “Bye!” She waved, then slipped into her room.

  Alone in the hallway, I turned and started toward my room. My thoughts were wrapped up in the dance and Jayden and Casey and what Lena had said about true love until it all blended into one confusing blur.

  A sudden breeze blew past, stirring my hair in front of my face. A chill rushed through me, but I suppressed a shiver. I stopped.

  “Hello?” I looked around. I had this eerie feeling that I was being watched. “Is–is anybody there?”

  No reply.

  Relax, Em. It’s probably just a draft.

  I shook my head lightly to clear away the fearful thoughts that were starting to seep inside.

  When I reached my room, I reached for the doorknob, only to find it locked. I groaned, reaching into my pocket to grab the spare key that dangled from the chain, only to drop it on the floor.

  Way to go, klutz.

  Wait. There was a piece of paper on the floor, folded into fourths, with my name written on top. Frowning in confusion, I picked up both the note and the key, then unlocked the door, and slipped inside. I walked over to my desk and placed my key down on the wooden surface before turning my attention to the piece of paper.

  What is this? I held my breath as I slowly unfolded the paper, then smoothed out the wrinkles. There was only one sentence written across the center in a beautiful, unfamiliar script.

  Stay away from him, or your fate will be the same.

  -L

  I read the line over and over again until the words lost their meaning. What was this? Was this a threat? Who would write something like this? Who was “him”? And what fate?

  I looked down at the L that marked the identification of the writer. My mind raced, trying to think of who “L” was.

  Then it hit me; Lexi.

  All the cold looks and bitter words filled my head, and I couldn’t help but crush the note with an angry fist. She wasn’t going to get away with this. I’d make sure of it.

  ***

  At eight o’clock, I finished the last of my homework, wanting to get it done before the weekend began. I sighed as I closed my assigned English reading book and placed it aside before pulling out my battered copy of Wuthering Heights. I flipped through the pages until I reached my bookmark.

  “Ugh, Wuthering Heights,” Nova scoffed, eyeing my book. “More like Wuthering Slumber.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You just don’t know what good literat
ure is,” I said.

  “No, you’re right.” She grabbed her iPod from her desk. “Because no one reads anymore. People these days listen to music.” She plugged her earbuds into her ears and relaxed back against her bed.

  I tuned out Nova’s last comment as I lost myself in the words of Emily Brontë. It wasn’t until a little after nine that I finally pulled my nose out from the yellowed pages to take a breath of air.

  The sound of gentle snoring filled the silence of the room. I turned my head to find the origin of the noise and saw that Nova was sleeping on her bed, her earbuds still in her ears.

  “Nova?” I whispered. I placed my book down on the bed bedside me and leaned over the small aisle between our two beds, poking her gently in the arm. She groaned, and rolled over on her side, away from me.

  Now’s your chance to go see Casey, I thought. I quickly got up from my bed and started for the door. But stopped just as my fingertips brushed against the doorknob.

  I couldn’t see Casey, not after the embarrassment of rejection that I was inflicted upon last night. At least not tonight.

  Turning, I slowly made my way back to my bed, and settled back in the spot I had just vacated from. I sat there for a moment, feeling a little sad about not seeing Casey. There was a strange tug from within me, pulling me toward him.

  No. Stop.

  Glancing around the room, I spotted a familiar orange pill bottle that I hid behind my little panda stuffed animal that I had brought to Brier Hall. The little black and white animal sat limply on my desk, looking tired and sad. Reaching toward it, I grabbed the pill bottle, popped open the cap, and shook two little white pills into my palm. I stared at them for a moment, then tipped my head back and swallowed them dry.

  FIFTEEN

  I AWOKE FROM a dark, peaceful slumber by the sound of my alarm clock blaring. I groaned, forcing my tired eyelids open, and looked around. When my eyes found my alarm clock, I saw that it was seven thirty. I knew Lena said that she would explain the situation, and that I didn’t need to worry about it, but I still felt guilty. So, to rid myself from the guilt, I was going to suffer through detention like everyone else.