My heart sinks. This isn’t how I had imagined this morning to go. I thought he would be excited. I thought he would want to try, but he doesn’t even want to talk about it.
“Okay. Would you rather we went out for a bit? A walk, maybe?”
He shrugs. “No, it’s going to rain.”
Casey’s shoulders slump and he pulls away from me. “Let’s watch a movie, then.”
“I don’t think I can sit still for two hours.”
My chest tightens and I realize that he’s trying to get rid of me. He’s walking toward his bedroom and I pull him back. “Hey,” I say, and run my hand across his chest and over his shoulder. “Don’t shut me out, okay?”
He inhales a shaky breath and closes his eyes. My heart beats like a caged bird in my chest. I’m terrified that he’ll send me away and that no one will hear from him for weeks again. I’m terrified that he doesn’t want me here.
He opens his eyes and I’m lost in the rough seas of his gaze. We’re just friends, I remind myself, but my heart and body argue back. Not with words but with longing. I want this man so much. The pain in his eyes holds me back. He’s hurting and I don’t know what he needs, but I also don’t want to leave him. I’m stuck in this soggy middle of indecision, and I don’t know what to do.
“Casey, what do you want?” I whisper. The question holds so much depth, so many facets to my confusion.
He stares at me and his gaze drops to my lips. Cologne still lingers on his skin, and I breathe it in as he draws nearer. It is intoxicating being this close to him.
I close my eyes and wait for his kiss, but a few seconds later, his lips brush past my hair.
He steps away and runs his hand through his hair. “Tell me what’s going on with you?”
His question is so unexpected that I teeter on my feet. “W-what?”
“I’m tired of talking about myself. I want to know what’s happening in your life.”
He walks to the kitchen and opens the fridge. “Can I make you something to eat?”
The air is cold around me and I shiver. Rubbing my shoulders, I shrug. “Um… maybe just tea. I’m not hungry.”
“Peppermint, right?”
I smile, glad that he remembered. “Yeah.”
He puts the kettle on and grabs a box of tea from his pantry. “So, how did your exams go?”
“Um, really well, actually.”
His face lightens. “That’s good. Tell me about them.”
“You don’t really want to hear about them, do you?” I tease.
He turns and grins. “I do. I really want to know everything about you.”
His words give me hope, a hope I shouldn’t be feeling.
“Well, let’s see. I aced the exam and my independent research paper. I learned a whole lot about the human body and how it moves and reacts to difficulty. It’s incredible how it adapts and pushes through even when it shouldn’t. You know? It’s quite resilient, but at the same time, we shouldn’t ignore signals.”
“What kind of signals?”
“Pain is one. Often we dismiss it. But more than pain, sometimes we don’t realize that a throbbing in our toe can be related to a muscle in our lower back.”
He laughs. “You’re kidding?”
“No. I’m serious. Our muscles, tissues, ligaments, everything, it’s all connected. Nothing moves in isolation. When one body part suffers, you can feel the pain in a multitude of areas.”
He looks down at the teacup and stares intently at it. I was strictly talking about the body, but the mind can work in asimilar fashion. I want to tell him that it’s not just his body that needs to heal.
