hiatus.
Last Login: August 26th, 2023
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Gender: Male
Age: 29
Sign:
Leo
Country: United States
Signup Date: August 14, 2018
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07/18/2020 02:07 PM
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blog post; purging thoughts.
BLOG POST | P u r g i n g T h o u g h t s cw: suicide mention, alcohol/drugs, self-harm Been awhile since I updated my blog, wow. A little over a month in recovery and purging thoughts. Maybe it’s a little self-righteous of me to talk about healing when I’m not totally healed myself, but make no mistake, I know this is scrambled and faulty. It’s by no means meant to be taken as professional advice, but merely perspective. It’s by no means a statement that I’m suddenly cured and feeling great, because that’s still pretty far from the case. Is it selfish to mourn the loss of your own childhood when you finally figure out its gone? Is it stupid or naive that you actually didn’t even realize it’d been taken from you? Is there such a thing as empathy for the past self -- the self you’re no longer in touch with? Even further, is it possible to begin cherishing someone you’ve been very much trained to hate? When I look back on past experiences, it almost feels like I’m thinking of a totally different person. And sometimes, I cry for him; I cry for that kid who was so badly damaged that he threw away any chance to make improvements because he didn’t believe he’d ever do any better. I cry for the kid who took shelter on many nights in the bathroom of his apartment because it was the only place with a lock on the door. Who never knew how to trust anyone because everyone who came into his life either abandoned him or hurt him. And I cry because of him; because I barely remember BEING that kid (shout out to massive amounts of drugs and alcohol), but all his pain manifests in ways that have entirely crippled me even now. I cry because I hate him for not being strong enough to handle it all and that’s making it really hard for me now. Which then begins a whole other cycle of self-loathing over my tendency to sit here feeling sorry for myself, but that’s an issue for my therapist, not my blog. Another funny thing about my past self, though, speaking vaguely of self-loathing, is there was once a time I was proud to be him. I knew I was tough and volatile, and I liked it. I liked having a reputation that kept everyone at an arm’s length, but didn’t realize at time I was actively sabotaging myself. Because if every single person is at an arm’s length, then who do you turn to when something bad happens? You turn to things like drugs or alcohol or self-harm. You cling to the comfort and safety of death because you know it’s the ultimate back-up plan. You know it’s the surefire painkiller when nothing else will work. And maybe all you really needed in the end was someone to talk to… maybe all you needed was for someone to say “tell me why you’re crying” instead of “stop.” And you needed them to say that before you were convinced it wasn’t allowed or was inconvenient or annoying. The biggest thing for me has been accepting that it’s not embarrassing to need help. It’s not weak or inconvenient to acknowledge pain when you’ve been hurt. For more of my life than I care to admit, I thought I was invincible. I thought I WAS strong for everything I’d been through, and my recklessness was a symbol of the fearlessness I’d earned having made it through a life that was far less than ideal. My recklessness was nothing to be proud of; it was nothing more than a mask. Because if you intimidate people with outrageous-ness, they might stay away from you. Because if people think you aren’t afraid to die, then they won’t try and mess with you, right? I hid much of myself behind that shield, and avoided thinking about it with every numbing substance I could possibly get my hands on. And that screwed me out of a lot of opportunities (case in point, my entire time on Talent!) but it also protected me. Which then begs a lot of questions about how to turn your back on something that’s kept you safe for YEARS. How do you learn to resent the only thing you took solace in? Well, I’m still figuring that one out. Obviously. This experience has been anything but perfect. And despite all my talk about crying (blah), I can at least say I’m much better than where I was. Days where I wake up thinking there’s no possible way I can even get out of bed are few and far between right now. I have a killer support system who keeps me in check when I need it. Most of all, I have a new-found feeling of actually deserving to recover, and the realization that the kid I hate so much deserved it too… I keep that kid in my heart because in a weird, probably a little narcissistic way, he reminds me of empathy and humanity. He reminds me that it is possible to recover. I’m moving forward with a much clearer head, and doing everything I can to keep it that way. I might screw up still. Next week, I could decide to completely trash this, but that’s something to realize too. Healing isn’t linear and it absolutely is not always uplifting like this either (I'd venture to say this scenario is actually rare, at least in this stage). You take the good with the bad. That’s all I have to say for now. For all of you that have stuck by me even while you watched me light my entire life on fire via social media (embarrassing, I know), thank you. To those who offered encouragement even when I tried and failed the first time, thank you too. And to those who maybe, possible, saw all of this and learned from it, I hope you realize one day that you deserve to recover too, no matter what you’ve done, or what people have convinced you of. You deserve to have some empathy for yourself.
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07/06/2020 01:16 PM
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drabble; against each other.
based on this song.
“We’re not gonna talk at all today, huh?” Sarah leans on the wall, watching him playing on the piano in the living room. They hadn’t said a single word to each other since the night before and Casey, content to keep it that way, continues playing as if he hadn’t heard her. Sarah sighs. “Casey, I said sorry. I cleaned up all the glass, I did what I had to do here, so can you please just say something? I don’t even care if it’s rude at this point.” “And if we bleed tonight, it won’t be for the last time…” Casey sings, his voice horse, unpracticed. The split in his lip stings each time his mouth moves. “So we race, head on into the fire. These might be hard times but they’re our times now…” His chin finally lifts, but he still won’t look at her. Instead, he focuses on a framed photo behind the piano of the two of them — their first taken together at a random party. There’s a part of him that wishes he could go back, but he can’t decide whether he’d go back so he could burn the bridge, or if he’d go back just for the sake of reliving what their happiness was like. “Remember this one?” “Are you f***ing with me right now?” Sarah snaps. “No…” “Really, because it sounds like a whole lot of sarcasm to me.” “Then you’re missing my point.” “What is your point?” “You remember the next words?” Casey looks over at her. She’s unrecognizable. The Sarah he saw last night, chucking glasses around and yelling isn’t the one he wrote the song for. The Sarah whose first instinct in the face of a disagreement is a punch to the mouth isn’t the one he wrote the song for either. The Sarah forcing apologies for the sake of ego definitely isn’t the one he wrote the song for. “You are f***ing with me.” “No, I’m not, I’m telling you how I feel. You wanted to talk, right?” Casey turns his attention on the keys, but stops playing. “I always think about that song when we fight… because it makes me think of a time when it really was you and me against the world. Even though everyone hated it, we were like, well you know what, we’re getting married, so there. We stumbled down the aisle drunk to spite everyone who disagreed with it. We got a house in LA instead of Georgia like your parents wanted. It was always us and nothing else really mattered, you know? And now I feel like we’re against each other.” “You really think that, huh…?” “It’s really hard not to sometimes.” “Casey…” Sarah steps toward the piano, her arms folded. She reaches a hand out briefly to try and brush his hair back, but he turns his head. She doesn’t falter; instead, she takes a seat on the bench beside him and starts mimicking his fingers across the keys while he scoots further away. “So, what do we do then?” She asks. Casey shrugs, shaking his head, attention back on the photo. “If I knew that, we wouldn’t be talking like this, I guess, huh?”
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06/23/2020 02:47 PM
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drabble; proud of you.
cw: addiction B y r o n ' s P O V. It was the first time in a few weeks Casey and I had the opportunity to sit down in the studio together. He didn’t think I could see it, but I noticed the way he refused to stop or even slow down; the way he hid behind events and countless projects, most of which he didn’t invite anyone else to, he just went. I’d ask where he was, someone would tell me he was out of town, and he’d never said a word. He was avoiding something, though I knew he wouldn’t tell me about it if I confronted him. The most I could do was watch over him until he decided he wanted to talk to me. He was quiet, running over the same piano breakdown over and over, trying to figure out what he wanted — jumpy or subtle, fast or slow, complicated or simple. Occasionally, he would mutter something to himself and then scribble something into his notepad, then tear a page out and start over. I’d counted ten so far, but I knew my input didn’t have much of a place once he got going. People criticized Casey a lot for the way he worked. He preferred to do things by himself, and if he couldn’t do it alone, he had to at least have oversight. He was stubborn when corrected, and quite frankly, not that fun to deal with when things went awry, but it all came from a good place. Over the years, we’d developed ways to work around each other. All it took was a little patience with him, but even I had to learn the hard way that snapping or telling him to calm down was a catastrophic idea. So I let him go on, even though I could see the twitch in his eye every time he had to pause due to a mistake. I let him go on, even when he plopped his hands down and huffed. I let him go on even when he criticized himself. Because I knew, eventually, all that would lead to something. Finally, I heard the keylid shut. “I don’t think I'm feeling this today,” he admitted, shaking out his hands. “I think you’re just a little tired is all.” I shut the laptop, knowing we were in for a conversation. “You probably need a break, Case.” “Nah, it’s not that.” “Oh?” “No.” Casey started running his fingers over the keylid, swaying back and forth. He’d come a long way, but he looked tired. I knew all about the ups and downs of addiction and mental illness. I’d seen it in many artists during my time on Talent!, I’d seen it with the other guys in the band; Hell, I'd even seen Casey struggle multiple times, but it never looked any less sickening to me, the way they temporarily became only shells of themselves. Same hair as usual, same clothes, but a hollowness I couldn’t even fathom. While he’d come a long way from just ignoring it all, or trying to justify it, he hadn’t exactly learned to live with it either. “Stop me if I’m out of line here, and I probably am,” I said. “But you look exhausted. You haven’t really hit pause for months now, Case. We won’t even get into the birthday thing, I’m sure you already know how I feel about that one.” “It’s really okay,” Casey insisted. “I don’t need a break, okay?” “So what then? We sit here for another hour, you keep trying and get even more mad?” He glared at me. “No?” “Then what?” “You’re talking about weeks-long breaks, I’m not doing that. I can’t do anymore today, but I can’t just like… hide either.” “You’ve been hiding for awhile now.” I scooted a little closer to the piano. “Look, Casey, I know you have a tendency to distract yourself when stuff like this comes up, but you’re gonna run yourself into the ground if you try and tackle your addiction, your internal stuff AND all this at the same time. People will wait for you to get better.” Casey lowered his head, fiddling with his bracelets while looking at the floor. He probably wanted to say he wished he’d never messed up in the first place. The fact that he didn’t was a bigger step than he probably realized. He finally started to stand up, huffing. “Welp, this sucks.” I smiled. There was Casey. “I know it does. So we’re done for today?” “Yeah…” Packing up his bag, Casey started heading to the door. I didn’t really want it to end that way either. Despite me advocating for a break, I actually had a little bit of hope he’d pull through it. It hit me right then that this was a Casey I wasn’t very familiar with — one I really hadn’t dealt with before. Sure, I’d seen him looking sullen and docile, but defeat wasn’t usually in his nature. It dawned on me only then just how fragile he had to be to break away, even for a day. “You know, Casey.” I stood up. He was already pulling the door open. “I’m proud of you, kid.” He suddenly stopped and looked at me, not necessarily confused, but something else. Nervous? Surprised? I wondered how many times in his life he’d ever heard it and established based on the way he stared at me that it wasn’t enough. And since it wasn’t enough, I felt the need to repeat it. “I’m really proud of you. I know you can get through this, okay?” “Heh… thanks.” Casey ducked his head away from me, but at least he was smiling. He continued pulling open the door, “Seeya, man.” “Get some sleep.” “I’ll think about it.”
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05/29/2020 12:03 PM
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drabble; no for an answer.
cw :: drug addiction, relapse, withdrawal reference to this TMZ from awhile back. “You look like Hell, kiddo.” When Byron asked to see me, I almost ignored him; and when he said that, I wished I had. I couldn’t speak, any morbid quip in my arsenal hurled out the nearest window and lost to the wind. I kept staring at the window like the words had become tangible, fluttering away like I wished I could. If I opened my mouth, I didn’t think it’d be words coming out anyway. I must have looked pretty pathetic, sitting there rubbing at the endless itch in my arm, too wrapped up in my own head to even talk to him; too preoccupied with how ungodly hot my apartment suddenly became. I thought about checking the thermostat again, knowing it wouldn’t serve any other purpose than distracting me from that comment. I ached everywhere, even in places I was hardly aware of half the time and that was enough to keep me grounded in place, just staring out the window in silence, watching my words with no hope of getting them back so I could redirect them at Byron. This wasn’t the way we operated. I was supposed to tell him to screw off, but I didn’t have it in me. “Sorry…” he muttered. From the corner of my eye, I saw him shifting around in his seat. I wondered if he regretted his decision to come by. He had to have. No one in their right mind could have ever wanted to be there. Even I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to be anywhere. The whole time we sat across from each other, I pretended to be on a beach somewhere where no one expected a thing from me; where the insufferable itch couldn’t bother me; where the chilly wind would have been enough to keep me from suffocating in my own skin, and I could hold a meal down for more than two hours. “No, I know I do,” I finally said, but still couldn’t look at him. “The I Just Threw Up Like Six Times aesthetic doesn’t really have the glow I was hoping for.” “There’s Casey.” Byron laughed. “So how do you feel? About the video?” “Like an idiot.” I had to be pretty f***ed up to cry on camera where the whole world could see it, right? There was a time where I didn’t let anyone see me cry, no matter how close they were, but it felt light years away right then. “I guess I deserve it, huh?” “For what?” I couldn’t bring myself to say any of it out loud. It was silly to hate that he couldn’t just tell, and I knew it was, but that didn’t stop me. “Hey, look, don’t be so hard on yourself. You had a slip, Casey, it happens. And I knew you’d be sitting around doing this, which was why I wanted to come see you.” I saw him stand out of the corner of my eye, walking over to the window to crack it open. “I didn’t want you to be sitting here alone if you felt like that.” “What, you’re my personal suicide watch now or something?” I raised an eyebrow. “Maybe a little.” Byron let out a long sigh. I imagined it was probably what it looked liked like when you disappointed your parent. “You remember when you first auditioned on Talent?” I wasn’t sure where he was going with that one, and wasn’t sure I wanted to either. “Yes?” “You marched into that little room with ripped up pants and a split lip and you weren’t gonna take no for an answer. By the end of your audition, we didn’t even care about those things, we cared about the kid behind them because we knew he was gonna rise to the top. We knew if he wouldn’t take no from us, he wouldn’t take it from anyone.” Still not sure where he was going. “Yeah, and then I got eliminated. What’s your point?” “Sure, you did. You slipped, but you caught yourself, you see? Look where you are. You, Jacob and Isaiah, all at the top. You didn’t take no from an answer. You built your own way. You’ve been here before, Casey. When we called you in to let you go, you looked a lot like you look right now.” “Oh, great.” I laughed. I didn’t get it at all, unless maybe he was trying to scare me, that seemed reasonable. “So I just keep doing this over and over.” “Not necessarily. When we called you in that day, you were distracted and tense like you are now. You were tapping your heel and biting your nails, we’d never really seen you like that. But there was a difference too. You were ready to fight us on whatever we had to say that day. You yelled at us for inviting you to play one more time, remember that? Because you didn’t wanna be embarrassed or cry on camera. And now you just showed the whole world that you’re human too.” Byron came to sit beside me. If everything didn’t hurt so bad, I’d have moved away. All I could really do was sit there staring at him. “You’re human. You cry like everyone else. You make mistakes like everyone else, and just like everyone else, you can learn from them. This is the very bottom, and now you have a choice; sit here, or pull yourself back up the ladder, you know?” “Yeah…” He made perfect sense, but it didn’t stop me from wishing I hadn’t done it at all. If I hadn’t slipped at all, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I wouldn’t be crying again for the hundredth time in three days. “I know.” “I know you do.” Byron patted my shoulder. I flinched without meaning to and he retracted his hand. “I didn’t come here to make you feel bad about all this, I hope that isn’t the case.” “I made myself feel bad, man,” I remarked. “None of this is anybody’s fault but mine. I appreciate you coming to check on me.” “You’ve got people in your corner, Casey. Whether you think you deserve it or not, okay?” “I appreciate that.” I was furiously swiping at my face, trying to knock it off, but holding it together also felt like a very distant memory. “Sorry.” “Don’t apologize, learn. It won’t be easy and you know that now, but I know you can do this. Don’t take no for an answer, Casey, okay? Don’t take no for an answer.”
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05/29/2020 12:03 PM
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drabble; if he still loved me.
based on this. cw :: suicide, overdose
When Casey started sending her bizarre, disoriented text messages, Sarah thought he was messing with her. Of course she’d never known him to play such childish pranks, but then, she’d never known him to be a cheater either, and yet, there they were; in separate houses, communicating in faulty text messages. She’d tried multiple times to reel him in, asking what he was doing, only to get something ridiculous back. And then finally, a goodbye that was almost unreadable. She read it over and over as she sat in the hospital waiting room, Christian sitting beside her. The situation wasn’t ideal, and had she known Christian broke up with Casey shortly after the big blowup, she might have avoided calling him, but she couldn’t deny being thankful to have someone there. “You think he’ll be okay?” He asked, drawing her attention from her phone. “I think he’s a f***ing idiot,” she spited, lowering her phone, looking down the hallway where they took him, eyes welling up. She couldn’t bring herself to mention her exchange with Casey beforehand, where she’d said something unspeakable and he’d apparently taken her advice. After three hours of waiting in awkward silence, they were allowed to see him, though Sarah wasn’t sure she wanted to. She could have walked away and had Christian deal with it instead, but she was too stubborn to suggest it. That would only be admitting he’d been the better fit all along. “He’s still asleep, but he’s in stable condition so far.” A nurse broke her train of thought, leading her down a long hallway. “Is he gonna be okay?” Sarah followed along, her arms folded. “He’ll recover. Were you with him when it happened?” Sarah shook her head. “He was sending me weird messages, so I went over.” “It’s good you did.” The nurse rambled on about suicide hotlines, and different programs. Sarah didn’t have the heart to mention that, although not divorced on paper quite yet, they’d been separated for some time. When the nurse stepped aside, Sarah finally brought herself through the door. She used to watch Casey sleep all the time. He looked like a doll when he slept, a face perfectly sculpted to embody tranquility. She always admired the two little moles on his chin, placed just right, as if carefully painted there. His blonde-blonde eyelashes. The way his hair fell in waves around his face. He had a light snore that she never minded listening to. When he moved out, she wished she’d taken a picture all the times she thought about it, but hadn’t wanted to wake him. And now, looking at him in a hospital bed, he looked anything but peaceful, the moles on his chin concealed by a breathing mask, hair tucked back behind his ear, eyelashes sticky and unrecognizable as the blonde ones she'd always loved. And it was her fault. Were he to wake up and hear her apology, would he accept it? No. In all likelihood, he’d make a crack about having been waiting for permission. She looked over his features once more as she stepped in closer; features she once fawned over, then hated, then missed. Features she may have killed to see again, if only they could look favorably on her like they used to. But if he were to open his eyes, she knew she wasn’t the person he’d want to see first. There was a small knock on the door, Christian standing behind her, shoulder leaned on the frame like he was waiting for permission. Sarah shook her head, then went back to staring at Casey. It wasn’t her place to deny him. “They say he’s doin’ good?” “Yeah.” Sarah shrugged. “How come you broke up with him?” “Trying to say this is my fault?” Christian mused. Sarah’s eyes never left Casey. “I just wanted to know why… if he loved you, I wanted to know why you’d let that go.” “That’s pretty awkward…” “No, what’s awkward is finding love-letter text messages to another man on your husband’s phone,” Sarah remarked. “You don’t have to tell me.” Christian stepped a bit closer to the bed, looking Casey over. “I love him too,” he admitted. “I still love ‘im, but Casey has a lot of working on himself to do.” “I think Casey loved me, but he never said the things to me that he said to you.” “Sarah —.” “I wished I could have done better, but I think you messed up.” “Oh-kay?” Christian raised an eyebrow. Sarah started inching near the door. On the off-chance he did wake up, she didn’t think she could handle seeing the disappointment that might cross his face if he saw her there. “I think he’s a f***ing prick for what he did to me, and he deserves every bit of backlash he got from it, but I think you were stupid too.” “That still sounds like you’re saying it’s my fault. Plus, if you ask me, we were all pretty stupid.” “It’s my fault,” Sarah finally blurted out, stopped at the door frame, no longer able to fight back the tears she didn’t want to give Christian the satisfaction of seeing. “It was my fault… I told him to.” “You — wait, what?” “I told him to do it.” Raking her fingers through her hair, Sarah huffed, turning her head so she didn’t have to see the disgusted look on Christian’s face. She was disgusted with herself enough for the both of them. “We were already fighting and I said we’d both be better off if he offed himself. I didn’t think he would — I wasn’t like — I thought he’d just tell me to f*** off, I wasn’t really wanting him to —.” “You know as well as I do he’d take that seriously, Sarah,” Christian snapped. “But I can’t even pretend to imagine what this sh*t all feels like for you, so… I guess I can’t really scold you too bad…” Sarah wiped her face, keeping her head turned away. “I wish I never said it. Looks like I hurt him even after he’s done everything he can to get the hell away from me, huh?” “You both hurt each other.” “I still think you were wrong. After all that — all this sh*t, isn’t that stupid? I’d have stayed with him forever if he still loved me.”
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05/13/2020 11:57 PM
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drabble; plague.
It wasn’t like the ceiling had any answers for him. No matter how long he laid there staring, it was the same white space, a little stained from years of prohibited cigarette smoking, but overall not even close to distracting enough to prevent Casey from thinking about what he’d done — what he’d been doing for months. Christian was gone, back to his own hotel room, probably not thinking much of it because it had become their norm. Meanwhile, Casey couldn’t bring himself to move. If he moved, time pushed forward; and if time pushed forward, he’d have to face his mistakes. His countless pile of mistakes, only growing higher as the days passed. His phone started ringing and his heart sank. He dreaded seeing Sarah’s name, dreaded having to hold his own in a conversation knowing how messed up things were becoming. He glanced over, screen lit up from the same spot Christian had been laying earlier in the morning, when everything was too fresh to worry about. When he was too stupidly enamoured to even care about having to face Sarah again because it wasn’t a part of his life that existed. He wished he could go back to that. Casey remembered a time where Sarah’s name would have excited him, where he’d have dropped everything he was doing to hear her voice, but like a switch had been flipped, he suddenly found himself doing everything in his power to avoid it. The ringing stopped, then started up again. As much as he wanted to keep on ignoring it, the second call sparked some kind of alarm in him and caused him to spring up. Marital obligations were a strange thing for both of them to get used to. Sarah had always been upfront that she didn’t even like calling that first time — the check-in call — so if she was calling twice, it wasn’t just to talk. Something had to be wrong. Ultimately all his fretting had been proven entirely unnecessary. It wasn’t her. It was Christian, the name alone lifting a weight off his shoulders, and though that though had Casey sick to his stomach, he took solace in it. “Hey. You good?” “Did you go back to sleep?” “Ch’yeah, I wish…” Casey rolled his eyes. “Are you okay?” “Forgot my f***in’ wallet. Can you come open the door?” “Wow.” He finally hauled himself off the bed, hanging up the phone. Christian stood at the door in a light blue button down with silver buttons. It was his Stunning Red Dress — the first outfit Casey had ever seen him in. He remembered commenting on the buttons specifically the night they met. It made him feel like Christian was taunting him, but maybe it was just because he wanted someone else besides himself to be disgusted with. Casey stared at him for a second, seeking some sort of sanctuary in the softness of his expression. The anxiety over the ringing phone suddenly didn’t matter. Home didn’t matter. “Sorry, you probably went back to sleep.” “No.” Casey shrugged, shaking his head. “I just didn’t hear it.” “Are you good?” Christian raised an eyebrow. Casey felt pretty stupid, standing there staring. Dumbfounded. Lost. Pissed off at himself for being so pathetically happy to see Christian again, but he couldn’t drag himself back to reality even if he tried. “Can you, like… stick around for a bit? Do you have something else going?” “Aw, you missed me,” Christian remarked. The smile on his face made Casey sick all over again; it made him want to punch the both of them for how flushed his face became. “Shut up, man.” He looked away, but couldn’t stop himself from smiling. “I guess I did a little.” “You know… eventually, you’re gonna have to do something about this.” Christian motioned back and forth between them. “I’m not saying break up with her for me, but you’re gonna have to choose at some point.” “So is that a no?” Casey raised an eyebrow. He thought of reaching out for Christian so he wouldn’t walk away, but instead, folded his arms so he didn’t look too hopeless. Christian reached for him instead, a hand placed on his shoulder. “I mean, no. I just want you to think about this at some point.” Christian was alone in that. “I know you do,” Casey muttered. “I know.” “I care about you, kid. I really do. I don’t like standing on the sidelines while she keeps messing with you, but if we get caught, it’s gonna be a lot more f***ed up than an ashtray to the face.” “I know it is.” Casey kept his eyes low, thinking about how different things could have been were he able to come clean in the beginning when it first started happening. He’d have gotten his worse-than-an-ashtray-to-the-face out of the way and they wouldn’t have to have the awkward conversations that were plaguing their whole relationship. It was his fault and Casey knew it was, but whenever the time came, he couldn’t stop himself from running. His fears ran deeper than getting hit with an ashtray or any other inanimate object; that pain was easy. That pain was quick, temporary, but there was a completely different pain in knowingly breaking someone’s heart after sharing your whole life with them, and Casey wasn’t ready to face it. Maybe he didn’t love Sarah anymore, but he wasn’t out to destroy her either. “This all just sucks,” he finally whispered, running his fingers through his hair. “Hey…” Christian’s fingertips brushed along Casey’s chin, lifting his head a little. He somehow kept his smile, despite the awkwardness. And despite the awkwardness, Casey couldn’t help but smile back. “I love you, ‘kay? This totally isn’t to pressure you or make you feel bad or whatever. But I gotta care about me in all this too.” “I mean, if anyone is making me feel bad, it’s me.” Casey shrugged, then moved a little closer to start bridging the gap. “I love you too. I really love you. Just gimme a minute to figure all this sh*t out, okay?” author note: the stunning red dress is a reference to an old drabble that's lost in an abyss somewhere ( i have no idea where the hell it went ), in which an extremely drunk casey falls head-over-heels for sarah upon first meeting. she happens to be wearing a flowy red dress.
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05/05/2020 08:54 PM
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drabble; elephant in the room.
ft. casey's aunt barb.
“Already at it, huh? That sounds beautiful, Casey.” Aunt Barb stood in the entryway with her shoulder against the wall, arms folded. Casey glanced over his shoulder, fingertips idly doddling across keys as a smile tugged at his lip. It had been years since he played his grandmother’s piano, but he thought about it every time he sat down at his own. He turned his attention back to the keys, running his fingers along to feel the little nicks in them. “I didn’t wanna wait,” he admitted. “I really missed playing this one.” “Even over your pretty one back home?” Barb jabbed. “We follow you, we see what you play.” “Don’t get me wrong, I love my piano. But I have a big soft spot for this one.” Barb laughed, coming to sit beside him. “You know, when your granddad brought this home from church, he was really hoping me or your mom would be interested.” Casey lowered his hands to his lap, watching her. “You never did, or?” “Nope. Both took one lesson and hated it. Grandma knew how to play, so we kept it around, but even she didn’t play it all the time. I think he saw it as kind of a sign when you came over for the first time and couldn’t leave it alone.” Casey smiled. “I remember that.” The piano was nothing spectacular or particularly worth fawning over. The wood was chipping on the sides, and the handle on the keylid had broken off long before his grandparents even came into possession of it, but it was special in its own right. Even with all its imperfections, it was the light of the whole room to him. “I’ll never, ever forget the look on your face when you banged your hands down and realized that wasn’t all it took to make a song happen.” Barb recalled fondly. “When you looked at your grandma, and you were like ‘ how come it doesn’t sound like when you play ’?” Casey laughed, shaking his head. “I unfortunately remember that too. You guys really witnessed my stupidity in its prime.” “You were a kid, it was cute. We all knew you were gonna be great at it though.” “You guys believed that even more than I did for some time,” Casey mused. “Of course we did.” Barb straightened up. Although Casey wasn’t looking, he could feel her staring at him. His stomach turned. “We’re so proud of you, you know.” “Yeah?” Casey leaned his head on Barb’s shoulder, much like he used to when he was a kid. Barb laughed. “Mhm. You’ve come a looong way from the little kid pouting in the pool outside.” “Aunt Barb, I’m really sad you got rid of my pool,” Casey joked. “Now where am I gonna sit and mope?” “Oh, come on, you’ll get over it…” Barb chuckled, then breathed a long sigh through her nose. “Look, no matter what happens out in the big music world, we’re still here rooting for you, so… don’t shut us out, okay? Come visit more. Answer the phone once in awhile so we don’t have to worry, huh?” Casey’s smile dimmed. “I know. I’m sorry.” “No need to be sorry. Just if you’re not doing well, I hope you’d tell us.” Aunt Barb was never afraid to mention the elephant in the room. It was something he both admired and dreaded about her. “You’ll know, I promise,” he muttered. “I’ll be fine, okay?”
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05/05/2020 08:53 PM
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the furthest thing from kidding.
cw :: domestic abuse, miscarriage “You and Christian are looking pretty close in these pictures,” Sarah says out of the blue. Casey’s been in the kitchen rummaging through cabinets but suddenly stops. A peek outward and he sees her on the couch checking her phone. His heart jumps. Where had they faltered? Had they really faltered or was it nothing? He’d kill to see whatever she’s looking at, but he doesn’t want to seem too nervous. His eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean?” “Just looks like you’re spending a lot of time together is all.” Sarah sets her phone down, folding her arms and looking out the window. “Kinda like you and me used to.” Casey takes a deep breath through his nose. He determine the picture is probably nothing, but knows what she’s getting at. There was a time when Casey Caverly and Sarah Hudson were never seen without each other. Every event, every outing, every tour, signing — any time they could look as though they’d been sewn together at the hip, they did. And now it’s like they don’t even know each other. Even worse, it’s like they never loved each other. Christian had slowly moved to tie up the hole in his hip where Sarah had split from him, but whenever the opportunity comes around to tell her, he chokes. He could tell her there’s something going on since she brought it up, but all the words remain huddled on the tip of his tongue, too scared to take the plunge. It’s not a fight he’s ready for. Casey swallows the words back, focusing on the empty cabinets again. “Yeah…” He can’t rightfully be annoyed at any perceived accusations, now can he? “We used to do all this stuff together,” Sarah goes on. “I asked you to come.” “It’s hard for us to both be out at the same time.” “Sure.” “I don’t think you realize how hard that is for me, Casey.” Sarah rolls her eyes elbow on the armrest so she can prop her chin with her hand. "That or you don’t care.” Casey shakes his head, slamming the cabinet shut. “I wish you’d stop saying that.” “And I wish you’d stop just saying ‘well come on then’ like it’s that simple. I’m glad it was easy for you to get right back up and continue on with things, but I’m not like that. Sorry to be so disappointing.” “I never said you were disappointing…” Casey steps away from the kitchen into the living room, but doesn’t dare come near. Instead, he’s leaned on the wall near the hallway toward the room, in case an exit plan becomes necessary. “Learning how to move forward again was hard for me too. Learning how to talk without choking up, or thinking about it, or thinking about how I shouldn’t be acting normal — I get it, Sarah, I do. But how are we ever supposed to move on from that if you never even try?” “You may think you get it, but you don’t!” Sarah snaps, suddenly standing. “You didn’t carry her, Casey. You didn’t have to lay in a hospital bed, totally exposed to an entire room full of doctors, just so they could tell you your little girl was dead, did you?” He says nothing so she keeps prodding. “Did you!? And now you don’t have to sit at home, looking at pictures of your husband out having a great time while you’re still too upset to even think of going out. If you think you understand ANYTHING, you’re a f***ing idiot.” “You wanna know what happens when I stay here? This, right here.” Casey motions back and forth between them. “You and I wander around the house in silence all day because we can’t say a single word to each other without it turning into this, and then you wonder why I’m never here? You wonder why I’m so eager to get out when every time I take a step back, you are right there to scream at me over nothing. You won’t tell me what you want, you won’t tell me anything unless it’s in the form of yelling at me, so excuse me if I don’t necessarily wanna be around you.” There they are again, the words that would get him off the hook, right at the tip of his tongue, and still too scared. Still being swallowed back while his other rampage overran them to make the first leap. “I don’t want to sit here in this, I’m sick of it.” “You’re sick of it?” Sarah’s now close enough to shove Casey’s shoulders back, cornering him into the wall, exit plan officially foiled. “How the f*** do you think I feel, Casey? Stop being a f***ing p**sy and maybe think about me instead of yourself!” “Dude, knock it off!” Casey scoots himself further into the wall if only to get a half an inch of space between them. “No, you wanna hash it out, let’s hash it out. Will that make you feel better? Will that make you less sad?” “I said back off!” When he shoves Sarah back, he’s immediately met with a slap across the face, the abruptness of it silencing the both of him. Sarah quickly draws back while Casey stares at her wide-eyed, his chest practically erupting, ears ringing. She’s crying, but he can’t reach her as she takes a few steps away from him. “You happy now?” She whispers. Casey turns his head away, running his fingers through his hair, his skin blazing where she smacked him. He grits his teeth together, swallowing a mouthful of words once again before he makes a turn for the front door. “You’re really just gonna leave, are you kidding?” Casey, with his hand on the door knob, glares back at her, eyebrows raised. “I’m the furthest thing from kidding.”
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04/25/2020 05:17 PM
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drabble; we'll never be friends.
“Where are you going?” Jennifer sat at the table, her head in her hands until she heard him come out of his room. Casey had his backpack slung over his shoulder. He’d been hoping to make it out unnoticed. He didn’t want her to have the satisfaction of seeing him still puffy-eyed and distressed from their fight during dinner. “Out.” “Out where? Look, you can’t just go running around town whenever you feel like, it’s almost midnight.” Casey rolled his eyes. “I was pretty sure you didn’t want me here anyways.” Jennifer shook her head, leaning her cheek into her hand. “You know what I always think about? C’mere for a sec, your friends can wait.” Casey glanced at the door, contemplating whether he should humor her or run. He pursed his lips together, reaching his hand out, then for some reason retracting it. He took a deep breath through his nose. “What?” “You know how you always see mother-and-son duos… on movies and TV and stuff? When I was pregnant with you, I was so excited for that. So excited.” Jennifer smiled, as if she’d hit some grand realization suddenly. She had a bottle of whiskey beside her, which must have been where her inspiration came from, and as soon as Casey noticed it, he wished he’d opted not to humor her. He raised an eyebrow. “Okay?” “Then you started to get a little older, and everything kinda fell apart for me, and that seemed more and more unreal. I guess I just have to get used to the fact that we’ll probably never be like that. We’ll probably never be friends.” Casey lowered his head, gritting his teeth together, eyebrows furrowed. He’d known all along they would never be friends. He’d mulled over it a thousand times on the bathroom floor while avoiding her. He’d already accepted it was just the way of things, so why did hearing it from her mouth, tangibly, make him wanna hurl himself out the nearest window? “We probably never will, no,” he finally answered, hand on the door knob. Jennifer scoffed a little, shaking her head. There were tears streaming down her face. Casey wanted to shake her and say he was the one who should be crying, but he was dying to get out of there at that point. “Can I go?” “Go. Don’t get in trouble.”
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04/25/2020 05:15 PM
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drabble; sabotage.
Casey stares lackadaisically at strings of black gunk running down the wall while the everything spins and warps around him; the bathroom idly fills floor to ceiling with a dense mixture of steam and smoke, engulfing him, an attempt at being hauled off to another realm of existence, but it’s mostly just suffocating him. Sydney had told him once that sitting with the humidity might make him feel less nauseous, but he’s starting to think Sydney was just talking out his ass because the only reason he’s stopped throwing up is because he’s too weak to make it to the toilet. “Hey! You trying to flood the place or what?” A loud bang jerks Casey from his trance, eye darting to the door, narrowing. He doesn’t move. “You’ve been in there for an hour!” It feels like he’s inside a fishbowl — no hope of deciphering the yelling, who’s yelling, why they’re yelling. Casey shuts his eyes, pretending not to notice until the banging happens again, sparking another jolt of awareness. Another turn in his stomach. “Kid, this place only has one bathroom and I gotta use it! Hey!” The voice rages on, more clear the second time around — once Casey’s grown frustrated by the interruption. The banging becomes too obnoxious to tune out. “The door’s f***ing unlocked,” Casey blurts out, and no sooner, it flies open, smacking against his leg. At first it looks like a giant blob coming through the door; maybe a creature formed from the gunk coming off the walls. Casey starts to sit up, eyebrows furrowed as the blob finally takes recognizable shape, along with everything else, reality surfacing around him. How long was he laying there? “What do you want?” “You just gonna sit there with the shower running and waste all the water or what?” Allan throws his arm out, never fully breaching room, only because Casey’s taking up a majority of it laying on the ground. “What’re you doing?” Casey’s half-listening, searching for the ashtray he brought in there to snuff out his cigarette. He kicks the sink cabinet close to conceal the half-empty bottle of whiskey he got from Sydney’s house. “I was gonna get in there.” “Yeah?” Allan finally steps around him to turn the shower off. “Looks to me like you were just layin’ on the ground smoking cigarettes. Your mom know you have those?” “Did you just come in here to ask me a bunch of questions or did you come to take a piss?” The words stumble from his mouth before he can stop them, though he’s not exactly trying to. Casey hauls himself up off the ground, balance faltering upon standing, shoulder leaned on the wall in a losing bid for support. His head goes right back to spinning, stomach right back to churning. Allan stares him down. “Are you drinking in here?” “Dude, just take your piss and get out, you already let all the steam out.” “Where the hell did you get that from? Hey.” Allan snaps a few times in Casey’s face and Casey shoves him away. “Don’t, I can hear you.” “Then answer me, boy, what the hell are you thinking?!” “None of your business,” Casey mutters, leaning his head against the wall for a second, then finally pushing himself upright. “Can you get out of the way?” “No, I’m not gonna get out of the way, not ‘til you tell me what the hell’s goin’ on in here. Your mother’s gonna be pissed, not just at you, at me, I’m supposed to be watchin’ you!” “Yeah, well you’re doing a sh*tty job, now MOVE. You want me to knock it off, you should’a locked me in the closet, we know you’re not above that.” Casey tries to shove him out of the way but he doesn’t budge, so he pushes a little harder. “Move, Allan, f***!” Casey’s best efforts have been watered down by the alcohol, but Allan’s are very much intact — recoil sending Casey stumbling back into the ground near the bathtub. “Hey!” Like a crack of thunder heard directly overhead, all other sound pales in comparison and therefore stops. Power outage. The whole world inexplicably pauses for Jennifer Caverly. She stands in the doorway — another blob at first but then she becomes unmistakable. Casey remains on the ground, his arm preemptively shielding his face while Allan stands directly over him. It’s the one time he’s ever been thankful for an intrusion from his mother, although he wants to think he could have held his own had it come to that. “What is this?” Jennifer looks more horrified than mad. There’s a tremor in her voice. She looks up at Allan. “What’s going on?” “Ask your f***ed up son!” Allan steps away. Jennifer looks over his shoulder at Casey, shaking her head. “Casey?” The tremor in her voice must be infectious because he can feel it rumbling through every part of him. He tenses his jaw, focusing more on catching his breath than forming a response. “Casey!” Jennifer demands. “Why don’t you tell ‘er, Casey?” Allan prods. It’s in that moment that Casey finally finds his ammo, his secret weapon. Allan has left him a perfect opening, and thus he’ll go the way of all the horrible boyfriends before him. “Ask him, he’s the one who gave it to me.”
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