"If you want to try again, I've learned a few things since then and now I'm sure... I would make it so, so good for you..." Luke pulls back, a troublemakers grin on his lips. "You wouldn't be able to forget it."
...
"Casey, stop!" I scramble after him, searching for my keys, stumbling over my own feet.
We're going too fast.
"How could you do this, man?" He looks so disgusted. "To me, is bad enough, but even worse, to Dylan? Fuck. Maybe people really are right about you."
"Casey, let me explain." My eyes flicker from the road to his face.
Too fast.
Too drunk.
"I don't want to hear it, Luke." He stares out his window. "You're really a douchebag, you know that? Now I have to tell my little sister that you cheated on her. Shit."
"Casey, just listen to me, I wouldn't ever do that to you or Dylan. Listen to me."
"Enough!"
"Case,"
A bend in the road.
Headlights, over the line. Or maybe we are.
Too fast.
Too drunk.
Too late.
"Case?" I blink, something warm dripping down my forehead. My head pounds. My vision is blurry.
It smells like smoke. There's glass everywhere, over the dash, my lap. I blink, head rolling back and forth as I try to focus.
"Casey?" I cough, worry building in my chest. My body... it doesn't feel right. I feel broken. "Casey, I can't move, I'm stuck." I strain against my seatbelt, against the metal pinning me in place.
Eyes landing ahead, I find the hole in the windshield. The tree we drove into.
"Oh, God." I groan-cry. "Casey?" I turn slowly, finding his seat empty, seatbelt unbuckled, as I feared it would be. "Oh, God."
Turning my head the other way, dread chokes the life from my lungs. The pavement comes into view, glass glistening across the deep black asphalt.
Red, so dark it's almost black, marks the street in a way I've never seen before and an animal like noise escapes me.
Somehow my eyes keep going until I see the... lump. The body, the limbs thrown at unnatural angles. So much blood that it could only mean one thing.
"Casey!" I scream, struggling against the seatbelt, the pieces of my Jeep locking me in place, my own body, refusing to listen to me. But it's useless. I can't move. Eyes roaming still, I finally land on his face, so messed up that it doesn't even look like him.
"Casey." My body convulses and a sob escapes me. Unable to tear my eyes from his face, all I can do now is wait, wait and will myself to be wherever he is.
As usual, the nightmare wakes me with a start, my body covered in sticky, cold sweat, my chest rising and falling so fast I'm barely getting any air.
Heart racing, I reach for Finn on the sofa next to me, drowning out my thoughts with his soft snores and matching my inhales to his until I don't feel like I'm suffocating anymore.
Only then do I drift back into what I know will be a restless sleep.
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