The Science of Growing Apart

19- Embarrassed

 "I just don't know how I feel about this whole thing," Natalie told me over the phone, her voice coming through the speakers of my car as I drove. "After everything he did to you, and he didn't even reach out to you until you showed up."

"I know. I'm trying to stay cautious," I promised her.

"How? You're on your way to his house right now," she reminded me with an incredulous laugh.

"Just to drop something off. I'll just say hi and then I'll be on my way," I defended myself. "I know you're worried and I love you so much for it, but I promise you that I'm being careful."

And I was being careful. It had been a full week since the banquet dinner and although I'd been texting Casey constantly throughout the week and we went bowling with my dad, I kept the phone calls to a minimum. Our text conversations were mostly sending memes and TikToks back and forth, complaining about work, just small things. But to stop myself from leaping head first into this friendship with Casey like I so badly wanted to, I put a rule in place that we could only have phone calls once a week. Those were really where I knew he could steal all of my resolve if I let him.

So I did have small measures in place to show Natalie, and myself, that I wouldn't get my hopes up too fast and let myself be vulnerable too soon. I wasn't sure how well it was working, but the measures were in place.

Now with the draft in hand, I was just stopping by his apartment to drop it off like promised and I'd be on my merry way. I still had lightyears of work ahead of me on this article, but this was a good starting point to hand off to Shiloh, Casey, and Eleanor. Just to give them an idea of how the layout is going to look, the kinds of facts I was including and redacting.

Maybe I was being paranoid, but I insisted on printing off these copies and dropping them off at each of their houses. I didn't want this information passing through the internet in emails or getting lost in shipment if I mailed them. Not until everything was perfect.

I stopped by Shiloh's place first, we caught up briefly before I headed to Eleanor's place. Micah was the only one home and he was busy in his home office, so I only dropped off the papers and headed toward Casey's apartment.

I guess that was my mistake, because when I told Casey when I would be around to drop off the article, I had accounted for time I would probably spend chatting with Eleanor first. So, when I came knocking on his front door, I was an hour earlier than expected. I didn't think that would be a big deal.

When he didn't answer the door, I tried the handle and it twisted open for me, so I stepped inside. Casey's apartment smelled like cinnamon with a long foyer that looked to be the stem of a t-shaped hallway. I imagined there would be plants everywhere, but the décor was pretty bland. Some family pictures hanging on the walls, his degrees, and a console table with keys on top and two pairs of shoes underneath. One pair of sneakers and another pair of high heels.

I was so into analyzing the decoration of the foyer that I didn't even register the faint knocking sound until I'd been standing there for at least half a minute. The realization of that sound seeming an awful lot like wood knocking onto the wall in a rhythmic motion might be a bed post tap-tapping started to dawn on me like you'd watch in slow motion during a movie.

As quietly as I could, I tried finding a safe resting spot for the article on the console table where it wouldn't make any noise. There were keys and a little glass vase with some dying flowers, junk mail stacked in a slant that looked like if I stacked the article there, it could topple over.

"Baby, yes!" I heard Rebecca cry out from the left side of the apartment and then a series of screams and moans started to fill the air. My entire face went red and hot as I panicked. The knocking from earlier intensified to a loud and constant slam. "Right there, Casey. Right fucking there!"