Always Cas | ✔

CHAPTER ONE; part one

     You don't know the impact of a moment until it's done impacting.

     It leaves its mark and it's only after you've stepped out of the shape of it that you can even tell it's there. This is my life. I am a series of moments that have left human-sized holes. I catch my foot in the places where people once were and are now no longer.

     There are moments in my life where I carved out the holes myself, placed the C-4, lit the fuse, and stepped back far enough to watch it go off before the blast took me out, too.

     My psychiatrist would call this self-destructive behavior. She could be right. The thing is Ashley is always saying something and I don't always want to hear it. Like recently, she asked me to use positive affirmations to enforce positive behavior.

     "Why don't you try it?" she had said. "I am going to move on. I am living my life. I am happy."

     I am a circumstance of my life.

     I am an undone man.

     I am unraveling.

     I think I'll keep these ones to myself.

     I'm sitting under the morning light in the kitchen of Private Weston's. I've been sitting here for five years, writing letters that I never send. And when I finish, I fold the paper into threes, tuck it into an envelope, tuck the envelope into a manila folder. There are three folders now, stuffed full of letters I didn't even sit with long enough to proofread. This is one thing Ashley and I agree on. Mostly, anyway.

     "It's good to get your feelings out, but why don't we try journaling, instead? Writing to someone we don't know, or maybe even a future you?"

     It's not that Ashley isn't an advocate for Cas. Ashley is an advocate for moving forward and moving forward almost always means moving on. I don't tell her that I'll never move on, not because I'm waiting, not because I'm holding out hope, but because I don't deserve the peace that comes with burying, with forgetting.

     It's why I keep his letters. It's why I reread them -- enough times now to recite them from memory. My life is a routine, one that isn't always kind to me but that I still fall into with ease.

     Dres,                                                                                                                   01/21/16

     It is so freaking sunny here. I'm talking sunny literally ALL of the time. California's like this one giant dare to be unhappy. You can't be unhappy here. But you can certainly try. That's what my mom says. Because evidently, I'm not happy? Like fair, mom, but what is actually so important about being happy?

     Here's the thing. My classes are a snore and my professors are dry as hell. I actually dread going to class. And having to sit there and pretend that I care about my ridiculous professor's obsession with bees? We have seriously discussed bees for two lectures already.

     I'm trying to remind myself they're just gen eds. Once I get into my major, things will get at the very least a bit more interesting? Granted, I have no idea what the F I want to major in. AND ALSO I don't really get how you make friends on college campuses when you see so many people and no people all at the same time? I guess it doesn't help that I don't dorm. I don't really care to dorm, though. Mom's trying to get me fill out a request for the fall and I'm just like. No thanks?

     We're renting a place by the beach. (Which is to say she's renting a place bc I am poor and in desperate need of a job) I've never lived by the beach before. I get to wake up everyday and throw open my doors (the balcony ones) to the ocean. Okay, so like not DIRECTLY TO the ocean. But it's there, ya know? Like in my eye line. If I had a really good arm, I could throw a frisbee or a football to the sand. Like if I had YOUR arms. I am now thinking about your arms. Love that for me.