Casey
Five years ago.
Cesar moves closer to me and puts his hands behind my head on the seat I was leaning on, and I find myself getting closer to the table and away from his hand. Leanna looks at Cesar and then she looks at me. I can see it—the confusion. She doesn't understand what's going on here because yesterday, Cesar and I, didn't know each other. But here he was.
"Good morning," he says, killing the awkward silence.
I start looking down at the table, trying everything to fold myself into myself so I wouldn't get noticed.
Leanna answers brightly, "Good morning, Cesar. How are you? I didn't see you at the party yesterday." She goes on.
She's flirting with him. It's clear as day. I don't know, maybe she thinks that Cesar came for round two. Maybe he really did. I have no idea why he's here.
Cesar only smiles at her and then turns his attention to me. And then he asks me,
"How are you doing? Are you feeling okay?"
I don't want to see Leanna's reaction after that question. I just shrug, hoping this will end soon.
"Yeah, I'm fine... I'm okay. Why wouldn't I be?"
I would have slapped myself in the face Just then. Why would I ask him to elaborate on why he was asking how I was doing? Just how stupid am I? And I'm just about to clarify that, but he beats me to it.
"I was just worried about you, and I wanted to know how you were doing."
Now I took a chance at Leanna's face and saw that she was leaning back away from Cesar. She's not trying to flirt with Cesar anymore.
She is shocked, surprised, confused? I can't explain the look on her face as she looks towards Cesar and me.
Shit.
"I'm fine. I'm okay. It was nothing. I just sprained my leg. I took some of the pills I got at the pharmacy, and I feel better. You don't have to worry about it."
"Yeah," Cesar says, and I don't know why, but when he says, " You sprained your leg. How could I forget?"—I got all red.
And then he does this thing where he licks his lips. I could have had a stroke.
Leanna is right there, and I just want him to leave. So I say,
"Thank you for caring about me." Now I raise my head, and I look at him, although I don't make direct eye contact.
"Thank you. It's very noble of you. Me and my roommate, we're kind of having a bonding time right now, and I saw you coming with your friends. I'm sure they need you back."
Cesar looks at me, and he smiles. Then he looks back at Leanna and asks,
"Am I interrupting anything?"
Leanna's eyes come towards me, and she has this look I can't tell on her face. I really hope she's not reading too much into it, and so, because I'm freaking out, I also want him to leave or not have his attention on me. Because I don't want Leanna to notice anything is entirely wrong, I blurt out the next words that come to my head.
"When Cesar brought me back yesterday, because—as I already told you—I sprained my leg, and Cesar was such a gentleman to me because I'm your roommate. He helped me get some pills, and then he helped me up the upstairs hoping to find you. We thought you would still be back at the dorm..... He wanted to say something."
Leanna frowned, but then she looked back at Cesar, and I could see the little hopes there in her eyes, and I hated myself for a moment.
Cesar coughed and then cleared his throat a little, and I got really scared about what he would say next.
"Yeah, sure," he says. Shrugging. No effort. No emotion into it. "I still have your number. I can still hit you up."
Leanna leans back toward the table again. "Yeah, like... do you want to come up to my bedroom again tonight?" she asks him, flirtatiously.
I don't know how to react to this. But then—it's very subtle—I could have missed it. Leanna throws me this look I can't understand before her attention goes back toward Caesar again.
Caesar looks at me for a moment. As if to say, Are you going to say anything?
I'm confused. What am I supposed to say?
Caesar says to Leanna,
"No. You know how my rules go. I don't see the same girl twice."
Leanna nods. "Yeah, yeah. So why are you here then?" she asks, challengingly. And then she throws me that same look again.
Caesar looks at her as the two of them stare at each other. It feels like they're having a conversation I can't understand. I can't read into it.
Then Caesar turns to me and says, "I was hoping to get your phone number. I didn't get your number yesterday, Casey."
I'm freaking out. I look back toward Leanna, who is just sitting there watching me. And then I look back at Caesar.
And I go, "I don't want to give you my number... I don't have a phone."
Caesar raises an eyebrow. "Well, I've never had two no's in one sentence. And the whole thing not making sense."
I narrow my eyes at him. "It makes sense. Hasn't anybody ever told you they don't have a phone? Or they do not want to give you their phone number? What's so hard to understand about that?"
"Okay, okay, calm down," he says, raising his hands in mock surrender.
And then Caesar whispers under his breath, "I don't remember you being this hot and angry yesterday..."
I look back toward Leanna, praying she didn't hear that. Why is Caesar doing this?
I turn to him. I just want to get out of this situation. I just want to end this and go anywhere but here.
"I'm going to the bathroom," I say standing up abruptly.
He just stares at me. I look at him pointedly.
"Can I pass now?"
Finally, he scoots up and lets me through. I speed-walk to the bathroom, my heart pounding fast.
Once inside, I shut my eyes and take a deep breath. I walk into a stall, do my business, then step out and move toward the sink to wash my hands.
And then—Caesar walks in.
I freeze.
"What are you doing here?" I ask, a voice full of accusation and disbelief.
"I'm here to talk to you. Since you clearly can't talk in front of your roommate."
He walks past me, checking every stall one by one to make sure we're alone. Then he comes back and—click—locks the bathroom door.
My eyes widen. "This is the girl's bathroom," I remind him as if he's just too stupid to realize that.
"Yeah, I know," he says. "Seems like I have to break rules just to get five minutes with you without you freaking the hell out."
"What do you want, Caesar Blackwell?" I add his full name like it might add weight to my anger like it might push him back.
"I just wanted some time alone to talk to you. Somewhere you're not running away."
"Yeah? Really? What was that back there?" I snap. "Why did you even come to our table and do that?"
"Look, calm down," he says, hands lifted like I'm overreacting. "I know you don't want Leanna to know anything, okay? I'm not gonna tell her anything. Although…" he smirks. "I have to admit, I enjoyed watching you squirm like that."
"You're just—"
But I don't finish my sentence.
Because suddenly, his hands are on me. He pulls me close, and then he's kissing me.
I wasn't expecting that.
Against every judgment in my head, I kiss him back. For a moment, I let it happen.
For a moment, it's just me and him and heat and chaos—and then he pulls away. Abruptly.
He's breathing heavily. So am I.
We stare at each other in the dim, quiet of the bathroom.
And then— Anger.
What the hell was that?
"Why did you do that?" I snap, voice trembling with fury and something I can't quite name.
"Do what?" he asks, like he doesn't already know.
"Why did you kiss me?"
He shrugs, then says calmly, "Because I wanted to."
I narrow my eyes, disbelief crawling all over me. "Seriously?"
He sighs, running a hand through his hair. "Okay, fine. I just… I wanted to prove something to myself."
"Prove what?" I ask. Confused.
"I wanted to see how you'd react to me. But I also wanted to know how I'd feel… kissing you again."
I stare at him, stunned.
He looks at me, his eyes darker than before. "And… this is the first time I've kissed a girl twice and I'm not scared to do it again."
My chest tightens. What does that mean?
I stand frozen. Terrified. Confused. He's not making sense. None of this makes sense.
"What do you mean?" I whisper.
He takes a step forward. "It means I wanted to ask you something... I wanted to know if you'd mind if I—"
BANG BANG BANG!
A loud knocking crashes.