Until I Met You

17: Until I Met You

Cason, who was previously as stiff as a board after his apology, let some of the tense energy leave his body as I saw his shoulders relax slightly as he rolled his eyes at my reply. “You know what I mean.” he replied, looking at me with a small smile on his face for a second before averting his gaze back to the sea.

“Yea I do.” I said. “And honestly, I’m sorry too, you know, for interrupting your thinking time or whatever the hell this was before I got here.”

Cason chuckled at my apology as he also shook his head in amusement. “Why are you apologizing?” he asked as his laughter wore down.

I shrugged my shoulders a bit, a small smile of my own appearing on my face. “I don’t know if I’m intruding or not.” I replied simply.

“Well trust me, I wasn’t doing anything besides replaying the events I remember about Friday in my head and how much of an idiot I was to go to that party alone.” he replied clenching his fists in anger.

“Hey, it’s fine.” I said, and acting on instinct, I placed one of my hands on his arm soothingly.

I guess after a couple of seconds, both Cason and I realized what I was doing and I immediately retracting my hand in embarrassment.

“But I was just wondering,” I said, trying to forget that I just tried to comfort this guy, “Why did you go alone, or at all really?”

He looked as though he was expecting me to ask this as he released a deep sigh before turning to face me. “At first I just wanted to go with you because I thought it’d be a good way to start breaking you out of your shell.” he explained softly, before continuing. “But then when you rejected my request, I don’t know, I guess I just felt stupid for suggesting it, especially after you said you didn’t really interact with anybody your own age back home.”

“It wasn’t stupid.” I interjected, trying to make him see a bit of reason. “I honestly would’ve come to the party with you if I didn’t make plans with Olivia.”

Cason laughed dryly. “I know that, but I only truly realized that after I had downed a couple of beers.” he replied sadly. “And the only thing that made me realize it was when the very same guy who was trying to hit on you at that corner store ended up at the party for some reason, and he was retelling your story of embarrassment to some of his buddies. I got mad as I heard him making fun of you because I remembered what you said about people teasing you in your old school, so I went up to him and told him off before I left. Then, in my drunken state, I thought it would be a good idea to apologize to you at that very moment, thus the whole showing up at your house drunk thing that happened.”

“Wow.” I said, not knowing what other word fitted into this situation.

Before either of us could continue our conversation, I felt a vibration on the side of my thigh and quickly realized that it was my phone.

Pulling it out quickly, I was just hoping that it wasn’t my mom and that somehow she had figured out I was skipping school. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that it was just a message from Olivia, wondering where I was. I speedily typed out a reply, telling her that I wasn’t coming into school today and that I’d fill her in on everything tomorrow, before turning off my phone and slipping it back into my pocket.