I blinked through my wet lashes to see Casper’s reaction; there wasn’t one. He remained cool and calm and seemed to be the only thing anchoring me.
“How long has it been since you forgot your last pill?” he asked in a hushed voice. It caught me off-guard. No one had actually ever asked me that before. “Judging by this episode, I’d say it’s been about a week at the very least and something really stupid set you off, right?” I gave a weak nod. I had drained all my energy and sound was the last thing I wanted. I didn’t need to hear my own voice. Casper’s voice didn’t matter; he was both quiet and clear. “What was it?”
“What?”
“What made you get abusive towards the piano?” he asked, a sarcastic lilt in his voice.
I screwed my eyes shut and tried desperately to remember what it was, but I couldn’t. “I –I don’t remember,” I murmured.
We lay there in silence for a few moments, Casper lying on his back and me lying on my side –or as close to it as I could get –looking at one another. My breath hurt my lungs as I tried to even it out against the cold. I felt detached from my body and my head was far too heavy to lift.
“Do you want to move?” Casper’s words, though as soft as he could muster, sounded loud in my ears. I winced but didn’t shift away.
“No,” I rasped, “I don’t think I can at the moment. Too tired.”
“You can’t sleep here, you know. Someone will kick us out eventually,” he warned.
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”
Casper sighed heavily beside me and murmured, “Alright, if you’re going to just lie there, then I’m going to get some practice in.”
He didn’t wait for my approval. I almost whined when he stood up and walked away, taking the heat with him. My mind warped the knotted floorboards beneath my head and my eyelids began to droop. I felt too weak and drained to do anything except breathe.
As I drifted between reality and the dark fog that was threatening to cloud my mind over, I was sure I felt something soft and warm drop over my shoulders. I could smell cigarette smoke and lynx radiating off of the combined heap of our jumpers on top of me. The long, low whine of his violin pierced through the fog for a brief moment. That one long note trilled like a lonely bird and it struck my heart. The fog clouded over behind my eyelids and I let myself float away to the voice of a single lonely bird, circling the air and looking for a safe place to call ‘home’.
*
When I properly woke up some time later, I was jarred to my senses as I realised I wasn’t sleeping flat on my back, but resting up against the wall. I felt dizzy as I looked around and momentarily froze at the emptiness of the room; Casper was nowhere in sight and being left on my own left me feeling cold and unsettled. I drew my knees up, wincing at the bitter taste at the back of my throat.
I groaned, dug out my phone and scrolled through my alerts; seven missed calls from Isabel and about four messages saying that she was sorry, she could cancel everything if I really didn’t want to go and that she hadn’t meant to snap out at me. I didn’t want to respond.
I almost jumped out of my skin when the door of the auditorium creaked open. I peered up through my scruffy red hair to see Casper’s dark jeans and converses coming down the aisle of steps. He strode over and held out a bottle of water. His face didn’t reveal anything to me as I accepted the water and drank slowly, the bitterness of my mouth fading away. Casper watched me for a while as he drank too, his Adam's apple bobbing in his pale throat, and the wet sheen on his lips made my stomach knot tightly before he pressed himself against the wall a little way away from me and hummed softly.
“What?” I murmured.
“I think you need to go and talk to Camilla,” he stated matter-of-factly, his tone calm level enough to show that he wasn’t being condescending.
“Any particular reason?”
“She’s a good counsellor and she knows what she’s talking about for the most part.”
His gaze dropped down to look at me properly for what seemed like the first time. I felt suddenly so naked and exposed –but it wasn’t as unnerving as I’d expected. His eyes, for once, were soft as he watched me. I sighed and bent my forehead to rest on my knees. “Just try,” he urged in a level tone before he dropped his head to properly look at me again. “Honestly, Fletcher, how many times have you been able to talk to someone about this before it gets bad?” he asked. Did he really want to know the answer or was he simply making conversation? I shuddered and suddenly felt bile rise up through my throat. I took another swig of water to wash it back down. The last thing I needed was to vomit on my things.
Another shiver ran through me. “I don’t want to talk to anyone about it. I don’t need to. I’ve just had a lot of stress recently and I’m worried that we’re falling behind on this project.”
He scoffed, blatantly not believing me. I didn’t blame him; I wouldn’t have believed me either. “Fletcher, if you don’t agree to talk to her I will show up at your room at 3am every morning and knock on your door.”
“Why?”
“To annoy you,” he stated as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
I blinked up at him in confusion, “I have to insist on repeating this; why?”
He shifted awkwardly against the wall, and twisted the cap of the bottle over and over again, the plastic clicking between his fingers. “You not talking about what’s bothering you pisses me off,” he stated harshly. I almost flinched as he cracked the bottle in his palm, “So until you sort something out with Camilla, I’m going to piss you the Hell off every morning, got it?”
I scoffed and rolled my eyes, relaxing even more as I stretched my legs out in front of me, “Sure thing. I’ll believe that when I see it.”
I could feel his eyes boring into my skull as I slowly drank more water, the feeling of its coolness rushing through me and cleansing me both inside and out. Goosepimples prickling up over my arms, but I didn’t have the energy to reach for my jumper. We stayed that way for a little while before the bells chimed for the end of the day. I forced the energy into my legs to walk myself to my dorm room, Casper walking alongside me like a shadow every step of the way.
*
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
I bolted right out of my bed and stumbled over strewn clothes and shoes before slamming into the flat surface of my door. I gasped out and through squinting eyes, fumbled to get the door open. The dirty yellow light shining from above pierced my eyes and I winced. A low hum drew my attention up the loose tracksuit bottoms, the bare feet and the washed-out purple hoodie to the mop of black hair framing those grey eyes.
My mouth ran dry as I blinked to try and clear my vision. Casper was still standing there as plain as day, with his hands in his pockets and his head tilted to one side in a bored manner. My throat felt thick and dry. “W-what’re you doing here?” I slurred through a yawn.
Slipping his phone out of his pocket, he cocked an eyebrow and flashed me the time. “It’s 3am. I’m here to piss you off like I promised, remember?”
I blinked and shook my head a little; vaguely aware that I was wearing my clothes back to front and most likely inside out, with my hair sticking up in every direction possible. My mind wasn’t focused enough to acknowledge that Casper was standing at my door as though it was the most natural thing in the world. He didn’t even look tired! I groaned as a throbbing headache started up at the base of my skull.
“Well, I think I’ve made my point,” his low rumbling voice was somewhat muffled to my foggy brain. “Oh, before I leave, you might need this.”
Before I even had a chance to react, something was pressed into my palm. I watched Casper retreating down the hallway to his own room, hands stuffed in his pockets and shoulders hunched. Even when he was out of sight, I remained slumped against my door for a while, the lights hurting my eyes. A shiver ran through me. I was just about to turn back into my room when my fingers tightened around whatever had been pushed into t
hem. Squinting, I unfurled a small folded note wrapped around a chalky white pill –my pill.
Swallowing thickly, I used my clumsy, shaking fingers to unfurl the little note it had been wrapped in.
‘Today is a new day. Let’s start it on a good note.’
I didn’t know if it was the early hour or the note itself, but my eyes burned as I slipped back inside my room to my bedside table and grasped the glass of water in my hand. It trembled slightly as I quickly washed the pill down and shuddered.
I swayed slightly on my feet, watching the door as though Casper would materialize through it. With a huff of laughter and a heavy shake of my head, I slipped back under the covers and drifted back to sleep.
Chapter Ten
Despite the grey weather of February pouring in through my bedroom window, I couldn’t help but feel better about the day ahead. As I lay in my tangled covers I couldn’t help but think over the last couple of weeks; I had eventually taken Casper’s advice and spoken to Camilla about my fight with Isabel and how it had triggered an episode. She was as shocked as I’d been to figure out that Casper was the one to keep me company through the exhaustion period, which usually left me feeling low for over a week. She wanted me to come by at least once a week to report anything bad.
I promised that I would.
I meant it.
I had distanced myself a little from Isabel. She had tried to apologise, which was all well and good but it didn’t magically erase her words from my mind. She seemed to take it in her stride as best as she could, and eventually quietened down on texting me so much. According to the messages she sent me on Facebook, things hadn’t worked out with Callum, not in a bad way, just that she didn’t feel any spark with him. She’d left the party early and made her own way back to campus. We still all met up for the project, and it was shaping up fairly well. Other than that, she did her best not to look hurt when I said that I wanted time on my own. Her eyes would flicker between Casper and I, and I don’t know what she thought was happening between us, but she seemed to have resigned herself to accept it for the time being.
As for Casper and I, since the first time he knocked on my door at 3am, he had been making sure I took my pills regularly. His promise of said door-knocking-at-3am lasted about a week and a half before I assured him I didn’t need the reminder. On the days that I missed my dose, or didn’t have the energy to face the fogginess, he was always there meeting me outside the café when I was getting some coffee, or passing me by in the corridor and pressing another folded note around a pill into my palm, barely breaking his stride. Once or twice when I looked back at him, he would half-turn mid-step and offer me a strained little smile. Every time I saw that smile my heart would skip in my chest and make it harder to breathe. None of it was unpleasant, and it always left me feeling a rush of warmth streaming through me. The sheer fact that he made the effort to care for my health was enough to make me smile for the rest of the day.
I smiled to myself as I rolled out of bed and raked my hand through my hair. I shuffled into a pair of socks and dipped my hand into my bedside drawer to get my morning pill; I still had the little stash of notes from Casper, folded up into neat little squares and tucked up inside the box that held my tablets. Some nights I’d take them all out and read them one-by-one and memorize his handwriting. It was nice to have his cursive hand tucked away in my drawer whenever I needed something to keep my spirits up. My alarm bleeped to remind me that I had half an hour to meet Camilla for our weekly session. Thank goodness I’d had a decent night’s sleep.
“So how was the session this morning?” Isabel asked hesitantly as she sucked foam from her straw.
We’d gone to the café down the road from campus to get a coffee whilst waiting for Casper to finish his lecture. We were meant to meet within the next forty minutes to start finalizing the music to write. Isabel was insistent that she almost had one of her pieces done. I’d been working on one of my own short fillers for about a week and was hoping to smooth out a few rough edges. She wasn’t too happy about it, but she was there, so I was trying not to take her scowls personally whenever I checked the clock. It was becoming increasingly difficult. Luckily for the both of us I had a large matchbox filled with paperclips to fiddle with while we waited.
I hummed as I placed the paperclips into small clusters around my cup before replying. “It was alright. I just told her things about the project and how it’s easier not having a cigarette now. It was just a generic chat more than anything else.”
“So she hasn’t tried to make you contact your parents or Chris or anything like that?”
I looked up at her through my fringe and frowned, “No,” I stated slowly, “Why would you think that? She knows those things are triggers for me right now, so she hasn’t mentioned any of them.” I stressed the word.
“But you need to sort those things out,” she urged in a soft tone.
“I know that, Isabel, but I just want to get through the next couple of months of Uni and then I can relax a little bit. I can deal with the rest later.”
She hummed to herself for a moment before leaning over a little more, “Avery, you need to sort these things out. You need to talk to your parents –”
“I will talk to them when I’m good and ready!” I snapped. Isabel flinched but she didn’t recoil like she would have done a couple of weeks ago.
She touched her coffee cup and stroked the cardboard collar before looking up at me, “Did you talk about me?” she asked in a low voice.
I nodded my head, swallowed thickly to keep my anger buried down inside me. “Of course I did. I talked about how we’ve been progressing with getting the project done and how we’ve started to spend more time alone together, like now.”
“Now doesn’t really count,” she stated dryly, casting me a dull look, “This is a meet-up for our project.”
“You came to my room Sunday night to help each other with our homework,” I reminded her as I snapped the head off a gingerbread man. “Or doesn’t that count either?”
I watched her sit up a little straighter but did nothing more than purse her lips. She wanted to ask something else, the air hummed between us with the anticipation of it, and so I waited patiently. “Do you talk to her about Casper?” she finally asked.
The words stuck in my throat. Why was she so interested in whether I spent my time with Casper or not? So what if he sometimes stayed in my room until 2am; I’d simply accepted the fact that he didn’t need much sleep to thrive on, and even though we would spend ages in silence with one another, it was a comfortable silence. Ever since the afternoon in the auditorium it was like I was seeing a little clearer, as though the image of Casper was being drawn into sharper focus. It was like a crushing cold weight had been lifted off my chest –just a fraction –and I was able to breathe easier too.
Did she really need to know that he would sometimes knock on my door at midnight and we would sit opposite one another doing our homework with very soft music playing in the background? Did she need to know that conscious of it or not, Casper was becoming more accustomed to my proximity to him. Not that I pushed those boundaries. Most nights he would sit slouched against the wall, with his legs folded against the edge of the bed with me in my desk chair and my feet propped up a little way away from his knees.
I dunked the last of my gingerbread man into the foam and watched as he drowned in the frothiness. “So what if I do? He’s been a part of my life in the last month or so and she did say I should talk to her about everything.”
“He’s not really in your life though, is he?” she stressed in what she hoped was a calming manner.
“What do you mean?”
“Well it’s only for the project, right?” she forced a weak smile, “It’s not like as soon as we graduate you’re still going to talk to him.”
I frowned heavily at her assumption. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Well,” she dragged the one word out. “It’s just –it’s not as though he’s
good for you, is he?”
“What do you mean by that?”
She clenched her jaw. “I just don’t think he’s a good influence on you. He hasn’t finished a project with any other groups in months.”
“Well, have you actually asked him that? If he hadn’t finished anything he probably wouldn’t still be here.”
“It’s been a mystery as to how he’s even still studying here and –”
“I’m not interrupting anything am I?”
Both our heads snapped up at the voice. I felt my heart jolt at the sight of Casper’s feathered hair and his grey eyes as they flittered from my face to Isabel’s. She clenched her jaw a little tighter before giving a short, “No.”
Casper’s eyebrows raised a little and his eyes flickered to me. His features softened a fraction and his mouth twitched a little. He turned toward me and flicked his fingers at me. “Scoot,” he muttered as he let his rucksack drop to the floor under the table. “Didn’t mean to be late. Got held up in class.”
“Oh really? What were you held back for? Not handing in an assignment again?” Isabel asked waspishly, her eyes flashing daggers across the table.
Casper looked directly across the table at her, his expression just as stony, “No, actually I was finishing some of the mood boards to go with our project, if you MUST know.” He turned to me with a calmer expression, “They’re in the art department and drying. They should be ready by tomorrow morning.”
“How big are they?” I asked as I dipped my hand below the table to grab a notebook from my bag. Casper’s eyes watched me until my notebook slapped on the table top.
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