My thick, long brown hair has been perfectly curled and tied up out of my face with a cream-colored lace bow. I’m wearing a cotton floral sundress and plain white sneakers. My legs are tan, and shiny because I took the extra time to shave. I also put on perfume that smells sweet like cotton candy. Although my glassy green eyes are framed by lush lashes and a perfect swoosh of eyeliner they’re filled with fear. Maybe not fear, maybe just sheer anxiety. My hands are shaking as a grab my keys from the kitchen counter and head out of the safety of my home. I make sure I have my phone, wallet, and keys. It’s a gorgeous, cloudless, eighty-degree, April day in Florida and it’s time for me to take a trip that’s thirteen years overdue. I’m alone in my sundress. A deep breath fills my lungs as I take the picturesque steps from my door to my big white jeep, feeling like the epitome of a southern belle. I unlock my doors, slide into my driver’s seat, put on the playlist of indie dance music I so meticulously planned out for the trip, and back out of my driveway. Before I hit the highway one more deep breath. Here we go.
Casey was my everything. “Casey” was the first word I ever learned how to spell. If there was ever a perfect pair of best friends, it was Casey and I. There was no him and there was no me, there was only us. Never one without the other. I knew that I loved him more than anything else; he was just a part of me. It wasn’t even a thought, everything I did revolved around Casey. Erika and Casey. That was it. We were inseparable. I cried on the days his mom didn’t pick me up from school and take me to his house to play. He was more than my brother, even then. I think I knew he was mine, even so young I knew that Casey was my Casey. When Casey and I were five he moved away to Tampa. I didn’t even realize anything was different, he moved around a lot and his time he just went a little further away. Nothing changed; my mom still drove me out to his house on the weekends and my family stayed with his family like a mini-vacation. We were still the very best of friends. We went to water parks to see ladies swim as mermaids, we went on the water slide he had in his backyard that I couldn’t get enough of, and we teased our little sisters. Everything was still the same. I can hardly remember why it stopped but I remember when. The last time I went to his house I remember almost everything. I called his baby sister, Maya, “The Amazing Talking Baby” because she was so little but she could speak as well as me. We watched The Magic School bus for hours. His mom gave me rice cakes for snacks. We said Grace before every meal, even though I didn’t know what it was. His mom was my mom and vice versa. I remember Casey got a sticky pad meant for catching bugs stuck in my hair and it took both of our moms together just to cut it out. I remember the last time I ever spoke to Casey. My mom asked me if I wanted to talk to him on the phone. I was seven; I stood on the couch with our old-school landline pressed tightly to my left ear, awaiting the sound of his voice. I remember asking him how old he was, since I hadn’t seen him in what seemed like a long time and he said that he was seven. I told him that I was seven too. And that’s all I remember. That’s all that I have of the facts anyway.
It wasn’t until six years after that phone call that Casey came back into my realm of presence. Of course I didn’t forget him, but finding out about the accident hit me harder than a brick. I was sitting in a booth at a Friendly’s near my house. My little sister was to my left and my grandmother was sitting across from us. I was bickering with my sister over crayons or something else utterly trivial. She was annoying me so much; I wished I didn’t have a little sister. I looked up from the crayons, or whatever it was, to meet my grandmother’s icy glance. With crossed arms and terse lips she said “You should be more thankful for your little sister, look what happened to that Wolter boy’s little sister.” I registered Casey’s last name immediately, and can to this day only imagine the look on my face when I asked my grandmother what she was talking about. I was afraid of what she would say, what happened to Maya? She told me there was a car accident a year or two before then and Maya had died. I was in shock. I remember slipping out of the booth quietly, like nothing was wrong, saying I had to go to the restroom. I walked into a stall and wept. I didn’t even understand the accident or why nobody had told me but I knew a world without my amazing talking baby was no longer as bright as it could have been with her still in it. All I could think was, what happened to us? Why wasn’t Casey in my life anymore? Where did he go? I had to find him. I had to be there for him.
I was twelve when I found out about the accident; I was old enough to use Google. I found two articles about the crash and each broke my heart into a million pieces. Casey’s mom was driving the car, she lost control and it flipped. It caught on fire. Bystanders struggled to free Casey, Casey’s friend April, and Maya from their seat belts. April and Casey’s mom were taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital for minor injuries. Casey was airlifted to a hospital with a severe gash through his forehead and a broken arm; he was ten years old. Maya’s body couldn’t handle the trauma; she was six years old and she died by herself in a hospital an hour after the crash. She had never been alone before. I remember my blinding anger towards my parents, why didn’t they tell me? I cried so much. I just cried and cried. I cried for Maya, and for Casey, and for myself. I missed him terribly. I needed him back in my life. I found out from my mom that Casey’s mom had turned to drugs, which led to Casey’s parents’ divorce and why we lost touch. I wish I could have been there for him. For months I went on a seemingly endless search for Casey. I called his old house. I called the church where I thought his father was preaching, I pored over the articles about the accident for hours. My calls lead nowhere. It was a dead end until I discovered the magic of MySpace. I searched his name and there he was. Right there, right in front of my eyes. I couldn’t believe it. But it was fruitless. He wasn’t very interested in talking to me. I missed too much, the divorce and the accident and time severed us. Our friendship seemed over and I was crushed. I found out that his dad moved him away to New York. I wanted so badly to be there for him but I was too late. I let it go.
Today, I am eighteen. And by effect so is Casey because his birthday precedes mine by almost a month exactly. A month ago I typed his name into the Facebook search bar just for fun. And of course, there he was. Through a series of semi-awkward messages back and forth I managed to capture his attention. He never really left my head, after all these years I still think of him often. He was so influential during my childhood, so many things still remind me of him. Like rice cakes, or my fish tank. Things that have been around since he was. What propelled me to search for him one last time, I will never know. But it was a miracle. We’ve been texting regularly for about a month now, and he’s coming to visit Florida. He’s coming home.
Everything it took leading up to this trip is finally here. Every thought, every plan, every detail, every hope and every dream will not go to waste. I’m in the car on the highway, a miracle my sweaty hands are gripping the steering wheel at all, I’m so nervous. I’m going to meet Casey. Thirteen years is a long gap, but best friends forever are best friends forever. As my hour-long drive to Orlando comes near a close I imagine it in my head, exactly how it’s going to go. I see myself nervously looking around the UCF campus looking for him before he starts his college tour. A stroke of luck, the reason he came down here. Finally I catch a glimpse of his curly brown hair. As he turns over his shoulder his dark brown eyes meet my bright clear green ones for an intense instant, before I start to run. We’re both smiling as I leap into his open arms, causing a scene. But I don’t care. I hug him fiercely and he hugs me back. I hug him for all the times I wasn’t there and wish I were. I hug him because I’ve missed him and he’s been missing from my life for far too long. I breathe him in, never wanting to let go. It’s Casey. It’s finally Casey. We pull apart enough to see each other’s faces. We stare at each other drowning in familiarity but swimming in change. We’ve grown up but we’ve found our way back to each other. We walk around the campus holding hands, smiling and laughing. Talking like we never left each other. Neither of us mentions the accident, but he knows I’m there for him. And that I never really left. We’re quite possibly the cutest couple on the planet, nobody could ever be as happy as we are; seeing each other for the first time since we were five. For that day we will be us again. We will be Casey and Erika, together as a single entity and it will be the most perfect day ever. I get out of my car after I’ve parked and the moment is finally upon me, I start to search for that curly brown hair that I’ve missed so achingly for thirteen years…
Casey was my everything. “Casey” was the first word I ever learned how to spell. If there was ever a perfect pair of best friends, it was Casey and I. There was no him and there was no me, there was only us. Never one without the other. I knew that I loved him more than anything else; he was just a part of me. It wasn’t even a thought, everything I did revolved around Casey. Erika and Casey. That was it. We were inseparable. I cried on the days his mom didn’t pick me up from school and take me to his house to play. He was more than my brother, even then. I think I knew he was mine, even so young I knew that Casey was my Casey. When Casey and I were five he moved away to Tampa. I didn’t even realize anything was different, he moved around a lot and his time he just went a little further away. Nothing changed; my mom still drove me out to his house on the weekends and my family stayed with his family like a mini-vacation. We were still the very best of friends. We went to water parks to see ladies swim as mermaids, we went on the water slide he had in his backyard that I couldn’t get enough of, and we teased our little sisters. Everything was still the same. I can hardly remember why it stopped but I remember when. The last time I went to his house I remember almost everything. I called his baby sister, Maya, “The Amazing Talking Baby” because she was so little but she could speak as well as me. We watched The Magic School bus for hours. His mom gave me rice cakes for snacks. We said Grace before every meal, even though I didn’t know what it was. His mom was my mom and vice versa. I remember Casey got a sticky pad meant for catching bugs stuck in my hair and it took both of our moms together just to cut it out. I remember the last time I ever spoke to Casey. My mom asked me if I wanted to talk to him on the phone. I was seven; I stood on the couch with our old-school landline pressed tightly to my left ear, awaiting the sound of his voice. I remember asking him how old he was, since I hadn’t seen him in what seemed like a long time and he said that he was seven. I told him that I was seven too. And that’s all I remember. That’s all that I have of the facts anyway.
It wasn’t until six years after that phone call that Casey came back into my realm of presence. Of course I didn’t forget him, but finding out about the accident hit me harder than a brick. I was sitting in a booth at a Friendly’s near my house. My little sister was to my left and my grandmother was sitting across from us. I was bickering with my sister over crayons or something else utterly trivial. She was annoying me so much; I wished I didn’t have a little sister. I looked up from the crayons, or whatever it was, to meet my grandmother’s icy glance. With crossed arms and terse lips she said “You should be more thankful for your little sister, look what happened to that Wolter boy’s little sister.” I registered Casey’s last name immediately, and can to this day only imagine the look on my face when I asked my grandmother what she was talking about. I was afraid of what she would say, what happened to Maya? She told me there was a car accident a year or two before then and Maya had died. I was in shock. I remember slipping out of the booth quietly, like nothing was wrong, saying I had to go to the restroom. I walked into a stall and wept. I didn’t even understand the accident or why nobody had told me but I knew a world without my amazing talking baby was no longer as bright as it could have been with her still in it. All I could think was, what happened to us? Why wasn’t Casey in my life anymore? Where did he go? I had to find him. I had to be there for him.
I was twelve when I found out about the accident; I was old enough to use Google. I found two articles about the crash and each broke my heart into a million pieces. Casey’s mom was driving the car, she lost control and it flipped. It caught on fire. Bystanders struggled to free Casey, Casey’s friend April, and Maya from their seat belts. April and Casey’s mom were taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital for minor injuries. Casey was airlifted to a hospital with a severe gash through his forehead and a broken arm; he was ten years old. Maya’s body couldn’t handle the trauma; she was six years old and she died by herself in a hospital an hour after the crash. She had never been alone before. I remember my blinding anger towards my parents, why didn’t they tell me? I cried so much. I just cried and cried. I cried for Maya, and for Casey, and for myself. I missed him terribly. I needed him back in my life. I found out from my mom that Casey’s mom had turned to drugs, which led to Casey’s parents’ divorce and why we lost touch. I wish I could have been there for him. For months I went on a seemingly endless search for Casey. I called his old house. I called the church where I thought his father was preaching, I pored over the articles about the accident for hours. My calls lead nowhere. It was a dead end until I discovered the magic of MySpace. I searched his name and there he was. Right there, right in front of my eyes. I couldn’t believe it. But it was fruitless. He wasn’t very interested in talking to me. I missed too much, the divorce and the accident and time severed us. Our friendship seemed over and I was crushed. I found out that his dad moved him away to New York. I wanted so badly to be there for him but I was too late. I let it go.
Today, I am eighteen. And by effect so is Casey because his birthday precedes mine by almost a month exactly. A month ago I typed his name into the Facebook search bar just for fun. And of course, there he was. Through a series of semi-awkward messages back and forth I managed to capture his attention. He never really left my head, after all these years I still think of him often. He was so influential during my childhood, so many things still remind me of him. Like rice cakes, or my fish tank. Things that have been around since he was. What propelled me to search for him one last time, I will never know. But it was a miracle. We’ve been texting regularly for about a month now, and he’s coming to visit Florida. He’s coming home.
Everything it took leading up to this trip is finally here. Every thought, every plan, every detail, every hope and every dream will not go to waste. I’m in the car on the highway, a miracle my sweaty hands are gripping the steering wheel at all, I’m so nervous. I’m going to meet Casey. Thirteen years is a long gap, but best friends forever are best friends forever. As my hour-long drive to Orlando comes near a close I imagine it in my head, exactly how it’s going to go. I see myself nervously looking around the UCF campus looking for him before he starts his college tour. A stroke of luck, the reason he came down here. Finally I catch a glimpse of his curly brown hair. As he turns over his shoulder his dark brown eyes meet my bright clear green ones for an intense instant, before I start to run. We’re both smiling as I leap into his open arms, causing a scene. But I don’t care. I hug him fiercely and he hugs me back. I hug him for all the times I wasn’t there and wish I were. I hug him because I’ve missed him and he’s been missing from my life for far too long. I breathe him in, never wanting to let go. It’s Casey. It’s finally Casey. We pull apart enough to see each other’s faces. We stare at each other drowning in familiarity but swimming in change. We’ve grown up but we’ve found our way back to each other. We walk around the campus holding hands, smiling and laughing. Talking like we never left each other. Neither of us mentions the accident, but he knows I’m there for him. And that I never really left. We’re quite possibly the cutest couple on the planet, nobody could ever be as happy as we are; seeing each other for the first time since we were five. For that day we will be us again. We will be Casey and Erika, together as a single entity and it will be the most perfect day ever. I get out of my car after I’ve parked and the moment is finally upon me, I start to search for that curly brown hair that I’ve missed so achingly for thirteen years…
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