Page 69 of Casper
LUNA
“What do you think?” Casper signed. “I thought a two bedroom would give us extra space. We can use the second room as an office or something. A place to study.”
This was the third apartment we’d viewed today. Casper couldn’t stay in Stray’s house anymore. After trying to end his life in the basement bedroom, he found it impossible to be comfortable there.
When I’d stayed over on New Year’s Eve, I saw him toss and turn in a fitful sleep only to wake up with a start. Shaking and sweating. We talked the next day and decided that he should look for his own place. Even though I was still at the dorm, he insisted that it be our place. Once this semester ended, he wanted me to give up the dorm completely.
“I think it’s great. Nicer than the last one. Close to campus too. All that really matters is that you’re comfortable here.” I wandered over to the balcony window, peering out on the street below. I didn’t care where we were as long as we were together.
Casper turned me around to face him so I could see his hands. “That’s not all that matters. This will be your place too. We have to both be happy here.”
New Year’s Eve had been over a week ago. Since he said he loved me that night, he hadn’t spoken since. Getting the words out was a struggle for him. When he tried to force it, nothing happened. He ended up frustrated and disappointed with himself. I had told him to stop. To take his time. There was no need to force himself.
“I’ll be happy anywhere that I’m with you.” I took a moment to enjoy the way the amethyst in my ring gleamed in the sunlight. The moon bracelet from the set I bought us was wrapped around my wrist. Casper wore the other one.
“I like this one and the first one we looked at,” he signed, kissing the tip of my nose. “You decide which one we take.”
The first place had been smaller. An older building that hadn’t been updated in a while. This place seemed to check all the boxes.
“Let’s take this one.” Rising up on my tiptoes, I threw my arms around him. Hugging and kissing him like my life depended on it. “I have to go take care of something before Codie and Stray’s party tonight. Pick me up at the dorm later?”
As I started to pull away, he jerked me back against him. His kiss pulled me under, engulfing me in everything that was Casper. Making it hard to disentangle myself from him.
Leaving him to fill out the application for the apartment, I let myself out of the building. My car sat parked behind Casper’s at the curb. There was something I had to do, so I had driven separately.
My therapist had suggested that I write a letter to Jace. Detailing every thought and feeling I had toward him. A way to purge it all out of me, leaving it on the paper. She then suggested I burn it or simply throw it away. I thought it was a good idea.
I’d written the letter last night. Simply burning it now didn’t feel right. I needed something more. Once in my car, Idrove across town to the cemetery where I knew Jace had been buried. What was left of him anyway.
The cold winter air cut through me as I got out of the car. I zipped up my fuzzy winter jacket a little higher before crossing the snow covered grass to Jace’s headstone. It took me a few minutes to find it. My eyes landed on his name and a chill that had nothing to do with winter slithered through me.
Pulling the letter from my pocket, I unfolded it, holding it between shaky fingers. Even though nobody else was around, I still felt nervous as I began to read.
“Jace,
I’d like to thank you for teaching me what I’m capable of. At the same time, I hope you suffer endless torment in the afterlife. It’s the very least you deserve. I don’t have a single good memory of the two of us. It’s probably better that way. Anything good would’ve been tainted by all of the bad. You only ever saw me as an object. Something to own. You never saw me as human. A person with my own thoughts and feelings. Maybe you had your own trauma that made you this way. Maybe you were just born to be an absolute piece of human waste. None of that matters anymore. It never did. I need you to know that you lost. Your efforts to break me down failed. You wanted to destroy what Casper and I shared. Instead, we’re stronger than ever and looking forward to an amazing future. You could have had a good future too if you’d come out of prison and made different choices. Tried to be a better person. I guess that’s your loss. From this moment going forward, any hold you ever had over me has been destroyed. It’s as dead to me as you are. Wherever you are, I hope you hear these words. I hope they haunt you forever. Someone like you doesn’t deserve to rest in peace.”
Pulling a lighter from my pocket, I set the paper ablaze. I tightly gripped the corner, watching as the flame consumedthe paper, drawing closer to my fingers. When the heat almost touched my skin, I dropped it to the snowy earth in front of Jace’s headstone. The paper was nothing but ashes now. As was he.
Knowing that I would never be back to this exact headstone, I took a moment to give it my middle finger before turning and walking away. Sandra had been right. Writing the letter and reading it to Jace did make me feel a little better.
Even though the nightmares had continued to fade and I felt like myself again, I planned to keep seeing her. Casper was still seeing someone as well, going every week, even when he didn’t feel like it. I was so proud of him and the progress he’d made.
My thoughts turned to the party tonight. Codie wanted to have an engagement party to celebrate at a fancy nightclub that she swore was going to be a blast. The party would be small and intimate, only the Kings and us girls. I was looking forward to it. She deserved to celebrate her happiness.
Even as so many of us were making plans for our futures, I had to remind myself not to get so caught up in it that I wasn’t living in the now. It was all too easy to dwell in the past or obsess over the future. Something I’d found myself doing plenty of in the last several weeks.
Being with Casper on New Year’s Eve had brought me back down to earth. Grounding me in the present. That’s what mattered most.
As soon as I got back in the car, I cranked up the heater. Briskly rubbing my hands in front of the vent. Goddamn it was cold. Without so much as one last glance toward the cemetery, I turned up the music and drove away. I had a party to get ready for.
EPILOGUE
CASPER
I wasn’t much of the dress up type, but for Luna, I would do anything. That’s why I was standing in this swanky nightclub wearing dress pants and a white shirt while holding an overpriced cocktail.
Codie had insisted on having her engagement party get together here. Even though it meant exchanging his jeans, T-shirt, and leather jacket for a dressier look, Stray had been on board. He wasn’t about to deny her anything. I totally understood.
