Post by Casey Winslow on May 7, 2009 0:05:18 GMT -8
"Sorry?"
The way she said it left him a little confused. Was she apologizing but had an inflection in her voice from surprise at his choice to speak out? or was she scoffing at him, only with words--in effect, expressing disbelief with a sense of disdain? Her voice seemed to him to portray the latter...albeit in a softer way than he imagined such would sound from her, but her expression suggested the former was possible. And he wouldn't be Casey Winslow if he didn't begin to overthink what had been said--even if it was merely a single word. However, much to his fortune, Kara began to speak again, distracting himself from the train of doubt he had started to head off on in his head. Her mind had been all over the place, though? Really? You don't say. His heart skipped a beat despite the sarcasm his brain seemed to freely place at the forefront of his thoughts.
Did it mean...?
"Why should it?" he thought to himself, but just as quickly, his self rebuke was cut off again by Kara's words. "I'm not used to situations like these; it's been years since..." Since what? She was leaving him hanging after giving him hope? He felt tempted to repeat her last word as a question to urge her on, but she stopped him just as he was about to by apologizing again and then explaining what he supposed he could interpret as the reason why she'd been so upset when he'd said his own mind had been distracted. He hadn't called on her. He'd simply kissed, left, and avoided contact until a couple nights ago. He'd tried towards the end of the day following to write something to send to her with Kevin's tawny owl, but every time he had tried either Julian had come in or his mind had been racked with guilt so that the only words he could write were:
"Kara,And he hadn't wanted to send that. Kara deserved better than that. After all, she had been the one bright spot in his world in those dark months, and she had become that day the one bright spot after all the months without Evie and his daughter.
I'm sorry, but we can't see each other again.
- C."
Truthfully, he didn't know why he had contacted her two days ago asking if she'd like to have dinner. He really didn't. He knew why the kiss had happened. He knew why he had scrambled awkwardly out the door with the excuse that Julian would be worried or waiting since it was getting late. He knew why he hadn't contacted her for days. He knew why he had contacted her. But he didn't know why he had asked her to dinner. Talk about mixed messages. Kissing her and asking her for dinner made it seem like maybe he wanted there to be something between them more than just friendship. Practically running away after kissing her and then not contacting her for five days and then not listening tonight and saying his brain was elsewhere, on the other hand? Now, that said he didn't. Nevertheless, now that she knew why his brain had been elsewhere, maybe it could count towards his wanting something more than just friendship.
But that was just ridiculous...wasn't it?
He was still a married man in all technicality. He still loved Evie and he didn't see that changing anytime soon even though Evie was pregnant with Trevor's child, even though Evie claimed to love Trevor and not him. Could he possibly do Kara any justice until he settled his unrest because of Evie? It wouldn't exactly be fair to her to use her and then the second he got a chance to win Evie back, ditch her. On the other hand, it wouldn't be fair to Julian for him to go with Kara in the first place and then never leave her even when his mum was back. Argh. He hated being caught in the middle of what he wanted and what others needed or deserved. For once in his life he just wanted to go with what he wanted. He had done it when he married Evie, but since then, ever since Voldemort had actively began to attack again during their first year of teaching, their life had been practically on hold for cause of one accident or mishap or another, and he was, frankly, quite tired of it.
Was it so wrong to just be selfish for once?
Other men might be so bold as to ask for friends with benefits and then make sure that when they got Evie back she never found out. Other men might just take advantage of Kara's emotions and have a one night stand or brief fling with her and then toss her to the wayside, believing she cared too much to ruin his life when Evie came back in the picture. But he wasn't other men. He was Casey Thomas Winslow, youngest son of Mark and Paige Winslow, and his parents had raised him to be better than that, which made it difficult as did the fact that Evie said she would forgive him for anything but if he cheated on her or hit her. Of course, part of him wished he could believe she wouldn't mind, that she would understand that with the stress of life he needed some sort of relief, but he knew she'd yell at him, tell him that he should have made use of his hand and the picture he had of her. He wasn't going through the turmoil of what he had when Julian was three and he had been framed again.
He nodded at Kara's last statement. "Yeah, sorry I didn't contact you sooner, but I was dealing with things..." No, he wasn't going to mention the guilt or the fact that he hadn't known what to write other than that they couldn't see anything anymore. It wasn't what she needed to hear right now. "And I wanted to make sure I had dealt with all that before I spoke with you again. I was relieved when I saw you looking the way you do. I thought for sure you'd have been angry with me, that you'd only go to see what I had to say and not bother with how you look. But then I saw you, and well, I thought maybe you were going into this open-minded."