128(A/N: And here is the new second chapter. This is as far as I've gotten in rewriting, but hopefully chapter three will be up soon. It should only take four or five chapters to catch up to where the story was before.)
After (hopefully) acing her calculus test later that day, Casey wandered over to where Tori would be taking her psychology final. The air conditioning had been on the fritz in the building, so the door to the room was open to allow the air to circulate. Casey snuck in silently and sat in the back row to wait out the last five minutes. Tori, as usual, was up toward the front, where she would be in the line of sight of the professor, Robert Parks. Jason worked furiously on his test next to her, his hair spiked haphazardly like he'd been running a hand nervously through it.
Professor Parks was a favorite among students, both for his distinguished looks - piercing eyes and dark hair streaked with silver above his ears - and his controversial leanings. He had his master's degree in psychology, but on the side he'd also studied parapsychology. The university, of course, wouldn't let him teach any of that, but he occasionally shared his theories in class. The regents didn't appreciate it, but as long as nobody complained and he didn't ask for school money for it, they let it slide. Many a female student had harbored a secret crush on him.
Others, such as Tori, weren't so secret about it. She didn't actually think it would go anywhere – Casey wasn't even sure the professor noticed – but Tori enjoyed trying. She was all about the chase.
Casey watched with amusement as Tori sashayed up to Parks' desk and laid her test on the desk, purposely touching his hand. She murmured something Casey couldn't hear, then turned around with a sly smile and strolled to the back of the classroom. Parks stared after her, looking slightly puzzled. As Tori passed, Casey stood and followed her. Once outside the classroom, Casey burst into laughter.
"God, Tori, that was pathetic."
Tori grinned brilliantly at Casey. "Pathetic? No. Memorable? Yes. He'll be thinking about it tonight, wondering whether I meant anything by it." She flipped her hair over her shoulder. "And whether he wants it to mean anything."
Casey shook her head and wrapped her fingers around her backpack straps. "What did you say to him?"
"That I immensely enjoyed his class, and that I would see him on Monday." Tori gasped and clapped her hand over mouth. "Oh my God, I totally forgot to tell you!"
That was never good. Casey eyed Tori suspiciously. "Tell me what?"
She grinned at Casey. "I got us both jobs for the summer!"
Casey stopped dead in her tracks. "You what?"
Tori waved her hand around in the air. "Well, you know how you were saying you needed a job for the summer. I figured since you're moving in with me, we could both work at the same place."
Casey closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Tori, what's the job?" She loved Tori to death, but Tori had always been the kind of person who jumped first and checked to see if the pool had water later.
"Oh, that's the best part." She paused to eyeball a well-toned guy in sweat pants heading in the direction of the rec center. Once he passed, she continued, "It's with Professor Parks!"
"What?!"
Tori shrugged. "Well, I was walking through the union earlier, and there was this notice on the board that he needed lab assistants for the summer. So I talked to him before class, and he said we could have the spots."
"Tori..." Casey thought about arguing with her, but she did need a job. Her parents had agreed to pay the interest on her school loans while she was in school, but only if she could support herself for everything else. Moving into Tori's apartment over the summer would definitely require some cash. "What's it pay?"
Tori shrugged again.. "Who cares? He's so hot!"
Casey groaned and smacked her forehead. "What about Jason?"
"What about him? We've only had one date. It's not a crime for me just to look at handsome older men, is it?"
A smile fought its way onto Casey's lips despite her best efforts to keep it down. "No, I guess not. Still, do you at least know what we'll have to do?"
"Oh, it's so easy. We just have to run errands for him and type up his notes, and stuff like that. He said something about experiments."
Experiments... Casey wondered what kind of experiments a psych professor would be doing. She sighed. "Okay, I'll give it a try, but only to get my mom off my back."
Tori held up her hand and waited for Casey to give her a high-five. "This summer's going to be awesome!"
Casey spent the next day and a half packing up her dorm room in preparation for moving it all to Tori's apartment that weekend. On Thursday night, Tori sent her a text message, presumably in the middle of a date, reading: "Jason hot kisser!" Casey shook her head and tossed the phone back on her desk. Leave it to Tori to be making out with a hot guy while Casey spent her night covered in dust and trying not to think about the fact that she'd run into someone who used to be the most important person in her life.
Despite her efforts to avoid the topic, the next morning Casey found herself digging out her box of photographs and rummaging through the contents until she found one taken during her senior year in high school. Casey and Donovan before the prom, Casey wearing a sparkly red gown and Donovan in a nice black tuxedo. His hair was short then, parted and combed, and there was no sign of the numerous piercings he now sported on his lip, eyebrow and ears. He was just... normal. A nice smile, brown eyes that were almost as dark as the black pupil. Smart and intense, but caring at the same time. Casey really had thought she loved him.
And then they went off to college and he made some new friends. He started dressing in black, grew his hair out, pierced his first eyebrow. And treated Casey like crap. She was convinced his new friends got him on drugs or something, but she could never find proof. Finally, after one huge blowout, she realized he wasn't the same person and she was miserable - and she broke it off.
She only saw him once after that, a few weeks later, passing him on campus. If he saw her, he didn't show it. She lifted her chin in confident defiance and kept walking. She just assumed he'd dropped out of school since she didn't see him again.
Apparently she was wrong.
Sighing, Casey put the picture back in the box and closed it. Sitting here alone in her room was doing her no good. She stood and grabbed her purse. A walk around campus might help her clear her head.
For a while, it did work. The humidity from a few days earlier had disappeared, leaving a nice late-spring day. The sun warmed her skin without making her sweat, and flowers were just starting to bloom everywhere. As she neared the student union, she thought she saw someone familiar. She stopped and squinted. Yes, it was definitely Jason, sitting by the water fountain with a pretty redhead. As she watched, he put his arm around the redhead and pulled her to him for a quick hug.
Interesting. What would Tori think of that?
Casey put her head down and began walking quickly past the pair, but it was too late.
"Casey!"
She stopped, and whirled around, plastering a smile to her face. Jason turned to the redhead and said something in her ear. She nodded and waved, then leaned back and stared at the sky. Jason picked up the bag sitting on the ground and jogged up to her.
"Hey, I've been wanting to talk to you," he said as he reached her.
"Okay. So talk."
Jason winced and looked over his shoulder at the girl. "Not here. Let's go inside."
Ooookay. Was he about to grill her about Tori or something? Oh God, this wasn't going to turn into a middle-school, "Does she like me?" conversation, was it? Or maybe he was going to bribe her to not report that she'd seen him looking cozy with another girl. She hoped it was that option; she could use the money.
Jason steered her toward the union entrance, saying as they walked, "Hey, I'm sorry about the other night."
"For what?"
He looked sideways at her and shrugged. "Well, obviously there's some kind of history between you and Donovan. If I'd known..."
Casey smiled. "Oh, come on. How would you know? I didn't even know you then!"
"I know, but still... I'm sorry."
Casey bit her lip. "Well, thanks, I guess." Talking about Donovan was not what she'd had in mind when she'd left her dorm room, so she quickly changed the subject. "So how'd you do on that psych test yesterday?"
He shrugged. "Okay, I suppose. I studied a lot. It wasn't too hard. Parks keeps it interesting." He paused a moment, then asked, "Speaking of Parks, do you believe all that parapsychology stuff he studies?" His expression had suddenly turned serious, and he stared at Casey in a way that strangely made her feel like she was being tested.
Without thinking about it, she gave a quick laugh. "What, all that mind over matter stuff? What a bunch of crap."
Jason frowned. Oops, guess she'd failed that test. She tried to rescue herself. "Um, but I guess you can never tell."
He still looked disappointed, and he didn't pursue the topic any further. They were at the entrance anyway, and a blast of cold air hit Casey as she entered, giving her goosebumps. Jason led her to a table in a corner by the window. Normally, the tables around them would be bustling, full of students either studying or having lunch, but so close to the end of the semester, it was nearly empty. Most students were either busy packing or were done with classes entirely.
Casey sat with her back against the wall and glanced out the window, trying to look casual while waiting for Jason to start. When he didn't say anything, she looked at him. He was staring at her, looking thoughtful. Frankly, it was kind of freaking her out.
She gave him a small smile. "Um, what did you want to talk to me about?"
Call her crazy, but it seemed like his face was turning red. What could he possibly have to talk to her about that he would be this embarrassed? She barely knew him, after all. Oh crap, it's so the middle-school option, she thought.
He smiled and rubbed the back of his head. "I don't know how to start. This is going to sound really crazy..."
Casey crossed her arms over each other on the table and leaned forward. "I highly doubt anything you say can be any crazier than what I hear daily from Tori's mouth."
Jason snorted, then tapped his fingers on the table. "I didn't want to say anything, but I can't just ignore it. It's been eating at me since Wednesday. But I don't know how you're going to react."
Casey laughed. "Well, I'm not going to beat you up or anything, if that's what you're worried about. Frankly, I think you would probably win even if I tried." She stared at Jason for a moment, while he stared back. Anyone walking by probably would have thought they were having a staring contest, like they were 12 or something. The Starbucks visible behind Jason was looking more and more tempting as the seconds ticked by.
Finally, he nodded. "Okay. Here it goes." He put his elbows on the table and leaned toward Casey, lowering his voice. "Have you ever... done something weird?"
She narrowed her eyes at him, confused. "Huh? What do you mean?" She had visions of "weird" meaning having sex with a dog or something horrible like that. And if that was where he was going, she was so out of there.
Jason breathed in slowly through his nose, looking thoughtful again. "It's like the professor's stuff. Doing things. With your mind."
Casey rested her chin on her hand and gazed blankly at him. He couldn't possibly be serious. Finally, she said in a flat, disbelieving tone, "Um… You're asking me if I have super powers?"
He grimaced. "No, not super powers. Just… abilities."
She continued staring at him. Tori had always said her face was an open book, and at that moment Casey was sure the book would have been called, "What the heck is this guy on?"
"Abilities… Like what?" She paused a second, then grinned. "I can wiggle my ears. Or just one at a time. Wanna see?"
He surprised her by standing up suddenly. "This was a mistake." Then he stalked off, leaving her gaping at his back.
"Jason!" Casey scrambled to her feet, nearly tripping over the chair leg, and raced after him. "Jason, wait!" She caught him as he was heading down the stairs toward the food court, grabbing his arm to stop him.
He turned to face her, and his expression was deadly serious.
"Look, I'm sorry," she sputtered. "But you said yourself it was crazy. I don't understand what you're asking me."
He looked around, and after seeing nobody nearby, he leaned in toward her and spoke in quick, low tones. "I didn't knock you out of the way of that truck. You did."
"What?!" she squawked, a little louder than she meant. Some people eating at a table closest to the stairs turned to look at them. Jason grabbed her arm and led her back up the stairs to a bank of phone booths and shoved her gently inside one, closing the door behind him. Casey couldn't even speak, just stared up at him in awe.
"Okay," he said, still speaking quietly. "I'm sorry if I confused you before, but I was trying to find out if you knew what you did."
She shook her head and sat roughly on the bench behind her. "What I did? What do you mean? How can I knock myself out of the way?"
He sat on the bench beside her. It was a tight squeeze, and any other time she would have been thrilled at the thought of sharing the space with a cute boy. But at the moment, she was so thrown by the odd turn of the conversation that she barely noticed.
"I ran out there to try and help you, yes, but there's no way in hell I could have knocked you all the way to the other side, let alone get myself there, too. I wasn't even trying. I was trying to knock you to the ground, that was all. I thought maybe the truck would go right over us."
Casey stared blankly at the telephone book hanging from the phone. "But you did knock me out of the way. I felt it."
Jason shook his head. "No, I landed on you, like I said. And then, BAM, next thing I know, we're on the sidewalk." He turned Casey's face so she was looking at him, her brown eyes gazing into his clear green ones. She vaguely noticed he was wearing a light-scented cologne that she liked. "I don't know how, but it was all you." He gently tapped her forehead twice for emphasis as he said it.
He was gazing at her so earnestly, his eyes wide, so obviously longing for her to understand, to volunteer some kind of information. And that was when she made the realization – he was completely crazy.
She stood up quickly and fought to open the door.
Jason jumped to his feet and grabbed her arm, desperation in his eyes. "Wait, stop!"
Casey stopped in the doorway and turned back to him. "Are you crazy? People can't fly, or whatever it is you think I did! I have no 'special ability.' That stuff's not real!"
She yanked her arm out of his grip and strode off. He didn't follow.