Prologue

You're distraught, and you don't know why. I don't tell you. No one does. You just woke up, and to you, everything's wrong. Well, something's wrong for us too. You just don't know it yet. The doctors don't know why this happened. Does anyone really know why?

Casey sits on the bed, flipping through a blue, cloth-bound book. At the first entry, she looks to the writer.

"I don't remember you, at the beginning. When I woke up," she clarifies.

"Because I wasn't there."

"You're the most annoying brother."

His brown eyes flash angrily. "I'm your step-brother."

Casey's lip quivers and he sighs, "Sorry."

Her blue eyes study him, distrust clouded by tears.

He leans down and kisses her forehead. "I'm sorry, Casey. Really."

"I don't believe you," she accuses, crossing her arms over her pink and purple pajamas. With those, and her hair in pigtails, it's all too easy for him to picture her as a child. Before he would've laughed at her, and the mental image… Now, it was too painful, too harsh and much too close to reality.

Before… he thinks like that a lot, lately.

He gives her a half-grin, only a shadow of his famous smirk, and wraps his arms around her, spinning her around then dropping her lightly back on the bed.

"Der-ek!" she giggles and kisses him on the cheek. "I love you bro."

That's it. The stalemate. This stupid joke he's stuck in, as the punch line. His own personal torture. It royally sucks. "Love you too."

She smiles happily and cuddles down in the pillows. "Good night, Der."

"G'night, Casey."

She's asleep almost instantly. He's always envied her ability to do that, even back when they were teens.

He takes the journal from her bedside and puts it in a drawer before shutting off the lights and propping open the door a few inches before he left her bedroom.

He flicks on his computer. The screen has a picture of him and Casey. The old Casey, not this one. This one is afraid of the dark, and is his little sister. The old Casey, his Casey (the one he'd insisted he never lo—liked) wasn't afraid to argue with him, or to try new things.

His dad, and Nora, and Casey's doctors, have been trying to convince him for nearly a year and a half. He may never get that Casey, his Casey, back. Ever.

Derek Venturi doesn't give up hope that easily. Ever.