Chapter 9: Take Responsibility for Your Life

"Casey," he said. "This is bullshit."

"Excuse me, Derek?" she said, looking up from her studies and trying to keep her voice from trembling.

"You heard me," he said. "This is bullshit."

"Oh," she said, unsure how to respond.

"Look," he sighed, starting to pace, "I'm trying to respect your feelings here, Case, but I disagree with them. And isn't that what all your feminist talk is really all about?"

"Derek, what are you talking about?" she said, becoming confused. "What does any of this have to do with feminism?"

"Well, isn't the whole purpose to give everyone a say?" he said, continuing to pace across her room. "Respecting your choices and opinions shouldn't mean that I can't have a say in what's going on between us."

"Well maybe you could if you would actually say something comprehensible," she said. It was as if she had been frozen and suddenly all the blood had just rushed back into her body.

"What I'm saying is that I don't think you have a right to just cut me out of your life!" he said, stopping and facing her directly. "If you want we can just be friends, but you can't just go and suggest that we can suddenly become nothing."

And suddenly it was all there on his face. All the conflict that she had felt. All the pain. Everything that she realized that he had been pretending not to feel since the talk they had on the plane. Some how it had become all about her and she had indeed removed his feelings from the equation. She was trying very hard not to cry at the moment and wasn't sure if she was feeling sadness, happiness, or both.

"I should have said that to you three weeks ago," he said, looking at his feet miserably.

"Well, um, why didn't you, Derek?" she almost whispered.

"I don't know," he said. "I guess I thought that just respecting your wishes was the right thing to do."

"But didn't you even thinking of fighting for us?" she asked, hurt creeping into her voice.

"You're upset about that, aren't you?!" he laughed incredulously, the realization of it hitting him.

"Yes," she whispered, honestly.

"You can't honestly be angry that I tried to respect your wishes!" he said, becoming angry himself. "Case, that isn't fair! Did you expect me to just force a relationship on you or something?!"

"Of course not!" she said, tearfully. "But you could have at least said something more about it! You just accepted the whole not seeing each other idea and walked away!"

"Casey my feelings were completely out there! I hope that you'll consider them, but I'm not going to make your decisions for you! I'm not going to take all the responsibility for this and I shouldn't have to."

"Yeah," she nodded looking down at her feet. "I know."

"So, I'm asking you," he said, more calmly, "if you don't think you want to be with me, can't we at least try to be friends?"

"Derek," she said, walking toward him, her voice trembling, ". . . I'm not sure that I don't want to be with you."

"Case," he said gently, touching her cheek, "You don't have to make up your mind right now. We can take this slow and figure it togeth—"

And suddenly her lips crashed into his and her arms were around him. Her body was pressed up against his and she was running her fingers through his hair in an almost desperate manner. As if she thought he was going to disappear from her life again at any moment.

"Or not," he smirked when they came up for air.

There were tears in her eyes but she was smiling at him. "I'm sorry," she said softly. "I just missed you."

"I missed you too, Head Case," he laughed, kissing her again softly and tenderly running his fingers through her hair.

"I'm still not sure about any of this," she said.

"That's okay," he smiled. "We have time."

Author's Note: I think that this might be the end. The first several chapters involved Derek and Casey talking about a number of issues that I think are relevant to their story and to what Casey is doing. As liberated as she claims to be, I think that we see a lot of her refusing to acknowledge and take responsibility for what she feels. In the last few chapters I've tried to illustrate how some of the issues that Derek & Casey have discussed play out. Although the story I'm telling here could continue, I think it might adulterate the concept if I continued in the same vein. But enough of this author's note from hell. Exercise your own agency by choosing to click your review button. ;-)