A week had hit him, with all this focusing on his schoolwork and exams. And he couldn't tell if he was more than mildly stressed out or if it was because he couldn't identify this weird feeling creeping beneath him that he had been trying to repress now.

The only thing Casey knew he needed was his Iced Americano.

Luna put out the coffee drink for him on the table, and he took a sip right away. He thought he let the bitter feeling go down his throat. After he expelled out a sigh, he slumped down in his chair. A side of his cheek pressing against the cold countertop, which he believed were just polished. His mind wanted nothing more than to go empty in this deep, black nothingness, and he could do that if he just closes his eyes and fall asleep here.

"Casey, what is it? Is it about Raquel again? I know it's still hard, but you can't slow down the world," Luna said. Her voice was gentle, but her words were plain-spoken.

She lowered herself to the countertop with him, crossing her arms and inching her face to his so that they were few inches apart. "Come on, tell good Luna your problems." She made a face with eyes opened with inquisitiveness and her bottom lip jutted out.

He sighed. Mornings could be peaceful around here, but with Luna working here in her morning shifts, she became strangely accustomed to his problems. He thought it should be a bartender's job, but her customer service skills in a coffee shop were pretty niche.

"I can sense your brooding from here." Luna eyed at him cautiously. "Now, why don't you lift your gaze up and tell me what's the most recent Casey's thought going on in your brain?"

Supposedly, he would have to tell her or this feeling bottling up inside him could get worse. So he chose the latter option. Casey lifted his head slowly along with his gaze to Luna's dark orbs. It's just written all over her that she wanted him to disclose the details with her.

"Raquel is one problem, but it's not about her that's currently into my mind," Casey said.

Her eyes shot up in surprise. "Is there something else? I thought that you were slowly picking yourself up, but now it looks like you're back at it again. Let me see... it's almost the end of the semester for you, right? Are you stressing out because of the finals? I'm sending my wishes for you to make it." She cheered on. 

"That's half of it, but there's another thing too."

"Well, tell me that 'thing.'" Her head tilted at him in a cat-like manner, like she's furthering assessing him.

"Okay." He sighed. She turned her head back normally and nodded. "You know the girl I came here with a few times?"

"Snow? She seems a bit shy, but of course, I remembered. Why? Did something happen with her?" Luna asked.

What did happen with her? Once their relationship practice was over, they were just friends now. They cared for each other and supported one another, so why did he feel an inkling that something with her was different? It's like when he's near her, he felt gravitated to her warm and open energy. She gave him her sweet smile, and her eyes looked to him kindly. He saw her kindness as an act of doing something, but now they were uniqueness that makes her... well her.

"Let's say, since I spent a lot of time with her after Raquel and I broke up, it was a journey to experience with someone in learning about each other. And when we helped each other towards the end of something, confusion has been lifted up, and we had a good closure for ourselves. It is until the end of the closure that something just happened. I still see her while hanging out with Malloy and Kyle, but... it's a little different in how we talked to each other than supposed on our one-on-one time. I'm not sure what I'm saying," Casey said. He didn't know why he's talking like it's something to be concerned about when it could be momentarily.

Was it already a time for nostalgia for their quality time in learning and understanding how things went?

"Uh-huh." She nodded suspiciously. "So you're saying you enjoy spending time with her, and since whatever the thing is that ended between you two, it feels like a different air you have with her now than what you had earlier with her... am I following along correct?"

"Um... maybe?" he said, unsure.

"Hmm... is she just your friend?"

"Yeah, we're just friends now."

She tapped a fingernail on the table repeatedly that sounded like a very long note. It's a process of her contriving thinking as if she's trying to wrap her head in a sense. If there was anyone else but him here in the cafe and they heard that, they might spare a look of annoyance to her.

She stopped tapping soon enough, but her fingernail resided on the table. "Friends. How much do you think about her after that thing is over between you two?"

How much? He guessed he thought about her unusually after that one painted picture he saw after the moment Snow declared their relationship was over, and she looked over to him with an uncanny but unbelievable smile. What was it about that smile and her body language that conveyed to him and stood out to him the most?

It's not just a smile to him because he had seen her smiling briefly within small moments. Was it the way that one was the biggest one he had seen compared to over the days he's been with her?

"I guess I think about her a little bit more than usual. Maybe I started thinking about what it looks like to have encouragement and support by my side. I thought a lot about the ending, especially. What does the end look like for me? How do I want to see the ending in things?" Casey pondered.

He hated goodbyes. All goodbyes that he had known turned out to be ugly and devastating. When someone said goodbye, they had the intention of not coming back and leaving you stranded on your own. It's painful to watch every person that walked into his life that was once important now become distinct and faint like they were never there in the first place. Those memories could have all been for nothing and could as well crumble into dust. Some goodbyes just had no explanation, and you wondered what is there left of them.

"Is it the ending for you two if she's still around?" Luna said softly.

"No, but I'm thinking what happens... if I'll never find someone to give me a beautiful goodbye as properly as she did?"

Her dark eyebrow raised up quizzically. "A beautiful goodbye? That's something... so tell me then. Where are your feelings right now? Does it say it want something?"

"I feel complicated... with Snow, she's like something I can't wrap my mind about—oh, I don't know what I'm thinking." He shielded his eyes, for even beginning to think twice about a possibility that shouldn't even become a possibility.

Let's not go there.

"No, continue," she said, her hand whirling in a gesture to him for a further explanation. "I can't have a cliffhanger."

"It's like... at that very last moment when she looked at me, smiling so bright as the day is closing, there is this unexpected twist I felt. She wasn't doing anything that I could see, except standing there, her eyes sincere and her intentions just pure. It's a simple goodbye to close up a memory, and she took her inner-self with her. And maybe all the adventures with her," he said simply with now the thoughts being put together.

"Hang on. I'm getting something." Luna narrowed her eyes at him closely and made a sort of an L-shape with her index finger and thumb positioning under her chin. She inspected him just close to invade in his personal bubble, as Casey noticed this and backed away, but his gaze was still on her.

It was mildly eerily when she liked to get close just to study his expression like her eyes had some superhuman feelings detector if she were to do it seriously.

"Hmm, mm-hmm. Okay. I think I'm starting to get it," she said to herself and then pounded a fist to her open palm. He subtly blinked. "You're starting to develop something for her. The way that you said she took those things with her, you don't want it to leave you because perhaps it's something new that you come to appreciate. You may already like the person in her and the way she does things, but it could be possible that you may actually like her because she's the one that has those qualities."

Liking someone else? Was that even possible for him? "But I can't," he muttered, rejecting the thought. He never liked anyone other than Raquel, and he didn't think he would like anyone anytime soon.

"It's a possibility, but in any case, that's why you've been feeling something's wrong."

Was that really the cause of his emotional stress for the past week? If he were to like her, wouldn't he want to feel like his heart was bursting into butterflies instead of in pieces? What feelings were there? "I mean, she's a great person, and she should be happy with someone she likes. Frankly, I'm not committed to getting into another relationship."

"Is there someone she likes right now?" she asked.

"Yeah, a guy. She's going on a date with him this weekend. I helped her with it. She's thrilled, and... you know, she should feel that way." He shrugged idly.

"And do you care if she goes out with him?"

"Not really. She can do whatever she wants. I recommend that she does her best."

Luna looked at him peculiarly. "It's up to you. You always have a free choice. That's a beautiful thing humans can have that no other species of animals can have. Making a choice requires thinking and mental effort. We can think that maybe it's fine to leave things the way they are because things just happen naturally, but you can choose to interfere and change the outcome. I know you love Raquel, and there's no one out there in the world to replace her. She's a special girl and will always be. You love her like no other, and I love seeing that love in your eyes when you come in and occasionally bring her here. The way you looked at her, that's just quite beautiful."  

She put a hand up to her chest, making an expression like she's tearing up. "Because you love her, you believe you can find no one like her. We all want to stay with our first love, but sometimes they may not want to stay with us. We have to let others go out and explore new things. If you're lucky, maybe she'll realize it. And while she's out there searching for herself, you're here dwelling in confusion." A pitiful smile made its way there. "I can't tell you what you feel for Snow or with Raquel. That's something you have to figure out. But I can tell you that there's something more than what you're convincing yourself. It's okay if you look somewhere else to a path you're not used to."

"You're just deciding what helps you to walk again. It's not the end of the world."   

Casey was lying in his bed after a very much stressful day. He took two of his finals, and he had two more coming up. Balancing between a broken heart and real-life would ensure disequilibrium in a human's mental state.

Since the four of the friends were all cast away in their own world of losing their minds in final weeks, they hadn't made too much time to hang out. Even during their break, they spent less time with each other to go off studying or needing alone time. Since he and Malloy had a class together, they're studying together in a small study group with a few other classmates.

Snow recently hung out more often with that guy she planned to go out with this weekend. Harry, was that his name? She was truly enamored of him and seeing all hearts and flower petals.

Even when it's the final weeks, she retained a light smile on her face. He was positive final weeks were making her a nervous wreck more than she's showing, deep down.

Once this week was over, so was the semester, and not just the semester, it was their summer break. While he could look forward to more sleeping days and skip out early mornings, he knew he was going to be alone. They hadn't talked about any summer plans, and he came to the eventuality of things which might include most of the time spending his time all alone.

Maybe they hadn't come to talk about it, but he didn't know what he should be looking forward to, and then he had thought back to Luna's words. Was there something about Snow, or was it just missing the feeling of her?

No, that couldn't be it.

He closed his eyes, and all he could see was nothing. Shortly, a memory came flooding back. It was the time when Casey visited Raquel. It was during her lunch break hour, and he was about to take her out on a lunch date. He showed up outside the tattoo parlor, and he found Raquel pacing back and forth worriedly. Something was on her mind, and he didn't think that much at that time and thought that she was just waiting around. 

He remembered asking her if she was ready to go, but instead of the expectant lunch date, she suddenly said there's no easy way to say this. She began by saying that the time they spent together was wonderful and that what they had will never be forgotten, but no matter how much she wanted them to work out, she couldn't do it anymore.

Her eyes looked at him sadly, but desperately like she was afraid for what's next. Out came those next words he didn't want to hear, and in just seconds, Casey felt like his whole world was falling apart. Like the glass shards tearing apart. He didn't know what had happened.

He filled her with questions, but she couldn't bring herself to explain. Only the abrupt words leaving that she didn't love him, and she profusely kept saying she was sorry before she turned away from him.

He couldn't handle the unexpected turn of events. Waking up to hear this suddenly from his girlfriend, how was he going to live with this knowledge? After he left there, Casey had no real destination when he was driving out. He was aimlessly going around because he didn't know where to turn to, forgotten where home was suddenly. A hazy mind with his chest burning before him—and it wasn't a good sign. 

His hands on the wheels along with his other physical senses were beginning to abandon him, and he felt he wouldn't able to hold himself together for much longer. He took a stop at the closest place, a small convenience store with open parking spaces.

The air in the car suffocated him to no end, even with the window open. He bought only a pack of gum in the convenience store just out of courtesy, and then his limbs went numb. This led for him to lodge against the wall on the side of the store that seemed like his only support. For a while, he sat there on the ground staring at nothing, but even looking at nothing was pointless. So eventually, he didn't want to see anything, and he fell into hiding.

The world he had known was dark again, and there was no light. The girl he loved took away that oxygen from him. He couldn't breathe without her; he needed her.

The heavy exhaustion took over his body with his mind shut down on him. The world was all forgotten too. Without him having to care about what time it was or how long it had been. Nothingness engulfed him.

But then came her at the timing that was the least unexpected. "Casey?" He heard her saying his name. "Is that you?" she asked.

When Casey slowly looked up, the person he saw was Snow. He was lost and insecure, and she found him.

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Hello, how are you? I got Milk Tea today. It's a good day when you have Milk Tea and sticky notes. I'm an addict to pretty notes but know I won't use them all. Stationery addict here, helpppp.

How do you like this chapter? What do you think about Casey here? Do you think he might figure out what it is inside him? Is the pacing of this story okay for you guys? I know I'm writing near the end, but I also want to leave it in a way that will be something. Maybe I'll write an extra chapter than planned just to make it better. But any feedback is helpful!

Please vote and comment as it means the world to me.