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driver’s side door, it pops open. I take a startled step back, just as she looks up at me.
    What the hell?
    “Casey? Case, what’s wrong?” All traces of my anger are obliterated as I take in her wet, swollen face. She’s been crying. And not just a few tears, but rivers of them. Her eyes are red and puffy and the top of her t-shirt has been soaked through. She looks fragile—broken.
    Nowhere in front of me is the girl I used to know. This Casey is a stranger. If she hadn’t shown up in her car, I wouldn’t have known it was her. Not at first. She’s pale, so pale. And thin. She was always thin, but this…this is something else. She looks gaunt. Unhealthy. Wrong.
    A sob breaks free from her, and I fall to my knees, pulling her out of the car and onto my lap. My protective instincts have taken over and all I want to do is take care of her and make her feel better. I need to fix what’s broken. My arms are wrapped around her, holding her tight to my chest as she cries. She’s wailing now, like a wounded animal, and I have no idea what to do. She’s gripping my arms, the only sign that I might be doing something right here.
    “Casey? Baby? Talk to me, please? I don’t know what to do here.” I beg and plead for her to give me some kind of sign. Some inkling as to what is wrong. She doesn’t respond, just continues to cry and shudder in my lap, her arms desperately gripping mine.
    After a few minutes, she finally settles down a bit. Her breaths are coming in short pants, but the tears have subsided. She pulls away from me slightly and looks into my eyes, like she’s realizing who I am for the first time. And she looks pained to see me. She looks pained to see me .
    “I’m sorry, Decker,” she mutters as she pulls herself completely out of my embrace and stands up. I let her go. I don’t know what just happened, but I don’t want to upset her further. I want her to feel comfortable with me…to talk to me.
    But when she turns to go to the house without another word, that’s when I’ve had enough.
    “What the fuck, Casey?” I shout at her retreating back. Her slight jump is the only indication she’s even heard me as she continues walking away, faster now.
    Not this time.
    I get to my feet and quickly run after her, grabbing her arm and spinning her around to face me. “You are not walking away from me. We need to talk.”
    She tries to tug her arm from my grasp, refusing to make eye contact or even acknowledge my presence or my words. “You’re hurting me,” she cries.
    “Stop twisting and it wouldn’t hurt,” I bite out. She stops resisting and I let go of her arm. “You have to talk to me, Casey. You can’t just show up out of the blue, crying your eyes out and not say anything. You can’t keep blowing me off! I deserve better than that, damn it.”
    Her lower lip quivers and part of me, the part of me who was best friends with this girl for so long, feels awful for attacking her like this. But the other part of me, the part of me that she abandoned, doesn’t care. He wants to know why she left, and why, all of a sudden, she’s back.
    “Not now. Please just let me go inside, Decker.” She looks worn out, completely defeated.
    “Fine,” I say, clenching my jaw. “But we will talk before you skip town again.”
    She nods absently, almost robotically.
    “What’s happened to you?” I whisper. The Casey I knew was full of life. She’d been a little bit of a geek, but she was my geek. This Casey is lifeless. Emotionless, aside from that breakdown of course.
    She meets my eyes so quickly I almost miss the movement entirely. Shaking her head she turns towards the house.
    “Decker? Casey? Is that you?”
    Casey and I both turn our heads, taking in my mom’s quick approach from across the street. I hadn’t even heard her car pull up. She completely bypasses me and pulls Casey into her arms. Casey immediately starts sobbing again.
    What the fuck?
    “Have I entered some kind of alternate