"So like I was saying," Casey said in his nasally seventeen year old voice. "The mesophyll of these leaves is really intricate. There's so many more layers inside of that layer. For example, you have the palisade mesophyll, spongy mesophyll, and they all work together to create photosynthesis."

I watched his eyes glow with the brightest passion I'd ever seen. His face glowed a light pink as his words flew out of his mouth in such a rapid pace that I wasn't sure he was even breathing anymore. I didn't care about the composure of a leaf, but I could listen to him talk about it forever.

We were sitting together on a park bench outside of the Botanical Gardens eating lunch and he was so enamored with a new type of leaf on display that it kickstarted this entire excited rant.

"Is this boring, Josie?" he asked me after he'd run out of fun facts to spew out.

I shook my head, taking a bite of the street corn we'd gotten from a food truck by the street. "I'm not bored. Tell me, Casey, why do leaves change color in the fall?"

I leaned back on the bench, staring up at the sky as his voice lulled me into a sense of deep comfort that I'd never known before. "Basically, chlorophyll starts breaking down, they stop producing food. It's actually really interesting, because at the same time, the tree seals the cut when a leaf starts detaching from its base, so that when the leaf is finally blown off by the wind or falls from its own weight, it leaves behind a leaf scar."

"A leaf scar," I repeated, returning my gaze to his bright blue eyes. I could stare at those eyes all day long. His school was so far away from where I lived that I didn't get to see him as much as I'd like, so I stared as much as I could to really absorb as much of him as I could. "So the tree never forgets its leaves. That's sweet."

"It's just science," he said with a shrug.

A gust of wind blew passed us, ruffling his shaggy blond hair. I was suddenly jealous of the wind for getting to play in those soft tresses like I wanted to do so badly. "I think it's poetic. No matter how far away the leaf goes, it'll always be a part of the tree."

"Because a special layer of cells develops and gradually severs the tissues that support the leaf."

I started to laugh, because he clearly could not see the leaf and the tree in anything other than its literal form. It was that adorable obliviousness that I kind of loved about him, but it could also be somewhat frustrating sometimes. Like when I would try to tell him how I felt and he could stumble all the way around the point without actually getting it. I'd tried being blunt about it. One time, I just said, "Casey, I like you" and I held my breath until he smiled at me and said, "Yeah, I know that, Josie. We're best friends. I like you too."

"What else do you want to know?" Casey asked me, taking a bite of the street corn.

I closed my eyes to appreciate the smell of his musky cologne when he leaned toward me to get to the corn, but when I opened my eyes again, the breezy sky was gone and I was staring at the ceiling of my bedroom.

"Casey?" I started looking around for him and he quickly appeared beside me, only he was twenty-four year old Casey now, muscular and sweaty with a towel wrapped around his hip bones.

"What do you want to know?" he repeated the question in his deep, smooth grown up voice as he rolled his body on top of mine.

"I... I..." I stammered out, not really sure how to answer that question because we obviously weren't talking about leaves anymore.

He wrapped his hand around one of my wrists and placed it on his hard stomach. "You want to know what this feels like?"

It's a dream, and I couldn't actually feel his skin, but I could see my hand being moved along the surface until I got to his buff shoulder. I could feel my heart beating out of my chest and I'd never felt so turned on in my entire life. I'd never wanted anything more.

He dropped my wrist, letting his hand fall at my side and start moving up the inside of my loose tank top. "You want to know how I would touch you?" he murmured in my ear.

"Yes," I exhaled as he started trailing hot kisses on my neck and when I moaned, I could feel him smile against me.

"What else?"

I wanted to know what it felt like to be kissed by him, to be held by him, what it would sound like when he moaned my name. Instead of saying all of this, I muttered out a strangled, "Everything."

He kissed up my jaw until his lips were millimeters from mine. So close that I could feel his breath on my face. His thumb started making circles around my nipple and I gasped. When he started talking again, I could feel his lips brush lightly against mine and I thought this was it. I would finally get a kiss. Even if it was a dream, this was the closest I'd ever get, and here it comes.

"You want to know about this?" he asked as he dropped his towel-covered hips into mine and I felt him press hard against my thigh. I gasped so loud that it woke me up from the dream before the kiss and I was suddenly alone in my room, sweaty and horny as hell.

All weekend I'd been having similar dreams, and I couldn't make them stop. Ever since I walked into his apartment and I saw him there... like that... it did something to my hormones.

I didn't even have time to calm my frazzled nerves because I was running late for work, so I took a cold shower and then started printing for the office, still reliving the dream over and over in my head until it felt like my heart was pounding out of my chest.

"Josie, I need to see you in my office," was not usually a very good thing to hear first thing in the morning. It usually meant that Kim was upset about something. A missed deadline, a rushed article, an unchecked fact. Clary sent me a look of pity as Kim waltzed away from our desks and my throat went dry. I didn't think that I did anything wrong. All of my articles had been on time, thorough, and fact checked. I haven't missed any work, I've been working my ass off. What could she possibly want?

I scraped my mind for any sort of infraction, but even as I knocked on her door and entered, I was confused and scared. Still flushed from my dream, I gathered myself enough to drop my things off at my desk and then meet her in her office.

"What's up, Kim?" I asked in my most nonchalant voice, because she was like a shark. She could smell fear and if you reeked of it, she'd eat you alive.

"Close the door," she said without looking up from her computer screen and I was thinking I am so getting fired.

I closed the door and invited myself into one of the comfortable chairs across the desk from her. I wondered how many people have been caressed by these chairs as they learned that their career had been upended. How many tears soaked this fabric?

Finally, she looked up at me with her usual no-nonsense frown and said, "You've been doing a lot of really good work lately, Josie."

"Oh. I have?"

"Your help with the Potomac case, the Danvers trial, the Lane Avenue murder. You're really starting to get into your groove here." She leaned back in her reclining office chair and my back whined in jealousy. I'd been sitting in the same stiff chair since I started working here and although it was wildly uncomfortable, it did improve my posture.

"Thank you," I said, because I didn't know what else there was to say. She did not give out praise lightly and I wasn't prepared for it at all. I had been working hard, wedging myself into any crack I could find to get noticed around here, but I didn't actually think that she was noticing all that much.

"So, I'm putting you on a home invasion and sexual assault case," she said, and I leaned forward in my seat a bit more.

"What do we know so far?"

"Woman was in her apartment, man broke in through the kitchen window and attacked her on the couch," she told me. "I'm emailing you the address now, you need to get over there immediately. I pulled you in here so that you knew that I'm assigning you this case with intention. Because I see the hard work you're doing, and I know you can handle this."

My blood started going cold, but I nodded along. "I'll get it done."

The look on her face told me that she was confused, probably expecting a much larger reaction from me and in most cases, I would have given it. I knew that being a crime reporter, I would eventually have to cover a sexual assault case, but I was never going to be prepared for it. My palms were already going sweaty.

"Don't disappoint me," she said as she waved me toward the door and I was dismissed. Slowly, I raised myself up and out of the room. This was my job. This was the job that I've wanted for so long and if I turned down every sexual assault case there was to report on, my career would go nowhere. I had to follow through, no matter how sick I felt in the bottom of my stomach.

Tulip was angry and hungry when I got home that night. I apologized profusely as I dumped some tuna onto her plate and then prepared a well-rounded dinner for myself that consisted of Pizza Rolls and a 5-Hour Energy.

I had an agonizingly long day of interviewing police and witnesses. I spent two hours consoling the boyfriend of the victim as he sat in the waiting room of the hospital, crying because he decided to go out with friends last night and if he hadn't, this might not have happened. I spent another hour with the victim in her hospital room as she recounted the details for me to record on my notepad, and then I spent fifteen minutes after that throwing up in the hospital bathroom.

Back at home, I sat down at my desk and tried to get some writing done on the Silas article to get my mind off of things. My hands were shaking so hard that my typing speed was going at a snail's pace and I had to stop every once in a while to wipe Pizza Roll crumbs on the sides of my sweat pants.

I was finally starting to get it together, my hands starting to go solid again, when it was interrupted by a call from Casey. Other than a few short texts, we hadn't talked much since the incident.

The first few times it rang, I didn't answer. I was busy and I couldn't jump at the chance to talk to him like it was so natural for me to do. When we were friends in high school, I would jump at my phone when he called, pouncing on it like a hungry mama tiger. I couldn't give myself to him like that this time. I had to be stronger. Also, I wasn't ready to talk about what happened. Especially not in my current state of mind.

I waited five rings before I answered, and it felt like a victory. Although, I was sure Natalie wouldn't see it that way. "Hello?"

"Hey," he responded, sounding extremely uncomfortable. "So I'm really sorry about the other day, I hope you don't still feel weird about it. I wanted to call earlier to talk about it, but I didn't want to break your one call a week rule."

"You don't have anything to apologize for, Casey," I assured him softly. If he had called me before that day, I wouldn't have been able to face him. But after the day I had, it really helped me put things into perspective. Sure, it was embarrassing, but in a world where people get assaulted on their couches by strangers in ski masks, this really was in inconsequential debacle. "I was running early, I shouldn't have just walked in like that, but it's over, let's just pretend like it didn't happen."

"What's wrong?" He asked. I used to be so much better at hiding my emotions from him and I wasn't sure if I got worse at hiding, or he got better at detecting.

"Tired. Just tired," I said with my head in my hand. My therapist said it was a trauma response, how Casey was there for me when it happened and so I felt attached to him as a teenager, like he was the only thing that could make me feel safe. After years of intense therapy, I can feel safe on my own most nights, but that night... hearing his voice made me feel like a scared little kid again who just wanted to crawl into his arms and know that it would all be okay.

"Josie, you can talk to me," he assured me, his voice sounding quiet and almost scared. "I know we have a long way to go in repairing our friendship, but you can always talk to me."

My head started aching with all of the tears I held back. Natalie knew what happened to me as a teenager and she was usually there for me when I needed help, but she was with her family that night and I didn't want to bother her. Casey, though, he was there. So when I finally said, "I had to cover a rape case at work today," he knew exactly why that was so hard for me.

There was a dense silence for a long time before he finally said, "Can I come over?"

"No, I'm fine."

"You don't sound fine," he objected. "Please text me your address."

I didn't need him anymore. Not like I used to. I worked so hard for six years not to need him, even on my worst nights like these. I poured the foundation, I did the work, I built my own structure so that I didn't need to lean on Casey to feel safe in my own skin. I didn't need him.

"Okay," I said, despite all of the ranting I did in my head, because although I didn't need him, it sure would help me get through tonight if I had somebody here with me.

"I'm on my way."

I texted him my address and then cleaned up some dirty dishes that were left on the coffee table. He was a very neat person and I didn't want him to judge me for the mess that was my living area.

When three quick knocks tapped on my front door, I had just finished cleaning up some to-go boxes and fluffing my couch pillows.

I took two deep breaths before opening the door and welcoming Casey into my little, cluttered apartment. "Sorry it's kind of a mess," I said to him as I watched his eyes scan the living room.

"It's exactly how I would imagine it." A smile poked at the corner of his lips before a concerned expression washed over his face when he looked at me. "How are you doing?"

I shrugged and said, "Just been a crappy day."

"I'm sorry you have to go through this," he muttered. I started walking toward the couch and he followed. "Can't you tell your boss that you don't want to work cases like this?"

"I could, but it would set my career back years," I told him with a shake of my head. "It's a good thing that Kim is starting to trust me to handle serious cases like this."

"But is it really worth your mental health? Feeling like this?" he questioned me.

"The reason I wanted to become a crime journalist was to share people's stories, especially stories like this, to stop the world from forgetting the people that are lost. These stories are the hardest, but they're why I wanted to do this."

"I'm sorry. You're right."

"Thank you for coming over." I cleared my throat.

He reached across the couch cushion between us and wrapped his hand around my palm, squeezing tightly as if to remind me that he was there and I wasn't alone.

I don't know why, but this was the last straw for me and I started to cry. I blubbered like a newborn baby until I was read in the face and I had soaked Casey's hoodie all the way through with tears as he rubbed my back. It truly felt like we were teenagers again and he was soothing me back from a panic attack or a night terror.

He made me feel like I needed him, even though I knew I didn't.

"Tell me about work," I said once I could speak again, dabbing my face with a handful of tissues.

"Um, we're working on growing hybrid trees right now," he answered me.

I raised my eyebrows at him, genuinely shocked that he could summarize his work into just eight words. "That's it?"

"What do you mean?" He looked confused.

"Where's the passionate tangent about photosynthesis? The wild hand motions when talking about chloroform? I've never heard you talk for less than half an hour about this stuff," I said to him, walking into the kitchen to throw away the tissues and grab ice cream out of the freezer. When I came back to the living room, Tulip was timidly sniffing Casey's shoe as she debated whether or not he would be friend or faux.

"Oh, I don't know. I don't really discuss work with anybody not in the field anymore, it bores most people," he shrugged as he bent over and extended a hand to Tulip, a peace offering that she did not accept. "Actually, I think you're the last person who I really felt like I could go on a tangent to without feeling like it was a burden."

I did love his tangents. Not because I cared so much about ecosystems or plants, but because of the way his entire face lit up with this amazing passion that I'd never seen in anybody else before. It was mesmerizing to hear him talk about something that fascinated him.

"Well," I said, handing him a spoon and sitting the ice cream down on the couch between us. "Let's hear it."

Hearing Casey talk about his hybrid trees was like a hug that engulfed my entire body. It was familiar and soft, even if I could barely follow what he was saying and he used a lot of big words that I had never heard before. It took my mind off of my day and the splitting headache I got after crying so much. We just ate ice cream together and I listened to him talk until my butt started to fall asleep and the ice cream was getting all melty.

During this time, Tulip decided that Casey would be friend and had cuddled up on his lap.

When he was done, I asked him, "You want to hear the craziest story I ever covered?"

"Absolutely I do."

"Get this. Girlfriend comes home to find her boyfriend in bed with her grandmother. So, obviously, she starts screaming at them and Grandma takes off, naked out the front door. Girlfriend takes a steak knife from the kitchen and starts stabbing the boyfriend. I think she was trying to cut off his... you know. Because the wounds are all on his thighs and lower abdomen. But he was fine, everything is still in tact."

"Holy shit," Casey cackled with laughter and it releases a dose of serotonin through my entire body. I forgot how good it felt to be The Reason Casey Laughed. He had such a bright laugh that really consumed him in the best way, and he could be such a serious guy sometimes that seeing him crack a smile was truly special.

"So, I spent most of the day at the hospital with this dude, and he was apparently sleeping with Grandma for over a year, but he was actually in love with the girlfriend's mother."

"Wow. Three generations."

"I know. Apparently, Mom had never reciprocated those feelings, even after he wrote the lady love letters. It was incredible, this guy was an open book. And when I went to do a follow up interview, the couple was still together a few weeks later. Through the cheating and the stabbing, they didn't break up."

"Incredible."

"Natalie has a theory that they'd start some sort of fucked up sister wives thing, where he gets to sleep with all three, and she still got to marry into his rich family," I laughed and it felt so good to laugh with him like old times. It was how he always got me out of my head. I'd cry on his shoulder until I didn't have anything left in me and then when I calmed down enough, we'd talk and we wouldn't stop talking until my post-cry hiccups turned into laughter.