High Is Low • •

[casey warrington rodnik]

Casey had come to realise that the walls of his office were a miserable colour. Before now he hadn’t even noticed that they were painted a bluish-grey shade. Bookcases lined with binders and folders, along with an assortment of what was probably junk and useless administration nonsense covered most of the back wall, and the rest were decorated in posters and frames boasting some of the more iconic events from the Apollo’s history. Maybe beneath the older ones there would be a more pleasing colour, trapped there by an image that hadn’t been moved in five or more years, but Casey had never thought to look because he’d never noticed the melancholy paintjob before now. Then again, he hadn’t spent so much time in the office before the last month or two. Normally he stayed there to do whatever he needed to do at his desktop computer, and sign off on whatever needed his scrawl, and then he was out around the venue to inspect everything else. He used to end his day at five or six and only clocked in a late night whenever something special was on, an event he just needed to oversee because it was going to be so memorable that not one tiny thing could blemish it.

Now he was there when everyone else came in and it wasn’t uncommon for him to still be there when they went home either. He’d go out for lunch or dinner, but always bring it back to his desk. If anyone was worried about him they had learnt better than to ask him about it since he only ever answered with the words “I’m fine” and then went back to whatever it was he had been doing originally. Keeping himself busy helped him ignore the worries, and pretend that everything was how it needed to be. When he was working he wasn’t as focused on his diminishing eyesight, or that he was ignoring phone calls from friends and family deliberately. Casey didn’t want to ultimately end up as a burden for someone. It was the reason why he had left Mel the way he did after being with her for so many years. It didn’t matter to him how he felt, it was all a matter of making sure that she didn’t end up trapped helping him when the worst began to happen and the milk bottle glasses he had recently started wearing no longer helped him.

Casey was finishing up another set of staff rotas. He had done enough now to see them through the summer, plotting out the cover necessary for anyone who had put in vacation requests. It was a tedious task, but it was something to do before he went back home to the new apartment he had moved into after the break up with Mel. He couldn’t ask her to move out of their place, not after what he was already doing to her. Instead he had found a new place himself, though there were still boxes stacked up and Casey had made little effort to turn the place into a home. He didn’t see the point if he was honest. Leaning back in his desk chair, he rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was used to wearing glasses when he worked, but wearing them for every waking moment was leaving him with a dull pinch that he was still getting used to. It wasn’t the greatest feeling, but then there wasn’t anything at all good about losing his eyesight. It was just one horrible thing after another.

• • •

TAGGED! Melodie Rapunzel St James
WORDS! 596!
OUTFIT!  Stubborn & Afraid!!
LYRICS! Adrenaline - - - Shinedown
NOTES! <3

[Melodie Rapunzel St James]

Melodie had always known she was going to find herself in New York. It was like it had been in her bones, in her blood to be in a city that never really slept like the Big Apple. She had thought it would have been under different circumstances but the New Yorker was a damn good place to find yourself. Entertainment columns didn't write themselves and with her press pass, she got into some of the best parties and events in the city. It had been where she'd met what she had thought to be the love of her life. At the time they'd met, she had jus thought he was fun and cool and she had fallen for him hard. All her best memories of the city started after she'd met Casey and it broke her heart to wake up in her apartment alone when not too long ago she used to wake up next to him. They'd been a damn near perfect match and Mel had thought she'd known just about everything there was to know about Casey. Her certainly knew just about everything about her. Where she'd gotten specific little childhood scars and things she'd forgotten about herself were the exceptions to the things he'd known about her.

Still, after how long, she still couldn't quite get over the fact or understand why he'd just up and left her. They'd been doing so well! She had even thought he was thinking about proposing to her! In the time that he'd moved out of their shared apartment, Melodie had spent many a night out with friends, drinking her way through stories and ideas and fantastical reasons why he would do something so cruel. They ranted and raved, threw around wild accusations that Melodie knew were simply not true, like Casey being a lying, cheating bastard and still she couldn't accept any of them; not even the plausible options! It got to the point that Melodie thought herself to be the reason for the mess she was officially calling her life. She had to be. Aside from Casey, she was the only other common denominator.

Mel had even worked herself up into such an angry, depressed tizzy, she finally found herself in the lobby of The Apollo Theatre. It had taken all this time to get there but she got there. A couple people waved, stopped to say hello but no one stopped her. No one said anything as made her way up through the employee only areas to Casey's office. It shouldn't have taken her so long to get to this point. She had previously prided herself on being a blunt, go for it type. Maybe it was the shock of it all finally wearing off, maybe it was all that and she'd finally returned to her usual "find the answers" self. She stood outside the office door for ten minutes reaching her arm out to knock and taking it back again. Frustrated with herself, Mel didn't take a second to think about it, she just knocked. And promptly wished she'd run instead.

♦ ♦ ♦

Tag || casey warrington rodnik
Words || 515
Clothes || Determined Brunette
Music || Used to Love You Sober --Kane Brown
Notes || <3

[casey warrington rodnik]

Leaving Melodie was not something Casey had done on a whim. He had lost sleep thinking about their future together coupled with his diagnosis. She was so full of life, so ambitious and go-getting. He had fallen in love with all of those things and if she lost them because of him it would absolutely and utterly destroy him. He couldn’t watch her spark fade because his own life was falling apart, altering and twisting in ways he couldn’t even fathom. The specialist he had seen had told him it was normal to feel depressed or suffer anxiety during the stages of deterioration, and then given him so many options for places and people to talk to. None of it had helped, but had instead overwhelmed Casey even more. One moment he was just losing his eyesight, which was devastating enough, but then this man with his greying hair, was so casually talking about potentially serious mental health issues, too, and saying that it was just ‘one of those things’. No. If that was Casey’s future he wasn’t going to ruin Mel’s life by dragging her down with him. It had been the one thing he knew he could control, and the one gift he could give her.

He knew she wouldn’t understand at first. That there would be heartbreak and confusion, but in the long run it was for the best. She would go on, meet someone else (though the thought of that made Casey feel absolutely sick inside) and eventually her life would be better. Someone else could offer her a future he couldn’t. They wouldn’t rely on her, or make her go through all this medical bullshit with them. Casey was giving her the chance at a life when he was losing his own. Maybe he wasn’t going to die from this, but he was going to eventually lose his sight, lose something his valued so much. It wasn’t like he’d be able to have children and watch them grow up, see them at their sports games and school plays. Hell, he might not even be able to help Mel pick out a dress for a friend’s wedding in a year or two! The doctors didn’t have an exact time frame for him to plan against. They casually suggested maybe ten with optimism, then shrugged and offered five. Neither were options Casey wanted to hear. He was young, there had been so much he still wanted to do, but now all that hope had drained from him and he was floating in a lifeless limbo where he felt lonely. All he did was work because that was all he felt like he could do now.

When someone knocked at the office door, he simply assumed it would be another employee of The Apollo, returning something he had sent out, or coming to ask about an event they were prepping for already. Casey hadn’t seen Melodie since he moved out and broke off their relationship – the hardest day of his life – so he never expected that she’d come to the theatre and confront him. He sighed, slipping his glasses back onto his face and blinking as the room came into crisp focus again. “Yeah?! ‘Mon in.” He hollered, deciding his brief break was over. He reached for the large diary on his desk and opened it, checking the scribbled in notes about deliveries and meetings over the next week, and then the one following. Then he looked up. “Mel.”

• • •

TAGGED! Melodie Rapunzel St James
WORDS! 585!
OUTFIT!  Stubborn & Afraid!!
LYRICS! Adrenaline - - - Shinedown
NOTES! <3

[Melodie Rapunzel St James]

Mel felt like this was such a bad idea. She should go back to the apartment and pretend like she hadn't even left it in the first place. But that was just being a coward and there were many things that Melody would admit to being, however she could never be labeled a coward. There was so much history between her and Casey that she couldn't understand why he had just run out on her the way he had. She was a creature of habit in some ways and Casey up and leaving her the way he had just messed with her head and she demanded answers. Yes, she'd also required a lot of time crying on the couch with her favourite ice cream flavour but after she'd done that, she was angry. She wanted answers, hell, she needed answers. Melodie felt better about every situation when she had answers that she could use.

She had spent too long wallowing in self-doubt and wondering what it was about herself that had turned Casey off from her so quickly. It took too long for her to realise it couldn't have been anything she'd done otherwise their relationship would have ended long before they'd reached this particular point. She had imagined her life with him, years and years down the road, enjoying each other's company. Maybe some children, maybe not, it hadn't actually been a conversation they'd had as yet. And that was another point that had Melodie crying into her pillow. They'd been together for so long but they'd never gotten the real chance to talk children or their future together. It had been ridiculous for Mel to believe they'd be together forever, that this, them together, was everlasting. She'd been so distraught about it that she hadn't been able to tell her parents about it and only her friends knew because she'd been missing from events and work and girl's night too many days in a row to be alright. She might not have even answered the door if it hadn't been for Bea having a spare key in case she'd managed to lose hers and they were out together. Mel wasn't such a forgetful person but she had her days when she just wished she'd stayed in bed. The day Casey walked away had been the worst one yet and now she was ready to get her answers; whether he wanted to give them or not.

As she'd still been working herself up to actually going through with her plan, she did wait until she heard his voice through the door. When she did, there was no turning back so she stormed on ahead. "My mother always said to take time away from a problem and if the anger or upset goes away, it really wasn't worth the emotions of it." She said, almost casually though she heard her voice hitch the tiniest bit. "Well, it has been a hell of a lot longer than twenty-four hours and I'm still incredibly pissed at you for doing what you did. I'm not ready to give up this relationship. I am going to fight for it, for you, for us because I love you and the last little while has torn my heart out over and over again. Now, are you going to get over whatever problem you'd been having that day and talk to me?" She asked, finally getting out everything she'd been feeling since he'd walked out their apartment door. Sure it was pushed out in a rush but she'd known the second she laid eyes on him that if she didn't force it all out right then and there, even before pleasantries, she probably wouldn't make it that far.

♦ ♦ ♦

Tag || casey warrington rodnik
Words || 621
Music || Used to Love You Sober --Kane Brown
Notes || <3

[casey warrington rodnik]

Casey didn’t want to break Melodie’s heart. He didn’t want to leave the home they shared together or the life they were building with each other. But he also couldn’t drag her through his mess. They had so many plans and he could count off which ones would rot and waste away much like his vision. He was going to lose his independence, and while doctors said he could regain it, it would be a long tiring road to get there. He wasn’t getting any younger. He had his ways, his routines and habits and all of that would be turned upside down once his eyesight was gone. It wasn’t a life he wished on anyone; especially not the woman he loved. In his head he had been the bad guy to be the good guy. He had let Melodie go, allowing her to heal and move on with someone better than waste away at his side, watching him struggle and rely on her for the littlest of things.

He had shied away from using his phone for anything but business calls and e-mails. He didn’t want to see any of the social media accounts that might be calling him for everything under the burning sun. He didn’t want to be tempted to message any of them or Mel and tell them to get out of his life. Leaving had crushed him more than anything else in his life and now he was doing his damnedest to try and move on. He didn’t particularly enjoy spending so many hours at his office desk, but this was the best way to avoid idle chit-chat with the rest of the staff. He could already foresee questions about his newer pair of glasses, or about Mel. He had been known to tell funny tales of restaurant trips and home life with the woman he had been so besotted with. Now he had nothing to talk about but work rotas and booked artists. He didn’t want to talk about anything else.

Casey didn’t want to talk to Mel either, but here she was in front of him. He could barely listen to what she said, his heart pounding as loudly as she was. He closed the diary, having forgotten what he had opened it for in the first place. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over.” He said, even though each word broke his heart a little bit more. “I don’t want to be with you. And I have nothing else to say.” Casey didn’t want her pity or to make promises that may not be unbreakable. No one knew what was on his journey ahead and frankly he didn’t want to know. It could be worse than his imagination was telling him, or maybe better. He might have longer to go before he was completely blind, or it might happen much faster than the doctors predicted. He didn’t know and neither did they know for certain. They had doled out a bunch of “eventually” and “ifs”. All they had been certain about was that Casey was going to go blind.

• • •

TAGGED! Melodie Rapunzel St James
WORDS! 519!
LYRICS! Adrenaline - - - Shinedown
NOTES! <3