It didn't take long for Casey to get settled in. Other than the occasional tense moment between her and Zac, things were flowing pretty smoothly and everyone was mostly comfortable with the situation. I can't say Casey was completely happy about depending on us. She never was one to want help. We had learned that pretty quickly when she'd come to live with us.
I remember when mom and dad went to Kansas to get her. It was a really awkward feeling for a week or two. We had a total stranger living with us and she hardly interacted with anyone. Mom and dad did their best to make it a smooth transition, but it had all happened so quickly and we weren't really sure how to deal with it. We were told that her mom was in a car accident and she had no family she could stay with. We all did what we could to make her feel more comfortable, but it seemed she didn't want to be around anyone.
Zac was the first one she opened up to. He was the one who never got discouraged when she wouldn't respond. He just kept pushing her to open up. He didn't want her to talk about the things she didn't want to. He just wanted her to talk. Mom and dad kept telling him to just give her time, but he continued pushing.
His determination worked to his benefit. I don't know how it happened, but all of a sudden one day, it was like they were inseparable. She was a few years older than him, closer to Taylor's age than his or mine, but they didn't seem to notice. That or they just weren't bothered by it.
I have to admit, at first I was jealous at how quickly their relationship had grown. For my entire life, I was always the one hanging out with Zac and Taylor. We were the ones that were inseparable. But then Casey came along, and everything suddenly changed. But the jealousy didn't last long, because soon I, too, found myself growing closer to her.
I won't deny that I did have a little crush on Casey at one point in time. But it didn't last long. Not at all. At the time, I had a crush on every female that I was close to, so it wasn't like I was hung up on her. And I wasn't devastated the first time I walked in on them making out. I wasn't devastated nor was I surprised. They'd been spending an unnatural amount of time together. A relationship was bound to blossom eventually.
She lived with us for seven years and they were together off and on for five of it. Mom and dad thought it was cute at first. Then they watched, just as the rest of us did, as their relationship got more serious. Casey and Zac were never apart. They never slept in separate bedrooms, unless they were fighting. They never went anywhere without each other, except when Casey left for school. Zac hated that. He always asked her why she didn't just home school like the rest of us. She always told him it was the last normal piece of her life. I could totally see where she was coming from.
The closer they got, the more mom and dad opposed it though. They set strict rules on sleeping arrangements and curfews. They restated time after time, the rules of the house. None of it stopped them. They continued sharing a room, though Zac assured me for the longest time that they weren't sleeping together. It wasn't until Jessica accidentally let it slip that Casey said they had been, that I knew for sure. I guess girls share different things than guys. And seeing how close Jess and Casey here, it wouldn't surprise me if there were a lot of things that my little sister knew that I didn't.
Life was just completely different with her around. It was more exciting, more chaotic, and more interesting. She had this whole personality about her that made her loveable to everyone she came in contact with. Not that she didn't have her moments. We never forgot that she had her own set of issues. She'd just recently lost her mother. The rest of her family was, to us, unaccounted for.
Because of the underlying conditions, mom and dad made her see a therapist. At first she hated the idea, but after a while she told me that she looked forward to the visits. Sometimes they were weekly and other times it was only two or three times a month. But she looked forward to getting things off of her chest that she was afraid to say to any of us.
Her relationship with Zac was like a yo-yo. One day they were together and happy as could be and the next they were fighting like they were arch enemies. We all knew the fights would never last long, but some of them were pretty intense. And Zac, while usually very gentle with her, wasn't always Mr. Perfect. He never hit her or pushed her hard enough to put her in physical pain for a long time. It was mostly the shock she went through every time he did it. He didn't do it often, so each time was like the first to her. And after the initial shock wore of and they separated she was left with more of the emotional affects. That's when she came to me the most. When she was fighting with Zac. I didn't really mind, but sometimes it was frustrating to know that the most talking she ever did with me was when she was ranting and raving about my brother.
I learned the most about her when she was going on and on about Zac though. Most of the time it started with something he'd done to piss her off, but it always ended up straying to something more. I came to the conclusion that the reason she let Zac get under her skin so much was because Zac was a lot like her dad. Only Zac wasn't an alcoholic and he never set out to hurt her. Though sometimes she claimed that he did the things he did to spite her, I knew from living with him for his entire life that he could lose his temper. And I knew that he could be brutally honest at times. It was just part of his personality.
Zac was the outgoing one, never afraid to speak his mind. He was the realist. The deeper his relationship with Casey got, the more his attitude changed though. He started caring about the things he said. He filtered his thoughts if the thought they might be offensive, many of which usually were. He became less "fuck the world" and more "embrace life." Casey was different. A lot different. In ways that many of us couldn't really comprehend. She was sorry for everything, whether it was her fault or not. She was calm and reserved, shameful and apologetic, doubtful and anxious, fearful but sincere. Everything she did was for someone else. She never thought about herself because she never felt like she needed to. They were so different that they balanced each other out. You always hear stories of the people who were “meant to be together” because they fit together so well. They know each other so well that they can talk without talking. They can know without asking. I never believed in relationships like that until I saw Zac and Casey together.
I knew then, and I’m still learning now, that there was nothing that Casey didn’t tell Zac. He knew everything about her. And I’m sure she knew the same about him. There was nothing they were afraid to tell each other. I envied them for that, but at the same time, it gave me hope in true love. In love that would last forever. But I knew something was wrong when Casey started avoiding Zac. At first I thought they’d been fighting again, but when I talked to Zac about it, he confirmed that he was just as confused as I was.
When I asked her about it, she said it was nothing. She said she just didn’t feel like talking to anyone. It struck me as odd that she wouldn’t talk to Zac at all. She ignored him when he’d tell her something. She’d shrug when he asked her a question. But while she was “not in the mood to talk to anyone,” she was talking to, and spending more and more time with Jessica.
I feared that she was going to become distant again, like she had when she’d first come to stay with us. It had been years, but she was showing some of the same signs. Not wanting to eat, not wanting to talk to nearly anybody, crying more. She rarely cried out in the open. It was easy to tell that she’d been crying when her usually short showers turned into long ones. When she’d lock herself in her room in the middle of the day, refusing to answer the door. Even Zac and I were on her ‘no talk list,’ which was completely not normal. Even when she had her off days and didn’t want to talk, she never shut us out. But during this period, she talked to Jessica a lot, and everyone else was pretty much non existent.
I was the first one to find the pregnancy test in her room. She had tried to hide it, but she knew that I’d already seen it. I never had to ask her about it. She just came right out and admitted to it, not like she really had a choice. Because of this information, I wasn’t at all surprised when Zac got Taylor and I together to tell us the good news. Even through his nervousness, which was blatantly obvious, he was excited.
I think the majority of his nervousness stemmed from the fact that he had to tell mom and dad. He was only seventeen when she got pregnant. A mature seventeen-year-old, but a seventeen-year-old nonetheless. Taylor and I were supportive, as if we’d be any other way. We tried to talk to Casey about it, but it was one of those things that she didn’t want to talk about. If we had kept a list, it probably would have been long.
Mom and dad, though not quite as excited, were supportive in the end. I remember the look of disappointment in mom’s eyes and I clearly remember, as selfish as it may sound, that I was extremely grateful that I wasn’t in Zac and Casey’s position. She never said anything negative about it though. Dad’s reaction was completely different. Instead of disappointment in his eyes, there was fire. I remember mom laying her hand on his knee, trying to calm him to no avail. There wasn’t a lot that could upset him, but this definitely did. I remember him telling Casey she needed to leave. That pissed Zac off, but Casey, being the compliant person she is, made her way upstairs.
There was a screaming match between Zac and dad with mom trying her hardest to reason with both of them. I decided to go upstairs to talk to Casey. To tell her to just let dad cool down and things would go back to normal. What I found was simple, but heartbreaking. She was sitting in the middle of the floor of her bedroom, fat tears rolling down her face. She had a picture of her mom in her hand and she seemed to be trying to talk, but her voice wouldn’t let her.
I stood in the doorway watching her. I wasn’t sure what to say. She sensed my presence and looked up with tears streaked across her pretty face. She looked like she was falling apart.
“Hey,” I said as soothingly as I could as I walked into the room and sat down on the floor behind her. She melted into me as my arm wrapped around her. “He didn’t mean that. He just wasn’t ready for that news.” She chose not to respond to what I had said, but rather, about the picture in her hand. She held up the silver picture frame with her and her mom in the middle, with bright eyes and arms wrapped haphazardly around each other.
“Wasn’t she beautiful?” She asked, holding the frame closer to me so that I could see.
I nodded. “You look just like her.”
“I talk to her sometimes,” she said sadly, her eyes remained planted on the picture. “When I miss her a lot. When I need someone to talk to.” She lowered the picture frame to her lap, but continued looking at it.
I remember not knowing what to say as she continued talking to me. The more she talked, the less she cried so I just let her get it all out. She talked about her mom and how she did everything she could to provide for her. How she did everything to make sure that Casey didn’t go without something she needed. She told me she was scared to become a mother because she wasn’t sure she’d be able to do as good as her mom and mine.
She continued talking until Zac appeared in the doorway, looking worn out but triumphant. I left to let them talk, but was stopped by mom in the hallway. She wanted to know if Casey was okay. I just shrugged and continued on my way.
By the time Casey was four months along, she was still living with us, and the excitement of a new baby was growing. Mom was really excited, and dad was coming to terms with the fact that something like that was bound to happen. By the time the baby was born, Zac would be eighteen anyway, and there was nothing mom or dad could really do about it.
Zac went to a party one night and came home drunk. Casey had a low tolerance to people who drank because of her dad, but she always let it slide with Zac. And even though he’d been physical with her at times, and he’d been downright rude, she always went back to him. No one really knew about the things he’d done to her except Jessica and I. Casey is, and always has been, a very private person. Most of what happened between she and Zac stayed between she and Zac and never went anywhere farther than Jessica or me. And though we always tried everything we could to keep Zac from losing his temper with her, we really never could really do much. Especially with Casey always going around saying nothing happened, or it was no big deal. Every time she did that, it totally voided out anything Jessica or I could say.
Casey’s relationship with Zac was kind of like those women you see on those daytime talk shows. Their husband’s abuse them, but they never leave because they “love” them. It wasn’t quite as bad with Zac. He never did anything to intentionally hurt her and he never went to that kind of extreme. It was always just a push here or there. But she did always go back, and we could never really talk any sense into her. Zac was our own blood, but we didn’t want to see her being treated like that.
When Zac came home drunk that night, Casey was frustrated, and when she was frustrated, she let it be known. I heard the front door close, so I knew Zac was home. Not even ten minutes later, I could hear the yelling match in the room next to mine. I waited for it to end, knowing it could be a while. It wasn’t even ten minutes later when I heard Zac yell something incoherent and Casey cried out in pain. As soon as I heard it I was out of bed and on my way to their room.
I found Casey crouched down against the wall. Zac was in front of her, running his hands through her hair as he always did as a way of apologizing. It pissed me off. He looked at me with the most frightened look in his eyes as I asked him what he did.
“I’m fine,” she mumbled, trying to stand up. Zac stood up and reached down to help her, but she smacked his hand away and did it herself. “I’m going to bed,” she informed us with tears still in her eyes as she pushed both of us out into the dimly lit hallway.
When I turned to say something to Zac, he was already half way down the hallway, pulling on his jacket. I don’t know where he went that night, but I know where he was the next morning. The doctors said she lost the baby, but none of us could really wrap our minds around it. One day she was pregnant, and the next she wasn’t. The doctors suggested therapy and support groups, but Casey didn’t want any of that. She said she just wanted to forget, but we all knew that was unlikely.
She and Zac tried to go on like nothing had ever happened. No one ever knew exactly how Casey lost the baby except the three of us. They worked so hard to pretend that everything was okay, but their relationship never fully mended. And really, I can’t imagine it ever could. As much as they tried, they’d never be able to forget. And Casey would never be able to forgive.
It wasn’t long after that, maybe two months, that Casey decided it was time for her to leave Tulsa. Her relationship with Zac was in shambles. We all did our best to convince her to stay, but she insisted on leaving. She said she was twenty and needed to do something with her life, so she went back to Kansas and started taking a few classes at Kansas University in Lawrence.
We heard from her a few times after that. On holidays and birthdays mostly. She would come to visit once in a while, but she never stayed long. We moved to New York not long after she left Tulsa and she came to visit us a couple times. She said it was her favorite place in the world. The hustle and bustle of people. Being surrounded by so many, and still able to feel alone at times. She loved the life of the city and the anonymity. But after a while, we stopped hearing from her all together.
We worried about her for a long time, but after a while we had to get on with our lives. We knew she could take care of herself and if she needed us, she knew where to find us. But, being the stubborn person that she is, never thought she needed us, thus she never came. That is, until she showed up two weeks ago.
She didn’t have to say it, we already knew. She came to us because she needed us, just like we always knew she would. It was an unmentioned truth. An understanding between all of us. There were times of tension between Zac and Casey, just because of the terms on which their relationship had so abruptly died. I don’t know if Casey ever forgave Zac or if Zac ever forgave himself. But they had both moved on. They were trying to at least. And that’s what was important.