Take Me With You

[TW: mentions of abuse]

Casey dangled from the bed upside down, hair brushing the carpet. “I just don’t get it.” 

“You don’t have to get it,” Bee shot back, shoving a hoodie into her bag like it had offended her. 

“But–” 

“This isn’t about you.” 

Casey sucked in a breath, a feeling he couldn’t explain making his chest all tight. His voice was small when he whispered, “But… you’re leaving me behind.” 

His sister froze with her arm halfway under their dresser. Hope sparked fire-bright in Casey’s heart, thinking, for just a moment, that she was going to change her mind. Then Bee’s shoulders squared and she reached in further, dragging out a metal tin. It had been from candy of some sort, once upon a time, but now it held something far more bitter: the tool of Bee’s betrayal. 

Casey watched, still upside down, as Bee pried open the lid, flakes of teal paint coming off the metal and caking under her fingernails. She leafed through the stack of crumpled bills for so long Casey thought she must have counted them a hundred times. Through the open window, the distant sounds of sirens and dogs barking drifted in on the night breeze, making him shiver. 

“I could come with you,” Casey said, even though he’d already tried that. He’d been asking ever since Bee had started talking about leaving, forever ago. A part of him had thought they were just playing pretend, like how he did at recess with rocks when the other kids made fun of the holes in his clothes. 

Bee didn’t stop. She was a robot, moving from one place to another in their small shared room. “I told you Case, I can’t. You’re too young.”

Casey pouted. “You’re not old, either.” 

“Sixteen is a lot older than nine.” 

“Nuh-uh!” 

“Casey…” 

“Just let me come too, I promise I’ll be good. I swear!” 

“I’m sorry, I really am. But I can’t take care of you too, Case. I barely have enough saved for just me. And I just can’t stay here anymore. I just can’t.” She looked at the small alarm clock on her bed and went pale, throwing the last of her things into the bag with a sudden frantic edge. 

Casey’s heart hurt so bad, like the monster that lived under his bed was squeezing it with its giant claws. He tried to sit up but ended up falling off the bed, landing on his head and folding in half with a loud thud. 

He gasped out a startled sound and started to tear up, but then Bee was on her knees in front of him, bag abandoned, cradling his face. She moved his head this way and that to check him over. “You’re alright,” she cooed softly, like how their mother might’ve once, when she’d been alive. 

Casey blinked wet eyes up at her, seeing so much more sadness than a bump on the head deserved, and he knew right then that she was really leaving. She was saying goodbye. 

Terror seized him and he couldn’t breathe, the thought of being left alone in his uncle’s house, with his anger and drunken shouting, made his heart skip a beat. Casey didn’t know what to do, what he could do, but he had to make Bee stay. She couldn’t leave him. 

Casey scrambled up from his knees, swinging his gaze around wildly. Suddenly he caught sight of the answer. He grabbed the tin with both hands, snatching it from the floor to Bee’s left. She let out a cry of protest, lunging after him, but Casey was smaller and ducked under her arms. He clambered onto the bed and held the box out the open window, through the giant hole in the screen. 

“No!” Bee cried, freezing with her arms outstretched. “Casey, please, stop playing around, I need that. I need that right now.” He jutted out his lower lip stubbornly, even though it quivered. “You said you need this box to leave, so if you don’t have the box, you can’t leave!” 

“Casey, please,” Bee begged desperately, “just give me the tin. Uncle Roy is going to be home soon.” She looked out the window, paranoid, as if she’d somehow see him coming. “I need to go now.” There was a wild undercurrent to her voice, one that scared Casey. 

“You can’t!” Casey cried, his voice shrill. “You can’t!” 

Bee lunged for him and he stumbled back, losing his grip on the box. It tumbled from his hand, plummeting down to the street far below. 

Bee blanched, freezing with her jaw hanging open as she stared at where the tin had just been. Then she snapped out of it, grabbed her bag and ran out of the room. 

“Wait!” Casey yelled, running out after her. He was panting by the time his little legs carried him down all the stairs and onto the street. 

The tin had burst open on impact, the bills inside strewn across the asphalt. Bee was frantically trying to pick them all up even as a gust of wind lifted the rest off into the night. She let out a wounded sound that morphed into a furious cry. She clutched the bills that remained to her chest, breathing hard, almost hyperventilating. 

Casey must’ve made a sound because she whirled around, anger sparking hot in her red-rimmed eyes when they landed on him. “You-!” she sobbed, “You ruined it! It’s gone, so much is gone!” Something had snapped inside his sister, as if all the careful control she’d kept on in front of him had shattered all at once. 

Casey was crying now too, tears and snot a mess on his face as he blubbered, “I didn’t– I didn’t mean to, I just, I just–!”

“I hate you!” Bee screamed, tears rolling down her flushed cheeks. She turned on her heel and ran, and Casey was too stuck to follow after her this time, bare feet glued to the sidewalk. 

A yawning emptiness opened up in his tiny chest, the great big maw of a monster opening wide inside him. He sank down to the curb like his strings had been cut, curling his knees to his chest, and sobbed. 

– – – – – – – – 

The sounds of the city weren’t loud enough to drown out the heavy silence between the pair who sat on opposite sides of the park bench. It had been a deliberate choice, this bench facing the trees, so they didn’t have to look directly at each other. It was too hard. 

The moment felt so surreal. Even though he hadn’t seen her in a decade and a half, a part of Casey didn’t feel like it. It was her voice he heard in his head every time he made pasta, in that indulgent tone she’d always used when he’d ask what she was doing. It was her voice telling him to stop being stupid every time he wanted to give up, to give in, because he thought he wasn’t good enough. It was her voice screaming that she hated him that woke him up in his nightmares. In a way, she’d never left him. And now, here they sat, like strangers in a city park. 

Casey had found her Instagram by accident, noticing the profile picture of a commenter on a local restaurant’s post. He’d obsessed over it for weeks. Was it really Bee? Her profile had been scarce, just a few scattered posts of sunsets and one selfie with a very grumpy cat. She had the same first name, the same face… but what if it wasn’t her? What were the odds? And if it was her? Did she live in his city, or had she just been passing through when she’d left that review? What had her life been like? What if she didn’t want to talk to him? In the end, it was Casey’s therapist who had convinced him to reach out, if only to put an end to his spiralling. 

Casey tipped his head back to look up at the afternoon clouds, and finally broke the silence. “Do you remember, when we’d sneak away and climb up the fire escape? And we’d sit out all night to watch the stars?” 

The moment hung suspended for a small eternity before a quiet chuckle escaped his sister. “I remember. I remember… everything, or, almost. I never tried to forget– not the parts with you in them, anyway.” 

Casey got that, on a level he knew few others could understand. There were so many holes in his childhood, gaps he knew his brain must have blocked out to try to protect him. But he remembered Bee clearly, and those nights out on the fire escape especially, that sense of wonder and peace he’d never gotten anywhere else. 

He turned his head to glance at her, finally, only to find her gazing right back. Her hair was shorter now than it ever had been, cropped at her chin, and she’d lost some of the roundness in her face. 

“I tried to look for you, for a while.” 

Bee pressed her lips together, looking away. “I had to get out of the city, find somewhere far enough away where I could disappear…” 

Casey nodded, because he’d figured that. 

“I tried to find you, too, when I got my feet under me. But I was so scared of Uncle Roy catching wind of me, and you didn’t have your name anywhere online.” 

Casey eyed her sideways. “Neither do you.” 

She huffed. “Touché.” 

They sat for a while, letting the spring sun warm them and watching the people pass them by. 

“What do you do?” Casey asked, voicing one of his many questions. 

“I’m a florist,” Bee said, and Casey could hear her contentment. “You?” 

“I’m in my last year at the community college downtown. Computer science.” 

Bee flashed him a fiercely proud smile. “I always told you that you were brilliant.” 

Casey ducked his head. “I remember.” 

Bee patted his hand, then recoiled sharply. “What–” she asked, sounding choked, “What happened to your hand?” She grabbed it before Casey could shove it back into his pocket, examining the rough patch of scar tissue that stretched over his knuckles and the back of his hand. 

Casey shrugged, shoulders tight. “It’s nothing. Just a little gift from one of Uncle Roy’s drunken rampages when I was… twelve, maybe? Beer bottle. I was too scared to ask to go to the doctor so… it just didn’t heal right.” 

Bee flinched. “I’m so sorry, Casey. That I left you there. I need you to know that.” She looked at him with pleading eyes. “If I could’ve taken you, I would have.” 

Casey’s lip quirked, not exactly a smile. “It’s not your fault, Bee. You were sixteen. What the hell were you going to do toting a little kid around with you?” 

She matched his almost-smile, sadness still pulling at her shoulders and eyes.  

Casey looked away, ran a hand through his hair. “I know why you had to leave. Looking back, it feels so obvious what he was doing to you. I didn’t… I don’t know how I didn’t see it.” 

Bee waved that off. “You were nine. You shouldn’t have been able to understand. I’m glad you didn’t.” 

“Still, I’m sorry. Especially about that night. When you left. I didn’t… I’m sorry.” 

Bee grabbed his good hand and squeezed tight. “You were nine,” she repeated softly. “Your big sister was leaving you all alone with a monster. I’m the one who should be apologizing about that night, about how I left. I never should have said I hated you. Because I didn’t,” she said fiercely, “I don’t. I could never hate you.” 

Casey squeezed back. “I destroyed your savings.” 

“It was an accident. You were scared.” 

“So were you.” 

Bee hummed at that, not disagreeing. After a pause, she said, “I wonder, sometimes, if it could have worked out better if I’d told someone… told a teacher, or just called CPS directly, I don’t know.” 

Casey’s mouth formed a grim line as he stared out over the lawn beyond the trees. “I’ve wondered that too, if I should’ve said something, especially when I got older. But he was just so…” Casey shuddered, even now feeling the same clinging fear when he thought about the man who’d been tasked with raising his dead step-sister’s kids. 

“Yeah,” Bee agreed quietly. “And he was a cop. I want to believe that wouldn’t have mattered…” 

Casey shrugged, the rest not needing to be said. 

Silence lapsed again, but this time it wasn’t so bad. It was kind of nice, actually, that easy peace they’d always had between them as kids settling in like an old friend. 

“I’m so glad you found me. That you reached out,” Bee blurted out suddenly, like she had to make sure Casey knew. He did. He could read it in her expressive eyes, clear as day. 

He smiled softly. “Me too.” 

She flung her arms around him then, and he burrowed into her. It was a little awkward, him taller than her now, but she still managed to envelop him in a safety that felt like coming home. 

Fin.