Another thing that set Casey apart from his peers aside from his difficulty forming words and not having two parents was the fact that he didn't have pets. He was pretty sure he knew why too.
Candy played too rough with animals. He had seen it happen when he found a tiny kitten near the barn and wanted to keep it.
"This was an accident," she told him as he stared at the kitten's body in horror. "You can't tell Dad."
"But you killed it!"
"On accident."
How was that an accident? How was anything she did an accident? But Casey couldn't get the words out. He stuttered when he tried. Most of the time he didn't do that. He just couldn't always say "sh" or "s" at the right times. Things like that.
But he was so scared of what he saw that this time he couldn't stop his teeth from chattering when he tried to get the words out. Eventually he gave up because the effort was too much and he didn't want her to get mad at him.
