Callum & Harper (11 page)

I laughed. “Yeah, that.”

“
What book is it?”

I stood and descended the bookcase stairs, hopping down each step with a lightheartedness I hadn’t felt in years. I was going to show Callum Tate my favorite thing in the entire world. I’d never shown anyone for fear they’d try to take it from me. It’d been hidden in my possession for so many years, it felt liberating to finally feel comfortable enough to show someone.

   
I grabbed my bag and dug my hand through my meager belongings. When my hand hit the carefully wrapped book, I gently pulled it from the bottom and walked over to the coffee table next to Callum’s makeshift bed. I knelt to sit on my ankles and placed the wrapped book on top of the table. I nodded my head at the lamp above Callum’s head and he turned it on.
    I unwrapped the book carefully, exposing its cover.
    “
To Kill A Mockingbird
,” he said with reverence, “by Harper Lee.”
I flipped the hard cover open and revealed Harper Lee’s signature.
    “Signed!”
    “I know!” I said giddily.
    “How did you get this?” He asked, bringing his face reverently toward the signature.
    “I won it. If you can believe that.”
    “But
how
?”
    “The Strauss’ took me with them on a summer vacation to visit family they had in North Carolina. It was the best and only trip of my life,” I said, looking back on the memories. “Anyway, there was some sort of beach carnival going on. Apparently, they’d been planning it for weeks because they had this jar full of buttons sit on the front counter at their local grocery store. You would pay twenty dollars to enter a guess at how many buttons filled the jar.
    “Well, I didn’t even know the prize but I, now don’t freak out on me,” I laughed, “but I am a freak when it comes to guessing these things. I’ve never lost.”
    “Never?”
    “Not once. Of course, the other prizes were always lame. Although, I did win a bike once when I guessed how many cherries were inside a canning jar when I was nine but that was taken from me.”
    “What? Why?”
    “My foster parents thought I stole it. I mean, I was a bit of a thief back then but when I tried explaining to them that they could verify my story, they refused to check on it. I think they just wanted to give the bike to their niece who lived in Jersey.”
    “That’s pretty shitty.”
    “Yeah. Anyway, so I entered with some leftover birthday money from the Strauss’ not even aware of the prize. A couple of days later, I had forgotten about it, actually. We went to the beach carnival and rode a few rides but an hour into our visit, that’s when it happened.

“
I can remember everything about that moment like it was yesterday. I was wearing a white linen sundress that was a hand me down but still so beautiful. I had my hair up in a pony tail and was carrying a pink cloud of cotton candy on a paper cone. My flip-flops smacked against my feet as we walked the sandy beach.

    “
I didn’t think I could be happier until we all heard a buzz over the carnival P.A. system.”
    “What did they say?” Callum asked. He’d sat up for the story and was on the edge of his seat.
    “They said, and I quote, ‘Harper Bailey of New York City, you are the winner of our button contest. You have one hour to claim your prize.’
    “I was so ecstatic, I dropped my cotton candy on the ground and Philip Strauss, who was just a year younger, followed me closely until we reached the carnival gazebo. People were milling about waiting to see the girl who won and the prize she was gonna’ get.
    “I walked right up the steps to the gazebo and yelled, ‘I’m Harper Bailey!’ I don’t think they were expecting someone so young. You should have seen the look on the man’s face.” I said, laughing a little. “He asked if I could provide some sort of identification. I whipped out my New York State I.D. so fast, his head spun. “Then he revealed my prize.

“
I’m gonna’ be honest with you, Callum. It was the furthest thing from my mind but it was the most wonderful thing I could have possibly gotten. My favorite book of all time
and
the author was my namesake. I was in the local paper and everything. It was such a strange coincidence.”

    “
That’s wild, Harper.”
    I sighed. “I know.”
We sat in silence as I re-wrapped the book and placed it back in my messenger bag.   
    “Why did you leave them?” He asked, breaking the sleepy quiet.

I took a seat on the edge of Callum’s couch and my chin sunk into my chest. “I didn’t. They left me.

“
Harper, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“
No,” I said, looking back over my shoulder at him. “It’s okay. I don’t mind talking about it.”

“
What happened?” He asked, sidling closer to me and laying his hand on my shoulder.

I placed my hand over his. “Dad, I mean, Henry Strauss, got a job offer in Chicago. I wished so badly that they’d adopt me but as we neared their moving day and I was prepared for yet another transition, the offer never came. I was silly, really, hoping they’d make me a part of their family. It was then I realized that I was really, truly on my own, that no one was going to love me the way I wanted to be.”

“
Harper. You don’t really think that, do you?”

“
I don’t know,” I threw out quickly. “Anyway, that’s when I went off the deep end, getting into hella’ trouble and getting a new family every six months. The all time record was one month. I’m sort of proud of that one.

“
The foster families got worse as I got older. Either my reputation preceded me or, you know, they just didn’t like taking the older ones, which was pretty common.”

“
I know,” Callum said.

I shrugged my shoulders, scooting against the back of the couch and getting comfortable beside Callum. I lay my head on his shoulder and he reached his arm around mine. We sunk into one another.

    “
The last few foster families were just atrocious,” I admitted to the room. “I’d just turned sixteen and gotten thrown out of a bad family for breaking into the school.”
    “Why?”
    “It’s a long story. Basically, I had this friend named Lauren who unfortunately got pregnant. She was kicked out and sent to one of those magnet schools for ‘troubled teens’. Anyway, she had a few things in her locker along with some money. They wouldn’t let her enter the school to retrieve it. They’d said they would retrieve her belongings for her and forward them on but she was desperate for the cash inside and was afraid the shady janitors would pocket it and claim there was nothing else inside.
    “We came up with this plan to leave a classroom window open nearest her locker during school and then we’d come back later and get into her locker.”
    “I don’t get it. Why didn’t she just give you the combination to her locker and you do it during school hours?” He asked.
    “Because if anyone and I mean
anyone
saw me get into her locker, even with Lauren’s permission, I’d have gone to jail and I couldn’t have
another
arrest on my record.”
    “I guess I can understand that.”
    “Well, I left a window in the wood shop classroom open and we returned that night but Lauren was too big to fit through, so I agreed to go in without her. I was in an out in less than five minutes with all her stuff. I thought it the perfect pseudo-crime.” I paused.

“
But?” He asked, eyebrows raised.

“
But
, turns out, a few kids, who hated me, saw us while playing basketball on school grounds and turned my name in.”

    “
What jerks, dude.”
    “No kidding.”
    “So, then what happened?” He prodded.
    “I told the school but to them it didn’t matter why I did it. They expelled me anyway. I was just thankful they didn’t press charges.”
    “That’s when you were forced to change families?”
    “Yeah, that was the straw that broke that camel’s back, I think. If I had known what kind of family I would have been moved to, I never would have broken into the school.”
    “What kind of people were the new family?”
    “It wasn’t the family so much as it was the other foster kid I had to share the house with. The first day there, I had a pretty pleasant conversation with the parents about their expectations and all that crap. You know the drill. We were just sitting at their kitchen table, talking, when I heard the door open and this hulking guy around my age fills the door way.
    “‘Harper,’ the old lady says. ‘This is John Bell. He’s the other foster child here.’ I stood up and shook the guy’s hand. He sat down with us and seemed pleasant enough through conversation. We all ate dinner together and then watched a little television. All nice and neat and pretty, right?
    “Anyway, the next day, John introduced me to the kids at my new school and others in the neighborhood. I was really starting to believe he would be cool and that this family could be one I could stick it out with, at least for a little while.
    “I couldn’t have been more wrong,” I said solemnly.
    “What happened?”
    “Well, that night, while I was sleeping, I heard the wood creak below someone's feet just outside my door. I sat up, turned on the lamp and looked at the time. It was just after two in the morning. I called out but heard nothing else. I just assumed it was John going to the restroom so I fell back to sleep.

“
The next night, at the same time, the same thing happened but this time I stayed quiet and kept the light off. That’s when I panicked a little.” I grabbed Callum’s hand and held it tightly at the memory. “My bedroom door opened a crack and I sat up quickly but no one came in. It was an old house and I figured it just fell open. I scolded myself for being so paranoid. I chocked it up as an overreaction to a new home.

    “
Two weeks later, I became pretty comfortable again, not experiencing anything weird at night again. John and I had also become pretty good friends but one school night, I woke up to him sitting beside me on the bed.” Callum squeezed my hand. “I asked him if he was okay and if he needed anything but he just sat and stared at me. I sat up and scooted as closely to the headboard as possible but John lunged himself at me. I opened my mouth to scream but his big, meaty hand stifled it. ‘Don’t speak’, he told me. I shook my head in agreement, hoping I was misreading what was going on. He kept his hand over my mouth though and I knew I should most definitely be concerned. ‘Harper,’ he said, ‘I want you to sleep with me.’ I shook my head hard but he just clamped his hand tighter across my mouth. ‘Not to have sex with me but to sleep next to me,’ he said. He laid his body next to mine and drug me into him. I’d never felt so frightened in my life. John was so much larger than me, I couldn’t fight him. He cruelly dug his nails into my arms to keep me in my place. He whispered in my ear that if I left or told anyone what he was doing that he would kill me. I just nodded and endured the night next to his sweaty, awful body. I eventually fell asleep and woke to no one there. I didn’t know if I’d dreamed it or not but when I stood up and noticed his nail marks in my arm, I knew.
    “That morning, I showered, trying to wash him off of me, then dressed. The foster family I was staying with made it very clear I couldn’t be late for breakfast. So, I nervously trudged down the stairs and entered the dining room. Everyone was sat there, including John. The foster mother scolded me for being late and I apologized. John sat directly across from me and smiled. He said, ‘Good morning, Harper. How’d you sleep?’ I almost spit up the orange juice I’d nervously downed. I told him I’d slept terribly. He said that he thought that a shame. I couldn’t bear to look at him the rest of the morning. I avoided him at school but at the end of the day, he forced me to walk with him home.”
    “My God, Harper. Please tell me you got out of that house.”
    “I tried, Callum,” I said, a single tear falling down my cheek. “I tried so very hard. I went to my social worker but I stupidly didn’t tell them what John was doing to me and they told me there was no need to change my home, that I needed to adapt.

“
It was all about power and possession for John. He would force me to do strange things like sleep on the floor while he slept in my bed, or tie his shoes for him, or clean his laundry. Once, he made me go to a dance with him but forced me to sit in a corner. He told me if I moved that he’d kill me. He always threatened death.

“
Finally, after a few weeks, it dawned on me that I’d forgotten who I was. I’d forgotten that I was friggin’ Harper Bailey and that I didn’t take shit from anyone.

“
I knew I couldn’t get out of that foster home without some sort of proof of his craziness so I figured out the perfect way to get him. John couldn’t stand being out of control so I started locking my door at night. At first, he ignored it, deciding to take my decision out on me later but I endured it all and kept on locking my door. He’d knock softly and ask me nicely to open up but I refused. He’d threaten me the next morning but I’d ignore him, patiently waiting for him to lose control. Finally, after the sixth night, John couldn’t take it anymore and began to beat at the door violently, waking our foster parents. They wanted to know what he was doing and John, not being a very bright guy, told them I’d taken a cd from his room without asking. I told them that I did nothing of the sort and that the cd he was referring to was actually in his stereo as we spoke. They confirmed it was true and I was given my out.”