The Redemption of Callie and Kayden (16 page)

covers up the scars. “We’re nothing alike. You… you’re beautiful

and amazing and the sadness and pain in you was put there by

someone else.” He lowers his voice and sucks in a breath. “I put the

pain there myself.”

I keep my voice soft as I lean over the table. “No, your father

does.”

He shakes his head, staring at the counter. “I cut myself that

night.”

My chest compresses and squeezes my heart into a

miniature ball. “All of the cuts?”

He doesn’t answer and his scruffy jaw goes taut. Carefully, so

I don’t scare him, I slide my hand across the table and place it over his. “What happened isn’t your fault. It’s mine. It all started because of me.”

His head snaps in my direction and the fire in his eyes makes

me recoil. “In no way is this your fault and in no way do I regret

doing what I did to him.” His gaze is piercing, but his voice is calm.

“Are you mad that I did it?”

I promptly know the real answer because I feel it every time I

think of Caleb getting beat over and over again. “I wish I could say

that I was, because I never ever wanted you to be the one to do

that, but I can’t be.” Tears start to pool in the corners of my eyes, but I force them back because it’s not the right time or place to

cry. “I’m sorry, Kayden. I’m so sorry for bringing you into this

mess.”

He edges his hand out from under mine and positions it on

top of my fingers. “You have nothing to be sorry about… I’m the

one who should be sorry, for bringing you into this mess. I can’t… I

can’t even imagine how hard it must have been to walk in on me

when I was like that.”

I shake my head and focus on the unequal beat of his pulse

in his hand. Everything is real and it’s hard to keep up. “It was only hard because I… because I thought you were dead.”

He looks like he’s about to splinter apart and I’m verging into

the same place. I want to clutch onto him. I want him to clutch

onto me, because I know if we can just hold onto each other then

we can make it through this. But suddenly he’s pulling away and

getting to his feet and I don’t know what to do or say.

“I need to walk away,” he says, not looking at me but at the

door at the front of the café. “It’s better for you… You don’t

deserve this… I don’t deserve you.”

Just as quickly as I found him again he’s walking out of my

life. I watch him weave around the tables and then he’s out the

door, leaving me. I need to make him understand that I

understand him. I need to make him see that he deserves to be

happy and that he doesn’t ruin me. I get up and hurry around the

tables, not caring that everyone is looking at me like I’m crazy. I

slam my hand against the glass door and throw myself out into the

cold, completely defenseless without my jacket on.

“I sometimes make myself throw up,” I stammer as I run up

to the bike with my feet slipping on the snow.

He freezes with one foot on the ground on one foot off and

turns his head. His eyes scroll across my body and I feel naked and

exposed. “You what?”

I press my fingertips to my nose and shake my head because

I can’t look at him when I say it again. “I sometimes make myself

throw up.” I give him a moment and then I drop my hands to my

side. “And not because I think I’m fat. It’s because…” I take a step

toward him and angle my head back, looking up into his emerald

eyes. I can see the reflection of myself in them and I look as scared as I feel. “It’s because I’m trying to get rid of all the vile, foul

feelings inside me. The ones I can’t deal with.”

He’s looking at me, and I mean really looking at me, and

there’s this connection, this understanding that we are two people

who have been fractured, not by ourselves but by someone else

and we’re doing everything we can to not shatter to pieces.

I wait for him to react and when he doesn’t budge I decide

to do it for him. I walk up to him, getting close enough that I can

feel the heat emitting from his body. Then I stand on my tiptoes,

throw my arms around his neck, and hug him, praying to God he’ll

hug me back, because even though it’s a simple gesture in theory,

sometimes hugging is complex.

His arms stay slack at his side as his chest rises and falls. I’m

about to give up, back away, and allow myself to cry when his arms

wrap around my waist. He grips me tightly and it gives me hope

that maybe there might be some hope left.

He holds me for what feels like forever, nuzzling his face into

my hair. At some point it starts to snow, but we don’t move. We

are frozen in a moment neither of us wants to leave.

“For how long?” he finally asks, his breath warm against my

cheek.

I shut my eyes and bask in the feel of him. “Since it

happened.”

His arms tighten around me and he presses my body against

his. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” I tenderly run my fingertips up and down

his back, working up the courage to ask. “Kayden?”

“Since I was twelve.” He reads my mind and trusts me

enough to answer.

I constrict my arms around him, sealing us together in every

way possible. Maybe if I try hard enough, we’ll fall into each other

and become one single person and we can share our pain instead

of carrying it by ourselves.

Kayden

I’m shocked by what Callie tells me and at first I don’t

understand. She makes herself throw up. Tiny, barely there Callie

makes herself throw up. But then she explains why and it makes

more sense to me than anything else in my life. I realize how

perfect we are for each other and also how disastrous we could

end up being. Because even though we can help each other pick

up the pieces of our lives, we could also break at the same time

and then nothing would be left to catch us as we crumble.

“Maybe we should go inside,” I finally say even though I

don’t want to. I want to stand in this very spot and hold onto her

forever, but we’d freeze to death.

She puts a sliver of space between us as she leans away and

slants her chin up to look at me, her hair falling back from her eyes and forehead. “I’m not sure I want to go back in after I ran out like that.”

I tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear as her palms travel

up my arms. “How about I go in and get your jacket while you call

Seth because I don’t want you riding on that bike.”

“But what will you do?”

I cup her cheek with my hand, desperately needing to touch

as much of her as I can. “I can put the bike in the back of the truck and then we can go for a drive or something.”

There’s a trace of a smile on her lips. “Where will we go?”

I return her smile as I sketch my finger across her yielding

bottom lip. “Wherever you want.”

A sly look comes over her and then she stands on her tiptoes

and kisses my cheek. “How about the beach?”

I cock my eyebrow and give her a funny look as she moves

back, and then I glance around at the mounds of snow in the

parking lot, near the fence line, and below the roof where the snow

is sliding off. “The beach?”

She glides her hand down my arm and places it in mine.

“Yeah, I’ll explain when Seth and Luke get here.”

I don’t know what she’s up to and I’m scared to find out. I

had a plan. I was going to stay away from her, but she’s standing

here and she understands me so much more than anyone ever has

and I’m not ready to let that feeling go just yet. “All right, you call them and I’ll go get your jacket from inside.”

She nods and starts to take her phone out of her pocket as I

head inside. A few of the people at the tables give me notable

glances as the door swings shut behind me. They’re probably the

ones who have heard the story. Gossip spreads quickly around

here and I wish I could get the hell away from their stares. From

the snow, from the town, from my home, from life.

I hurry up and grab Callie’s jacket and ignore Jenna’s

penetrating stare as I wind around the tables and hurry out the

door, relieved when it swings shut behind me. Jenna was a friend

of Daisy’s and I don’t want word to get back to Daisy that Callie

and I are together. I’m worried Jenna’s already called Daisy and

she’ll show up here in any minute. That’s the last thing I ever want

Callie to have to deal with.

I immediately bust up laughing as soon as I see Callie. I

haven’t laughed in forever and it cramps up my chest. “What are

you doing?”

The sky has blackened and snow showers down from the

vapory gray clouds. Callie has her hands on the handle of my bike,

trying to push it forward so it’s underneath the shelter of the

carport and out of the snow. Her feet are slipping against the ice

and she’s barely getting it to budge.

I step up behind her and feel her tense as I place my hands

on top of hers. “You’re going to hurt yourself,” I say, dipping my

head forward and sneaking a smell of her hair, remembering the

first time I did it. I lift her hands off the bike and step back, guiding her with me. “The snow’s not going to hurt it.”

She leans back, tips her chin up, and looks up at me. “Are

you sure? I thought I read somewhere that motorcycles were not

made for snow.”

I press my lips to her forehead and leave them there for a

moment, savoring the feel of her skin before pulling back. “Where

on earth did you hear that?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. Somewhere, like in a magazine or

something.”

Shaking my head, I smile and hold up the jacket for her to

put her arms in. It’s been so long since I’ve smiled that the muscles around my lips kind of hurt. She turns to the side and slips her arm

through the sleeve, then rotates to the other side and puts her

other arm in.

I let go of the jacket and glide my palms down to her waist.

Pressing my fingertips into her, I spin her around to face me and

her eyes snap wide. I inch my fingers around to her stomach, never

taking my eyes off her as I pull the zipper up to her chin and her

breath eases out in a thin fog. My fingers shiver as I draw them

away, and then I bend forward and kiss her forehead, shutting my

eyes as I inhale her, fighting to keep my eyes open. I’ve missed the

feel of her skin over the last month and touching it instead of

dreaming about it is surreal. But it’s also wrong. I’m not the best

thing for her and she should have the best. More than that. She

should have everything and I am far from everything. Numbness

drains through my body as I realize that eventually I’m going to

have to let her go.

“Seth and Luke will be here in a minute,” she whispers,

clinging onto the bottom of my shirt, with her face pressed into

my neck.

I can’t feel my fingers, my arms, my heart. “Okay.” I feel

fucking helpless, but all I can do is stand and shiver and pretend

like it’s just from the cold.

#6 Run away—run to the beach

Callie

I’m confused. I can tell that Kayden wants to hold me, but he

keeps pulling away, fighting the urge to touch me. What we need

is a long talk so I can understand what he’s thinking and what he

wants, and so he can understand what I want because I don’t think

he knows. We need a week at a beach house with plenty of alone

time, which is what Seth and Luke are trying to give us.

Later that day, we’re in Luke’s truck, which is parked out back

of the grocery store. It’s getting dark, but the lampposts light up

the snow dancing from the sky. It’s the day after Christmas but it

still looks and feels like Christmas. The buildings around us are

decorated with various colored twinkle lights and the sidewalk has

flashing candy canes and wreathes bordering it.

“I thought Callie was joking about that,” Kayden says. I’m

sitting on his lap with my back leaning against the door. The

window is wet and my hair keeps sticking to the glass. “But by the

serious looks on your guys’ faces I’m guessing I was wrong.”

Seth squirms his shoulders forward and squeezes out from

between Kayden and Luke. He reaches in front of Luke, sticks the

end of his cigarette out the window, and ashes it into the snow.

“Why would we ever joke about going to the beach?” He turns

around and leans against the dash, angles his head back, and

stares up at the cloudy sky. “Does it constantly snow here? I swear

I haven’t seen it stop since I’ve gotten here.”

“From December to April,” I clarify as Kayden’s fingers sneaks

up to my face and he smooths his hand over my head. I can’t stop

my eyes from closing and an almost noiseless but embarrassing

sigh slips out. My cheeks start to heat, so I keep talking to distract everyone. “So are we going to do it?”

“Go to the beach? To San Diego?” Kayden asks with doubt in

his voice. I nod my head and soak up the comfortable feeling of

his hand on my cheek. “I’m not sure I can.”

My eyes open and he’s watching me. “Why not?”

He shakes his hand. “There’s just stuff… things I need to deal

with.”

“Can’t you deal with them at the beach?” Seth sits forward in

the seat and lowers his feet back onto the floor, and then he nods