Just One Year(22)

“I need to leave,” he suddenly said.

What’s happening?

Without questioning, I followed him out of the theater.

Caleb panted as we made our way out to the sidewalk. He took a seat on the ground and said nothing as I sat down next to him.

That scene had apparently triggered this awful reaction, and I couldn’t begin to understand why. I suspected it had something to do with the big secret he’d said he might be able to tell me someday. Had Caleb been abused? Had someone once tried to kidnap him and put him in a trunk?

“I’m not gonna make you talk about what happened in there. But if you want to, I’m here. I’m not leaving you. Whatever it is, you’re okay. Everything is going to be okay.”

He blew out a breath and nodded, still trying to gain his composure.

Then he took my hand and looped his fingers with mine. It wasn’t a romantic gesture; I knew that. He had reached to me for support, because I was there. But also because he trusted me, as I did him.

We stayed there on the sidewalk for an indeterminable amount of time, Caleb resting his head against the brick wall of the theater and me alternating between watching him and giving the evil eye to onlookers who turned their noses down at us for sitting on the ground. I was sure some assumed we were about to ask them for spare change.

Caleb finally turned to me. “I think this fucking theater is cursed.”

He managed to laugh, so I followed suit. We were still holding hands when he stood and pulled me up along with him. Only then did he let go of me. As horrible as what happened had been, I certainly had enjoyed his touch.

“Let’s go home,” he said.

I nodded.

We walked together in silence as the autumn leaves crunched under our feet on the sidewalk.

Once back at the house, Caleb went straight to his room, and I spent the remainder of the afternoon in my own room, unable to stop thinking about his freakout. It pained me to know something had traumatized him.

***

Caleb wasn’t at dinner that evening, which didn’t surprise me, since he’d told me he had to work until closing at the restaurant.

Later, past 11PM, he showed up at the outside door that connected to my bedroom. Rather than enter the house from the front with his key, he’d chosen to come through the yard. He’d never entered through that door before.

I got up to let him in.

“Did I wake you?” he asked.

Returning to the bed, I said, “No, not at all. I was just watching a show on my laptop.”

He proceeded to lie right next to me on the bed—another first. He leaned his head against the headboard and closed his eyes.

After a minute, he turned to me. “I’m so sorry about today, Teagan. It was all I could think about tonight at work. I was supposed to be supporting you, and I completely fucked it all up.”

I moved to face him. “Are you kidding? You don’t owe me an apology. Clearly the movie triggered a memory for you. I understand that. You couldn’t help it.”

“You were supposed to be the traumatized one in that theater, not me. I feel a bit ashamed for how I acted. I’m so sorry.”

“Caleb, seriously. Please stop apologizing. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“But I do, Teagan. I really do, and you don’t even know the half of it.”

When he looked at me again, the pain in his eyes was so palpable, I could practically feel it squeezing at my chest.

“I did a terrible thing,” he said.

My heart sank, but for some reason, none of this alarmed me. I knew from the look of pain on his face that he couldn’t have intentionally done anything terrible. Whatever it was, it clearly filled him with sorrow and regret.

“You can tell me. I promise I won’t judge you. I don’t care what it is.” When he remained silent, I said, “I’ve done some terrible things, too.”

He looked at me as I proceeded to vomit out the first thing that came to mind.

“One time, when Maura was eating a chicken wing, I wished she’d choke on the bone. I didn’t really mean it. But I had the thought, nevertheless.”

He cracked a slight smile, and that alone made my ridiculous confession worth it. That brief reprieve from his pain, though, did nothing to prepare me for what he said next. Nothing could have.

“Teagan…” He paused. “I killed my sister.”





CHAPTER EIGHT




* * *



CALEB




I’d never uttered those words aloud. I hadn’t planned on ever admitting it to anyone here, least of all Teagan. But after what happened today, I felt I owed her an explanation. A part of me wanted to tell her, not only to explain things, but because her own honesty had inspired me to want to open up to her, too. It just didn’t happen as organically as I’d hoped. What took place in the theater had robbed me of that opportunity, leaving me no choice but to force it out.

“Okay,” she said after a moment. “Still not judging you, by the way. Just so you know.”

I loved her for saying that, because it gave me the courage to continue speaking.

“It’s hard for me to talk about, because talking forces me to have to think about it. And when I think about it, I shut down.”

“It’s okay if that happens,” she said. “There’s no rush.”