The Resolution of Callie & Kayden(22)

‘And where are your mother and father now? I mean, I know they’re in a hospital, but where exactly?’

‘I’m not sure. Dylan said all Tyler gave was a phone number. He said he’s still trying to get all the details from my mother, but it’s like pulling teeth.’ I smash my lips together so tightly they go numb. ‘That’s how my family is, Callie. They keep secrets. From each other. From the world. No one knows who the Owens are, not even the Owens sometimes.’ I’m about to start crying again, which is f*cking ridiculous. I don’t need to be crying over anything, do I? I don’t know what to feel. All those years of being beat, both mentally and physically, are rendering me incapable of feeling the right things in this type of situation.

‘I think I’m broken,’ I whisper as a tear or two fall from my eyes. I feel like such a f*cking *. This is ridiculous. Crying over something so stupid. Something I shouldn’t be crying over.

Shaking her head, Callie climbs over the console and sits on my lap, facing me with a leg on each side. ‘You’re not broken, Kayden. Why would you ever say that?’

‘Because …’ My hands start to quiver as she guides my arms around her waist. ‘Because a tiny part of me doesn’t even feel bad for him.’ Before I can see her reaction, which I’m sure is filled with disgust, I lower my head onto her shoulder and breathe in her comforting scent.

After a few minutes of gripping onto her and sobbing, I manage to get my crying under control, but the silence in the car is heavier than my tears. I’m not sure what to say to her, what she’s thinking, feeling. God, I wish I could read her mind, see into her soul like I swear she sees into mine.

‘You know that day when you beat up Caleb?’ she finally asks, her voice slightly choked up.

It’s not what I was expecting her to say, but I still lean back to look at her as I nod. ‘Of course I remember it. It was the day I felt I finally did something for you, instead of the other way around.’

I’d lost it that day when I found out Caleb Miller, a guy who was a little bit older than me and grew up in our town, was the one who raped Callie when she was twelve. I’d wanted him to pay for it somehow, so I did the only thing I could – beat the shit out of him.

‘Well, I remember when I heard about it – about what you did.’ Her voice cracks. ‘I hated to admit it, considering all of the bad stuff that happened afterward to you, but a part of me felt relieved, maybe even a little bit grateful.’

‘But you deserved to feel that way,’ I assure her. ‘What he did to you was f*cking horrible and sick and wrong.’

‘Just like what your father did to you,’ she says with pressing eyes. When I start to look away, she places her hand on my face and forces me to look at her. ‘Kayden, I’ve heard some of the stories about the things he’s done, and I’m pretty sure you’ve made sure not to tell me the worst of them, considering’ – she glances down at my chest – ‘how big some of those scars are.’

‘But I don’t want to be like him,’ I say in a strangled whisper. ‘I don’t want to be full of rage and hate like him.’

‘Why would you ever think you were like him? You’re not in any way, shape, or form.’

‘But I’m relieved because he’s hurt, like he deserved it somehow. And that’s something he would do – feel relief by hurting people.’

‘That’s different, Kayden. Way, way different. And you didn’t hurt him.’

She’s saying pretty much what my therapist said to me today when I went to talk to him about how I was feeling. And part of me gets why they’re telling me this, but the other part of me – the one that fears turning out like my grandfather and my father – can’t get over how full of hate my reaction is.

‘I know, but …’ I can’t meet her gaze, my eyes on the parking lot, the stars in the sky, anywhere but at her.

‘But what?’ She urges me to tell her, to look at her, not to shut down like I have in the past. And I want to give her that. I really do, but I need to figure out how.

‘What if I keep getting set off?’ I finally dare say, forcing my attention back on her.

Her gaze swallows me up. ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

I raise my wrist. ‘What if things only get worse and return to this. The last time my father was in my life, this shit owned me.’