he Resolution of Callie & Kayden (The Coincidence, #6)(14)

Just her and me and nothing else.





Chapter 7


#116 Hang On.



Kayden


After the night I spent with Callie, it feels like things are going to be okay. That maybe I can let all this shit go and not worry about it. That maybe I’ll never get resolution for what happened to me and that I just need to move on. I want to, but I’m not sure I can.

It’s morning and I’m hanging out in my room, trying to catch up on some assignments, when my phone starts to ring. I cringe when I see Dylan’s name on the screen, my mind instantly thinking the phone call is going to be bad.

I almost don’t answer it, but knowing it’ll drive me mad if I don’t, I make myself reach for the phone and press talk. Niko is hanging out at the computer desk, playing a game, so I head into the hallway to talk.

‘What’s up?’ I ask Dylan as I shut the door behind me. I’m figuring it’s a call about Tyler, so when he says, ‘Dad,’ it almost doesn’t register in my brain.

‘Huh …? What …? Did you …?’ I’m struck speechless.

Dylan says, which is seeming to become his M.O., ‘Kayden, I’m so sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this.’

I make a right toward the bathrooms, maneuvering through people, practically shoving them out of my way. ‘Telling me what?’ Because I seriously didn’t hear anything but Dad.

There’s the sigh again. ‘I found Mom and Dad, Kayden … and it’s bad … well, bad depending on how you look at it.’

I make it to the bathroom and lock myself in a stall. ‘How so?’ I slump against the stall door, telling myself to breathe, but my heart is taking up all the f*cking space in my chest. It’s like I’ve been kicked in the gut and slammed in the face over and over again.

I found Mom and Dad.

‘Dad’s in the hospital.’ He pauses and I can tell he’s struggling to keep his voice balanced. ‘I didn’t get too much information, considering Mom is the queen of lying about shit she doesn’t want to talk about.’ Another pause. ‘Are you okay?’

I take a deep breath. Then another. And another.

‘Yeah …’

I found Mom and Dad.

‘Kayden?’

Dad’s in the hospital.

Is this my resolution?

‘I have to go,’ I choke then hang up the phone. My pulse is pounding, my skin damp with sweat, and I can’t get air into my lungs. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this way – this bad – but I can’t help it. The thoughts going through my head … I’d wanted resolution, but not like this.

Or did I?

Am I that kind of a person?

To wish pain upon someone else?

Am I like my father?

The last thought is f*cking horrifying. I feel like I’m about to fall again, tumble into the dark, pick up that blade and slice away until whatever’s inside me bleeds out. I don’t want to, but I do.

I want it.

Want it.

Want it.

I’m barely able to hang on.





Chapter 8


#122 Dance Like it’s Your Prom.



Callie


Once upon a time, there was a girl who thought she was a princess. And really, weren’t all girls supposed to be?

She grew up happy, with a loving, perhaps over doting mother, and a father who took care of her. Her older brother wasn’t too bad for the most part, as much as any older brother was. And while she didn’t grow up in a castle surrounded by knolls of grassland country blossoming with flowers and trees, her simple home felt like a palace in her small town. It made her feel protected and safe from all the bad she’d heard whispers of, yet wasn’t sure if it existed, since she’d never seen any of it for herself.

Yes, all was well in the princess’s world. But on her twelfth birthday … that all changed when the bad entered the walls of her palace. He didn’t break down the place or force his way in like in the books or movies. He simply walked through the door welcomed with open arms. And he didn’t have fangs or sharp teeth that would warn the princess that maybe he wasn’t good but a monster. No, he was dressed in normal clothes with normal teeth and he even had a normal smile. He was simply a normal guy. At least, that was what the princess thought.

But the princess was wrong and she soon, and very tragically, found out what the bad things were she’d only heard whispers about.

In a house full of balloons and presents, the guy trapped her in a place she’d once felt safe and broke the princess into a thousand pieces that would never fully be found again. And he didn’t just break them, but stole some of them as well, keeping them somewhere no one else could see them.

After it was all over, the broken princess was no more. She simply felt like a girl who was invisible. Princesses were supposed to be happy, pretty, have lots of friends, and go to parties. Not be so broken. But the girl no longer did or felt any of those things. Her palace was now a prison. And the family that had once brought her happiness, felt like nothing more than ghosts in a dark and unfamiliar world she’d been forced into.

Invisible vines grew around the home, full of thorns, making it painful to both leave and stay. Nowhere felt safe. And that was how she believed things would always be, that she would suffer from the bad all on her own for the rest of her life.