Текст книги "The Redemption of Callie and Kayden"
Автор книги: Jessica Sorensen
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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 18 страниц)
Luke signals at his house where his mother is staring at us
through the front window that’s surrounded by icicles. “Do you
mind if we head somewhere and talk. I’d like to get the hell away
from here.”
“Yeah, of course, man.” I start to let go of Callie, but she
slides her hand from my shoulder and down my arm.
“I’m going with you,” she says as she laces her fingers
through mine.
I shake my head and try to remove my fingers from hers. “No
way. You’ll freeze to death.”
She straightens her shoulders and fixes me with a look of
determination. “Yes, I am.”
I look at Seth, who’s fiddling with the strings on the hood of
his jacket. “You mind helping me out with this one?”
“Sure.” Seth unzips his jacket and slips his arms out of the
sleeves. “Put this on.” He chucks the jacket to Callie and she
catches it with a smile on her face.
“She’ll freeze to death,” I say as Callie puts her arms through
the sleeves. The jacket nearly swallows her tiny body.
Seth raises his eyebrows as he yanks down the sleeves of his
black shirt, and then he backs toward Luke’s truck. “She’ll be fine.
She’s a lot tougher than you give her credit for.”
Callie zips the jacket up all the way to her chin and then
gathers her hair at the nape of her neck and pulls the hood over
her head. She looks up at me and her eyes are filled with so much
willpower I’m not sure what to do with it. She’s usually so fragile
and vulnerable.
“Are you sure?” I ask, hoping she’ll change her mind.
“Because it’s colder than hell.”
She steps past me toward the bike with her chin elevated
even when her small legs sink deep into the snow concealing the
front yard. “Absolutely.” A smile touches her deep-red lips and
humor creeps into her voice. “Besides, hell is warm.”
I restrain a laugh and walk behind her, the snow up to my
ankles. “Okay, if that’s what you want.”
“Kayden.” Luke calls out my name and I reluctantly turn
around.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he says, and for a second
everything’s normal between us. He’s just my friend, not the guy
who saw me lying on the floor in a pool of my own blood and cuts
on my arms that I put there myself. He tosses me one of his spare
coats, a thick tan one with a thermal insulated layer that he keeps
in the truck in case it breaks down. He likes to always be prepared.
I catch it and put it on, even though I was enjoying freezing
the pain out of me. I pull the hood over my head and when I turn
around Callie is sitting on the bike. She looks good on it, like she
belongs there, and it makes me uneasy because I don’t want her to
belong with me. I want her to belong with someone who will make
her happy, even if it means I have to hurt for the rest of my life.
I proceed to the bike cautiously, deciding if I should put her
in front of me or behind.
She slides back without looking at me and runs her fingers
along the dent in the side of it. “You wreck this once?” Her eyes are massive when she glances up at me.
I swallow the rock-size lump in my throat and resist the
overwhelming impulse to lean forward and kiss her. “Yeah, it was a
while ago though. I promise I’ll drive safely, especially with you on the back… I would never let anything hurt you.” I feel stupid for
saying it because I’ve hurt her many times.
She gives me a dead-serious look as she says, “I know you
won’t.” She swivels her hips and inches back a little farther with her hands on the seat. “I trust you, Kayden. Even if you don’t want me
to.”
She doesn’t know enough about me to trust me so much,
but I can see in her eyes there’s no use arguing with her. I hop on
and rev the engine. She scoots forward until her chest is pressed
up against my back and the fronts of her legs are touching the
backs of mine. Her arms circle my waist and she buries her face
into my back. It’s the most contact I’ve had with someone since it
happened and I swear my heart practically ruptures and bleeds out
into my chest. I wish I could die right there with her holding onto
me, because it would be a very peaceful death. I wouldn’t be alone
and empty inside. She would be there with me and she’d be the
last thing I’d ever feel and breathe.
I start to panic at how calming the thought is, but I shove it
way down where I can’t feel it. I stop overthinking everything and
give the motorcycle some gas, before releasing the brake. We take
off, just Callie and me and the wind.
Chapter 8
#16 Make someone understand that you understand them
no matter what it takes
Callie
I thought I’d be more scared than I am. The roads are icy and
there’s nothing but two wheels and a small amount of metal
between the ground and my body. But I’m holding onto Kayden
and my head’s resting against his back and I’m happier than I have
been in the last month. I let the cold air flow over me as he winds
back and forth, following the curves of the road. We pass people in
cars and on the sidewalks in front of the stores bordering the main
road in town. They look at us like we’re insane. But that’s okay. We
can be insane together.
I shut my eyes and block everything out, breathing in the
smell of the crisp winter air as I tighten my arms around Kayden’s
waist. I feel his chest contract, like he gasped, but the lull of the engine is all I hear.
When the motorcycle starts to decelerate, I open my eyes.
We’re pulling up in front of the café where Seth and I get our
pancakes almost every morning. I don’t move right away. I don’t
really want to.
Kayden parks the bike at the front, near the entrance doors.
Red and green twinkly lights are flashing and reflect across the
snow. The air smells like sausage and coffee and it makes my
stomach growl.
“You alive back there?” Kayden asks, turning his head and
looking over his shoulder at me.
I nod, but don’t move my face away from his back. I’m afraid
if I do he’ll disappear.
“Callie?” Kayden says. “Are you okay?”
My shoulders lower as I let out a breath and then force
myself to let him go. I lean back and look him in the eyes. “Yeah,
I’m fine.”
He frowns and draws a line across my cheek with his finger.
“You look frozen.”
I touch my cheeks and either they’re numb or my fingers are.
“Maybe we should go inside.”
Kayden swings his leg over the bike and gets to his feet. I
start to climb off when my phone vibrates inside my pocket. I take
it out and scroll through to check my messages.
Seth: We’ll b there in a bit. We had to stop at the store.
Me: For what?
Seth: For stuff.
Me: Is something wrong?
Seth: No… we just think you two might need a few
minutes to yourselves.
Me: When will you be here?
Seth: Soon. And remember: skittish cat.
“Skittish cat?” Kayden says.
I look up at him and realize he’s leaning over me, reading the
screen. “It’s nothing.” I shove the phone into my pocket, bend my
knee up, and draw my leg to the side to get off the bike.
Kayden lifts an eyebrow as he circles his fingers around my
wrist and helps me off the bike. “So they’re giving us time?”
Damn it. Why did he have to read the message? He lets go
off my arm and I lower my chin down into the jacket and tuck my
hands into the pockets. “Seth’s just being weird.”
He eyes me with suspicion and I’m worried I’ve already
messed my chance up. But then he says, “Isn’t Seth always weird?”
And I feel like his giving me an easy exit because maybe he wants
a few minutes with me.
I nod. “Yes, he is, but he wouldn’t be Seth if he wasn’t weird.”
He returns my smile and then moves his hand toward mine,
hesitating momentarily before he interlocks our fingers, slipping
his large ones through my tiny ones. I glance up at him and his
chest puffs out as he liberates a stressed breath from his lungs. We
don’t say anything else. We just cling onto each other as we head
toward the front door of the café that’s decorated with a picture of
Santa holding a bag of toys.
When I step inside, I realize how frozen I am. The coziness of
the warm air encloses me and prickles the life out of my cooled
skin. It’s not very crowded today in the café, but we still pick one of the corner booths hidden away at the back to get as much privacy
as we can. Christmas tunes play from the speakers in the ceiling
and on each table are unlit silver and white candles. It’s that time
of year where people are happy and they try to sprinkle things
with magic. I wish they would sprinkle some on us.
Once I’m in the booth, I wiggle my arms out of Seth’s jacket,
ball it up to the side of me, and then remove my own jacket that
was beneath it. I’m a little disappointed that Kayden chose to sit
across from me, but I just remind myself skittish cat, skittish cat.
He instantly reaches for the saltshaker and rotates it between
his hands, channeling his nervous energy. It’s quiet, except for the
flow of chatter and the clinking of glasses and pans coming from
inside the kitchen. I struggle to think of something to say as
Kayden stares at the saltshaker in his hands. I retrieve a menu from
the stack on the table near the napkin dispenser and begin reading
it over.
The waitress comes to take our orders. She’s the same one
who flirted with Seth and she gives me this knowing look, like I’m a
slut. Her hair is braided to the side and her name tag says “Jenna.”
I think I remember her from school. She was a grade lower than
me and was friends with Daisy McMillian.
“Hey, Kayden,” she says, adding a giggle at the end.
He glances up and then shoves the saltshaker to the side.
“Hey, Jenna.”
“How are you?” She touches his arm with her manicured
fingers, petting his muscles like he’s a dog. I have this insane
impulse to slap her hand away. I don’t like it because it’s not me. “I heard you were in a car accident or something.”
Kayden rolls his eyes and mutters, “Yeah, or something.”
She laughs, but her eyebrows knit. “You’re so funny.”
Kayden looks at me as he stretches his arm toward the stack
of menus and my gaze darts to the table. I tuck my hands between
my legs and focus on the list of appetizers.
Kayden and she start conversing about their old high school
days and how everyone’s missed seeing Kayden play and hanging
out with him at parties. Kayden smiles at her every once in a while
and it hurts a little because he’s barely said anything to me since
I’ve seen him.
“You know she misses you,” Jenna says, smacking on her
gum with the pen poised against the order book.
Kayden peers up from the menu at her, his eyes glazed over,
looking lost. “Who?”
She pops a pink bubble in out of her lips and glances at me
from the corner of her eye. “Daisy.”
I inch lower into the booth, wishing I were smaller or
invisible, and position my hand to the side of my face, pretending
to be fixated on the beverage list.
“Yeah…” Kayden focus on the menu. “I think I’ll have the
pancakes.”
I smile, thinking of Seth and our pancakes endeavor and a
little bit of courage surfaces in me. I sit up a little straighter and scoot my menu to the side. “I’ll have pancakes too, and coffee.”
Her nose scrunches as she writes down my order and then
smiles charismatically at Kayden. “Do you want anything to drink?”
Kayden closes his menu. “I’ll have a cup of coffee too.”
She scribbles that down, flashes a grin at him, and when she
turns around to head to the counter, she scowls at me. I look away
from her and focus my concentration on Kayden. I have more
important things to worry about than Jenna and Daisy.
“I want to talk to you,” he starts, looking at the cracks in the
table. “I just don’t know how.”
“You don’t know how to talk to me?” I don’t know how to
take what he said. I always thought we were great at talking, which
is why I shared my secrets with him. “Why?”
He traces his fingers along the oval-ringed patterns in the
wood as he reaches up with his other hand and draws his hood off
his head. He rakes his fingers through his hair and rearranges his
brown locks into place so they’re out of his eyes and flipping up at
his ears. “Because you saw me like that. And I’ve never wanted
anyone to see me like that, especially you.”
I pick at the cracks in the table, knowing I have to choose my
words wisely. “Kayden, I’ve told you a thousand times that I’ll never judge you and I mean it.”
“It’s not about judgment, Callie.” He glances up at me and
the misery in his eyes matches what lies inside my heart. “It’s about what you deserve.” He sighs, rolls up his sleeves, and traces his
finger along a fresh scar running vertically down his forearm. “You
deserve better than this.”
“No, I don’t.” I think about the last time I threw up in the
bathroom because I couldn’t deal with the pain, something I’ve
done for years and years. “You and I aren’t that different.”
He looks even gloomier as he jerks his sleeve back down and
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.
