“Callie, get off your ass and go to the fuckin’ store!” I sniped at her. We’d been arguing about shit we needed, like fucking milk, and once again she was outright refusing to leave the goddamn house. I was going to lose it. I was still into her. That hadn’t changed, and I fucking loved taking care of her, but it felt like I was turning into her freaking parent.
“I can’t, Asa. I don’t have very good night vision,” she told me with fucking doe eyes. Since I’d met her, those eyes had been able to get me to do anything for her, but right then, they just pissed me off more.
“Calliope, I’m paying for your fuckin’ apartment,” I hissed as I pulled her off the couch. “I pay for your fuckin’ shampoo and your makeup and your goddamn toilet paper.”
I pulled her through the apartment by her arm, ranting at her the entire way. If she wasn’t going to pull her weight, I’d make her do it. I wasn’t asking her to milk a cow, for God’s sake; all I asked was for her to go to the grocery store only two blocks away. When we got to our dresser, I picked up her purse and shoved it at her, letting go so it would fall if she didn’t reach up to grab it.
“I’m fuckin’ done with this shit,” I mumbled as I pulled her keys out of my pocket and put them in her hand.
I drug her back out to our living room and pushed her out the front door before I turned to walk back inside. Before I could take one step, I froze at the sound of her hiccup.
Then I kept going.
When I turned around to close the door, she was standing there, shaking, with tears running down her face—but I wasn’t about to coddle her. This shit had to stop.
“We need milk, Callie. We also need toilet paper, coffee, and some fuckin’ fruit or something. Bank card is in your wallet,” I told her before shutting the door in her face.
I leaned against the door and listened to make sure she left. I waited there for ten minutes and there was no sound except for an occasional sniffle. When I’d finally reached my breaking point, feeling like shit for what I’d done, I heard her walking down the stairs outside.
My gut clenched.
I fucked up. I knew it.
I should’ve done shit differently.
She was fragile and sweet, and still trying to figure out her new life.
I knew she was scared; I held her after her screaming nightmares woke us both up in the middle of the night.
But I had to do something.
I had three days before I had to head north.
If she couldn’t even go to the store when my ass was sitting on our couch waiting for her—how the fuck would she survive on her own?
Chapter 25
Callie
When Grease left me on the doorstep, clutching my purse and wearing pajama pants and slippers, I was stunned.
I knew I was being a pest, following him around like a lost puppy, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself from doing it. He made me feel safe, and it wasn’t something I’d ever willingly give up. So, yes, I knew what I had been doing, but it wasn’t until that night that I knew it was bothering him.
The foundation of our relationship was based on my need for his strength and his need for my weakness—but apparently my weakness was no longer something he wanted.
Unfortunately, I was still weak.
I stood outside the door, waiting for him to open it back up and tell me it was all a mistake. That he didn’t really expect me to go to the grocery store all alone, in the dark, and with my boobs hanging out of the thin tank top I was wearing without a bra. I waited, but he never came.
I eventually made my way to the car, jumping at every noise, and jerking my head from side to side as I tried to watch my surroundings. I felt exposed, like at any minute, someone would drive up and it would all be over. My eyes searched the backseat before I unlocked my door and climbed inside and my mind raced with scenarios of someone hiding back there, lying in wait for me to leave the house.
I knew it was ridiculous, but the shock of Grease pushing me out the door, and the lingering fear that the gang in San Diego would find me, were the making of a perfect storm for my imagination.
I turned the car on and drove to the grocery store, but once I parked I couldn’t make myself get out of the car. I sat there, hyperventilating and crying like a lunatic for over an hour before I finally snapped and turned the car back on.
He’d said that he was done.
Done.
I was in a car that didn’t belong to me, in an unfamiliar town, and I had nowhere to go.
So I followed the signs that lead me to the interstate, and I started driving south.
I was two hours into my drive when I remembered that I hadn’t called Gram yet that night, so I pulled my purse toward me and started shuffling through it, finally pulling out my silenced cell phone. I’d called her like I promised I would the night we got to Sacramento, and since that first call we’d talked every night. It grounded me to know she was there, waiting until the day she could move north to live with me, and I think it gave her a little peace of mind to have me calling to check in.
There were missed calls, but I didn’t look through them before I dialed Gram’s number.
“Callie?” she answered on the first ring. “Thank God! Where are you? Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I told her, baffled at the worry in her voice, “I’m fine. What’s wrong?”
“Where are you, Callie? We’ve been calling you for hours! Asa called me, worried as hell that you hadn’t come home!”
“I’m fine, Gram,” I reassured her, pissed as hell that Grease had called and worried her. “I’m on I-5 South.”
There was a slight pause before she spoke again, her voice calm, “Why are you on I-5, Callie?”
“It’s not working out up here. I need to come home,” I told her stupidly. I knew I couldn’t go home. I didn’t have a home any longer.
“Baby girl, you need to turn around. Take the next exit and you turn right back around,” she replied in a soothing voice normally used on small children.
“I can’t,” my voice caught in my throat, “I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“Calliope Rose, you’ve got a man searching high and low for you right now, what do you mean you don’t have anywhere to go?”
“He pushed me out of the house, Gram,” I told her on a whisper. “He said he was done because I didn’t want to go to the grocery store.”
I knew I wasn’t being fair. Grease’s issue was a lot bigger than the fact that I didn’t want to go to the grocery store that night. He was fed up with me—but I didn’t want my Gram to know that. She was telling me to turn around, and I was hopeful that if I painted him in a harsh light, she’d tell me to come home.
I just wanted her to take care of things.
I didn’t want to be an adult anymore.
“Baby, he’s been frantic. He’s called me no less than ten times asking if I’d heard from you yet. Whatever happened between the two of you can be worked out, I promise. Now turn around.”
I took the next exit and pulled into a gas station. I didn’t need any gas yet, but I needed a minute to decide whether I should keep going or start back. My mind was a jumbled mess of emotion, half of me happy that he was worried about me and the other pissed enough to not care that he was worried. He’d kicked me out of the house. He swore at me and pulled me around the house like a rag doll.
Fuck him.
“Okay, Gram. I’m heading back,” I told her calmly, though my chest was burning with righteous anger. “If he calls you, tell him I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“Good God, Callie. How far south did you get?”
“I’m only two hours south, but I have to stop at the grocery store on my way back,” I explained as I pulled back onto the freeway.
“Okay, baby, I’ll tell him… are you sure you don’t want to call him yourself?” she asked me, sounding relieved that I’d gotten my head on straight.
“No, I really shouldn’t be talking on the phone as I drive,”
I said, though it had nothing to do with the reason I wasn’t calling Grease.
We said our goodbyes, but before she hung up, I had one last thing to say.
“Hey, Gram? Make sure you tell him not to worry,” she took a deep breath in relief, but I wasn’t finished. “Tell him not to worry—that I’ll be stopping at the store for his toilet paper and milk.”
Chapter 26
Callie
When I walked in the apartment later that night, I was surprised that Grease wasn’t waiting by the door. Gram had made it seem like he was crazy with worry, but I saw no indication of that as I juggled the bags of groceries and locked the deadbolt behind me. The place was quiet as I walked through the living room, but when I flipped on the kitchen light his voice startled me.
“Where the fuck have you been, Callie?” he asked quietly from where he was sitting on the couch. He was leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees and a beer bottle dangling from his right hand, and the unnatural stillness of his body must have been the reason I didn’t notice him as I’d walked in. I continued into the kitchen as if I was unconcerned with his presence.
“Went grocery shopping,” I told him flippantly as I started emptying the bags on the counter. “The big store wasn’t open, so I stopped by the 24-hour place. They didn’t have a wide selection of fruits, so you’re gonna have to wait until tomorrow for those.”
I pushed the milk into the fridge as I spoke, and when I turned around I was startled to see that he’d followed me and was standing in my space.
“It’s almost three o’clock in the morning, Callie. Where the fuck have you been?” he asked again, his voice controlled but the veins in his neck bulging.
“Wow, it’s getting late. I’m going to put these groceries away and then I’m heading to bed,” I told him flatly, ignoring his question as I scooted around him.
I knew I was pissing him off, but I didn’t have it in me to care. My anger had faded the further I’d driven, and by then I was just feeling… empty. He may have worried about me, but it was his decision to push me out the door.
When he grabbed my shoulder gently and spun me around, I didn’t even fight it. I just let him maneuver me until we were standing almost nose to nose. Whatever he saw in my expression must have caused the reign on his temper to dissolve, because within a second, he was tossing his beer bottle across the room where it shattered against the living room wall.
I didn’t even flinch at the movement.
“Where the fuck have you been, Callie?” he roared in my face, searching my eyes and obviously not finding what he was looking for.
“I went for a drive.”
“You went for a drive?” he parroted.
“Yeah. I went for a drive,” I answered him, my voice never changing from the monotone I’d used since I walked through the door. I crossed my arms under my breasts and his eyes shifted down my body, taking me in.
“What the hell are you wearing?”
He frowned at me, taking in my hard-soled slippers and flannel pajama pants before coming to rest on my breasts. His jaw was clenched, but the veins in his neck had disappeared, indicating that he’d calmed down a little.
“I’m wearing the same thing I was wearing when you pushed me out the door,” I reminded him, refusing to meet his eyes. I was so exhausted after the hours in the car and the emotional drain of the evening that I didn’t even have the energy to give him the fight he was so obviously looking for. I just wanted to go to bed.
“What?” he whispered in disbelief.
My eyes snapped up to his, but the apology I saw in them wasn’t enough for me.
“I tried to find a sweatshirt or something in the car, but there wasn’t anything in there,” I told him quietly, the bravado I’d been feeling finally leaving me. I crossed my arms higher on my chest, blocking my breasts from view like I’d done as I’d picked up the groceries at the store that night, my cheeks flushing a little as I remembered the cashier’s leering gaze.
I tried to step away from him, but his hand slid up my shoulder and behind my neck effectively holding me in place.
“Baby…” he whispered gently, trying to pull me forward into his chest.
“I just want to get some sleep, okay?” I told him, finally pulling out of his reach. “It’s been a long night.” I shook my head once and then moved toward the hallway. “I got you some TV dinners that you like. I wasn’t sure if you’d had dinner.”
I heard him make a noise in the back of his throat, but I didn’t turn around. I kept walking toward our bedroom, only pausing for a second when I heard his fist punch the kitchen wall.
He didn’t come to bed for another hour; I knew because I hadn’t been able to fall asleep. I’d been so tired when I got home that I could barely keep my eyes open, but the minute I’d crawled under the blankets, I was wide awake.
I didn’t know how to navigate this new territory we were entering. Our interactions had always consisted of me cowering in his shadow, and now that I knew I couldn’t count on him for protection, the entire situation had tilted on its axis. I couldn’t trust that he would protect me—that was clear. But it wasn’t as if I had completely stopped trusting him. I knew that he would do his best to live up to his promises; however, I could no longer lean on him for my security. I had to find my own security.
In order to do that, I had to distance myself from him as much as I could.
I tensed when I heard him crawl into bed next to me. I wasn’t sure if I should tell him that I was awake, or pretend to sleep so I didn’t have to deal with anything else that night. But when he wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled my back against his front, he must have known I was awake, because he started speaking in a quiet voice aching with apology.
“God, Sugar,” he groaned into my shoulder, “I shouldn’t have pushed you outta the house like that.”
“It’s okay,” I told him, even though we both knew it wasn’t.
“No. I fucked up.” His head shook briefly. “I just wanted you to use that fuckin’ car I bought you. I wanted you to get outta the house by yourself, so I knew you could do it when I left. Do you understand? You gotta be able to stand on your own two feet, Callie—I’m not gonna be here most of the time, and you have to be able to fend for yourself.” He squeezed his arm around my waist and kissed my neck as if the whole episode was over.
I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say to that. Thank you? Please throw me out of the house in pajamas again the next time you need toilet paper? All is forgiven?
I settled on the safest bet and whispered, “I understand,” before closing my eyes and trying to relax my body.
But I didn’t fall asleep for hours.
Because I didn’t understand.
Chapter 27
Callie
I woke up the next morning ready to put the whole mess behind me. A good night’s rest had always helped me put things in perspective. I was already feeling stronger as I got out of bed and got ready for the day. I should’ve known that I was going to have to suck it up and take care of myself at some point, and I probably would have figured it out for myself, but the hardest part of the night before was having that truth thrown in my face without warning. I hadn’t had time to prepare.
I ran it over and over in my head as I took a shower, and by the time I was drying off, I knew that Grease had been right. The fact that he was leaving was something that I’d pushed to the back of my mind so I didn’t have to deal with it. We only had days left before he had to leave, and if I made myself think logically, I knew that I had only been postponing the inevitable.
I really was on my own.
It was silly to depend on him for everything.
We were going to one of his friend’s houses for a barbeque that day and I was a little nervous about it. I wasn’t afraid, I knew Grease wouldn’t put me in danger, but the thought of meeting a bunch of new people who knew I was living with him was disconcerting. I didn’t want them to think I was taking
advantage of him.
The morning passed uneventfully while I puttered around the house sorting laundry and washing dishes. I’d expected there to be tension or something when I woke him up but there wasn’t. It was like every other day we’d been together, except for the fact that I didn’t let myself stay near him too long. I didn’t want to come across as needy again, so for the most part, I stayed out of his way.
As I walked through the apartment, I could feel his puzzled gaze on me, but he never said a word, so I just smiled whenever we made eye contact. I hoped that he was noticing my change in demeanor. I wanted him to realize that I wasn’t going to hang on him anymore. First, I wanted him to know I got the message and second, I needed to ensure that he wouldn’t kick me out for real the next time.
We were getting ready to step out the door when I realized I couldn’t find my phone in my purse. I ran back into our room without saying a word, but I couldn’t see it anywhere so I called out for help.
“Grease, have you seen my phone?” I bellowed, flipping the comforter and sheets down the bed in case it had fallen between them.
I was just about to kneel down on the floor to check under the bed when he walked into the room and the air felt electric.
“You don’t call me Grease,” he told me adamantly, meeting my eyes from the doorway.
“What?”
“You don’t call me Grease. You call me Asa,” he answered, stepping into the room. “You and your grandmother are the only people on this earth who do.”
I wasn’t sure what the big deal was, so I just nodded my head and started looking for the phone again. I’d dropped to my knees on the floor and was starting to bend over to look under the bed when I heard him curse behind me and lift me up by my armpits.
He tossed me on the bed and I bounced once before coming to a stop with his body covering mine.
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