by Anna B. Doe
The sounds slowly start coming back to my consciousness. The muffled chatter from the outside. Consistent tick-tock coming from somewhere inside the room. And then there it is again. The sounds that brought me back from the memories haunting me. A soft rasp just above my head.
“Callie.” A voice calls from the other side. “I know you’re in there. Open up.”
His voice.
“Go away,” I croak, my own voice all raspy and low from tears and unuse. How long have I been here?
My whole body aches from sitting in this uncomfortable position, but I’m too tired to even attempt getting up and going to bed.
Sorry, Yas, I think you’ll be sleeping on the couch in the hallway.
There is a thump, this time louder, like both his hands have connected with the wood, rattling the door from the force of impact. “I’m not going away until you open this damn door so we can talk.”
Like hell. There isn’t anything we have to talk about. We said too much as it is.
“I think we already told each other everything.”
He might be up for another round, but I’m done. I don’t have anything in me to give, not anymore.
My parents’ faces appear behind my closed eyelids. After the accident, I locked the memory of them out of my mind because it hurt. It hurt too damn hard.
My body might have taken the worst of the beating, but my mind, my heart, hurt a hundred times worse because I lost two people I loved the most in this world. Thinking of them. Remembering them. Knowing I was the one responsible for what happened… it was unbearable. If I just didn’t drive that car. If I hadn’t been too worried about me. If I paid more attention to the road, maybe I would have seen the car coming. Maybe I would have been able to save them.
The other car might have been the one who caused the crash, but it was my recklessness that cost them their lives.
The silence stretches from the other side. For so long I don’t hear anything except for my own breathing that I think he must have listened to me, for once, and left, but then I hear him again.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. It’s so soft that at first I think I’m only imagining it, but then it comes again. “I’m so, so sorry, Callie. If I knew…”
I squeeze my eyes shut, a new wave of tears on the brink of spilling out.
There is some shifting on the other side. What the hell is he doing? And when he speaks his next words, it’s like he’s whispering them into my ear.
“I’m a dick who carries a chip on his shoulder. And I know that nothing I say will ever make it up to you—erase the words I said earlier—but I’m not going away until I know you’re okay.”
Okay? How am I ever supposed to be okay? The walls I was building for years around myself are now crumbling. All the broken parts of me spilling out in the open and I know, I simply know, nothing will ever be the same again. I’ll never be the same again.
“I mean you were a bitchy princess and all but nobody deserves to lose a parent. I should know better than most what it’s like not to have a family.”
I can see their disappointment that last time I saw them.
Hear their quiet voices as they tucked me in at night.
The crash.
Secret kisses.
Pieces of flying glass.
Dancing in the kitchen as they cleaned up after dinner.
Their bloody faces.
A broken, painful sound rips out of my lungs. A groan? A moan? I’m not even sure. Pulling my legs closer to my chest, I wrap my arms around my knees.
“Callie?”
Callie-Bear.
“Stop,” I whisper as I shake my head, trying to push it all back. “Please make it all stop.”
I cover my ears, trying to drown out the sounds. Their voices. How long has it been since I heard their voices? Seen their faces? They’re kind of blurry, but still them.
You’re forgetting them, my conscience accuses. God, how I hate that bitch. But she’s wrong. I can see them. If I try hard enough and push back the pain, I can still see them.
Mom’s flawless skin and honey-blonde hair. Dad’s big grin that makes the dimples in his cheeks appear and the blue of his eyes brighten.
“Callie!” Callie-Bear… “Callie, open the door.”
My heart is pounding loudly, the beat echoing in my ears.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
His raspy voice warms me from the inside out. I might have hated that nickname, but I would give anything to hear him say it, even if just one more time.
But there is no time. No second chances. No redemption.
They’ll continue fading away until there’ll be nothing left except pain.
No. No. No.
I can’t let that happen. I can’t. I won’t…
I’m not sure what happens next but the door flies open—didn’t I lock it when I came in?—hitting me in the process and then Hayden slips through the narrow crack.
My gaze is blurry, but he seems worried. His chest is rising and falling rapidly. His cheeks red and hair disheveled.
“Thank fuck!” he breathes as he falls down next to me, his arms wrapping around me.
Hayden pulls me into his body, and although a part of me wants to tell him where to shove it, the other part of me, the weaker part, the one that can’t resist him, welcomes his warm embrace.
“I was so worried,” he breathes. Pulling away, he cradles my cheek. Those green eyes staring into me and seeing everything. His thumb swipes under my eyes, wiping the tears away. “You started shouting and I… fuck… I’m sorry, Callie. I’m so, so sorry.”
“I just want it to stop,” I whisper, unable to meet his eyes.
“What?”
The pain.
The heartbreak.
The guilt.
“All of it.” One tear slides down my face. “I need it all to go away.”
Chapter Thirty
HAYDEN
I need it all to go away.
Something inside of me breaks when I hear her say those words. She looks so tiny, so breakable in my arms. I mean, she’s always been tiny, but her sass has always been so big it would make up for it. Not now, though.
It’s like making her say those words broke her. Completely and irreparably. She’s nothing like the girl I’ve known since she came here, and much less the person she used to be before.
They’re dead.
“Callie…” I call out again, my voice low, soothing. I’m not even sure what I want to say, I just know I can’t look at her like this.
Those violet eyes turn to me. They’re red-rimmed and filled with tears, but that’s not what slays me. It’s the look inside of them. The pain and the heartbreak she feels are oozing from every pore of her being. Her irises are a bottomless pit that’s sucking me in, making it hard for me to breathe.
And then she says something I haven’t expected at all. Not in any possible scenario that crossed my mind since she told me what happened.
“I killed them.”
She what? I pull back to get a better look at her, utterly confused and at the lack of words.
Another tear slipping down her cheek, and I can’t help myself but reach forward and brush it away.
“W—” My mouth is so dry I can’t even get the words out. Clearing my throat, I try again. “What do you mean?”
“I was the one behind the wheel that day. I was the one driving when the accident happened. It should have been me. Not them. Never them.”
Dammit, Nixon was right. I didn’t want to believe it, but he was right.
Wrapping my arms tighter around her, I pull her in my lap. At first, she protests, but when she sees I’m not going to give up she finally relaxes into my touch.
And I can’t help but remember that I’m the one who caused this. I’m the one who brought all this pain back to her.
If only I knew…
Yes, Callie wasn’t the best person back in the day, half the time I still wonder if that girl is still inside of her
now, but from the little I can remember she did love her parents.
I had a shitty family of my own. My dad was an asshole even before shit hit the fan and he sent me away to his mother. Around the same time, my mom finally gave up on both of us and ran without a backward glance. I haven’t heard from her since. But Grams, Zane, and Nix have become my family since and I couldn’t imagine losing them. Couldn’t imagine the guilt that would come if I somehow felt I was responsible for something bad happening to them.
“I’m so sorry, Callie,” I whisper, my forehead leaning against hers. “So fucking sorry I was a dickhead who couldn’t keep my mouth shut.”
“It was supposed to be me.”
Her words are murmured so quietly I have to exert myself to hear, and when I do, my whole body goes rigid. Blood in my veins turning to ice.
“No.” I shake my head, refusing to listen to her. Refusing to even accept the possibility of the world where Callie Stewart wasn’t alive.
“It was,” she insists stubbornly. A dazed look appears in her eyes. She’s looking at me, staring even, but she’s not there. Her eyes open, but unseeing. “The other car crashed into the driver’s side of the car.” Her hand touches the scar on her face. “I’m not sure what happened afterward, it’s all just a blur in my mind, but from what I can remember and what the police told me, the force of the impact was so strong it made the car flip. When it did, it crashed into the tree. The first impact killed my mom instantly, she was sitting behind me and apparently most of the impact was on the back part of the vehicle. The second left my dad with severe injuries. He survived the crash, but died on the way to the hospital.”
Her voice is distant and matter of fact. But there is no hiding the hurt that is hiding inside her. The guilt that’s eating at her even years after the accident.
“This isn’t your fault,” I repeat, not even sure for whose benefit. Hers or mine. But the images her words put in my mind are scary. “This was never your fault. Shit happens.”
“Just before the crash, they told me Mr. Davies called them.” She sniffles, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. Then those violet eyes turn to mine, blinking, her next words slaying me to my very core. “I deserved it, didn’t I?”
And there it is.
Finally.
The truth.
I waited for her to bring it out in the open. To acknowledge what she did back then. To apologize for what she has done so I can shove it back in her face because she was just oh, I don’t know, three years too late, but the satisfaction, the glee, it’s just not there.
BEFORE
Callie 16, Hayden 17
I’m sitting in my seat, doing last minute revisions when the door bursts open, Callie storming inside. The familiar tightening in my chest is back. It always is when she’s near. Her hair is messy, face scrubbed of makeup and dark circles are underneath her eyes.
I open my mouth to ask what is going on when the bell rings, Mr. Davies entering the classroom.
“Sit down, everybody. Put your things away. Only pens can be on your desk. Hurry up.”
She slides in her seat next to me, giving me a small smile before she does as Mr. Davies said. I do the same, quickly putting all of my things away, but I can’t help myself and give her a side glance.
Callie looks even more out of the place up close. Her leg is bouncing restlessly underneath the table, her lower lip pulled between her teeth.
My hand itches to reach forward and cover hers, reassuring her that everything will be alright, but Mr. Davies finally distributes the exams and it’s showtime.
“You have forty-five minutes, the time starts now. Good luck.”
Papers are turned before the words leave his mouth, and then the only sound in the whole classroom is scribbling of pens as people start working through the problems.
My gaze falls down, taking one deep breath to calm my nerves, I push all the other thoughts and doubts away and do the same.
I’m not even sure how much time has passed. I never allow myself to look at the clock when I’m in the middle of an exam because it only makes me stress more. So it takes me a while to notice the shadow standing over me until he speaks.
“What do we have here?” Mr. Davies asks quietly. But in the stillness of the classroom, it’s as loud as if he shot a gun. I sit up straighter, the hair at the nape of my neck rising from his looming over me.
Completely confused, I turn to look at him. What the hell is going on?
Just then his leg slides from underneath a chair—my chair—and he squats down next to me. When he stands back up to his full height, his hard eyes meet mine before darting quickly to Callie, and then back to me.
My heart is pounding louder by the second, sweat coating my skin as if I’m on the field. Nervous, restless… Antsy, why am I antsy? He’s looking at me with disappointment. I didn’t do anything wrong, so why is he looking at me like I did?
Then I see it, a little paper stuck between his two fingers.
He lifts it in the air for us to see. “Care to explain?”
What the fuck? Now the sweat is dripping from me. I open my mouth, but no words come out. What the hell is happening? Where did that come from?
“Mr. Watson?” Mr. Davies asks again. I can barely hear it from the pounding in my ears. “Miss Stewart?”
My eyes dart to Callie, seeking some kind of reassurance, but she’s as cool and collected as always. She lifts her chin in the air, facing the teacher, her indifferent mask, the one she uses when she’s with her friends, firmly in place.
Does she know what is happening? Will she tell him this is some sort of a mistake? Because that’s the only explanation for this shit show. Just the idea that Mr. Davies would even think I’m somehow behind this is out of this place stupid.
“If you don’t speak up, you both will end up in the principal’s office and fail this class,” Mr. Davies warns and I can see he’s growing irritated. “Whose is this?”
Swallowing hard, I open my mouth, ready to deny it, but Callie is faster. “I’ve never seen this in my life.”
My whole world stops with those seven words. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I’m nothing but a shell.
People start to whisper, but I don’t hear them. They’re just background noise, a buzz in the distance.
Schooling my expression, I turn toward her. There is a flash of surprise which she masks quickly, but the guilt? There is no masking the guilt.
What the fuck did you do, Callie? I want to ask, demand that she gives me an answer, but I don’t.
Mr. Davis clears his throat. “Mr. Watson?” he asks, waiting—hoping maybe? The fuck if I know—for me to clear this mess. But I don’t.
What would be the point?
It would be her word against mine and we all know how that would end.
Who’d trust a low life that’s in this school on a scholarship instead of little miss perfect?
Nobody, that’s who.
So, I shut down.
Mr. Davies sighs and shakes his head. “Go to the principal’s office, Mr. Watson.”
NOW
“I deserved it,” Callie repeats softly. Her words snap me back to the present. “I just wish it was me who paid the ultimate price, not them.”
They’re dead.
I’ve never seen this in my life.
I killed them.
“No.”
My response is hard and instant. No overthinking. No doubt. Just plain no. Her eyes widen slightly in surprise at the outburst, but the light in them dims almost instantly.
“I was a shitty person, Hayden. You better than anybody should know it.”
“I do.” I nod, not even trying to deny it. What would be the point?
“You were kicked out of the school.” She shakes her head absentmindedly, like she can’t believe the words coming out of her mouth. “Because of me.”
“I was, but nobody.” I move closer, cradling her face in my palms, forcing her to look at me. To see that what
I’m telling her is the truth and not some bullshit to make her feel better about herself. I’m not about to lie to her. Not just because I know she’ll see right through my bullshit, but also because she deserves better. The truth. “Nobody deserves what happened to you. Nobody deserves to have their family ripped away from them the way yours was.”
Yes, she was a shitty person back in high school, but she was right. Callie did change. I could see it. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, although a part of me still refused to accept it. It was easier to hate the person she once was, than try and forgive the one she’s become.
Once upon a time I was in love with Callie Stewart, and she used it to her advantage until she didn’t need me anymore. And now… what now?
Her delicate throat works as she swallows. “I’m not so sure I believe you.”
“Well, I’m telling the truth.”
“I don’t blame you for hating me. Not one bit.” Shame and guilt color her face, but she holds my gaze, not looking away. “But I meant what I said that first day. I’m so, so sorry. If I could go back, I would have taken the blame like I should have.”
“I… I just don’t get it.”
“Get what?” She seems genuinely confused.
“Why cheat? You knew the stuff. I taught you, you would have aced the test without needing to cheat, so why Callie? Why do it? Why take a risk?”
That’s the question that’s been bugging me since the moment I saw what our calculus teacher found underneath my chair. A question I couldn’t find a logical explanation for no matter how much I tried. And trust me when I say, I tried. It was the only thing I could think about for a while.
“It…” She takes a step back, her hand raking through her hair. Different emotions play across her face—confusion, guilt, sadness, hurt—so I let her have the space she needs. “It was stupid. There was school to worry about and nationals were just around the corner. Ben was putting pressure on me since I couldn’t dedicate all the time he wanted me to, not with all the practicing I’d been doing. And then the rumors started. Rumors that he’s cheating on me. Which of course, I didn’t want to believe. We were in love. He asked me to junior prom and I wanted it to be perfect.”