~~~~~
Katherine stood in the doorway with an overstuffed messenger bag over her shoulder as she took in the picture that Caleb made with his slouched posture (head tucked forward so that his chin rested against his chest as if he was far too tired to go to the trouble of lifting it back up) sitting silently on the sofa. It appeared that his eyes were closed, but she couldn’t tell for sure at the angle from which she was viewing him.
She did not know whether or not David had spoken to him before disappearing to wherever it was that he had decided to disappear so that she and Caleb could speak to each other privately. Given that he had told her that he would be running interference, she suspected that he had either found or rounded up Eris and Devon and was holed up in the other bedroom with them. Since she hadn’t heard any sounds indicative of an altercation (which would have almost certainly been the case if David had tried to convince Eris to move anywhere), she would be willing to hazard a guess that she had already been in the other room and David had merely invited himself to join her.
She ended her stalling in the doorway and moved across the room to stand beside Caleb. She reached out and brushed the bangs out of his face (an unplanned gesture that was the result of an impulse she had in reaction to how very young and lonely he looked sitting there). Her hand dropped back to her side as he looked up at her (the slightest wetness seemed to be visible in his eyes as he did so).
“Hey,” she said softly not knowing how she wanted to begin this conversation.
“Hey,” he answered back. His eyes flicked down to the messenger bag hanging at her side. “You’re going,” he stated sounding resigned and somewhat detached.
“I am,” she offered him in answer anyway.
“Is it because I let Eris . . .,” he started.
“Caleb,” she chided. “Don’t go there. I know what you’re up against here.”
“You stuck with me when you didn’t have to,” he continued anyway. “And I’ve been a lousy best friend in return.”
“I told you not to go there,” she said again. “I chose to be here, and it isn’t like I didn’t know that the extended road trip of sorts with Eris was going to be the least pleasant experience of my life.”
“Someone tried to kill you once,” he reminded.
“He was way politer about it,” she retorted. Caleb didn’t respond. “Hey,” she told him. “It’s okay for you to smile.”
“Things that make me remember seeing you almost dead don’t really accomplish that for me.”
“Fair enough,” she conceded. “You know I always have your back, don’t you? Even if I’m not physically present, I’ve always got your back.”
“Part of me wants to tell you to run far away from all of this, forget that you ever knew any of us, and never look back,” he said by way of replying.
“And the other part of you?” She asked him.
“Wants to keep you here with me so you can tell me what to do.”
She let her bag drop to the floor and sat on the sofa next to him where she scooted up close and nudged him until he draped his arm around her shoulders.
“How long has it been since I actually really talked to you?” He asked after they were settled.
“It’s been a fair bit,” she admitted.
“I’m sorry about that.”
“You’ve had other things that require your attention.”
“I don’t know what to do anymore,” he told her letting his head rest against the top of hers. “I don’t know how to make it stop; I don’t know how to keep her safe.”
“I know that,” she told him. “That’s why I think that I’ll be more help out of the middle of it.”
“What if when you’re gone I forget what . . .,” he whispered against her hair.
“My being here isn’t going to stop that, Caleb.” She whispered back to him. “You have to be strong enough to manage that on your own.”
“I don’t know if I am,” he admitted. “If it means keeping Sylvie safe, then I’ll do whatever they want. They know that. There’s no way for me to fight against it.”
“All the more reason for me to be somewhere that I can have room to work.”
“You’re going to do something that ends up with you in trouble, aren’t you?”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
“I hate this; I hate that I can’t make myself tell you not to do that.”
“Well, I kind of hate that you’re here doing this, so I guess we’re pretty even on that score.” They sat in a comfortable silence leaning against each other and seemed to be memorizing the moment.
“They’re wrong; you know that, don’t you? Eris and the Society and your mother and all her ilk are wrong. I couldn’t have designed a better friend, and you’re special in ways that they can’t stand because they can’t find any way to take the credit for it.”
“That kind of smacks of a final goodbye, so I’m not really liking it even if you did refer to my mother with the word ‘ilk,’” she told him.
“It is a goodbye,” he said. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to get out of this trap I’m in, and the one thing that I am sure of is that if you can get clear, then I shouldn’t want you to come back.”
“You know that’s not going to happen.”
“I’m kind of hating myself for being grateful for that,” he removed his arm from her shoulders and created some space between them on the sofa. “You’ll talk to my parents?”
“You know I will.”
“I don’t know what to have you tell them.”
“I’ll probably start with the whole truth.”
“Is that safe?”
“Is it safe for them to not know?”
“I don’t know; I don’t know anything.” He leaned over and picked up her bag. He fiddled with the pull on the zipper. “Is it too much pressure if I tell you that I trust you to do the right thing no matter what that ends up being?”
She shook her head.
“And if things go badly,” he put her bag on her lap. “I want you to remember that it isn’t your fault.”
“Will you remember the same?”
Best Left Unfinished Page 25