The Redemption of Callie and Kayden (25 page)

He nods and there’s a silent agreement that we’re both okay

for the moment and that being together is okay. I start to climb off

his lap, but he grabs my waist and shifts me aside so I slide onto

the seat. I put my feet on the floor, confused as he reaches for his

pocket. He takes out his wallet and pulls out a twenty, and then he

leans over the seat and hands it to the driver.

He starts to move back into the seat but then drifts to the

side and grabs the door handle. Flicking it up, he pulls the door

open and then hops out. He stretches his arms above his head and

then offers his hand to me. I take it, feeling the warmth of his skin as he helps me out and doesn’t let me go as he closes the door.

We both stand in the driveway beside Luke’s truck as the cab

backs down the gravel path and out onto the street. Once he

speeds off, Kayden looks at me.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” he asks, nodding his head at

the shore.

I nod through a sniffle. “A walk sounds nice.”

He gives me a tiny smile and laces our fingers together. We

walk hand in hand past the house and step out onto the shore.

Sand fills up my sandals and is cool against my skin. It’s hard to

walk, because they keep getting stuck, so I stop, giving a gentle

tug on his arm.

“What’s wrong?” he wonders, refusing to let go of my hand.

I wiggle my feet out of my sandals and bend over to scoop

them up, hitching them on my finger before standing back up. He

nods, understanding, and then we continue walking deeper into

the darkness. I can hear the waves rolling like a lullaby and the

sound of music drifts from one of the houses. The sand seeps

through the cracks between my toes as I listen to every sound and

feel the coolness of the air.

“Are you cold?” Kayden asks as we slow down just out of

reach of the water.

I glance at my arms, feeling myself shiver, and in the

moonlight, I see the goose bumps on my arms. “A little.”

He sighs and then glances back at the house up at the top of

the sandy slope. “Let me run back and get you a jacket.”

I quickly shake my head and strengthen my hold on his

hand. “No, please stay here. We need to… we need to talk.”

He eyes me over skeptically and in the darkness his eyes look

hollow. He rubs the back of his neck tensely and then he lowers

himself onto the ground, guiding me down with him. He gives me

a gentle tug to the side and maneuvers me onto his lap, settling

me against him. I lean back, shutting my eyes, feeling safe, feeling

like this is where I belong.

Kayden is the only guy who’s ever made me feel this way,

more than Seth, more than my own self. He is all I need and I hope

he feels the same way too. But before I ask, there’s something else

I need to know—need to understand.

I summon a deep breath and the release it out into the open.

“Kayden, what happened?”

Three tiny words, so heavy and meaningful that they crack

the earth. He tenses and so do I, before I turn to look him in the

eyes. He swallows hard and so do I. He takes a deep breath and it’s

nearly soundless as it eases back out of his lips.

His lips part and as his voice slides out, my heart nearly

stops. “My father stabbed me.”

Kayden

I have no idea why I tell her. I wasn’t planning on it. I was

planning on keeping it a secret forever, just like everything else.

But she’s sitting there, waiting for me, trusting me enough to hold

her and be close to her. She expects the truth and I want to give it

to her. I want to give her everything.

“My father stabbed me.” And just like that, I’ve shattered the

box inside my heart and it fractures into a thousand jagged

splinters.

Her eyes widen and her breath hitches in her throat. She’s

verging on crying again, so I wrap my arms around her and pull

her against me. “Relax, I’m okay now.”

Her skin is like ice. I rub my hands up and down her arms,

trying to warm her up. She shivers, not from the cold but from my

touch. Or maybe it’s from the shock I’ve just given her. I suddenly

wish I could take it back, because I never should have put it on her

shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” I apologize. “I shouldn’t have put that on you.”

Her hands wiggle between our bodies and she flattens her

hands on my chest. Pushing away from me, she looks me in the

eye. “Yes, you should have… You should have told me sooner.”

I shake my head, putting my hand onto the small of her back

so she’ll stay close. “Callie, you don’t need to know this kind of

stuff… You’ve got your own problems.”

She looks angry suddenly, her eyes flaring and I lean back,

concerned she’s going to hit me or something. “Kayden… I don’t…”

She can’t find the right words. She shifts her body, bending her

knees so her weight is on my lap. She places her hands on my

shoulders and with a steadfast look in her eye she says, “This is all my fault.” I start to protest, but she puts her hand over my mouth.

“You should have never hit Caleb… I should have never let you find

out about him. If you hadn’t, then none of this would have

happened. We’d be back at the house lying in my bed.”

“That’s not true,” I say, my lips moving against her hand. “It’s

good that you told me. He can’t just go walking around living his

life when he took yours.”

She lowers her hand to her lap and sighs. “That’s what you

father’s doing.” She huffs a frustrated breath. “Does anyone even

know?”

I shake my head and then shrug. “My mom, but she’s known

about everything… about the hitting, the beating, the kicking… She

doesn’t care.”

Her eyes wander out to the ocean. “This isn’t right,” she

mutters and turns her head toward me. “We have to tell someone.”

She starts to get up, but I dig my fingers into her side and hold her in place.

“Callie, there’s no point telling anyone… and you… you need

to stop worrying about me.” My breath starts to tremble from my

lips. God damn it. This is the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever had to say. But I need to say it. I need to make her understand who I am,

deep on the inside. “I messed up. Big time. What I said at the diner

about… about cutting myself… I’m broken. I don’t know if I’ll ever

really be able to stop… to stop cutting. You need to stay away

from me. Please, walk away.”

Her eyes stay on me as she takes in my face and makes me

feel unsettled on the inside. “No.”

I shake my head. “Callie, you don’t want this—”

“Yes, I do.” She places her hand over my mouth, pressing her

lips together as she slips a finger underneath one of the rubber

bands on my wrist. “Kayden, you think I’m walking blindly into this,

but I’m not. I think I might have known for a while that you… that

you cut yourself, even before you told me.”

My heart shrivels into nothing as she lowers her hand from

my mouth. “How?”

Tears bubble in the corners of her eyes. “That night when

we… when you and I…” Her breathing is unsteady. “When we had

sex, I saw you had all those cuts on your arms, I thought… the

thought crossed my mind that you might have put some of them

there.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“What was I supposed to say? ‘Did you cut yourself?’ Besides,

I didn’t want to believe it.”

My shriveled heart has become a fucking pile of nothingness.

“Because it’s too much?”

She quickly shakes her head. “No, because I don’t want to

believe that you have all that pain trapped inside of you… I know

how much pain it takes to go that far… to want to hurt yourself.”

There’s this mind-blowing moment when I realize something.

Someone understands me. Callie understands me. She gets it and

she’s not afraid of me or what’s inside me. And while I don’t

understand it, I want it—I want her. How is it even fucking possible

that I’ve been walking around for years and years and years with

her in the same town—the same school—and I never really saw

her? What would have happened if I had?

“I’m too messed up,” I press again, wanting her to fully

understand. “I hurt myself and let others hurt me and I don’t tell

anyone.”

“But you need to. You need to tell someone about your

father. Even if they think you hurt yourself, people need to know.”

“No one will ever believe me. I just got arrested for beating

Caleb’s ass and then I have my fucking scars that I put on my body

myself. No one will get it.”

“I don’t care,” she responds and her fingers dig into my

shoulders as she clings onto me. “We’ll make them understand.”

I stop and look at her. How can someone like her exist? It’s

impossible, and yet she’s here in front of me, looking as beautiful

as ever beneath the pale glow of the moon. “Callie… but what

about you and Caleb? You haven’t told anyone about that.” I feel

like a jerk for saying it, but it seems like it needs to be said.

“I’m working on it,” she utters and there’s a quiver in her

voice. “You and I, we’re going to work on it… We’re not going to

let other people own us anymore.” She seems to be making the

speech to herself more than to me, but that’s okay. I want her to

tell someone so that piece of shit can stop walking around owning

her.

She looks at me and I can tell she’s about to cry. I don’t want

her to cry. I want her to be happy. “Callie, tell me what you need,” I say and tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear.

“I need the world to stop being such an ugly place full of

hurt.” Tears slip out of her eyes. “I need to wake up and really

believe everything will be okay instead of just hoping it will be. I

want to be one of the lucky ones who has a good life.”

I nod, because that’s what I want for her too. “You can still

get that. Just tell me what you need to make you happy.”

She looks me in the eye with tears streaming down her

cheeks. “You.”

I flinch because she just threw herself out there to a person

who’s hollow and cracked. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if

I can give her what she wants. I don’t understand need or love. I

don’t understand what makes people’s lives whole. My lips part

and I honestly have no idea what’s about to come out of them, but

I never find out because she presses her lips against mine and

silences me.

Maybe she knew it wouldn’t be what she wanted to hear or

maybe she just wanted to kiss me, either way I pull back. Cupping

her cheek, I say, “Callie, you don’t want me. Trust me. I’ll get you

nowhere.”

All she does is shake her head and kiss me again, clutching

onto my shoulders for dear life. This time I can’t help myself. She’s shaking in my arms and I want to make her better, so I kiss her

back, slowly at first, but then this hunger take over and I begin to

kiss her fiercely and with all the passion I’ve kept trapped inside

me.

We fall back into the sand. She’s lying on top of me and our

bodies are joined together as our tongues entangle. The heat of

her is mind-numbing and I forget where I am. It’s just me and her

lying in the sand and I swear for one fucking moment that

everything is going to be okay. That this will be my life. Just her

and me.

Forever.

And for a second, the thought doesn’t scare the shit out of

me.

Callie

I can tell I’m scaring him and I start to shy away, fearing

rejection. But then I see something in his eyes put there by years of beatings and God knows what else. I suddenly get it. Kayden can’t

love me because he doesn’t understand love. He understands pain

and hurt and disappointment, but not love. I know right then that I

can’t tell him how I’m feeling, but I can show him.

Needing to be close to him, I gather every speck of courage I

have inside me and kiss him. He kisses me back but then he’s

pulling away. My insides wind into knots, but I don’t back down. I

press my lips to his again and just like that, through a second

chance, he’s kissing me back.

At first he’s gentle, his tongue soft against mine as he holds

me on his lap. But suddenly the gentleness turns desperate and

the next thing I know we’re falling backward. I land on top of him,

with our mouths sealed together and our bodies perfectly aligned.

His hands are all over me, on my neck, my back. They glide down

to my backside and then they’re slipping underneath my dress,

digging roughly into my skin.

I tense at the intimate touch, but then remember that he’s

seen and felt all of me. I relax, letting his hands explore my body.

Without warning he turns us to the side and pulls my leg up over

his hip. His hand slides higher, leaving a path of heat along my

skin, and I almost burst into flames as he inches his fingers

beneath my panties.

I start to shiver, from nerves, from the cold, from the

anticipation, but each feeling leaves me when he slips his fingers

inside me. I let out an embarrassing moan and my body arches

into him. He starts to move his fingers and causes small whimpers

to leave my lips. I feel myself verging toward the edge, about to