I grab an old rag and clean off my hands and slowly walk toward the office. I can’t imagine who is here to see me. I figure it’s no one I really want to talk to. When I walk through the door and look across the counter, I’m fully expecting to see Mitch or maybe my old man. The last person I thought I would see would be Callie.
“Hey,” she mutters, her face blushing slightly. She looks at me for a minute, and now it’s my turn to look away. I’m afraid she’ll be like me and see a stranger.
I clear my throat, summoning up the courage to talk to her. My heart beats erratically in my chest. Callie’s wearing her hair up in a ponytail. She’s got on a black tank top and cut off jeans. She looks every inch the country girl. It’s hard to believe she’s actually from New Hampshire. She’s beautiful. I long to just go to her and hold her close, breathe in her scent and let it calm me. Somehow, I know that she would be able to stop the world from spinning around me.
She would be my anchor.
“Hey,” I respond. “Everything okay?”
“I…” she stops, her teeth coming down to worry her bottom lip. She just continues to stare at me, her hands fidgeting nervously on the counter in front of her.
“Callie?” I ask, worried, because she’s obviously struggling—maybe as much as I am.
“I was wondering if we could talk,” she finally says, exhaling. I rub my fingers through my hair. It’s longer than I’ve ever wore it. I need to get it cut.
“Sure,” I respond finally, my chest feeling so tight that it feels like an elephant is sitting on it. “Uh… we can go outside,” I mumble, looking around the dirty shop. I lead her outside, wondering why she’s here. I don’t have any hope it’s to forgive me. She’s too distant.
When we’re outside together, we stand by the old, blocked façade of the front of the garage. “We could go to my truck—”
“Uh, no,” she says, her face going pale.
Fuck.
I’m an idiot.
“I’m sorry, Callie,” I mumble, feeling like an asshole.
“I have Mildred. We can talk in her if you want,” she suggests, motioning over toward her car.
“Sounds good.”
I wait for her to lead the way, and then I follow her. She gets in on the driver’s side and once she opens the door, I get in the passenger’s. We don’t talk for a bit. Instead, she turns the car on, and the air starts running. I helped her fix Mildred up some, so she runs solid, and the air is ice cold—even if she still looks like a rolling wreck.
“So,” I say finally. The silence weighs down on us. The air in the car is so fucking heavy it feels as if I’m choking on it. There’s so much I’ve wanted to say to her, but now, I can’t think of one thing.
“Jake came by to see me last week,” she whispers. “He said he was leaving town.”
I frown, because of all the things I thought she would want to talk about, Jake wasn’t it. Still, she sought me out and I’ve really missed her. I swallow, trying to calm my nerves. It’s not that it’s Callie. It’s just that being around people is hard lately.
“He did. He went to Austin. He tried to get me to go with him,” I respond.
I’m staring staring out the windshield, looking at the store. There’s a flagpole at the side of the building and for some reason, it’s so much easier to stare at it—instead of Callie. I watch the faded red, white, and blue flop in the wind, the tattered edges proclaiming loudly that it’s way past time someone replaces it. In a lot of ways, I feel like that old flag—aimlessly seesawing in the wind with no direction and just waiting for someone to get rid of me.
“He tried to get Katie to go, too.”
“Yeah. I told him that she wouldn’t.” I’m still staring at the flag. I can hear a distant clicking noise of a pendulum on a clock. I know it’s just in my head, but it seems to be getting louder and louder.
“She owes everything to her grandmother. If it wasn’t for her, she’d be out on the streets,” Callie says, and I know she’s right. That’s what I tried to explain to Jake. He’s always had a great family life, so he doesn’t understand the scars that shit leaves on you.
“Yeah…”
“He also said you could use a friend.”
I turn to look at her. I know she can see the shock on my face. There’s no way I can hide it.
“I’m sorry. Jake shouldn’t have bothered you.” The words nearly choke me. I rub my hands down my faded jeans, my palms damp with sweat.