God knows I don’t want to, but if we do start dating, I owe it to him to tell him. Don’t I?
“Jesus, Callie, I’m sorry. I’m such a bitch,” Katie hisses.
“No, it’s okay. It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over and like I said, I’m not pregnant. I started my period. It was just a little late—probably because of all the upset in my life.”
“If you and Reed start dating, you’ll have to tell him. If you don’t, Mitch will. He’s an asshole like that.”
“He’s not been an asshole to me. He’s apologized, I’ve apologized. It’s done. He knows I don’t want to see him any longer and he’s been respecting that,” I mutter. “I better get, I’m going to be late for work.”
“Dang it, Callie, don’t leave. I’m sorry,” Katie says, sounding miserable.
I turn to look at her and I know she can see the tears that are burning my eyes.
“Everything is fine,” I assure her—lying through my damn teeth.
Nothing is fine. I’m not sure it ever will be again.
27 Reed
I wipe the blood off the side of my lip, resisting the urge to spit on my father who is lying in the corner, a broken lamp scattered over him, unconscious from a combination of alcohol and my fist.
When I came through the door, he had mom by her hair dragging her over to his recliner where she hadn’t picked up his dishes on the end table. His drunk ass knocked them over and they spilled on the floor. I didn’t think. I just whaled into him. I’m pretty sure that while I was punching him it was Callie’s father I was picturing. I’ve withstood my dad my whole life. I hate that Callie is having to endure the same—even if it hasn’t become quite as violent as my life has been. Still, it should never come to that. Ever.
Every single time I remember how he talked to Callie on the phone, I get angrier.
I don’t know where Mitch is, but he’s been no fucking help at all lately. He’s graduated and I hear he’s staying at a buddy’s apartment in town and working as a bouncer at the local bar. I can’t imagine him working in a bar will work out, but what the fuck do I know?
“You okay, Mom?”
I approach her carefully because she’s shaking with fear. She was once a beautiful woman, with honey brown hair, and large chocolate eyes. Now, she’s just a shell of the woman she was. It hasn’t been time that robbed her beauty, however. No, my father just sucked it out of her, along with her will to fight. Now she tries to hide, and why I don’t know, because it never works. He always finds her.
“I…I..sh-should have p-p-picked up,” she stammers, sobs racking her body. Large, sloppy tears fall from her eyes.
“He would have found another reason, Mom. You need to leave the asshole,” I tell her again for the millionth time.
“Where would I go?” she says in response, just like she has nine-hundred-ninety-nine-thousand other times I’ve asked.
“I’m working pretty steadily. We could get a place together. You wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore.”
“He’d find me, Reed. I tried that once, long ago. More than once,” she says, and I frown, because I remember. She did leave the asshole when I was younger. I think I was probably only seven at the time and Mitch was eight. She left and it took Dad two days to find her. She made it out of state. I guess it makes me a bastard, but it bothers me that she didn’t bother to take me or Mitch with her. Still, I wish she had gotten away. It’s painful to see her like this now.
“He won’t touch you if I’m the one protecting you, Mom.”
“But he’s my husband,” she whispers, wringing her hands and there it is. Even if she had succeeding in getting away from him all those years ago, she would have ended up going back to him.
“Go rest while you can, Mom. I’ll clean this up.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
I watch her walk away, while Callie’s words come back to me.
“I know that’s why you are still here. It’s why you didn’t go with Jake, or even go to Nashville. We do what we have to, Reed. That’s who we are.”
She’s right. Although I wouldn’t leave if she’s here. I love Callie. I’d all but given up hope that she’d be mine, but after tonight I feel like maybe I have a shot.
Maybe it’s wrong what they say. Nice guys don’t always have to finish last…
Do they?
28 Callie
“You’re quiet tonight,” I remark when we start walking into Moonie’s—a small pizza joint downtown.
“Sorry, it’s been a rough couple of nights at the house. Dad’s been doing what he always does,” Reed mumbles.
“Being a dick?” she responds.