Callie is standing in the middle of the frosted trees and lights, staring down at the ground. She has her head tipped down, her coat zipped up to her chin, and she’s kicking at the snow with the tip of her boot. Her hood is down and snowflakes dot her long brown hair, but she doesn’t seem to mind, lost in her thoughts.
She’s beautiful.
Amazing.
Perfect.
I give myself a moment to appreciate everything that’s her before I walk toward her and make my presence known. She must hear my boots crunch against the snow because her gaze lifts and finds me before I reach her. Snow dots her eyelashes, her cheeks are flushed, and she has a smile on her face, her eyes so full of love I seriously nearly turn around and look over my shoulder to make sure there’s no one else standing there that she could be looking at.
‘Hey you,’ she says, still grinning at me. Then she shifts her weight and a hint of her nerves slips through, which makes me nervous as well.
Why would she be nervous?
‘Hey you, back.’ My feet move toward her on their own, wanting – needing – to be near her. ‘Why are you standing out here in the freezing cold?’
She holds up her finger, indicating to wait just a second. Then she glances at the leafless, snow-bitten tree beside her before she ducks behind it. A heartbeat later, music envelops me. When she steps back out from behind the tree, she’s smiling as the snowflakes swirl around us, almost moving with the slow rhythm of the song.
‘What do you have back there?’ I ask. ‘An iPod dock or something?’
She shakes her head as she hikes through the snow toward me, reducing the space between us, something I’m ridiculously grateful for. In fact, I want it all gone – not a single drop of space left between our bodies.
‘No, it’s Luke’s stereo. Seth borrowed it from him so I could use it for this.’
My smile rises, the first time I’ve smiled all day. ‘God, he’s so weird with all that old crap he keeps around, right?’
‘Like all his mix tapes?’ she says with a soft laugh as she stops in front of me and tips her head back to look up at me.
I eliminate the rest of the space between us and put my hands on her hips. Suddenly, I become warm in the midst of the cold. ‘I seriously think he belongs in the eighties.’
‘Maybe he does.’ She loops her arms around the back of my neck and draws me closer. ‘What era do you think we’d belong in if we could go live in a different one?’
I consider what she said. ‘How about the sixties?’
She beams up at me. ‘We’d be all about the peace, love, and happiness.’
‘I think that sounds a lot like you.’ I tuck a strand of her damp hair behind her ear. ‘I’m not sure about me, though.’
Her forehead creases as I stroke her cheek with my finger, mesmerized by the softness of her skin. I’ve touched it a thousand times, yet every time is as amazing as the first.
‘You’ve seemed a little bit down lately. Has something been bothering you?’
‘I’ve just been thinking about some stuff.’ I trace a path up her jawline to her temple.
‘About family stuff?’
‘Yeah … I can’t help it … with the holidays coming. It’s just got me thinking.’
‘About your family?’
I swallow the stupid lump that has wedged its way up my throat. ‘Yeah, about my lack of one.’ I don’t really mean to say it because I don’t want to be a downer when clearly she had some sort of fun night planned, but it just slips out.
‘You have me,’ she says quietly, placing a hand on my stubbly cheek. ‘You always will.’
My heart tightens in my chest. ‘I know I do,’ I say, wishing it were that simple, that I did fully believe she’d always be here with me, that nothing would change, and that that could be enough in life. But I’ve been abandoned before, so there’s a bit of a skeptic in me.
Still, being here with her momentarily lifts my problems away, and I lean in to kiss her, unable to take the space between us any longer. However, she pulls away, stopping mid-kiss, and leaving me panting for air.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask.
She lets out a shaky breath, jittery and shivering from the cold. ‘I have to ask you something … something really, really important.’
I search her eyes and I see the same nerves I noticed when I first walked up to her. ‘What’s wrong?’
She takes another unsteady breath and her hold on me tightens, her fingers digging into the fabric of my coat, like she’s afraid to let me go. ‘Okay, so I have something I want you to think about, but I don’t want you to answer it tonight.’
‘Okay …?’ I’m trying not to get worried, but it’s hard when she’s acting this way.
Her eyes are wide and full of terror, but she refuses to look away from me. ‘Okay, so I’ve been thinking a lot about our … our living situation.’ Her chest rapidly rises and falls, causing a cloud of fog to rise around her face. ‘Remember how at the beginning of the school year I mentioned something about how much easier it’d be if we were living together?’
I waver, because I really don’t remember what she’s talking about, but it seems like maybe I should. ‘I vaguely remember you saying something about you wanting to move out of the dorm and get your own apartment.’
A loud exhale puffs from her lips. ‘Well, what I meant to say when I said it … or what I should have just flat out said is that maybe we should just … you and I,’ she gestures between the two of us, ‘live … together …’ she trails off, biting her lip, which has turned a bit blue from the cold.
I swallow hard, unsure how to answer. I have no idea how I feel about the idea. Excitement. Want. God, the want. But I’m f**king conflicted because within the want there’s a fear. Am I ready for that?
Yes.
No.
Yes.
No.
Maybe.
Shit.
Why can’t I just give her what she wants?
She deserves that.
Deserves more.
I’m feeling way too much at the moment. The old Kayden would be bailing out by now and running back to his room to find a razor because it’d be the easiest way to deal with this – or not deal with it anyway. But I don’t want to be that guy – become that guy again.
Callie watches me with hope in her eyes while I struggle to sort through all the confusion flowing through my mind. My lips part to try to explain to her what’s going on, even though I’m guessing it’s going to be a jumble of nonsense, but she quickly covers my mouth with her hand.
‘Don’t answer me right now.’ She slowly lowers her hand from my lips. ‘Just think about it. Talk to your therapist and figure out if you really want to do it or not,’ she says with a shrug. ‘I was just letting you know that I want to.’
I nod, letting out a breath trapped inside my chest. ‘Okay, I’ll think about it.’
Her lips curve into a smile then she stands on her tiptoes to place a kiss on my mouth. Her taste drowns me, and for the slightest, liberating moment, I forget about everything. The kiss is too quick, though, and when she starts to pull away, I cup the back of her neck and pull her right back to me, refusing to let her go, wanting to feel the calmness inside me just a little bit longer.
She doesn’t protest as I slide my tongue deep inside her mouth, exploring every inch of it as I grasp onto her hips, gripping her sides. She clutches onto me tightly too, our bodies aligning as snow falls around us, soaks through our clothes to our skin while soft music continues to play in the background.
It’s one of those easy moments with her that I look forward to and I wish I could stay in forever. But for some reason I have a feeling the snow is going to stop falling and life will move on.
Moving forward.
To a future.
I just wish I knew what the hell I was supposed to do.
Chapter 3
#117 Don’t Let the Cursor Torture You.
Callie
It’s getting close to Halloween and I want to dress up for it. I haven’t actually dressed up since I was eleven, the last time I felt like a child. I know I’m not a child now, but having my childhood stolen so early from me, I want to have some fun. And Seth wants me to go to a Halloween concert thingy with Greyson, him, Luke, and Violet. A couple’s Halloween/dance/costume concert. I agree, but tell him I’ll have to talk to Kayden, unsure if it’s his kind of thing.
I like the idea too much probably and shouldn’t get my hopes up until I know for sure if he’ll go, but I never got to do the whole prom thing, never got to wear something that made me look pretty, didn’t really believe I was pretty, nor did I want to be at the time or want to draw that kind of attention. I never got to dance with a guy who I loved and who looked at me like I was the most beautiful thing in the world. And I want it for just one night.
Seth coaxes me into going shopping for a costume before I get the chance to ask Kayden, but I don’t mind. In fact, I’m having fun looking for something to wear. Although, Seth seems to think he needs to put in his two cents, and let’s just say that his costume ideas are … well, a little bit too daring and bold for my taste.
‘Yeah, I’m not sure Kayden would go for the whole Peter Pan/Tinkerbell thing,’ I tell Seth when he holds up a costume that includes green tights and curly toed shoes.
He gives me an innocent smile, shoving the costume at me. ‘Why ever not?’
I roll my eyes as I continue to search the rack in front of me. ‘Um, because it includes tights. That’s why.’ I move hangers to the side as I look through the choices. ‘Besides, I don’t want to be Tinkerbell.’
Seth frowns disappointedly. ‘Yeah, but Kayden wears those super tight pants when he’s playing football, which is pretty much the same as tights.’
I laugh as I sift through the very slutty looking options of costumes, something I’m not ready for, nor do I ever think I’ll be ready for. Again, I just don’t think it’s in my personality. ‘Yeah, and I’ve caught you checking him out before in those super tights pants, buddy. You are so not as discreet as you think.’
‘Who says I was trying to be discreet?’ he says, putting his hand on his hip. ‘I was just admiring the view. And don’t pretend like you don’t do it, too – admire a nice ass when you see one.’
My cheeks warm and he laughs at me, amused by my embarrassment. Still chuckling, he wanders around the racks filling the small store, searching for a costume. The selection is pretty picked over and there are a lot of people here skimming through the already-limited supply. There’s some Halloween-type music playing through the speakers to add to the scary decorations of bats, witches, and ghosts.
‘So have you decided on one yet?’ Seth asks, backing away from the rack and rubbing his stomach. ‘Because I’m getting super hungry.’
I shake my head as I pull a face at a thin piece of leather that’s supposed to be some sort of dress, yet looks more like a really short shirt. ‘The problem is I don’t want to be something scary or slutty and that’s all they really have here.’
He glances over at the wall of masks then the rack I was just looking through. ‘That sort of eliminates a lot of options, if not all of them.’
‘I know,’ I sigh, glancing around the store. ‘I just want to be something pretty. Something that’s not slutty, but is sort of sexy in a way where I don’t have to show a lot of skin, if that makes any sense. Something that will … dazzle Kayden.’ I grin at my word usage because dazzle is one of Seth’s favorite words.
He bobs his head up and down to the music as he looks around the store contemplatively. ‘That actually makes perfect sense for you.’ He takes my hand. ‘Come with me, beautiful; I think I have an idea for the perfect thing for you. One that will make you’ – he grins at me – ‘dazzle the whole entire world.’
I smile as I follow him out of the store, hoping that today’s efforts will be worth it, that maybe somehow I can make the night magical, or at least get Kayden to smile. That alone would make all efforts worth it.
Later that day, I return to my dorm room with a bag that’s holding what I think will be the perfect costume. I know I’m being silly, that I’m almost twenty and should not be getting excited over a silly party, but I am.
Last Halloween, Kayden and I weren’t technically boyfriend and girlfriend. Yeah, we were hanging out, but that was about it. And about a month later, around Thanksgiving, everything fell apart when Kayden beat up Caleb for what he did to me and then his father beat up him and stabbed him for getting in trouble with the police over it. It was a terrible, horrible time. I know Kayden still thinks about it a lot, even though he doesn’t talk to me about it too much. So I want the end of this year and future ones to be fun. Plain and simple fun.
After I put my bags away, I turn on my iPod, hitting random before popping my headphones on. ‘Winter Song’ by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson clicks on, totally fitting for the storm outside. Then I get my laptop from the nightstand and plop down onto the bed.
I do a little writing for my internship, but after getting bored with it I change documents and work on one of my Advance Fiction projects for my end of the year portfolio. The theme is fiction, but Professor Gladsyman pressed that we should write about something that feels real, something that’s resting on the line between fiction and nonfiction.
Sometimes, I feel …
Yeah, that’s all I have so far. It’s not like I’m having writer’s block. Okay, well maybe I do, but it’s not only that. Writing the vague truth, that’s the hard part. But I’m not even supposed to be writing the truth, am I? Honestly, I’m kind of confused which route I’m supposed to go, especially since the professor kept making air quotes whenever he said fiction. I swear he wanted us to read his mind or something to figure out what he wanted.