“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he confesses in a low voice.
“How do you think I feel now?” I’m almost shouting. “Why didn’t youtell me when I opened up to you about my past?”
Tears form at the corners of my eyes. “Itrustedyou. You promised me no more lies.”
Callum starts to speak but I cut him off, predicting his next words. “Lies by omission are still lies, Callum.”
Rafe coughs into his fist, and I can’t tell if it was covering up a laugh or not.
“This is what he does, Elia,” Rafe chimes in, swallowing his cough-laugh. “He invites people into his life, giving them a glimpse behind his walls - of the person he could be. And just when you’re in too deep, too committed,falling in love–” Rafe jabs a finger into Callum’s chest. “You realize he’s hiding behind half-truths, tucking away certain parts of himself. No one will ever truly understand him until he learns how to be himself, instead of a puppet of the King.”
Rafe retreats back to his spot next to Adrienne and crosses his arms. “He’s not man enough to break things off himself, so instead he builds relationships on crumbling foundations, hoping everything doesn’t come crashing down.”
“But yet here we are. In the rubble,” I finish Rafe’s silent thought aloud.
Callum doesn’t react to anyone’s words, and I don’t know if his silence is better or worse. He’s completely shut down, like the power to his body is disconnected.
When Callum at last speaks, his voice wavers, giving us the first physical indication that our words were affecting him.
“You do know me.” His eyes land on Rafe first, then me, then on Ginna. “Gin - you’ve been with me the longest. You know I’d never do anything to hurt anyone, especially them. Tell them,” he pleads with Ginna, desperation heavy in his tone.
“I –” Ginna fidgets uncomfortably at being put on the spot. Her eyes meet Callum’s. “I do know you, Cal. Every version of you - good or bad.”
Callum seems a bit relieved before she continues.
“But Rafe has a point. Somewhere along the line I think you lost track of whoyouare, and instead you’re whoever the King made you into. The Callum we knew when we were kids isn’t the Callum standing in front of us today. You’ve built up so many walls that none of us know the real you, including yourself.”
“This is ridiculous. I am who I’ve always been! If anything, the King has only made me into a stronger, better version of that. I’m no longer the weak, lonely, bastard child that I once was. So what, I’m being punished for that?”
This is another side of Callum I had yet to see – the unpolished, chaotic version. His typical calm and collected demeanor is nowhere to be found.
“Anything else to add?” Callum glares at Ginna and Rafe. “Are you about to say you’ve never been friends with me? That there’s no bond between us?”
Ginna hastens to answer. “No, of course not, Cal,” she states plainly. “We’re only trying to suggest that maybe you’ve become someone…different because of the King. Someone that isn’t who we know you to be.”
“The King’s cruel puppet and a pathological liar,” Adrienne spits. I almost forgot she’s still here.
Ginna grimaces but doesn’t contradict Adrienne.
Neither does Rafe.
Neither do I.
Seeing his violence and cruelty towards the pirates rattled me, but since they attacked us it was easier to brush off. But exploding a civilian ship was something completely different, whether he’d known it or not.
And as for the liar part, well…that speaks for itself.
“So this whole trip was meant to be a…what? An intervention?” He scoffs and turns his attention to me. “The ring was a farce, wasn’t it? A lie you made up to drag me here. I doubt Rafe even has it still. He only wanted us to come to his house so he could have Adrienne yell at me too.”
Callum is going haywire, like a lit fuse trailing its way to the explosion.
It’s Rafe who steps in on my behalf. “Cal, listen to yourself. You can’t blame Elia for any of this. She’s only finding this all out now.”
Callum has turned the tables on this whole conversation. He’s now mad at me, when I still haven’t even processed all the information that I found out in such a short time.
“I need some space.” My breathing still hasn’t returned to normal, and speaking out of anger would only make me regret my words later.
This time, Callum doesn’t try to follow me. I aimlessly follow the stream behind the cottage until I can no longer hear the conversation that continued after I left. When I’m satisfied I am alone, I find myself sitting on a stump and staring at the flowing water, trying to process everything.
