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The mornings that he didn’t answer my “How’d you sleep?” or “Want some breakfast?” and I could see dark thoughts already storming in his eyes, I knew I was in for a rough one. He’d spend those days testing my patience, telling me to get him this, get him that, cook him this, buy him that. Half of the time, he didn’t eat a bite of what I made. I’d breathe deep through my nose and tell myself not to get mad. I had no idea what was going on in that brain of his but it could be any number of things. He’d sent his best friend of ten years to the hospital, dealt with Caroline during my naked photo fiasco and been beaten unconscious by four strangers and a bat. The incident was likely set up by Theo, Callum wasn’t going to wrestle again for a long time and he was set to skip not just the Junior Olympics but college. In the grand scheme of things, the way he flicked his hand to reject the omelet I made him was probably small.
So I persisted with the kindness and in some strange way, it opened up my heart. It had always belonged to Callum but tending to his needs when he came home did something different to it. It made it feel fuller. I wanted to take care of him, to for once please someone else instead of gladly hogging all the joy and attention for myself.
I liked the loving superpowers I developed. I became in tune with all his needs. I could read what he wanted – medicine, food, a pillow fluff, the AC turned down – before he even realized it himself. The look on his face when he was trying to mask surprise or appreciation was always fun too. That was the thank you I never got in words and I didn’t mind. I knew that I’d always been the pampered princess of the house, even when I didn’t really want to be. So I loved finally knowing what it was like to be good at giving and providing comfort.
And I was happy that the first person I could discover that with was Callum.
He finally acknowledged it one random afternoon. I was sitting with him in bed watching a baseball game I didn’t understand when he put his hand on my knee. I stared at it for two seconds before looking at him. My voice was light and playful. “What’s up, buddy? Do you need something?”
He shook his solemn head. “No.”
“Then what’s up?”
He brows pinched for a second like he was trying to figure it out too. “I just wanted to touch you.”
My breath shortened. “Yeah?” I played it off. I did okay but my heart was suddenly flitting like hummingbird wings in my chest. Two seconds into the moment and I already knew that I didn’t recognize this Callum at all, despite the fact that he touched me all the time. We’d seen each other naked on too many occasions to count. Sometimes, we’d just be sitting on the couch watching a movie when he’d take my hand and cup it over his dick. He played with my tits pretty much constantly. But this was different. It wasn’t sexual, it was tender. Sweet. His eyes weren’t full of that lust that it sometimes clouded with when I wore a certain outfit or moved a certain way. He just gazed at me softly, with content.
“Yeah.” He took forever to answer my question with the same damned word. Then he looked down at his hand on me knee and tilted his head, moving his thumb back and forth. I rested my head against his for a bit and watched with him as he stroked my skin over my leggings.
“What are you doing, Callum?” I asked quietly. When he didn’t answer, I turned to him, my forehead pressed to his. “Are you okay, buddy?” I whispered. He nodded.
“Better than that.”
I smiled. “Okay. That’s good,” I said brightly. I was about to say something else to lighten the mood but he spoke over me.
“You know how much I love you, right?”
Any attempt to play things off was shot by instant emotion. Callum’s expression was pained but sweet and genuine, too, and it brought me straight to tears. Luckily, they didn’t fall. They just sat pretty in my eyes. “I think so, Callum.” He was cupping my cheek now, gazing into me. He nodded with satisfaction at my answer, his stare dipping down to my lips. His murmur was the softest I’d ever heard it.
“You have my back the way I’ll always have yours. No matter what, Lake. You’re the most important thing in the world to me and I’ve always known it. I just want you to know it now, too.”
I couldn’t help my giant smile. “I know it.”
“Good,” he exhaled. And then he kissed me tenderly for, oddly enough, the first time ever.
*
It was important to Caroline that at least one of us go to college so I enrolled at FIT and started classes that September. She helped me move into my dorm, strung Christmas lights on my walls the way she’d seen on Pinterest and invited my roommate, Dara, with us to lunch at a three-star restaurant. Dara said no, assumed I was one of those girls
who hated her mother and later said, “That was so pretentious,” effectively landing her on my shit list.
“Wait. So that wasn’t your mom?” she asked me one Sunday night when it was pouring and none of my new friends were willing to go out, forcing me to hang out with just Dara. I braved the rain and bought two bottles of Cabernet with my fake to make the night more tolerable.
“No, but she’s raised me. With my grandma.”
“How did she meet your grandma?”
“My grandma kind of raised her. She was her housekeeper growing up. And I guess she stayed her housekeeper till she died.”
“Wow, that’s depressing.”
I gave her a look. I didn’t think it was. What was up with this chick? She was like negativity in walking human form. “Do you want some more wine?” I asked hopefully.
She adjusted her hipster glasses. “No, thanks. So like… that Callum kid is your brother-ish but you guys are like… vaguely romantic?”
I sat in bed and peeled the label off my bottle of Cab, wondering why I’d ever told her that. I had just been trying to open up with her and like her but it didn’t quite work. “Yeah. We’re hard to describe.”
“Have you slept with him before?”
