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Her eyes popped wide. “What? Oh, Cal, I didn’t know.”
He continued, even though she’d already interrupted him. “For a while, my dad kept things together, until he didn’t. He stopped coming home most nights. I found out later he’d lost his job and was drowning his sorrows in a bottle. The nights he did come home, he picked fights. I was grounded all the time … either me, or my cell phone. I kept hoping things would get better—you know, the whole grieving thing would ease up—but that didn’t happen.”
“Cal … I don’t know what to say.”
He pushed on, because his stomach felt hollow, and this was harder to get through than he’d expected.
“My aunt stopped by for a visit at my dad’s. She took one look at the situation and threatened legal action against him, but he didn’t even put up a fight. His last words were, ‘Take him. He reminds me too much of his mom anyway.’ Not long after I moved in with Rachel, she got a job offer at the medical clinic in Everly Falls. So we ended up here.”
“I thought Rachel was your mom.”
“That’s what we let everyone believe,” Cal said. “Easier than dealing with a bunch of questions. Deadbeat dad story was all true, though.”
“I’m sorry, Cal.”
It was nice to hear her sympathy, but he wasn’t here for that. He held up a hand. “I’m not looking for sympathy, and I’m not giving out excuses. I just want you to understand and accept my apology.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about your mom?”
He blew out a breath and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he said, “I think because it was the only way I was keeping things together—at least in my mind. If I didn’t tell anyone about my mom, or what my dad became, then I wouldn’t have to feel the pain.”
“But it did happen, and you did feel it.”
He nodded. “Yeah … As good as Rachel was for taking me in, she wasn’t exactly available for the raging emotions of little old me. She worked the night shift and was asleep most of the time I was awake. I used to go to detention because I couldn’t deal with the empty house and the memories that would plague me when I was alone. At least in detention, I could focus and do homework.”
He felt Steph staring at him. “Youpurposelywent to detention?”
“Yeah.” He glanced at her beautiful face, illuminated by the moonlight. “Messed up, huh?”
But she didn’t have the pity in her expression that he’d seen from everyone else he’d apologized to. In fact, it was more akin to anger.
“Cal … we were friends. At least we were on our way to becoming friends. And well … we got kind of close that last night together.”
Yeah, he remembered.
“I told you stuff aboutme.Personal stuff. Yet you were keeping so much inside.”
“I know.” He sighed. “When you shared personal stuff, I think it freaked me out a little. It touched things inside of me that I’d been holding in for so long. But I liked you. A lot. I think if we’d gone out again, I might have opened up. You know, I just needed a little more time.”
Her brows tugged together. “Wheredidyou go?”
That was the big question he needed to answer. It was finally time. “When I got home that night, my dad was there. Sobered up. Ready to take on the responsibilities of a parent again, or so he said. Promised rainbows and happily ever after.”
“Wow,” Steph whispered. “Was that good or bad?”
“It was the worst thing he could have done,” Cal said. “I know that now—but back then, I was conflicted. I’d locked everything about my parents and my past into a box with a combination only I knew. Rachel seemed resigned to letting me go back home. It wasn’t like she really had legal guardianship anyway. But it had been nearly a year. I’d started to like Everly Falls, despite my delinquency. I’d started to like you … I’d just been hired at the movie theater. I finally felt like a real teenager, and not some messed-up alien who everyone avoided.”
Steph set her hand on his arm. Just that small touch was what he remembered. The girl who cared, the girl who seemed to look past all of his walls and defenses and saw right into him—into the heart that was still beating and wanting connections.
He looked down at her smooth fingers on the sleeve of his dress shirt.
“Is that why you left?” she asked in a soft voice. “You went home with your dad?”
He heard the confusion in her tone, but patience and understanding leaked through. He knew she wondered why he couldn’t have just texted her. Said goodbye at least. But that had been impossible.
“No.” He shifted his arms and linked his fingers together. Her hand dropped away. He was relieved at the loss of her touch—it had been making it harder to focus. “My dad said we’d leave first thing in the morning. Told me to pack up. That night, while he slept on the couch, I let my mind pull up the hard things I’d pushed deep down. It was like Pandora’s box had cracked wide open in my head. I remembered the fights, the threats, eating mac and cheese dry out of a box because I was afraid to wake him by turning a light on in the kitchen … What Rachel didn’t know, and what I never let myself remember, were the times my dad had turned on me. Physically.”
“Oh, Cal,” Steph whispered.
