Chapter 18
Lauren
I’m not sure how long we stay like this. His arms are around me, holding on as if he’s drowning and I’m the only thing keeping him above water.
I hug him back as forcefully as he hugs me, his hot breath feathering against the crook of my neck. One of my hands has found the nape of his neck, softly playing with his hair, while the other one draws calming circles over his shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles against my skin, but doesn’t make any attempt to let go.
“Nothing to be sorry about,” I whisper, not releasing my grip on him either. I just wish our first hug had happier circumstances.
He’s obviously upset, though I don’t know why. And truthfully, I don’t need to, if he doesn’t want to tell me the reason.
My heart aches for him. If there’s any way I could make him feel better, I would jump at the chance. While I might not be the kind of person who gets shit done around my house, if it comes to my friends, you better believe I’m springing into action and scratching out eyes. Figuratively.
“Whose ass do I need to kick?” I ask him in a whisper, trying to brighten the mood. And when his body trembles with a low chuckle, I breathe a sigh of relief.
“No fights,” he finally mumbles, loosening his grip around my back ever so slightly. Then he changes his mind and tightens his hold again.
“I threatened to throw a pumpkin at Nic’s ex.
” God, I’m still mad she stopped me. That idiot would have deserved it.
“I can make damn sure to throw a snowball spiked with rocks or ice at whoever hurt you. I’d have to be close, though.
I don’t have the best aim,” I offer, but he shakes his head. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Depends,” he mumbles, his thumbs moving against the small of my back, sending goosebumps up my spine.
“Depends on what?”
“Can we stay like this?” The way he asks it almost brings tears to my eyes. He sounds vulnerable, his breath shaky with nervousness.
“Of course,” I assure him and slightly wriggle in his lap to adjust my position. “I have nowhere else to be. And you know how much I love admiring your café’s brick wall.”
“You’re really something,” he mutters and takes a deep breath. Silence stretches as I twirl one of his curls around my finger until he continues in a whisper. “Do you remember how I told you that my mother left?”
I confirm with a gentle nod.
“It happened when I was about to turn six,” he explains, his fingers playing with the hem of my sweatshirt.
“Everything was as usual. She helped me put on my backpack, gave me a kiss and sent me off. Only she never came to collect me.” He swallows heavily and draws in a shaky breath.
“I waited for her for hours. All alone in the schoolyard, until it got dark and someone finally reached my dad and he picked me up. And then, when we came home, she was just… gone. Packed her suitcase, some clothes, her documents and left.”
He clears his throat. My heart hurts for him, emotions clogging my throat, making it hard to swallow past.
“I kept hoping she’d come back. Like an abandoned cat, I used to wait by the window for her.
I think it took something close to half a year until it finally settled that she wasn’t returning.
The funny thing is, the hope…” He clears his throat again.
“The hope never quite goes away. There were no warnings. In the morning, she told me she’d see me later.
There were no signs, no warnings whatsoever.
And her leaving…” He clears his throat. “It did something to my dad. I had no illusions about being part of a picture-perfect family before she left, but I thought there was love, you know?”
He moves his head, resting his chin on my shoulder, letting go of my shirt to pull me tighter into his arms, as if I’m a giant emotional support teddy bear. I guess I kind of am.
“He became so cold. On paper, he did everything a parent should do. He got me from school, made sure I was fed, bought me toys and all necessities.” A deep sigh leaves him, and it’s taking him a few moments to gather his thoughts.
“But he wouldn’t read me stories anymore.
He wouldn’t take me on outings for ice cream or a movie — stuff we always used to do before.
The older I became, the less he was home, which was a good thing, because when he was there, it always felt as though there was a certain aura around him.
Like a bubble. A bubble that was quick to burst, which always ended up with him shouting at me.
Blaming me for her leaving and for him being unhappy.
When I was sixteen, I got myself a job, only because I wanted to avoid him. ”
“I’m sorry, Caleb,” I can’t help but whisper.
“When I turned eighteen, he kicked me out without warning.”
I take a sharp breath. “What?”
It’s taking everything in me not to follow my instincts and lean back to find his eyes. Instead, I completely freeze in his hold, anger tightening my muscles. Kicked him out? What the hell?
“It’s okay,” he assures me. “It was a long time ago.”
“That doesn’t make it okay,” I point out, biting back a lot of mean comments before I decide to let it rest. “Sorry, go on.”
“As I said, he kicked me out. Told me I’d ruined his life enough. I packed my shit and the savings I had from my job, and I took off. Don’t ask me how, but I took some buses, and at one point, I ended up here in Wayward Hollow, right in the town square.”
I’m facing away from the windows towards said square. But my eyes jump over to the mirror, watching the dark, snow-covered trees illuminated by orange street light in the reflection.
“The last bus had already left, so I had nowhere to go. There I was, only freshly eighteen, with all my belongings and one stupid duffel bag that had the Toy Story logo on it, because it was the only one I could find.” A dry chuckle shakes his body. “Bobby found me there.”
“That’s how you met him?” I draw little eternity symbols on his back with my finger.
Caleb nods against my shoulder. “He took one look at me and decided to take me under his wing. He offered me a place to sleep in exchange for helping him out at the café. Ultimately, it turned into a kind of win-win situation.”
I tilt my head, his scruff softly scratching against my ear.
“After an unfortunate encounter with a delivery truck, Bobby had to quit his job. He got a nice settlement from his former employer and was living off it until his sister asked him to temporarily take over her café. However, a year before I turned up here, she decided to elope with some guy she met on a cruise and moved to France. Bobby tried to keep the café afloat, but his leg wouldn’t cooperate as much as he’d hoped.
He needed someone to step in for him. And that someone was me. ”
His body slowly relaxes. The muscles under my fingertips are not hard as stone anymore, though his embrace doesn’t soften.
“He taught me how to run it. How to bake. After a while, he let me move into his old apartment above Henry’s clinic. When I was twenty-five, he officially signed the café over to me. The only things he demanded in exchange were a promise to treat it with care, lifelong free coffee and pastries.”
“He got himself a good deal,” I whisper, softly nodding, my chin moving against his shoulder.
His chuckle finally sounds livelier. “He also made me go to therapy.” Another deep breath. “Though, I don’t think it helped me as much as we both assumed it would.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because Henry asked me to consider therapy only a few days ago. Gave me a whole speech about getting my shit together and how worried he was.” He shakes his head softly.
“He even left me the number of one of his clients who’s a therapist. Then again, considering my mother and apparently sister just waltzed in here, maybe I should take him up on that. ”
“They what?” I ask loudly. What the hell? “How? Why? Huh?”
“Thank you. That was my reaction. Only slightly more… expressive, admittedly.” His fingers start playing with the seam of my sweatshirt. “It was surreal. I never thought I’d see her again.”
“What did she want? Did she apologize?”
“I didn’t exactly let her,” he admits, rubbing the fabric between his fingers.
“I told them to get out.” Silence stretches for a few moments.
“For once, I thought things were going well, but five minutes-” He snaps his fingers.
“And I’m a fucking mess. I learned to deal with the pain and anger, Lauren.
Over the years, I kept it in check and slowly but surely, it turned into a memory that only sometimes resurfaced.
But today?” He takes a deep breath. “I just saw red.”
“Hey,” I say calmly. “You got blindsided into an extremely painful situation. As long as nobody got hurt physically, I say whatever reaction you had was probably appropriate.”
“Maybe I should take Henry up on his offer. I don’t even think my old therapist practices anymore. Not sure if they could tell me anything I haven’t been told before, though.”
“And what is it you’ve been told?” I whisper, glancing sideways at him but seeing only his hair.
His shoulders harden with tension, but he continues speaking. “That it wasn’t my fault. That both of my parents failed me. That I’m worthy of love.”
“Damn right you are,” I whisper. I can’t help myself. I lean back a tiny bit and kiss his temple.
“And you know what?” he asks. Now it’s his turn to loosen his grip.
I lean back until our eyes meet and send lightning of pain right through my heart.
God, he looks so vulnerable. Red-rimmed eyes, puffy cheeks, lips red from biting them.
Before I realize it, my hands are cupping his face, brushing away the last traces of tears from his cheeks.
“I'm also worthy of a slice of that probably now-cold pizza you brought.”
I freeze, my thumbs on his cheeks. “Seriously?” I ask him dryly and furrow my brows. What a whiplash of a conversation.
He shrugs. “Seriously. I’m hungry.”
I shake my head at him as I slowly climb off his lap, coming to a stand on shaky legs that tingle with sleep right next to his chair.
“Well, we can’t have that.” I take a step back. If he wants to change topics, I’ll let him. For now. “I wasn’t sure what you wanted, so I had them make it half-half. We’ve got spinach, pepperoni, four cheese and one half of simple Margherita.”
“Pineapple. For the record. That’s my usual order. But those will work.” He quickly wipes his face with his sleeve as he gets up. My face scrunches up, making him laugh. “Don’t knock it till you try it.”
“Oh, I tried it.” I walk alongside him to the counter.
“The consistency isn’t my jam on pizza, same for mushrooms.” I shrug and then come to a stop.
There’s something I need to tell him before I let him pretend our conversation never happened.
And I’d be shocked if that weren’t his course of action.
“Thank you,” I say, and wait until his eyes find mine, his eyebrows scrunching together in confusion. “For telling me.”
“Thank you for listening,” he says, and squeezes my hand as he walks by. “It helped.”
“Good,” I whisper and squeeze his hand right back. “That’s good.”
There are studies proving that you feel safer with a person once you’ve let yourself sleep around them.
And something equally monumental has shifted between Caleb and me.
I feel closer to him than before. Like he might have chiseled a tiny little door in that meter-thick wall around his heart and not opened it, but left the key in it for me.