23. Callie
Chapter 23
Callie
After Graduation
I’ve screamed into the void as many times as my voice would let me. My eyes are bloodshot and raw from the amount of tears they’ve produced over the last three weeks. I still can’t believe this is my reality now. Without Mason.
My parents and Emily, along with a few of my friends, have been begging me to get out of the house. I didn’t want to “get over it” or “move on” from him. I still don’t, if I’m being honest, but everyone says it will be good for me. So here I am, sitting on the chair in front of Emily’s vanity. She’s standing behind me gathering my hair into a messy bun. She’s already done my makeup to try and cover up some of the redness around my eyes in prep for a girl's night with Emily, Olivia, and a few other friends of hers. I guess if I ever want to feel more myself, I need to try. So this is me trying.
Once she approves my look we close up the house and head to her car. The ride to the bar is quiet, aside from the music that’s playing low.
“So, are you looking forward to this or are you doing it to shut us all up?” Emily asks once we’re a few miles from home.
I don’t answer right away, unsure if I should be honest and tell her how I feel or tell her what she wants to hear.
I decided to go with the truth. “Mostly to shut everyone up. I don’t think I’ll ever be okay or excited about going out and living life without Mason.”
“Callie. He isn’t dead, he broke up with you. You’ll be fine if you let yourself be fine.”
I don’t want to have this conversation right now so I quickly say “I don’t expect you to understand. Or anyone else for that matter,” before turning towards the window and escaping into my thoughts.
Emily opens the door to the bar where we’re meeting her friends and lets me through. I don’t want to be here. I don’t care to be engaging with others. I don’t feel like I’m losing myself as I’ve been told. My heart was shattered three weeks ago, I hardly think anyone would be okay at this point.
I take a deep breath and walk over to the booth where I see Olivia and the girls sitting. As much as I don’t want to be here, maybe this will be the beginning of coming out of this slump.
“Hey Cal! I’m glad you came tonight!” Olivia stands to hug me. When I first met her she annoyed the hell out of me but she’s become more like a second sister over the years. She balances Em and me out very well. She’s a little bit of both of us, mixed.
“Hey, Liv. I won’t lie and say I’m glad to be here. I’d rather be lying in bed reading or binge-watching a show. But I can’t get better if I don’t try.”
Em sits down across from me and smiles. I know she wants me to be happy. I know she thinks this is what I need. Everyone does.
The server comes over and takes our order and as he’s walking away I hear “Cal, is that you?” When I turn my head towards the voice I’m met with a face that hurts to look at.
“Josh. Hey.” Josh and Mason don’t look much alike but they look enough alike that it hurts. It brings up emotions that I’ve done my best to push down as far as I could.
“Cal, it’s good to see you. How are you doing?” He’s standing with a blonde, hands entwined together between them. They look good together and happy.
“I’m… okay.” I can see on his face that he regrets asking me that, knowing what happened with Mason and me. He can see the hurt trying to make its way to the surface.
“I’m sorry for what my brother did to you.”
“I.. uh” I sputter out. Taking a deep breath to add, “Thank you. Although it’s not something you should be apologizing for.”
“I know it’s not. He’s an idiot. It was nice to see you. We were heading out but I wanted to stop and say hi.”
“It was nice to see you, too. Thanks for stopping by.”
He nods and then removes his hand from hers to place it on her lower back and he guides her through the restaurant to the exit.
“Cal, you okay?” Em asks once I’ve returned my attention to the table.
“Yeah, I’m good. Or I will be. Let’s not focus on them or Mason tonight. Let’s focus on us, summer, school… just good things.” I say, doing my best to make my smile look genuine.
I ended up having a good time with the girls. I laughed. Like a real, genuine laugh. Tonight was my first time meeting their friend Keisha and she’s a blast to be around. Her personality shines so brightly. She’s witty and fun. Exactly what I needed tonight.
In the three months since Mason left I've learned that there’s more to me than him. I’ve also learned to be okay with that. Comparing everything to my time with him will only add to my misery in the long run.
Today I’m heading to my back-to-school seminar at Savannah State University with Emily. She agreed to go because I didn’t want to go alone, plus it’ll give her an inside look at college for next year.
I can hear her getting ready in the room next to mine. She’s always been more into make-up and fashion trends than I am so it’s no surprise to me that she’s been in there for close to thirty minutes now.
“Em, you about ready?” I ask, opening her bedroom door just enough to peek my head in.
“Yeah. I couldn’t figure out if I wanted to wear leggings or shorts.” She says, walking out of her closet towards me.
“You look cute. Come on. I want to get there early so I can get good parking.”
“Fine. I’m coming. Let me grab my phone and I’ll meet you at the car.”
While we were not as early as I wanted to be, we still found a good parking spot. We follow the large group of people up the sidewalk to the main building. There are signs posted everywhere indicating where we need to go.
There are only two reasons I’m here tonight, to get my school ID picture taken and to meet with my advisor to make sure my first semester schedule fits what my needs are. As we make our way through the hallway I see the sign that reads “school ID pictures are located in room 1055” and motion for Emily to turn left down the hallway.
“1051, 1053… ah. 1055. Here’s where I need to go and get my picture taken for my student ID. Are you coming in or do you want to wait outside?” I ask before peeking in the window on the door.
“I’ll probably just stay out here. I don’t want to be in the way.” She walks across the hallways and scoots down the wall to sit on the floor.
“Ok, the line doesn’t look too long so hopefully I will be out soon.”
Fifteen minutes later I come out to find Emily lost in her own little world, headphones in and watching something on YouTube. When I’m about a foot away from her she looks up, pulls an AirPod out, and says “I was expecting you to be gone longer than that. I was checking out a review for some makeup that just dropped.”
“It felt longer than fifteen minutes standing in that line. You ready to head to the advisor's offices?” I ask, offering her my hands to pull her up.
The line to the advisors is forming down the hallway. “Uhh. I’ll come early on the first day of classes and make an appointment with them. You want to go get some food before we head home?”
“Do you really even have to ask if I’m down to get food?” Emily says, rolling her eyes. For as much as she eats, I have no idea where it goes.
Dating is so frustrating.
I’ve gone out on dates with four men in the last few months and I’m still nowhere closer to wanting to date anyone than I was when Mason first left.
I wish I knew the secret to getting over him. It would make life a lot easier. Chase, Luke, Maverick, and Weston were all great guys and will make perfect partners for the right person. They just weren’t for me .
Every time I hype myself up to go out with someone new I’m hoping that I’ll get that same feeling that I got from Mason. He was home ; being around him felt like a nice warm hug. I felt this with him from the beginning. He listened to and actually heard me. He’d ask me “What do you need from me?” when I was having a bad day. He’d let me talk for hours about how I was feeling and why I felt that way. He never complained. He sat there and let me get it all out.
Mason came over after practice to bring me some soup. I woke up this morning feeling like trash and stayed home from school. I love how attentive he is and is always willing to make me feel better, or at least try.
“Do you want me to warm it up for you now, Cal?” he asks from the doorway of my bedroom. I haven’t left my bed all day except to use the bathroom. I’ve been a human burrito all day while I binge TV shows.
“Yes, please. I need to get something in my stomach and soup and crackers should stay down.” I say, adjusting to a sitting position.
“Okay, I’ll be right back. Would you like a refill of your water while I’m in the kitchen?”
“I probably should. Thank you,” I say, handing my cup to Mason.
“You’re welcome. Be back soon.”
While Mason’s getting my food ready I turn the TV off and grab my brush off the side table. I know he won’t care what I look like but I know I look a hot mess so brushing my hair is the least I can do.
Mason walks through the door with a bowl of soup, a sleeve of crackers, and my water cup sitting on Mom’s serving tray. “Here, I thought using this might make it easier to eat sitting in bed.” He puts it down on my legs and sits down on the edge of my bed.
“Thank you, Mason. You didn’t have to come over and bring me soup.” Man, this is amazing soup.
“I know I didn’t. But Cal, if there’s anything that I can do to help I’m going to do it.
Ugh, I miss him. But I also hate him. I need to forget about him.
I’m scrolling through Facebook while I wait for my professor to get here. I stop, looking at the picture staring back at me. It’s a quote that says, “Are you healed or just trying not to think about it?” and I can honestly tell you that right now, I’m just trying not to think about it.
I’ve learned a lot about the healing process by listening to the lectures from Mrs. Jones. She’s my Mental Health Skill Training professor and very easy to talk to. There have been plenty of class sessions where I feel like the entire class is part of a group counseling session as we sit and talk about our lives, losses we’ve suffered, mental illnesses that we live with, and whatever else that comes up. Each of her lessons ties into real life, which makes everything easier.
She’s taught me so much about this journey I’ve been on for almost a year now. While I didn’t lose Mason in the sense of death, I still lost him and have been grieving that loss. He hasn’t reached out and while I’ve seen his parents in town a few times nothing more than a simple “hi how are you” conversation is had. That’s four years of my life that I won’t get back but also don’t regret spending them the way I did.
The sound of the door latching shut brings me back to focus. Mrs. Jones walks over to her desk, sitting down her bright purple bag she’s always carrying. She’s a middle-aged woman and her hair is mostly gray. I’ve only ever seen her in professional attire. Today she’s got black slacks on with a loose-fitting light orange top. Her hair is in a high, but loose, ponytail. It sways back and forth as she moves about.
She’s from the very southern part of Georgia so the accent is thick as she explains to us the lesson we will be going over today and the assignments that will go along with it. If I wasn’t from Georgia myself, I might have trouble understanding her.
Today we are going over how to do psychosocial assessments which is a way to evaluate your patient’s mental health and their functional capacity, as well as learning about their present illness and the history of their experiences. She’s pulled up an example on the projection screen and is going over the different areas of information we will be gathering about our patient. We get to choose someone either in class or in our personal lives to do this assignment about and I already know that Becky and Sarah will want to work together on this.
I look across the classroom and both of them make eye contact with me, smiles growing bigger across their face, telling me that I’m right in that regard. After class, we meet in the library to go over our schedules to see when we can get together to work on these. Becky is doing her psychosocial on me, Sarah is doing hers on Becky, and I am doing mine on Sarah. It makes it a breeze for all of us, and it’ll be an easy A, too.
I stay in the library after they’ve gone to their next class so that I can get a head start on my math study guide. Math has never been my strong suit so I need to do all the extra studying that I can for this test. I grab my AirPods out of my tote and bring up Apple Music on my phone while I put them in my ears. This gets me into the vibe of working through these word problems.
I’m sitting there in my own little world when someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn and see one of the librarians standing to my left.
“Sorry, I was off in lala land, listening to music,” I say, pulling my AirPods out and placing them back into their case.
“You’re fine. I just wanted to let you know that the library is going to be closing in about 20 minutes.” She says, smiling at me. Her eyes tell me how tired she is. They’re a shade of green, like mine, but with so many more memories and stories to tell.
How long have I been sitting here?!? “Oh my. Thank you for letting me know. I will gather all my stuff and head out. Have a great night.” I say before standing to put my laptop and stuff back in my bag.
“You too.” She says smiling before walking away.
Putting my phone in my back pocket and grabbing my keys I make my way down the stairs and out towards the parking lot. Unlocking my car, I place my bag in the passenger seat and round the front. I sit there scrolling through songs before plugging my phone into my radio and pulling out.