Chapter 64
CALLUM
The Living Years - Mike + The Mechanics
“Are you sure you want me to read this?” Alejandra chewed her lower lip as he turned his laptop toward her, opened on the letter his biological father had personally written for him. “It seems like something pretty important. If he wrote a letter to you, I bet he wanted you to read it.”
“I don’t really care what he hoped for, Alejandra. I want you to read it because I need to pace around the apartment, and I need to process everything.”
She sighed.
“Are you okay with it, Eira?” she pressed, looking at the phone propped on the coffee table, where his mother was listening to the entire conversation.
“Absolutely.”
That seemed to calm her frying nerves. She seemed even more nervous than he was.
The day before, she had confessed how what had happened between him and Mick in the last days had made her think about herself too.
“Self-centered, I know,” she had excused herself with a sheepish smile, but what came after had somehow made sense.
Alejandra had been a career-driven athlete.
Medals and awards were her reason to live before the injury, and it had become an obsession that could have somehow destroyed whatever had been going on between them.
Realizing that the injury had been life-altering, in a good way—because she could still surf at her own time, and she had the chance to get to know him—had been extremely important for her.
And he had seen it in her bright green eyes, how the cloudy feeling she had in her brain every time she spoke about her future had somehow lifted.
“Alright, are you all ready?” Alejandra asked again, sitting cross-legged on his couch.
He had been devouring her pussy just half an hour before. He had needed to take the edge off as soon as they had returned from the restaurant with Leonor. He needed her, and sex was a good way to take his mind off whatever Mick had written in that letter.
Callum nodded, scratching his stubble, and his mother confirmed from the phone. Taid was probably around, but he wouldn’t remember unfortunately.
He settled his eyes on London’s landscape as Alejandra cleared her throat and started to read.
“Dear Callum, I’m sorry I rushed away like that in Ericeira. I should have been a grown-up, a mature person, and I could have handled it better… but as your mother can confirm, I was never great with responsibilities.”
A scoff came from his mother on the phone. He had written that letter recently—he had mentioned Ericeira. Did he mean to talk to him if death hadn’t found him?
“I spent years chasing waves, winning medals, running from my responsibilities to the point I had no idea how to do anything else. I didn’t know how to reconnect with you or Leonor—if you are reading this, I’m pretty sure you met her by now.
I didn’t know how to accept the fact that my recklessness in youth had changed the lives of two women and their children.
As much as I know I’m your biological father, I don’t think I could ever be considered your real father, someone who cared about you more than the money I sent you all these years. ”
It was his turn to scoff. At least he had the decency to understand what a real father should do.
“When I saw you in Ericeira, I wasn’t prepared. I could have handled it better, but you didn’t seem to know who I was, and that threw me off. Was I dreaming? Had Eira never told you who I was? Had she never cared about me?”
“Bloody hell, Mick,” his mother muttered from the phone.
Alejandra shared a sympathetic smile with him, then continued.
“I didn’t know how to react, and I did the only thing I knew how to do—run.
I didn’t know you knew Alejandra. I didn’t know you were involved in the surfing world.
Weren’t you an accountant? I had to keep tabs on both of you…
because from a distance you were just numbers, and now…
you were in front of me, looking nothing like me.
For a bit, I hoped you would look like me, maybe turn into a surfer and keep up my legacy.
But I could see you were more interested in the surfer next to you than the waves, and that’s the first indicator you weren’t a surfer.
Because while she looked at the waves, you looked at her. ”
Alejandra paused.
“Poetic,” he joked darkly.
“This letter is nonsensical,” Alejandra declared.
“Keep reading it, please.”
She sighed and continued.
“What I’m trying to say, very badly, is that even though I didn’t raise you, I had this hope that my son would look at me.
Leonor is an amazing surfer, fearless and brave, and I thought you would do the same.
But that’s my fault. Maybe life would have been different if I had raised you, if I had taken care of what I’ve disrupted.
When Eira told me, I could have gone back to Aber, but I was scared.
I needed those medals, the money, the awards, the recognition, but now…
I’m here, in this house in Malibu with no family, no one who truly cares about me but a joint I keep smoking, hoping it would bring me some kind of joy. ”
“Gosh,” his mother gasped. “Did he kill himself?”
“No,” Callum said. “He accidentally overdosed, apparently. The cops in LA said so. Don’t feel pity for him, mam. He made this decision.”
And even though he was being harsh, and even though he was saying those words, when Alejandra met his gaze, he could see the way her eyes softened.
She saw behind the wall—how, somewhere deep down, knowing they could have met and maybe fixed something, there was a version of this he might have wanted.
Even if he hadn’t thought about his biological father in years, knowing he had one and losing him in a week felt like a cruel joke of life he didn’t quite like.
“This letter is to say that I’m proud of you, for the man you’ve become with that business of yours, for the Harvard scholarship, even though the shattered knee had definitely been a negative note.
I got injured a couple of times, but never as severe as you or Alejandra.
So I can’t relate to what you must have experienced, but I wished I was a better person and I would have cared more like a father than a sugar daddy. ”
Alejandra scowled as she read, then continued.
“Enjoy my inheritance. It’s a bit of a mess. I really hope you and Leonor can make it work. A big hug, Mick.”
Silence fell in the apartment.
That must have been the weirdest letter anyone had ever written to him.
What did he even want to say? Was he even apologizing for anything?
He should have acted. If he really felt sorry, he should have acted, done something, stayed in Ericeira and spoken to him.
Did he write that letter while high? That would explain half of the nonsense in there.
“How do you feel?”
He hadn’t even noticed Alejandra wrapping her arms around his midsection, her chin pressed to his chest as she looked up at him.
Before he could answer, his mother intervened.
“This letter shows that Mick never grew up,” she said firmly.
“He was an amazing surfer, and that was it. He wasn’t a horrible person, just someone who didn’t have the means or desire to change and become better.
Drugs and joints must have numbed his brain, and the overdose has probably been the last straw in a life of sadness and emptiness.
Don’t feel sorry for him, Callum. Don’t feel sorry for someone who had the money to change his life but never took action.
You can have all the tools to build a house, but if you don’t start from the foundations, it will crumble—and Mick crumbled. ”
“I don’t feel pity,” he added. “I feel like this entire situation could have been handled differently, and he chose the worst option.”
“He didn’t know how,” Alejandra whispered, her gaze slightly empty, lost in her own thoughts.
“Do you pity him?” he asked her.
Alejandra shrugged.
“I pity the idea I had of him. And as I said to Carla today, I feel angry because if I didn’t hurt myself, I might have ended up like him—”
“Don’t be silly, Alejandra,” his mother barked from the phone.
“You are nothing like Mick. There are tons of athletes in the world—career-driven, focused, single-minded—and you are one of them. But you have friends, a family who cares about you. You spoke so highly of your parents when you were here, and those friends of yours that married in Spain. You were never alone like Mick has been his entire life. So don’t compare yourself.
And Callum, you too don’t have to compare yourself.
You are the sun of my life, my happiness in the darkest moments, my anchor and my reason to live.
Life without you, Callum, would have been bleak, and I’m so thankful I decided to keep you. ”
Callum noticed tears streaming down his cheeks before he could stop himself.
He kissed Alejandra’s head and reached for the phone still abandoned on the coffee table.
“I love you, Mam. You’ve been the best parent I could ask for. I don’t care who my father was—I just care that I got the chance to grow up with you. I feel so lucky because of that. Because of you. Because of taid.”
His mother cried, sobbing, and he waited until she had calmed down before hanging up.
When he turned back, Alejandra was looking at him with the softest eyes.
“He lied. He said that I was looking at the waves, but back in Ericeira, you were the only person I was searching for—my only reason I wasn’t wrapped in a corner crying. You are such an amazing person, Callum. And how could I look at the ocean when I had you next to me looking at me like that?”
He stood, pulled her into a tight hug, and kissed her lips softly.
“I love you, Alejandra. I didn’t think I would ever say that—but I’m so glad you almost died at Pipeline.”
She barked a laugh, tipping her head back, her whole body shaking. “I didn’t think I was going to say it either, but I’m so glad I almost died at Pipeline. Underlying the ‘almost’, thanks.”