Calliope
“You can’t call in sick.” Soren stands outside my door, palms pressed to the frame, trying to peer through the peephole.
All he’ll see are my own eyeballs staring back at him.
“Sick.” I pretend to cough a few times into my hand.
“You never call in sick.”
“That’s the point, Soren.” Shit. Sick voice. Stick to the sick voice. “I never call in sick. I never take that PTO. I never do anything but sleep and go to work.”
Today I want to just sit on my couch. And watch terrible television and order takeout.
“Callie.” Soren thumps his forehead on the door. “You’re supposed to be training your replacements.”
“Baptism by fire, Marquis. Baptism by fire.” That’s how it was for me. Lazarus gave me a locker and a uniform and told me to figure it out.
Why shouldn’t I do the same?
Because you are a good person.
No the fuck I am not. I’m a terrible awful person who must learn to put herself first.
So. “Sick.” Cough-cough-cough.
“You’re really doing this.” Soren groans and steps back from the door. His eyes remain on the peephole as I hold my breath.
He’s just standing there, staring at the door. Unmoving. It is, quite frankly, disturbing. I press my cheek tighter to the door, trying to see if he’s even breathing. When he just… walks away.
That’s it?
Why does that feel so deflating.
Because you were looking for a fight.
Ugh. I was. That’s because I’m lonely as fuck. Besides I thought Vex was taking me, he’s easier to manipulate. I wasn’t expecting a fight with Soren.
I turn around and look at my apartment. At the life I’ve slowly been rebuilding over the last three years.
It’s not much. I didn’t save a whole lot from what I left.
Actually, I left most of my things with my ex.
Except for the personal things I value. Like my Social Security card and my favorite ratty robe.
But the couch? Ikea.
The table? Secondhand.
No pictures decorate the walls. No personal touches.
I don’t exist in this space.
Not because I don’t live here, but my imprint is missing. Probably lost with my soul somewhere.
“Personalize it.” Hands on my hips, I march to my bedroom, shedding my clothes as I go.
Jeans, tank, flip-flops. Purse.
I’m going shopping. For, decor.
My thirty-two is officially showing.
I crack my door and peer into the darkening hallway. I don’t have a whole lot of time to get to the store before it closes, and I also don’t want to get caught by any of my coworkers. And Vex. Who I have yet to see since he moved in yesterday afternoon.
Which I watched through the peephole.
I still think that happened last minute. That it was unplanned.
Seeing no one, I rush down the hall, the opposite way from the front door.
Am I avoiding the possibility that Soren or maybe even Vex are out there, just waiting for me to break and go to work? Yes, I am.
So I take the fire escape to the ground floor and nearly run to the bus stop.
I feel like a teenager again. Sneaking out after dark. Which I never did. Calypso did.
I just went with her to keep her out of trouble. She did the sneaking. Not me.
Yeah, I know that isn’t exactly how it works, but here we are.
No one pays any attention to me when I get on the bus and slide onto a seat near the back. The familiar scent of diesel wafts over me as we pull away. I watch the windows for fancy black cars, anyone stalking me.
Which doesn’t happen. Yet, I can’t shake the vibe that they’re watching me somehow.
Maybe if I just check my phone.
Only when I reach into my purse do I realize I did not, in fact, remember to bring my phone.
This is good, Callie. That means they can’t track you.
Also it means I’m unplugged, and if I die no one will know where I am.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I close my eyes, dozing as the bus rumbles down tight streets.
I don’t mean to fall asleep, but I do. Maybe it’s the night shift. Maybe it’s the exhaustion of life. Hell, whatever it is, the moment I close my eyes my brain tosses me into a nightmare.
Something is off. I feel it the way all women know when life is about to fuck them sideways. I like to think it’s Mother Nature’s way of warning us when something is about to shake the foundation of our lives.
Except nothing happens. Not really. Despite the feeling lingering in the back of my throat.
I just can’t place it.
“Hey, baby.” The door opens with barely a creak, and James’s voice flows to me.
And just like that, my world feels right again.
I know I shouldn’t rely on him the way I do. But I can’t help it. I never really could.
My mom said it’s because I’m a relationship person.
I think it’s just dependency due to a high-risk pregnancy.
“James.” I step out into our breezeway, smiling at him.
He was always so fucking handsome. Tall, reminiscent of a Viking. Perfectly my James.
But when I hug him, I feel it.
The wrongness of him.
“You should be resting.” He drops his briefcase, wrapping his arms around me. He kisses the top of my head. All the moments are there. But it just feels… wrong.
Like hugging a coat that’s still warm from someone else wearing it.
I hug him a little tighter, I just don’t know why.
“Can’t sleep,” I say around a yawn. “Besides, it’s nearly four. Let’s go out for dinner.”
“What are you in the mood for.” He kisses me again, taking a step back.
“Thai.”
“That’s always your answer.”
“Because I always want Thai.” I settle on the couch, the wrongness still rolling through me.
I just watch him. He fixes his briefcase. Sets his keys aside. His phone on the entryway table.
It’s all normal.
But he isn’t.
He’s no longer my James. I just can’t figure out why.
I wake with a gasp as the bus stops. Luckily, it’s the one before my stop.
I breathe slowly, trying to settle my heart rate, but it’s already in my throat. My chest goes all splotchy as tears burn my eyes.
If I could go back to that moment, I’d… I’d hug myself. Whisper to me that I’ll get through it.
Because something was wrong that day. It just took me too long to trust myself after I pieced it together.
I should have known.
I swipe a tear away and get off at the next stop.
“New life,” I whisper. Even if it’s three years later.
I make my way into the home goods store, noting I have an hour until it closes. Which is the perfect amount of time to test every pillow I possibly can. Which is the only reason people go to these stores. Ever.
The pillow aisles.
Or maybe that’s just me.
Either way, I start with cream, touching every single pillow. Uncaring of the germs or the illnesses settling on them from every other person who does this.
I’m rounding the aisle to hit green when I hear it. Laughter.
Not that laughter is a trigger. It isn’t.
His laugh is.
And I’d know his laugh anywhere.
I freeze. All my memories sweeping me back to the life I no longer live. To the woman I no longer am. It’s like a cruel joke.
So when they walk out of the aisle and I’m still frozen, all I can do is stand there.
I know I’m not the person I was when I was with him. I know that logically.
That doesn’t mean my chest doesn’t go splotchy when I see him. And her. Happy.
It’s that last one that still kills me.
Just how fucking happy they are.
“Hey,” he says. James.
It’s like my dreams were trying to warn me. Sometimes they do that. Warn me of impending doom. I thought my dreams were broken, though. I haven’t had one that came with a warning in over three years.
Now they want to warn me again?
I should have stayed on the bus.
“Calliope!” she says. Her.
The woman who stole James from me.
Though Hadley would say you can’t steal what was so easy to walk away from.
Again, logically, I get that.
But my hindbrain is in charge right now.
Not the logical one.
And it isn’t even the one I caught him with, it’s the other one. Because for men like James, there is always a woman in his back pocket. One he’s grooming to be the next Mrs.
“Amber.” I look at her. Small and delicate. With a little perfectly round belly. “Congratulations.” Fuck, it’s hard to get the word out.
“Thank you!” She smiles, her freckles stretching. I never liked her smile. It always reminded me of how fake she was. Even when I met her all those years ago.
Years of she’s just a friend.
She’s just a coworker.
My work wife.
Well, now he’s married to his work wife, and it looks like they’re baking a brand new baby together.
Do I ask about Nadine? Nah. It’s Amber’s problem now. I caught him and Nadine in bed together, he left me for Nadine. Looks like the pattern hasn’t changed.
Time to leave. “I have a bus to catch.” I nod at both of them, though James looks surprised to even see me. “Bye.”
My legs finally move. Disconnected from my brain, they wander toward the kitchen section. Which I need nothing from. I get halfway down the aisle before I even realize it, and by then James is at the head of the aisle.
“Not today, Satan,” I mutter, and take off toward the next aisle.
“Callie, wait,” he calls to me.
“Nope. No. No thank you.” I speed-walk toward furniture. Where I can hide until morning. Likely in a box.
“Callie, please.” His voice follows me.
His voice used to make my heart skip. Now it just makes me want to throw up.
I duck behind a display of scented candles, crouching low as if I’m six years old playing hide-and-seek.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” I whisper to myself. I grab a lavender candle that smells like my grandmother’s bathroom. “Not today. Not ever again.”
But James keeps walking. His footsteps growing closer. The cologne he’s worn since college wafts to me thanks to the air conditioning. That scent used to make me feel safe.
“Callie, I know you’re there.” He’s right behind the display now.
I shoot to my feet, candle still in hand. “What do you want?”
James looks the same but different. Older. The laugh lines around his eyes have deepened, but there’s something else there too. Something I can’t quite read.
“You ran. You always run the second things get hard.” He drags a hand through his hair, that nervous gesture he’s always had when he’s about to say something difficult.