Calliope #2
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I’m sorry I took his side when you were screaming, he was a shitty person.” Her eyes peer through me. As though she’s apologizing to my soul not just me. And maybe she is. “I’m sorry I never believed you.”
I can’t look at her.
“Why now?” I ask again. “You moved home when? A year ago?”
“I missed you.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“And I want to know you.” She’s trying so hard to keep her shit together. She always was the stronger one of us.
“I don’t understand why you need to know where I am and who I’m with all the sudden.” I push. “You and Madison disappeared and left me with Vex.”
“And I never should have done that,” she says quickly.
Wait. “What do you have against Vex.”
“Everything.” She rubs her temples. “I can’t…” she growls. “Remember when you were a kid and swore you saw—”
“Vampires.” I laugh but there’s no humor in it. “Hundreds of hours in therapy have taught me sleep deprivation will do that to you.”
She blows out a breath. “If I had listened to you blindly what would that have meant to you? What would have happened?”
“I don’t know.” I look out the window watching James move past their windows. The lights going out one by one. “I don’t know what I would have done. Research.”
“You did that anyway,” she says. “Just believe me. Be cautious of Vex, and Soren, and Lazarus.”
“You think I’m not?” I look back at her.
“James fucked me up so badly that I look at them and I either want to go all in or run and I don’t know which I’m going to end up doing.
That’s not even getting into the realization there’s three of them and one of me and I’d have to choose.
But here’s the thing, Calypso, I don’t even know how to choose me, how could I choose anyone else. ”
“You don’t talk about it,” Calypso murmurs, grabbing that one truth. “About what happened with James.”
“You don’t talk about where you went at eighteen,” I counter. “Or why you befriended James over me.”
“Maybe we should.” She says it so softly I have to look away.
“You want to talk about it?” I have to pull the words out.
“Not all at once. But pieces of it.” She licks her lips. “I’ll go first.”
“Not tonight.” I swipe away my tears. “I can’t do it tonight.”
She looks almost defeated by that. Hurt that I don’t want to talk to her right now. “I only have enough to handle my pain and I want to be there for you.” Stupid tears. “I can’t be the person you need to hold your secrets right now, Calypso.”
“Then don’t be.” She grabs my hand. Threading her fingers through mine. “But if you need me to just hear you right now. I’m listening. Even if you want to tell me the first hurt that pops up.”
I sniffle and nod. Swallowing over and over and over again.
Instead of opening my mouth I reach for the bags below. “You brought plastic spoons.”
“Always.”
I rip open some ice cream and shovel a spoon in my mouth. “He was the first person to love me after you.” The words drift out while my eyes catch the second light going out. “I thought, hey this guy is pretty amazing. Our first date was awful. We went to the mall. Who does that?”
“Terrible first date,” she agrees.
“Our first date was to buy his mom a birthday gift.” I shake my head. “I wish I knew then what I know now.”
“Hindsight.”
“I found out early on he was still talking to his ex-girlfriend.” Tears burn my eyes all over again. “He ah, never broke up with her. He just dated us both until he figured out he was going to go all in with me.”
“Seriously?”
“I told myself that’s normal. People can date multiple others during that time frame.” I sniff still not believing all the fucking lies I told myself just to get through the day.
“Did he say you were official?”
A little sob comes out of me like a bark. “Yeah.”
“Then he was secretly dating two women.” She tosses out my reality so easily. Like it’s so simple.
“I should have left then.” I lick the mint vanilla off the spoon unable to see past my tears. “I didn’t because he said he loved me and I was so desperate for someone to just love me. Does that make me a fool?”
“You took a chance, Cal.” Calypso squeezes my hand. “That doesn’t make you a fool.”
I stare at the house across the street, watching shadows move behind the curtains. “I took every chance he gave me. Even when the chances hurt.”
“Tell me one more thing,” she says softly, “then we can go. Or stay. Whatever you need.”
I swallow hard, the ice cream suddenly tasteless in my mouth.
“He always made me feel like I was too much. Too emotional. Too sensitive. Too needy. He never really said it. But we’d argue and he’d just stare at me until I was done.
Then he’d nod or he’d just… walk away mid argument.
” My voice cracks. “And the worst part is I believed I was too emotional. Just too much. I spent years trying to be less... me.”
“Callie—”
“I even made a list. Ways to be less intense. Less passionate. Less... everything.” The memory burns through me. “I stopped wearing my favorite colors because he said they were too bright. I stopped laughing too loud. I stopped crying altogether.”
Calypso’s grip tightens on my hand. “You’re perfect exactly as you are.”
“I don’t know what I am anymore,” I whisper. “I spent so long being what he wanted that I don’t remember who I was before.”
We sit in silence, the engine idling quietly. The last light in the house goes out, leaving just the porch light to illuminate the perfect garden, and their perfect fucking lawn.
“And now. I have these men. I have these options. And Soren was sad tonight and all I wanted was to make him feel better but last time I tried to do that I lost myself.” I swipe the tears away. “I don’t know how to be less me.”
“Who said you have to be less you?”
“Me, my brain.”
“Did Soren say that?” She acts like it’s hard for her to say his name.
“No, he just didn’t say anything.” I laugh-cry. “He didn’t say anything.”
“Just like James used to walk away.”
The tears come hard because damn it all to hell she’s right.
“I think I need to go home,” I say finally.
Calypso nods, starting the engine. “Your place or mine?”
“Mine. Just take me home.”
“Callie.”
“Yeah,”
“One day, someone will love you so deeply that all these parts of you that you swear are broken, just won’t exist anymore.”
I can’t look at her as she says the words. All I can do is keep my eyes forward. If I look at her, I’ll break again.
I’m far too close to the edge I’ve been dancing on for years.
“Promise.”
“Pinky promise.” She holds out her pinky waiting for me to link mine.
And I do.