59. Caleb
Caleb
MOM
MOM
honey where are you?
please pick up
we need to talk Caleb
ICEHAWKS BITCHES
CRAWFORD
we’re here for you boys, whatever you two or Evie need. an ear to listen, a smash room recommendation, fists to pummel a face…one text is all it takes
ASHFORD
take all the time you need and let Evie know our PR is on it and trying to get the articles taken down. Layla has started hunting for some books to distract her when she’s ready
O’CONNOR
Cindy is collecting fancy wine for Evie as we speak
CRAWFORD
Bella is also baking up a storm
IRVING
I’ve asked a few of my bunnies to kick anyone out of chats that are spreading it
LEWIS
who knew the bunnies would pull through for once
but same here boys, thinking of you both and Evie
MITCHEL
My brother’s interning at a criminal defense office. I’ll have him send over numbers for you if needed
JOHNSON
gutted for you all. please tell Evie that we have her back, the whole team. we’re her family, always were and always will be
My phone won’t stop vibrating.
You’d think the heartfelt messages from the guys on the team would warm the cold that’s seeped into my bones, and perhaps it would if my mother’s contact would stop flashing across my home screen.
If you told me two days ago that I’d have dread settling into the pit of my stomach at seeing my mom calling me, I would have laughed in your face, and yet here I am, sitting on the cabin’s veranda at three o’clock in the morning, staring down at my phone in my hands as the screen goes black, the thirty-seventh call ignored.
Until it starts up again.
This is how precious life is, how fast it can change and how quickly your entire world, everything you ever thought you knew, can flip on its axis, throwing you into a reality that you’re struggling to grapple with. One that makes you want to close your eyes and never wake up.
There’s a small part of me that wants to pick up the phone, that wants to break down and be consoled by the woman that was always there for me through every hard bump in my life, but I know I won’t get that version.
Perhaps that version never existed.
Because how could I have such a kind, loving mother while that same woman rejects Evie? She told her point blank she doesn’t believe her. She chose a monster over her own daughter.
I don’t want to hear her lies. It will only anger me and I don’t think my heart can handle any more hatred.
It’s one more blip away from exploding. My head feels full, my body at its capacity, and for once in my life I’m wondering if I can face what’s ahead of me.
The feelings aren’t lessening, my mind isn’t settling, and the guilt that continues to suffocate me… might succeed.
Growing up, the pressure of hockey and the weight of standards for me to perform felt like they were taking me to the bottom of the ocean. Felt like they were trying to drown me as I did everything to keep my head afloat. And all that was nothing compared to how I feel now.
Nothing in my life has ever prepared me for this devastation.
And for the first time since I was sixteen, filled with anxiety and such deep emotions, all I can think about is the only way I could find relief back then…
No one knows. No one looks closely at the white lines on my hips. No one bats an eye when I get changed.
But I know it’s there, taunting me whenever I feel that overwhelming tidal wave building and surging.
How fucking pathetic am I that the only struggles in my life were that I could barely cope with the performance anxiety and stress weighing on my shoulders. Meanwhile, my sister laid down the hallway, just one wall separating us as our father…
My body snaps upright as I hurl over the railing, just making it in time to aim my bile at the dirt and not the veranda wood.
I can’t stop seeing it and I didn’t even experience it.
I can’t imagine the memories that haunt Evie, and I didn’t even know.
Not one inkling.
Nothing ever gave it away.
I thought I was lucky growing up. There were so many guys on my team that had divorced parents or fathers that yelled at them in the parking lot after a game loss. Yet mine was supportive—ironic, really, considering the anxiety I felt—and I was immensely grateful for the father I had.
Isn’t it fucking disgusting how you can be in the same household, have the same parents, and yet have tremendously different childhoods?
I’m her big brother. I’m supposed to protect her. I’ve always tried, have always been there when a boy made her cry or girls were mean to her. And yet, when it mattered most, I wasn’t there for her.
I fucking turned her away for God’s sake. She was standing in my bedroom begging to be saved and I was too selfishly consumed to ever notice her fear.
I mean what I said to Evie earlier—I fucking hate myself. I’ve never hated myself like I do now.
I wish I—
The door behind me opens. Wiping my mouth, I lift my head to find my best friend, not looking any better than I do. His usually kept hair is tousled as if he’s run his hands through it a thousand times. His normally golden-brown skin is ashen, his eyes bloodshot.
Does he hate me too? Does Evie?
Do they hate me for not saving her?
Do they hate me like I hate myself?
My lower lip wobbles for what feels like the thousandth time.
“Does it ever stop?” I ask, my voice like broken glass.
“Does what?”
“The hatred? The self-loathing? I can’t stop imagining what he did, I can’t stop seeing it…I can’t fucking stop it, Matteo. I didn’t stop it.”
“We didn’t know, Caleb.”
I face him fully as another tear slowly rolls down my cheek.
“I should have known. She’s my sister, and he was my dad—” I stumble over that word, that broken word that will never be the same again.
Pounding my chest, I cry, “I should have noticed. I should have stopped it. I was just down the fucking hall while he was hurting her!”
I’m screaming now, my voice breaking, but it’s nothing compared to how much my heart physically hurts. I’d take a bullet over this pain; I’d take getting hit by a train over feeling this.
I want it to stop.
I want it all to stop.
I want my thoughts to stop spinning.
I want the pain to stop consuming me.
I want my head to not feel so full of the hatred for myself that demands me to pick up a blade and—
Matteo steps into my space, his arms coming around me, and it’s all my body needs to jump off the ledge it’s been dancing along. I crumble for the hundredth time since hearing what our father did to my sister.
“I know,” he whispers, his own voice hoarse. “I know,” he repeats, and then suddenly, I’m not the only one breaking, not the only one crying.
Matteo Valenti, man made of steel, shatters in my arms for the girl we both love.
“I was just down the hall,” I whisper mournfully.
“We both were.”
I pull back, tears rolling unabashedly down Matteo’s cheeks. “How did we not know?”
He shakes his head, a muscle feathering in his jaw. “He was good at hiding, good at putting on a facade. Most pedophiles are. They’re skilled manipulators.” He pauses. “He didn’t want anyone to know, Caleb. Of course we weren’t going to see signs.”
A derisive snort escapes me. Stepping away, I wipe off my face, sniffling. “And to think I was being a dick to her while she was dealing with all of this…” The guilt that’s been a constant pain rears its ugly head again, stealing the breath from me.
“You didn’t know, Caleb.”
I shake my head. “There’s no excuse. I shouldn’t have been a dick regardless of this.” Something cracks inside my chest as I whisper, “Did I not make her feel safe enough to tell me?”
It shouldn’t even be a thought. It fucking shouldn’t, and yet it is.
Why Matteo?
Why not me?
His lips thin into what appears to be his attempt of a sad smile. “I tried to convince her to tell you. She was hellbent on not upsetting you.”
My eyes all but pop out of my head. “Me?” I ask incredulously. “Why was she protecting me?”
“We both idolized him growing up. She didn’t want to destroy that.”
“She didn’t destroy it,” I snarl. “He did.”
Matteo raises his hands as if in surrender. “I’m just repeating what she said. I didn’t agree with it. It fucking killed me to look you in the eye and know I was keeping such a thing from you.”
The passing weeks click into place. “That’s why you were avoiding me?”
Shrugging, he drops his hands by his sides. “I couldn’t face you knowing what I knew. We were already on rocky footing, so it made it easy to just…”
“Avoid me.”
Grimacing, Matteo dips his chin.
Blowing out a heavy breath, I flop down into the seat I vacated. To my utter annoyance, I sit on my phone, which is still vibrating. I run a hand through my hair. “I’m a fucking jackass.”
Taking the seat beside mine, Matteo repeats, “You didn’t know she was dealing with this.”
“But I knew something was happening. It’s why I was so mad at you two.
I knew there was something else she was keeping from me and it fucking hurt that I was no longer the person she came to when she was upset.
I just got tunnel vision and instead of looking at myself to wonder why she wasn’t opening up to me I…
punished her.” Rubbing my hand over the stubble I need to shave, I add, “I shouldn’t have treated her the way I did.
It just gave me so much fucking anxiety, I was a live wire. ”
“Has it been getting bad again?” Matteo asks softly.
I look out toward the forest. It’s fitting, the darkness seems to match the sadness filling my body. Shrugging, I purposely don’t answer him—we have bigger issues to fry at the moment and my pesky goddamn anxiety is not going to be one of them.
Because I’m fucking tired of it.
It’s like a niggling feeling that something is going to happen.
Like a friend is talking behind your back or a meeting isn’t going to go well.
But when you try to confront the feeling—ask the friend what’s going on, try to probe into the contract—you’re met with standard refusals, that everything’s fine and there’s no need to worry.
But it leaves your mind reeling, your thoughts spinning and heart raging. Because you know something is off. You feel it within your soul.
And then later, that feeling turns out to be right. Your friend has been badmouthing you for weeks, and that apparently normal meeting is you being fired.
Every single time, your feeling turns out to be right, and yet when you try to confront it early and people deny it, it makes you feel crazy.
That’s how I felt with Evie. I held a lot of resentment toward her because she’s never made me feel that way, and whenever I did see her I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her, demanding her to let me in and tell me.
In this instance, I hate to be right, hate that the feeling was correct and that there was something she was hiding from me.
I just thought it was Matteo. I thought they were lying about when they got together. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it was something as sinister as this. If I knew, even just an inkling, I would have been supportive, would have told her to take her time.
Instead, I was a self-righteous prick hellbent on proving that my feeling that she was hiding something from me was right.
Leaning forward, I place my forearms on my knees, watching Matteo out the corner of my eye, his own thoughts spinning. “You’ve been taking care of her?”
His gaze flicks to me then as he says sincerely, “In the best way I possibly could. I knew it wasn’t just about Carter cheating.”
Blowing out a breath, I drop my head. “Fuck. When she told me he and Felicity got close after she explained everything to them, it made me want to throttle him. Still do.”
“Trust me, I’m feeling very fucking happy with myself over the fact I pummeled his face the last time I saw him.
” He rubs his temple. “But he’s the least of our concerns now.
I’ve been there for her the moment she told me.
Did the research, found her the therapist, helped her through nightmares and flashbacks.
I have tried to piece her shattered heart back together but the way he’s trying to tarnish her name while your mom stands beside him and supports him…
I can’t fix that, Caleb. It’s fucking breaking her.
” A muscle feathers in his jaw. “She didn’t come all this way, didn’t start healing the horrors he put her through, only for him to win. ”
“He won’t,” I vow. “We’ll get the best damn lawyers there are and fucking hammer him into the ground until he’s rotting in a cell. I’ve heard how they treat pedophiles in prison and he deserves every bit of pain coming his fucking way.”
“Couldn’t agree more with you.” Matteo’s brow arches. “And your mom?”
My heart turns as cold as my voice. “As far as I’m concerned, she’s dead to both of us.”
Silence falls heavy over us, but the way I’ve treated both him and Evie about their relationship continues to worm its way through my mind. A tiny voice growing in volume until it’s screaming at me about how horrible I am.
Coughing, I try to swallow past the boulder of emotion stuck in my throat.
“I want to make it clear that I’m beyond happy that you two are together, truly.
I hope my reaction can just be forgotten, but I know it can’t, so I’m sorry.
So fucking sorry, because there is no other man I would want to be with my sister.
I know your heart, Matteo, and I know you’ll treat her the way she deserves. I’m sorry I ever doubted that.”
Matteo’s eyes grow glassy as he clears his throat. “Thanks, Caleb. That means more to me than you’ll ever know.”
Clapping a hand on his shoulder, I squeeze. “You were always my brother. Put a ring on her and you’ll officially get the title.”
His lip twitches. “Once we get her through all of this, you best believe I’ll do everything to show her I’m worthy of the honor of being called her husband.”
“Good.”
After a beat of silence, my phone starts vibrating again. Growling in frustration, I decline the call then block my mother’s number. “This is why she threw away her phone, isn’t it?”
His lips thin, the movement answer enough.
A bark of humorless laughter escapes me. “And here I was, fucking my way through Greece while she was dealing with all this.” Shaking my head, I murmur, “I’ll never forgive myself.”
“You need to, Caleb. You—”
“Didn’t know,” I finish for him. “I got it. Doesn’t mean I deserve to forgive myself.” I hold up my hand as his lips purse. “Save your breath, brother. I won’t believe a word of it anyway.”
I don’t deserve to.