Chapter 17
chapter seventeen
The room was small, but it was so warm. The cot wasn’t the most comfortable thing I’d ever felt, but it was so much better than the pavement. It was better than anything I’d had in months.
Jack had convinced me to stay in his little makeshift room until after Christmas, since there’d be so much snow coming through.
I almost felt guilty for finally agreeing, but the amount of fight I’d put up made it worth it.
I knew there was a chance Callum had a hand in it, but I didn’t really mind.
At least not while I was beneath a thick, soft blanket with clean clothes on and a small lamp beside me to keep everything from going pitch black.
I pulled out my phone again, which only worked on Wi-Fi. Thankfully, Jack had felt even more generous and gave me the password so I could use it while I was in here. It was almost eleven at night on Christmas Eve, and I had nowhere to be. No one to care too much about me.
My eyes felt heavy, but my body was on high alert. I was fighting with my brain so much, I wasn’t sure if it’d shut off long enough to let me fall asleep.
A knock at the door had me jolting, sitting upright immediately. My arms felt shaky, and my head started to swim immediately. “Uh, hello?” I didn’t think anyone was supposed to come by.
“It’s me, Callum. Can I come in?”
Callum was here? “Yeah, it’s unlocked.” I closed my eyes to try to stave off the dizziness. The doorknob turned slowly as Callum pushed the door open, holding a bag with what looked like containers in it. “What are you doing here?”
He stopped right in the doorway. “Oh, I can go if that’s what you want. I just… ” He shrugged. “It’s Christmas Eve. I have to go somewhere tomorrow, so I don’t know if I’ll make it here, but I wanted to be here with you. Celebrate, or whatever.”
There wasn’t much worth celebrating, but it still warmed my heart just a little. Christmas used to be such a fun time for us. “Do you have keys to the place here or something? Jack said they were shutting down until after Christmas Day.”
He held up a set of keys. “I do. I’m as surprised as you are that Jack trusted me with them.”
“Yeah, I know how you are with losing them. What’s that?” I pointed at the bag in his hand.
“Oh, yeah.” He had to do a bit of a shuffle and pull a stool up close to the cot.
The room wasn’t really made to fit more than one person and a few storage items. “I brought some food. I saw Pops today, and we had our Christmas dinner together. I helped him cook, and he sent me home with most of the leftovers, so I thought we could eat some of them together. I won’t be able to eat it all. ”
I blinked at him as he set the containers on the edge of the cot in front of me. He’d brought me Christmas dinner? “I, um. I can’t promise I’ll eat much, either. My stomach is a bit off.”
“You look like you’re doing a lot better.
Your voice is clearer. Is it…” He cleared his throat and looked down, taking the lid off one of the containers.
There was turkey in it. Seasoned and juicy-looking turkey.
God, I missed eating his turkey on the holidays.
“Uh, is it from drinking? Your stomach being off, I mean.”
Right. I’d gotten pretty good at looking mostly sober when I was drunk, except for when I was too far gone.
I rummaged through the bag he’d brought, grabbing a paper plate and a plastic fork from it.
“I’m not drunk right now.” I couldn’t look at him.
Why? Why did I almost feel ashamed of myself?
So ashamed, I couldn’t bring myself to look him in the eyes when I told him that, no, I hadn’t numbed myself into oblivion?
It took a second for him to say anything. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
He went right back to opening containers, waiting for me to pick out what I wanted.
I picked up two small slices of turkey and one of the small baked potatoes.
They’d already been heated up to a nice warm temperature—not too hot, but not cold either.
The first bite of turkey had me closing my eyes and groaning.
It was nothing like my mom’s back home, but it was pretty fucking good. Callum could really cook a turkey.
“Remember our first year having dinner with Papa together?” The bottle of water in his hand crinkled as he twisted the top. “I was so embarrassed when he started interrogating you right after asking if you’d pass the green beans.”
Oh, did I. That had been my first introduction to Grandpa Stanton, and I was an absolute nervous wreck. “I thought he hated me for most of the night. You had told me so many stories about him, I was shocked when he acted so cold toward me.”
“He just had to get to know you a little. He loved you to pieces after that first night.”
“How is he doin’?”
Callum sighed, setting his fork down. “He’s doing alright for now.
He just got out of the hospital not too long ago.
Same day you left the same hospital, actually.
An infection spread, and it got really bad for a minute there.
He has some heart problems, so that didn’t help.
He’s getting older, and neither of us are ready to really accept that. ”
Shit, his grandpa had been in the hospital at the same time I had been? I couldn’t imagine how that must’ve felt for him. “I’m so sorry, Cal. It must be really hard to see him like this.”
“Yeah. But he’s a stubborn bastard. I know he’s got years ahead of him still, but we’re prepared for more health issues.
He was so healthy until around five years ago.
Suddenly, his heart was bad, he needed more support with walking, his lungs started bothering him…
” He shook his head. “It all happened at the same time. But I guess no matter how healthy someone is, old age will catch up to them eventually. But, uh, since we’re talking parental figures, how’s your mom? ”
The question shouldn’t have caught me off guard, but it did.
I wasn’t even sure how to answer that question.
My stomach started to turn, an aching nausea stirring in my gut.
I set my plate of food down on the cot, only half-eaten.
“I ain’t spoken to her in well over five or six years.
I…” My eyes started to burn. I blinked through the tears threatening to come and looked away.
“I have no idea how she’s doing. I’m not even sure if she’s alive.
I don’t think anyone would know how to tell me if she died, honestly.
I’m too afraid to look up obituaries, just in case. You know?”
Callum had stopped eating, too. Silence hung in the air. It was thick, and it tasted like premature grief. Grief of lives we’d yet to really lose but were ready to. “Fuck, Tobes. I’m so sorry. Did she, like, cut you off?”
It hurt to shake my head. Both from the dizziness and from the truth.
“Other way around. I stopped talkin’ to her before things got any worse than they already were.
” I stared at the lamp beside us and the way the light never wavered.
It never flickered or dimmed. It just stayed consistent and constant—things I feared I’d never be.
“So she was scared for you, and you didn’t want her to see all the bad stuff happen?”
“Yeah.” I took a deep breath, letting my eyes fall shut as all the memories rushed in at once.
They were mostly a blur now. “After I left, it was just one thing after another. One person after another. I was desperately tryin’ to find where I fit in if it wasn’t with you, and I was thrown back into this never-ending cycle.
When one started to hit me, it reminded me of Thompson and his sick obsession with seeing bruises and blood on little boys. Like me. Like Crew.”
The crinkle of a water bottle caught my attention. I turned to Callum, who was gripping one in his hand so tight, it was deformed beyond repair. “Who? Who were they?”
I could see the rage in him. I could feel it coming off him in waves.
It was hot—burning, fucking hot. “It doesn’t matter.
Nothing can change what’s already happened.
I deserved it, Cal. I deserved it after leaving y’all like I did.
After doing something so callous and not having the fuckin’ balls to own up to my mistake.
I could’ve. I could’ve just come back.” I shook my head.
“But when one of them started to touch me, I drank for the first time, and it made everything go away.”
I scooted backward a little, leaning against the wall.
I looked up at the ceiling instead of at Callum because if I did, I’d break.
I couldn’t break. Not yet. “I never stopped drinking, and I never stopped falling for love that wasn’t love.
I’d think a guy was great, and he would be at first. But the moment I moved in with him, it’d all change.
And then I’d be so fuckin’ gaslit, I wouldn’t leave.
I’d just drink. I’m stuck in a never-ending, vicious fucking cycle, Callum.
And so far, the only thing that’s made it all better is drinking.
It makes my brain stop, it makes my body numb, and sometimes, if I’m lucky, it’ll make me forget entirely. ”
“Tobi…”
“Mom was a wreck the entire time. She was trying to get me to come back home, but I couldn’t do that.
I couldn’t. The moment she started giving up, I knew it was time.
She stopped pesterin’ me to get sober. Stopped trying to move me back.
I knew I needed to let her go so I could keep letting myself go.
I’d rather she not have a son at all if it meant she didn’t watch me ruin my life more than it already was. ”
Callum didn’t say anything. I started to get nervous. Had I said something wrong? Was he angry? I tilted my head down, looking right at him just as he sniffled. Tears were falling freely down his cheeks. His nose was red. His lips were a bit red, too. His lips always got red when he cried.