20. Doing Time
TWENTY
Doing Time
SHANNON
A weary woman with a clipboard and a mane of teased red hair gestured between Shannon and Caleb with a pen. “You two aren’t going to kill each other, are you? I figure you won’t, since you went after the same guy.”
They nodded and didn’t glance at each other.
“Thank God,” she said. “You saved yourself a trip to the drunk tanks, and they’re pretty full tonight.” She pointed her pen at two large holding cells, one for men, one for women, where people in various states of intoxication clamored and slept and crowded one another. “If you were going to be jerks,” she continued, “I’d have to put you in there even though you’re not drunk. All we have to do on you two is paperwork, but it might be a little bit. The men’s swim team decided to inebriate half of the freshman class tonight, looks like, and some out-of-town clowns rolled in to pick a fight with the fencing club.” She clicked her tongue. “Should’ve used real swords so we could send them all off in ambulances, but no. Here we are with bruises and bad attitudes. Listen, you two, if you can be one less pain in my ass, we’ll just get this done.”
“Happy to help,” Caleb said. Shannon nodded agreement and followed the officer to a smaller holding cell around the corner from the desk where they kept watch on the intoxicated detainees.
“Did I hear you right?” Caleb asked, not looking at Shannon as she settled on a bench opposite him. “Did you call Hayden ‘Ryan’ back there?”
“I did,” Shannon said. She followed his lead and stared straight ahead, biting the inside of her cheek to keep a neutral expression. She wanted to scream and hug him in shared triumph almost as much as she wanted to yank his beautiful, disheveled hair and curse him for literally beating her to the punch.
Caleb held out his open hands. “Why?”
“Because that’s his name,” she said. “Look up ‘Ryan Hayden Hamilton’ when you get your phone back and see who you find.”
“Is this my scavenger hunt to learn why you were kicking the guy in the head back there? Or is that just more normal bad breakup shit for you?”
“Oh, totally normal.”
“Yippee.” He groaned. “Wow. I wanted to apologize for what happened at the writing group, and now it looks like I dodged a bullet.”
“Excuse me?” she asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What does it sound like? I fell for you in about ten seconds, and for about ten hours I thought you were someone you clearly aren’t,” he said, simmering. “And for some reason, I’m still crazy about you. It’s a good thing I didn’t get in over my head and end up being the next guy whose life you want to destroy.”
“Caleb, that is not what’s going on here. I would never do that to you.”
“I bet you had some pretty promises for him at one point.”
“He deserves this,” she said, lowering her brows. “It’s more than you think, more than Nina and more than me.”
“Nicksy made it sound like he had a history of trying to pull this stunt.”
“It’s more than that. It’s a long story.”
Caleb gestured broadly to the cell and empty hall. “It looks to me like we’ve got nothing but time, Shan. Enlighten me. Please.”
She tested the waters. “Well, one of the smaller problems is that he lied to the NCAA recruiters.”
Caleb’s brows shot up.
“He did his recruitment with his real name until his senior year of high school, then dropped his first initial when it became ‘inconvenient,’” she said, air-quoting with disdain. “When he signed here, he only used his middle and last names, not his legal name. Everything he signed called for his full name. I’m sure you remember how it was.”
“Jesus. Why?” Caleb squeaked through his raw throat. Shannon knew from her friends’ recruitment that any of them could have blinked wrong during the rigorous process and their future in college sports would vanish.
She paused. “He’s like your brother and has something he wanted to leave behind.”
Caleb exhaled a long, heavy breath, sinking his shoulders. “I figured Missy told you something about that. ”
“Not much. She told me you stood up for ‘someone,’ and didn’t say who,” Shannon said. “I knew right away it was one of them. Which?”
Smoldering, Caleb didn’t look up. “Why do you care? It has nothing to do with you.”
“Why do you care so much about Hayden’s real name, or why I kicked him in the head?” she countered. “You smashed his face. I hardly think you’re upset about his injuries.”
“Because I want to know what you’re so mad about. I had him down and Berk already called the cops. You just made a bigger mess, and it probably wasn’t about football recruitment. I didn’t even know you were there until you stomped in and made a scene.”
“A scene on top of your scene.”
“His scene,” Caleb said. “And he had it coming.”
“Finally, we agree. Which brother was it? I want to know what you’re so mad about.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Caleb said between clenched teeth. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Your internet search with his real name will only get you the first half of the story. Tell me what happened, and then I’ll tell you.”
“Why do I have to go first?”
Shannon scooted back on her bench and pulled up her feet, hugging her knees to her chest. She lowered her voice. “I need to hear your story first, so I know you’re not just making something up to sound better than Hayden.”
“That bar is so low you’ve got fleas jumping over it,” he grumbled. “You want to believe me? Why should I believe you? You flipped out on me at the library. I thought we understood each other, and the way you looked at me… ”
“What?”
“You were gone. Like there was nothing between us and never had been, and we were strangers again.”
“It was never ‘nothing,’ and I have never been a stranger to you.”
Her eyes met Caleb’s as the words hung in the air between them like a cloud rumbling thunder.
“Then what the hell changed since last week?” he asked. He balled his hands into fists, grinding half-moons into his palms with his fingernails. “We were going to make something happen for us, and you just snapped. Why? I know it wasn’t because you didn’t want me anymore, because I remember every night what you feel like when you do. I know that was real.”
She knocked her head back against the wall. “It was real to me, too,” she said. “Every night, I remember how it feels with you, and every night, I feel stupid for pushing you away, all right? Tell me the story, then I’ll tell you mine, and we’ll stop this.”
Clenching his jaw, he stared at the wall and waited.
She tightened her arms, pulling herself into a ball.
“It was Luke,” he said finally. “The one in the red tonight.”
Shannon’s jaw went slack. She wasn’t sure which of them she expected it to be. She didn’t want it to be any of them.
“What did he do?”
“He got mad and hit her.”
“Just the one time? Or a lot?”
“Why do you care?” he asked. “It was three years ago.”
“I care because I’m tired of thinking you’re an asshole for defending a guy who hurts women. I’m tired of hating you even a little,” she said. “It’s exhausting. I’m exhausted. ”
“Well, you’re not the only one.”
“I need to know he’s not like… like him.” She rasped the words, staring at the bars.
Caleb squeezed his palms to his reddened cheeks. “It was just the one incident,” he said, barely audible. “He was stressed and mad, and he lost it. He was sixteen.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“Thank you, I know that,” he snapped. “What he did was wrong. None of us defended what he did. We defended him.”
Shannon unfolded herself and sat straight. “What’s the difference? Our actions define us.”
“And what you did to screw with Hayden defines you?”
“I hope it does,” she said. “He deserved it. Your brother’s girlfriend didn’t deserve to be hit.”
“Of course she didn’t. But who made you the judge over everyone?” Caleb asked. “Luke didn’t deserve to have everyone he knew turn on him.”
Shannon gripped the edge of the bench to keep from clawing him. “If he was sixteen, he knew better.”
“Oh, he did,” Caleb said. “That’s why he wanted to die of shame after it happened, and since shame can’t actually kill you, he considered doing it himself to make up for what he did to her. Is that repentant enough for you, Your Honor?”
She stared, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, as he rambled on.
“We defended his humanity, not his actions. My brothers and I were the only people who stuck by him,” Caleb said, trying to regulate his breaths. He balled his hands into fists again, clenching and unclenching as he inhaled and exhaled, and Shannon matched her breath patterns to his as she moved to his side without thinking .
“We are his family. He needed help, not a wall of turned backs. That goofball you met on the lawn a while ago was broken inside. Our father gave up on him. I don’t mean he just disowned him or anything. He dragged me and my brothers out to play a stupid football game one night when Luke was in a really dark place. We didn’t want to leave him alone. And Dad said… he said…”
She reached for his shoulder, and he pushed her hand away.
He swallowed hard and dragged his hands through his hair as he blinked back his gathering tears. “Dad said he didn’t care what Luke did. Even if he hurt himself, or worse. And I know he was angry and struggling, but we all heard the guy who used to be our hero say he didn’t care if one of us died. It was too hard for him to figure out what to do with a son who shattered all the illusions, so he gave up.”
Caleb scrabbled on the bench for her hand and grabbed it without looking, squeezing so tight her fingers hurt. “How do you think people turn their lives around? They get support. Murderers get out of jail with support systems to help them become better people. Our family was supposed to have his back—not to let him get away with it, but to help him. To believe in him when he went to a bunch of classes and did community service. We told him we knew he wasn’t a monster because he was owning what he did. But during all that, our dad acted like being his parent was as dirty a job as being his accomplice.”
Shannon heard the hitch in his breath and waited.
“I know this sounds like a family fight,” he said, pressing his palms to his cheeks again. “Like, why didn’t my dad just apologize for what he said? ”
“It sounds like it runs a lot deeper than that,” Shannon said.
“He’s a different man than he was my entire life,” Caleb said. “He was a god on earth to us. He taught us everything, and now I don’t know how much of it was a show to him. He didn’t know how to have three perfect sons and one broken one, and I didn’t know what to do when a few words out of his mouth shattered everything I thought I knew about the man he was and the man I’m supposed to be.”
He twisted his hand around hers as he spoke, tangling and untangling their fingers in a nervous dance. She stroked his wrist and located his speeding pulse, pressing lightly with her thumb as she willed her touch to quiet his blood.
“I didn’t speak up for Luke when it mattered,” Caleb said, his voice wobbling. “Eli did. I saw him get in our father’s face and shout at him about how he was treating him unfairly. I saw Isaac get between them, and I just stood there. Then when they were all gone and it was just me, I… if my dad said something about him, I just let it go. I didn’t confront him, I didn’t walk away, I just let it go.”
Without thinking, she lifted her hand and stroked his hair. He caught her fingers and twined them in his. “I stood up for my brother at school. But all I could do at home was refuse haircuts. It’s so stupid.”
“You were fifteen.”
“Eli was sixteen and nose-to-nose with our father one day, then going behind his back with college recruitment the next day. My dad played professionally for a while and knows everyone in football, and he’s one of those people who loves to make a call as a favor. Eli wanted to show the old man we didn’t need his money, and we didn’t need him to pull strings for us to succeed. And what did I do? Nothing.”
“You said there were illusions about your family,” Shannon said. “I saw your preppy cute brothers out there, and I bet you used to look just like them in those matchy clothes your mom likes. You were your dad’s little scout troop. That’s the chaos, isn’t it? Everything you thought was solid in your life went out of your control. It’s why you do the endorsements now, even though you hate them. You don’t have to take money from your dad anymore. That’s something you can own.”
“I don’t know how you understood all that before we met,” he said, bewildered. “I don’t know how you know all that right now.”
“It sort of explains why storms feel like home to you.”
Caleb’s mouth went slack.
“I don’t know why my eyes felt like a storm to you,” Shannon went on. “Flirtatious young men in the past have said my eyes are peaceful. Maybe it’s because you’re not flirtatious.”
“Maybe they don’t like storms.”
The circles under Caleb’s eyes seemed to darken as he spoke, and his cheeks, so easily flushed by stress, stayed pale above the stubble gathering on his jawline. He was close enough to kiss his lips, but his eyes were hollowed with pain, and miles away.
“That’s the story.” Caleb abruptly released her hand, stood, and began to pace. “Sometimes, I think that people who judge us have been lucky enough that they never need to call on their family for something so awful. I hope your family loves you no matter what mistakes you make. I hope you have someone who will post bond for you tonight because they love you so much they will always claim you for their own. Even now, I still love my dad enough to be grateful my mom is so tough and won’t give up on him.”
She chewed her nails, but anxious words tumbled out. “Caleb, I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have?—”
“I guess Missy didn’t tell you all that.”
“No.”
He blew out a long breath. “I bet she left out a few other things. I bet she made it sound like she was so disgusted she dumped me.”
Shannon nodded.
“We were together for almost a year after it happened, and I broke up with her.”
“A year?”
“She made a big show of standing by me and being so supportive of ‘my choices.’ It sounds stupid and arrogant to say going out with one of us was a status thing, but we were big shit in a small town. Missy had her eye on my family and maybe the money more than she cared about me, and made that clear in some social media posts on channels I didn’t follow. My friends saw them. And the main reason I was an inexperienced idiot when I met you is because my high school girlfriend wanted to ‘accidentally’ get pregnant.”
“She what ?”
“I told you to ask her. She might not have told you, anyway.”
“So when you heard what I did to Hayden…?”
“Bingo.”
She leaned against the wall again and tipped her head up to contemplate the ceiling of the tiny cell in tense silence. When she looked down, Caleb was seated next to her with a hand over his pocket, bending the edge of a piece of paper he halfway retrieved and then pushed back, over and over—whatever note she saw Isaac scribble and shove in his hand when the police arrived. Something brotherly and supportive to tell him they had his back like they had Luke’s, and that note would mean more to the heartbroken fifteen-year-old in his memory than any words or touch of comfort she could offer in the present.
Elouise would write her a sweet note like that. Nina probably would. Missy. They would love her enough to come get her, take her home and make her tea. But outside the privacy of a folded paper in his pocket, Caleb’s heart lay on the floor between them, pulsing with hurt, confusion, and a love that loved so hard he didn’t know what to do with it but bleed.
Shannon placed her hand over his to stop the fidgeting. He sat motionless for a moment as she curled her fingers around his. She waited.
“Caleb Fields?” came an officer’s voice as he rounded the corner. He flourished a clipboard and pen.
Caleb rose from the bench, straightening his shoulders to disguise his exhaustion. He and the officer conferred in hushed voices Shannon couldn’t make out. She thought she heard him say her name as she stared at her boots, head spinning.
The officer’s key clicked in the lock and jolted her from her daze as the gate opened.
Caleb looked back. “It’s been a long night,” he said. “I’m tired of being judged, and I bet you are, too.”
“I owe you an apology,” she said, rising from the bench. “ And an explanation. I really want to tell you what happened. I need to tell you.”
He scrubbed his hands across his face and back through his hair. “You didn’t treat me any worse or judge me any more than I did you.”
“Caleb, I mean it. I need to explain. You deserve an explanation.”
“I’ll see you for the next round of papers after break. I’m sorry. Truce.”