22. Someone Who Loves You
TWENTY-TWO
Someone Who Loves You
SHANNON
“Charger,” Shannon wheezed, stumbling into her dorm room after a jog up six flights of stairs. “My phone’s been dead since I don’t know when.”
“I’ve been calling you,” Elouise said, catching her in a hug, then jumping back to cover her reddened nose with a tissue. “I was so worried. What the hell happened to you? Nina said you were arrested, and she didn’t know if they were letting you out, or when, or anything at all, really.”
Shannon held up a finger, then shuffled on her desk for her phone charging cable. The lightning bolt on the screen blinked merrily, and she exhaled.
“I was in jail.”
“For what?” Elouise demanded.
“Let’s start with ‘with whom,’ please.”
“With whom were you in jail?”
“Caleb Fields.”
Elouise covered her mouth. “Can I ask ‘for what’ now?” she asked, mumbling through closed fingers .
“Assaulting Hayden Hamilton.” A smile curved Shannon’s lips. “Both of us.”
Groaning, Elouise flopped into her desk chair. “Either Nina didn’t tell me anything, or I was really high on that codeine cough syrup last night. What the hell? That was not part of your little plan.”
“Caleb knocked him out for trying to drug Nina’s drink, and I kicked him in the head a few times just for good measure,” Shannon said. “I think this actually accomplishes a great deal toward the ultimate goal.”
“Yep, it was the codeine,” Elouise sighed. “My ultimate goal is to have you committed. I’ll send him off with you, if you like. You two can make stubborn little knucklehead babies.”
“I wouldn’t mind that.”
“Is Nina joining us in the Vigilante Circus?”
“She offered her services.” Shannon climbed the ladder to her loft bed and lay down, then pried off her boots with her toes and sent them clattering to the floor. “On record, I was a bitch to ditch my friends for a boy. I’ll sign a statement. All of you are too good to me.”
“Now please tell me that sometime in jail you and Caleb actually talked about how you’re soulmates and totally stupid for each other,” Elouise said, dabbing her nose.
Shannon shook her head. “We didn’t get to that point. As you predicted, I’m an absolute fool, Elle. I was being such an ass, demanding he explain himself to me like I was owed something. It turns out all this time I pushed him away and wanted to hate him because I knew the truth, but not the whole truth. The whole truth of his situation was gut-wrenching. He laid it all out there—just tore open his chest and dumped every emotion on the floor of that grimy holding cell and forced me to look.”
“Oh, Shan.”
“And of course, while he was so hurt and furious, I couldn’t stop thinking how sexy he was while he was practically breaking down.” She pulled a pillow over her face and groaned. “I’m the worst kind of human.”
“Passion is sexy. It’s not always pretty,” Elouise said, “but it’s hot as hell, and so is vulnerability.”
“I wanted to hold him and bang him and just wrap myself around him to hide him from everything ugly that ever happened. And here I thought that buttoned up boy could use a storm.” Shannon sniffed. “When am I going to get over myself? He needs a break. I wouldn’t have been any good for him.”
Elouise rapped her knuckles on the ladder. “Past tense? Not a chance, after he spilled his guts? You could spill yours and?—”
“He left. An officer came by to get him and all he said was that he’s calling a truce, and he walked out and left me there.”
Elouise flailed for words. “He didn’t have a get-out-of-jail free card, Shan. He couldn’t ask to bring a friend out with him. You go when they tell you to go.”
“Oh, that’s the other ridiculous part.” Shannon snorted a tiny laugh. “After all that, he posted bond for me. He dropped five hundred bucks like it was nothing and told them to give him a ten-minute head start so he could go off with one of his brothers. God, there’s so much Missy left out, I want to strangle her.” She smashed her head into the pillow again. “It was one of his brothers who he stuck up for, and while what he did was absolutely wrong and not defensible, it was heartbreaking what it did to Caleb. I think that being in that position, he did the best he could do, and Elle… tell me what you think of something he said, because it’s been gnawing at me and I know you’ll help me be objective.”
“Shoot.”
“He was trying to make an example of defending a person without defending their actions, and asked how people can be expected to turn their lives around without support.”
Elouise shifted side-to-side on her chair, yanking her messy dark braid as she thought. “I see where you’re going, so let’s take the argument out of context for a minute. We see this on the news all the time. How does every kid get started down the wrong path? One bad decision with drugs, crime, whatever. And then in their sad, cautionary tale, they talk about home life.”
“Precisely,” Shannon said. “If their home life is bad, the kid’s chances aren’t so good. If their home life is solid, maybe the kid turns around.”
“So Caleb was part of the home life to support his brother,” Elouise said.
“He was. Is. They’re all so close.”
“Lucky guy.”
Shannon sniffed. “It’s everything he tried to tell me in the library that night.”
“Shan. You still see so many things in the context of Hayden and Delilah. It’s hard to set something that horrible aside and find the nuance in someone else’s situation,” Elouise said, handing her a half-empty box of tissues. “You reacted based on what you know. What Hayden did was calculated and sick, and the support he got was all about working his family’s connections and trying to game the justice system so he isn’t held accountable.” Elouise slammed her hand harder and harder on her desk as she spoke. “He is not sorry. Is Caleb’s brother sorry?”
“Yes.” Shannon choked back the explanation of how sorry Luke was and what he meant to do. Hayden could put on his saddest face next to his innocent prop of a girlfriend in court, but he couldn’t fake repentance like that.
“Even out of context, that’s a big difference,” Elouise said. “If the victim never wants to forgive him, she can hate him forever, and that’s that. Anyone impacted can hate him or forgive him or not. But if someone who did wrong is sorry and wants to change, I agree that change starts at home. I would argue that for juveniles, the people at home have an obligation to help turn them around.” She paused. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“I want to hear your honest opinion. I don’t want to give Caleb or his brother a pass just because I’m in love with him. Caleb. Not the brother.”
“I know which one, Shan.” Elouise coughed and winced from the pain in her throat, then heaved a sigh. “And all that is my honest opinion. I wish Hayden’s family had helped him instead of enabling him. Maybe things would be different if he’d gotten tough love and some sort of help. But here we are. The dorm room vigilantes. At least you’ve got a little clarity around a good guy in your life for a change.”
“I don’t know if he’s in my life after this paper is done. That’s all we have left, and we’re stuck with it,” Shannon said. “I think he was emotionally spent this morning and I don’t blame him. But if he still had romantic feelings for me, he’d have kissed me or something. He paid my share because he’s a decent human being who helps others. But said he doesn’t care what I do, walked out, and then got me the heck out of there when they said my dad hadn’t called back… Oh my God.”
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. His voice, choked by his hoarse throat, whispered and echoed.
She sat bolt upright in her bunk and cracked her forehead hard on the ceiling. A second later, Elouise was up the ladder and squinting at the thin trickle of blood. “Oh, that’s going to lay a goose egg,” she said, as she inspected the swelling. “I’ll get you some ice, and… why are you laughing?”
Shannon clutched one hand to her forehead and the other to her chest as she wheezed. “You were right, Elle,” she gasped. “As usual.”
“I’m glad to hear it, I guess,” Elouise said. Still dizzy from the cough syrup, she climbed slowly off the ladder, then shuffled in the tiny freezer attached to their mini-fridge and cracked an ice pack free from the frosty pile.
“What was I right about this time?” she asked.
“He loves me.”
“And I bet you still don’t have his number.”
“I’ll make Missy give it to me before I kill her.”
Elouise offered a silent prayer before she inspected the knot forming on Shannon’s head. She handed her the ice pack wrapped in a paper towel. “I think there’s one person you should call first. Maybe that call would be best when you go home for break and have a little peace to process.”
“You don’t want to be my cheerleader again? Boo.”
“I’ll cheer you on from afar. This is deeply personal, and I don’t want to cough through it, anyway. I need to go home and have my mom make me the good chicken soup. She’ll kick this cold in an hour.”
“And in the meantime, I’m not supposed to find where Caleb lives and camp in his hall until he lets me serenade him with my apologies?”
Elouise wrinkled her nose. “Have you been hitting the cough syrup? No, dummy. Give the boy some space. Give yourself some space. And call Delilah with the update.”
Shannon yawned, stretching her limbs before she curled into a tight ball under her quilt, one hand still clamping the ice pack to her forehead. “Elouise is always right,” she said, snuggling into her pillow. “I am so tired, but I will do as the brilliant Elouise says. That is the plan.”
“Can I get that in writing?”
“I said it’s the plan. Didn’t say it’s a promise.”