The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden

the hall and then push a code to enter my room. From out the window, the people look tiny, like I’m a bird seeing everything from an Aerial view.
     
    I pull out my journal that I keep hidden beneath my pillow and grab a pen. I started writing in it when I was thirteen, as a way to put my thoughts down on paper. I wasn’t planning on making it a lifelong hobby, but I feel so much better when I write, like my brain is finally free to say whatever it wants.
     
    The edges of the cover are tattered and some of the pages are falling off from the spiral. I sit down with my legs crisscrossed, and press the tip to a clean sheet.
     
    It’s amazing how the things you remember forever are the things you’d rather forget and the things you desperately want to grasp onto seem to slip away like sand in the wind.
     
    I remember everything about that day, like the images have been burned into my brain by a branding iron. But I wish they would blow away in the wind.
     
    There’s a knock on my door. Sighing, I hide the notebook back under the pillow before answering the door. Seth strolls in with two iced lattes and he hands one to me.
     
    “You sounded like you could use one of these.” He shucks off his jacket, drapes it over a chair that’s in front of the desk, and sinks down on the bed. “Okay, spill your guts.”
     
    “I don’t know why he’s talking to me and asking me to go places.” I pace the floor in front of my bed and sip on the straw. There are sketches and a poster of Rise Against on my roommate’s side of the wall, and her bed is covered in dirty clothes. “He’s never really talked to me before.”
     
    “Who, Kayden?” Seth asks and I nod. He flops onto my bed and scrolls through my playlists on my iPod. “Maybe he likes you.”
     
    I stop in the middle of the room and shake my head, the ice swishing in the cup. “No, that’s not what it is. He has a girlfriend—a super slutty girlfriend who he can touch.”
     
    “He would probably touch you, if you’d let him,” he says and my breath catches in my throat. “Okay, so we’re not there yet.”
     
    Setting the coffee on the desk, I sink down on my bed and tuck my hands under my legs. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be there. I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I won’t ever be able to handle going that far with anyone. I may end up being one of those old ladies with a thousand cats and eating cat food straight out of the can.”
     
    “First of all, gross, I would never let you turn into that. And second of all, we should add it to the list.” He sits up and reaches for a pen on my nightstand.
     
    “Just because it’s on the list, doesn’t mean it will happen,” I say as he stands up and marches to the board on the back of the door where our list is written.
     
    “Yes, it does, Callie.” He grins, flipping the cap off the pen with his thumb. “Because it’s a magical list, full of possibilities.”
     
    “I wish that were true.” I stare out the window at the people flooding the campus yard. “I really do.”
     
    The pen squeaks as he scribbles something down. When I return my attention to him, he’s added, #52 Take a Chance For God’s Sake to the bottom of the list. He clicks the cap on, cocks his head, and smiles with pride at his cleverness.
     
    “I do amaze myself sometimes. I’m going to have to add this one to my copy of the list when I get back to my room.” He tosses the pen onto the dresser and sits down on the bed. “So what’s your chance, Callie? Because I know you’re strong enough to at least try one.”
     
    “But what if I take a chance and everything crumbles?” I ask. “What if I trust someone again and they steal something away from me. I don’t really have that much left before I’m hollow.”
     
    “Take an easy chance,” he singsongs. “Come on, Callie, do it.”
     
    “Are you trying to peer pressure me?”
     
    “Yeah, is it working?”
     
    “Not really, since I don’t know what you want me to do.”
     
    He rubs his hands together with a devious gleam in his eyes. “I have an idea. You should call Kayden and take him up on his offer.”
     
    “No, Seth.” I pull my knees up and rest my chin on them. “I can’t be around people like him. They make me nervous and remind me too much of high school. Besides, soon it’s going to dawn on him how much his girlfriend hates me and he’s going to back off.”
     
    “He seems nice.” Seth removes his cellphone from