The Redemption of Callie & Kayden

walk away from it… move on.” I feel the hole inside my chest developing again and the need for infliction is surfacing. “I really just need to go.”
    She quickly nods, understanding what’s going on inside me, and she leads me outside. I stop to shut the door, watching the room slowly disappear, inch by inch by inch until the lock latches into place and the room vanishes.
    We walk back to the truck and climb in. Callie sits on my lap, and even though everything seems about as shitty as it can get, I know it’s not. Because I’m not lying on the floor bleeding to death, giving up my will to live. I’m here, sitting with her, and she’s amazing and keeps my heart beating. She gives me a reason to live without pain, without sadness. And she gives me hope that maybe this will work out somehow.

Chapter 20
    One month later…
    #6 Take a leap of faith
    #38 Finish Get somewhere with a major project
    #44 Eat chocolates, have a lot of sex, and enjoy Valentine’s Day, the day of LOVE!
Kayden
    “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” Seth comes running up to me shrieking like a psychopath. The library is pretty empty, but the librarian, a younger woman with square-framed glasses and fluffy brown hair, scowls at us from behind the counter. There are paper hearts all over the shelves and walls and even hanging from the ceiling. Valentine’s Day is in a few days and I’m still trying to figure out what to get Callie, because I want it to be something special, something perfect, something that will represent her.
    “Seth.” Angling my chin up, I nod my head at the counter. “Watch the shrieking.”
    He’s holding a crinkled paper in his hand. I’ve been searching the library for about an hour for a book on Darwinism. Usually, I’d use a computer, by Professor Milany is totally old-school and always requires one book reference.
    “Who gives a shit?” he says and then scrunches his face at the librarian, who
tsks, tsks
him in return. He unfolds the paper and shakes it out, trying to get rid of the creases. “I got fantastic fucking news.”
    I put the book I’d been holding back onto the shelf. “No, there’s no way you’ve found him yet… Fuck. You have… no…” I’m kind of stuck on words because it’s unbelievable. It can’t be possible. But the look on his face says otherwise. “Shit.”
    Grinning, he hands me the paper. It’s been printed up from the computer and has an article beneath it. Above the article is a face that resembles an older version of the brother who left my house years ago: dark hair that’s thinned a little, the same green eyes as me, and a nose still crooked from when he broke it from getting slammed into a wall. I’m stunned beyond words as I stare down at the picture of him.
    I hadn’t expected this to happen so soon. I’d returned from the therapist only yesterday evening and told Callie that I think I was ready to start searching. My therapist, Jerry, an older guy who wears a lot of Hawaiian-print shirts and loafers, suggested it might be time for me to start searching for Dylan. I put up a pretty good argument about why I shouldn’t, including the fact that I’d slipped up the other night and kind of rammed my fist against the door in a fit of rage when I got a call from my father’s old boss who was looking for him. No one knows where they are, why they left, and it’s surprising how little people care. My dad’s boss was only looking for him because he said my father had something of his. I don’t even know how he got my number and the call reminded me of everything wrong outside my Callie-Seth-Luke-school world. I messed up, but I told the therapist. And Callie. And somehow Jerry thought it’d be a good idea to start searching for Dylan, even though I was worried of what he might be, or what he might not be.
    “You’ll be fine,” he said, chewing on an Altoids, which he always has on him. “It’ll be good to have someone to talk to about what you’re going through and maybe he can help the abandonment issues you’re dealing with.”
    “What abandonment issues?” I’d played dumb. “I’m glad they left.”
    “Yeah, I know you are,” he replied and scratched down some notes on a piece of yellow business paper. “But I think you also feel abandoned. Even if they’ve done terrible stuff to you, they’re still your family and I think you feel connected to them.”
    “Or stuck to them,” I muttered in response, slumping back in the lumpy