The Redemption of Callie & Kayden

them while he’s sleeping, wondering where each one came from. It’s kind of like a horrible painting of his memories that will always exist, no matter what happens.
    He crosses his arms over his chest, his muscles flexing, and he frowns. “Oh come on, Callie. Just let me read one page. I’m curious to see what you write about all the time.”
    “It’s private. Some of the stuff… you might think I’m crazy.”
    “I already think you’re crazy,” he jokes, lowering his arms onto his lap. He slides across the bed toward me until he’s right in front of me, and his face softens. “Please, just one page.” He’s using his sexy voice on me, the one I have a hard time saying no to.
    Sighing, I fan through the pages until I come across the nonfiction story I’ve been fighting to get out of my head and into coherent sentences. “This is the story I’ve been working on. I’m not very far into it and I’m not even sure if it makes sense yet.”
    He takes the journal from my unsteady hands. It’s the first time I’ve let anyone read anything I’ve written and it feels like I’m letting him have full insight into my head. Holding it in his hands, he clears his throat and begins to read aloud.
    “Where the Leaves Go.”
He glances up at me and smiles. “Nice title.”
    I shake my head and lie down on my back, staring at the cracks in the ceiling and trying to still the tempestuous beat of my heart. “Please just hurry. You’re making me nervous.”
    He chuckles underneath his breath and then starts to read.
“I remember when I was a child being fascinated by the leaves. They were always changing: green pink, orange, yellow, brown. And then eventually, when the air changed and chilled, they turned into nothing. They’d fall from the branches of the trees and either crumble and become a part of the ground or blow away in the wind. They never really had any power over their movements. They’d just go with the weather and wherever the wind would take them, helpless, weak, incapable of control.
    I remember when I was young, about thirteen. It was a rainy spring day and the raindrops were splattering fiercely against the earth and the wind was howling. I was sitting at my window, watching the street flood and the leaves get carried away with the rage of the water. They were all a flourishing green, in the prime of their life, just blooming, yet the rain and wind was destroying them.
    But there were these two leaves stuck to my bedroom window that wouldn’t budge. They remained in place through the windstorm and the temper of the rain, even when the water was falling so heavily I couldn’t see through the glass.
    I kept staring at the leaves, unable to take my eyes off them, fascinated by their determination, even when the sky darkened and the window howled so violently it shook the glass of the window. I kept thinking about how strong they were and how they were only leaves. Pieces of a tree, a plant, these little things that couldn’t think, make choices, do anything of their free will, yet they wouldn’t give in to the wind and rain and leave that damn window. In a strange way, I envied them, the determination, passion, sheer will not to give in and let something else take them to the end of their life.
    At the end of the storm, I fell asleep in my bed. When I woke up, the sun was out and the land was drying. The leaves that stayed attached to the tree branches were green and dewy. To my surprise the leaves were gone from the window and it made me kind of sad and I felt hopeless. The idea that they could survive against the storm was bringing me a sense of comfort.
    However, when I look back at it now, I wonder where they went. Maybe they didn’t give up and let the wind and rain take them away. Maybe they somehow found their way back to the trees. Maybe they reconnected themselves to the branches and continued to grow and flourish even after their temporary break. Maybe they were strong enough to take control of their lives again, revive themselves from their approaching death, force themselves to start breathing again…”
Kayden stops reading and looks up at me with an undecipherable look.
    I take my journal from his hands and cuddle it against my chest. “I know it’s not really a story, just my thoughts. But it’s all I can come up with at the moment.”
    He nods and doesn’t say a word. He drapes an arm around my shoulder and steers me with him as he lies down on my bed and rests his