The Redemption of Callie & Kayden

“No, and I need to fix it… somehow. It’s my fault it happened to begin with.”
    He parks the truck near the front, puts his hand on the shifter, and pushes it into park. The radio plays and the engine keeps cutting out. I wonder if he knows why Kayden beat up Caleb that night, if he ever told him.
    “All right, it’s a deal.” Luke stares at the McIntyre residence hall in front of us. It’s the tallest of the residence halls at the University of Wyoming and it looks lonely, towering above the others. “You want to leave tonight or in the morning?”
    I grab the door handle and pull on it. “In the morning. I’d like Seth to come too if that’s okay.”
    He nods and reaches for his pack of cigarettes on the dashboard. “That’s fine as long as you guys don’t mind squishing into this thing. It’s a piece of shit, but Seth’s car’s never going to make it to Afton with all the snow.”
    I shove open the door. “He’ll be fine with it I’m sure.” I swing my feet over the edge of the seat, getting ready to jump down.
    “Callie,” Luke calls out. “Is there any way we can fix this? Stop Caleb from pressing charges? You know, if he does, Kayden’s going to get suspended from the team. He’ll probably never play again. And he’ll probably get suspended from school. Plus, he might have to go to jail or pay a huge fucking fine that he can’t afford without his father’s help.” He pauses, deliberating with his forehead bunched. “I just really want to make sure that everything’s okay with him… Sometimes when people hit bottom, they give up…” His voice grows softer, like the weight of a fall leaf. “Kind of like my sister.”
    The gravity of the situation pushes on my chest as I hop out, grabbing the door for support. I remember that Luke had a sister. He never said how she died, but after what he just said, I wonder if it was suicide.
    Pressing my palm to the nagging ache in the center of my heart, I turn around toward the cab. “I’m going to try. I just have to figure out how.” I already know how. The big question is, can I do it? Can I finally say it aloud, confront him, threaten him, make it so that he’s so terrified he’ll walk away from it. Can I tell my mother, father, and brother? Can I trust them to believe me and be on my side?
    Do I have that much power? Do I have that much courage?
    In the end, I know I’m going to have to answer those questions and make a decision that’s frightened me for the last six years of my life, but maybe it’s time to face it.
    Maybe it’s time to quit being so scared.

Chapter 3
    #46 Transform yourself
Kayden
    I’ve been here six days, almost a week, but it seems so much longer. It’s just after lunch and I’m in the middle of my daily individual therapy session, which is better than group (I don’t bother talking in that one). I’m sitting in my room in an uncomfortable metal fold-up chair. My side hurts like hell and I can’t stop picking at the wounds underneath the bandage on my wrist. It’s cloudy outside and thunder and lightning keep snapping and booming, lighting up the room with a silver glow.
    “Tell me how you feel,” the therapist says.
    He says it every God damn time.
    And every God damn time I give him the same response.
    “I feel fine,” I reply and flick the rubber band on my wrist over and over again until the skin on the inside of my wrist stings. This is what they gave me to help my self-mutilation, like a tiny sting can replace a lifetime of cuts, stabs, broken bones, the raw pain of life.
    My therapist’s name is Dr. Montergrey, but he told me to call him Doug because using his professional name makes him feel old. But he is old, well into his sixties, with gray thinning hair and lots of wrinkles around his eyes.
    Doug puts his finger to the bridge of his nose and adjusts his square-framed glasses as he reads over the notes he has on me. I can only imagine what they say: a threat to himself, angry, irrational, uncooperative, self-damaging. He jots down some notes and then looks up at me. “Look, Kayden, I know sometimes it’s hard to talk about how we feel, especially when we have so much hate and rage going on inside, but you might find it helpful to talk about it.”
    I flick the rubber band again and the snap is covered up by the deafening clap of thunder. The room lights up and the rubber band breaks, the pieces falling to the floor. I stare at them as I rub my swollen wrist. I still have a