The Redemption of Callie & Kayden

should.”
    He releases my arm and I lean up on my elbows. “How can you be so sure?” My mouth sinks to a frown. “She could get mad at me. Or she could hate herself as much as I hate… hated myself.”
    Seth brushes my bangs out of my eyes with his fingers. “Callie, if she hates herself for a while, then she hates herself for a while. You’ve been carrying around the burden for the last six years and it’s about time someone else took a little bit of the weight off of you.”
    “I’m not sure I can,” I whisper, clutching at the dull ache inside my chest. “There’s just so much… so much acceptance in telling her the truth.”
    “Like you might have to accept that it’s finally real?”
    I nod as I gaze at the clear sky outside. The sunlight is beaming down on the houses across the street. Sunlight is a rare occurrence in Afton, but maybe it’s a sign that not everything is caped in darkness. That light does exist even in the darkest of corners.
    He moves back as I sit up and head for my bag on a fold-up chair near the door. “I was thinking we could go out to breakfast this morning. There’s this café in town that has the best pancakes in the world.” I take a purple shirt out of the bag and a pair of jeans.
    “I was thinking we could go see Kayden first,” Seth says as he texts something on his phone.
    “But he’s not allowed visitors.” I hold my clothes to my chest and head for the bathroom to change.
    “Yeah, he is.” Seth sets his phone down on his knee and takes a deep breath. “I just got a text from Luke saying that not only is Kayden allowed to have visitors but he’s leaving the facility today.”
    I stop in the middle of the room as reality finally catches up with me. Although I’d never admitted it aloud, I’d wondered if I’d ever see Kayden again. That maybe he didn’t even exist and that everything that had happened between us was just my imagination attempting to force my mind to thrive again. “Should we wait for him to get out and then go see him?” I stare at the open bathroom door.
    The mattress squeaks as Seth gets up from the bed and steps into my line of vision. “I think we should go pick him up. Luke said that his mother’s supposed to and then she’s going to take him home, but he thinks we should go pick him up and take him somewhere.”
    I raise my chin up and meet his eyes. “Like kidnap him?”
    Seth laughs at me and his face turns red and his eyes water over. “He’s nineteen years old, Callie. We can’t kidnap him if he wants to go.”
    “But isn’t he supposed to be being watched?”
    “What? At his parents’ house? With his
dad?”
    I free an unsteady breath from my lungs. “But I worry that we might be doing more harm than good… running away.”
    Seth steps closer to me, places his hands on my shoulders, and fixes his eyes on me. “You want to know what I think? I think that you’re afraid.”
    I hug my clothes tighter against my chest because I need to hold onto something. “Of what?”
    “About hearing the whole story about that night. I think you’re afraid of the truth.”
    “But what is the truth exactly?” I ask.
    Seth gives a lopsided smile and gently shakes my shoulders. “That’s for you to find out because he needs you.”
    He’s right. I’m afraid of everything that night holds and that I’ll have to admit that it’s my fault. I’m afraid I’ll learn that Kayden was really trying to kill himself, trying to leave me alone in the world. That he’ll leave me again, and I need him like I need air.
    “Where will we take him, though?” I wonder. “My mom’s made it really clear that she doesn’t want him here.”
    A devilish grin spreads across his face. “You leave that to me. All you need to do is bring your bag and tell your mom you’re going to be gone for a couple of days.”
    My eyebrows dip together. “You’re not going to tell me where we’re going?”
    His grin widens and his hands leave my shoulders and reunite with his sides. “It’s called a surprise road trip, Callie.”
    I drag my hand across my face. “You think that’s a wise idea, considering everything?”
    “No, but I’ve never been one for wise ideas,” he says. “I believe in irrational, fleeting decisions that keep life interesting. And life needs to be interesting because we’ve got only one of them to live”
    I smile and it almost feels real. “You are the most wise… I mean, irrational, fleeting person I’ve