The Redemption of Callie & Kayden

nails, wondering if he thinks I’m going to scratch him.
    “Hey.” He stuffs his hands into his pockets and takes cautious steps until he’s right in front of me. “You want to go get that breakfast? The first set of pancakes is on me.”
    I love that he doesn’t ask what happened. If I had to speak I’d probably crumble into teeny tiny pieces that would get stuck in the dirty cracks of the floor. I nod and he swings his arm around me and leads me outside, holding me together.
    * * *
    The restaurant is crowded and filled with the voices of people enjoying their breakfast with their families. Dishes clank in the kitchen and the air smells like coffee and waffles. Luke came with us, but he’s been distracted by one of the waitress behind the counter pretty much since we walked through the door. I wonder if he did it on purpose, to distract himself from what happened at the clinic. Luke actually tried to chase Kayden down after he ran out of the room, but he came back minutes later, looking upset, but he never said what happened.
    “You know what I just realized?” Seth points a syrupy fork at me as he chews a mouthful of pancakes. “This needs to be added to our list.”
    I glance down at the barely touched stack of pancakes on the plate in front of me. “What? Eat pancakes?”
    His neck muscles move up and down as he forces the overly large mouthful of pancakes down. “No, eat
a lot
of pancakes.”
    I pick up the bottle of strawberry syrup that’s in the tray at the end of the table. I press my thumb down on the handle, tip the bottle, and douse the pancakes with red syrup. “That doesn’t seem significant enough for the list.”
    Seth stabs his fork into his pancakes as he shakes his head. “No way. Everyone in the world should sit down and stuff themselves with pancakes at least one time in their life.” He shoves a bite into his mouth and then closes his eyes and inhales deeply. “Especially ones this damn good. I swear I’m having a foodgasm.”
    A laugh flees from my mouth and he opens his eyes looking happy. It’s the first time I’ve shown a sign of life since I left the facility. “Foodgasm?” I ask.
    He nods his head and swallows his food with a forceful gulp. “The gasms of champions.”
    “Champions of what?”
    “Life.”
    I can’t stop smiling as I shovel up a forkful of pancakes and stuff them into my mouth. “All right, we can add it to the list and then cross it off because we’re doing it right now.”
    He grins from ear to ear, then grabs a napkin from the tin case and dabs the syrup off his lips. His fingers circle the glass of milk in front of him and he wraps his lips around the straw and takes a sip. He sets the glass down, wipes his mouth off with the sleeve of his shirt, and then leans back in the booth and drapes his arms over the back of the seat. He watches me eat with an anxious expression on his face.
    I cram my mouth with pancakes and then look up at him. “What?”
    His shoulders move up and down as he shrugs. “I was just wondering if you wanted to talk about what happened.”
    I extend my hand toward the butter in the middle of the table beside a plate full of toast and a bowl full of jam packets. “With Kayden?” I ask and he nods. I grab the knife and slide it through the butter, getting a thin slice on the blade. “Nothing. I just messed up. That’s all.”
    “You looked like you were going to cry,” he says. “And Kayden, well, he looked upset when he walked out. I mean, he practically ran away from me when I said hi.”
    I smear the butter all over the pancakes and it makes a mess with the syrup. “I just didn’t approach him like a skittish cat. I threw the road trip idea out there way too quickly and he freaked out. At least I think that’s what happened.”
    “So he just decided to go home to his mother and father.” Seth lowers his hands down from the back of the booth and rests his elbows on top of the table. “Why would he do that?”
    I divide the half-eaten stack of pancakes as I prop my elbow onto the table and rest my chin in my hand. “Maybe he’s not ready to admit the truth aloud yet.”
    “Are we speaking about you or him now?”
    “I’m not sure.”
    I continue to demolish my pancakes with my fork, trying to figure out what could be going through Kayden’s head. If his dad did it to him then maybe fear, but why would that make him afraid of me? I think about the bandage on his wrist and the rubber bands.
    I drop the