The Redemption of Callie & Kayden

Then I just sit there. Not feeling better, but knowing it’s for the best.

Chapter 6
    #35 Walk, don’t run
Callie
    Seth and I have been spending a lot of time at the café, partly because Seth thinks we need to eat pancakes all the time and partly because we’re avoiding eating breakfast at my house as a result of my mother and Seth’s first meeting. It was nothing but awkward right from the very beginning.
    “It’s nice to meet you, Seth.” My mom stuck her hand out and Seth politely shook it. She was wearing a white apron over a floral dress, looking very 1960-ish. The kitchen smelled like cinnamon and the pans hissed on top of the oven.
    “It’s nice to meet you too.” Seth let go of her hand and took in the excessive amount of Christmas lights strung around the top of the walls and the Santa and reindeer figurines all over the shelves and counters. “You like to decorate, huh?”
    My mother flipped the eggs in the pan, then picked up a mixing bowl from the counter and began to whisk the batter. “Oh yes, I love the holidays. They’re so much fun. What about you?”
    Seth raised his eyebrows at her as he pulled out a chair at the table. “Do I like the holidays? No, not really” He sat down and I joined him, reading the text I got from Luke.
    Luke: Did you hear from him?
    Me: No… have you?
    Luke: No, I stopped by his house, though.
    Me: Is he okay?
    Luke: I don’t know. His brother answered and said he hadn’t seen him. I think he was drunk, though.
    Me: I texted him a couple of times. He never texts back.
    Luke: I’m sure he’s fine. He’s probably just working through some stuff.
    Working through some stuff? Alone. In that god-awful house.
    “Callie, did you hear me?”
    I glanced up from my phone and my mother and Seth were staring at me. “Huh?” I said.
    Seth’s eyebrows dipped beneath the square-framed glasses he was wearing, not to correct his vision but because they are fashionable. “Are you okay?” he asked.
    I nodded. “I’m fine.”
    “Who are you texting?” my mom asked, mixing the bowl with a whisk.
    I quickly locked the screen on my phone and set it down on the table. “No one.”
    My mother dropped the whisk on the counter and batter splattered all over. “You were texting Kayden, weren’t you? I can’t believe this, Callie. I told you I didn’t want you spending any time with him after what happened—after what he did to Caleb.”
    Seth looked at me with astonishment in his eyes and I shrugged, shaking my head, trying not to cry. “It’s not Kayden,” I told my mom again.
    “Even if it was, I think Callie’s old enough to decide who she wants to talk to,” Seth chimed in calmly. “In my opinion she is an excellent judge of character.” He said it with an attitude and any chance of my mother and him getting along fell apart right there. “More than most people, who seem to miss the mark all the time.”
    She didn’t fully understand the depth of his words, but his snippy tone was enough for her to decide she didn’t like him, something she told me later when she pulled me aside.
    “He’s rude,” she said. “Does he talk to his own mother that way?”
    “He doesn’t talk to his mother,” I’d said and that was another strike against him.
    After that, I decided it’d be better to keep them separated, because Seth wouldn’t keep quiet if my mother said something ridiculous and my mother would never stop saying ridiculous things.
    * * *
    I’ve been home for almost a week. Time seems to move in slow motion. Each hour feels like days, and days like months. Christmas is only four days away and my mom keeps trying to make me spend time shopping and wrapping presents with her. I do as much as I can, but every time she brings up Caleb, I bail. I even took off during our trip to the mall and had to call Luke to come pick me up.
    “I’m not sure if I’m even hungry,” I tell Seth as I pour syrup on the stack of pancakes in front of me. We’re in the café again, enjoying the same light chitchat after a very uncomfortable morning with my mom. “Six days in a row is putting me on pancake overload.”
    He butters his toast and then adds some strawberry jelly. He’s wearing a blue shirt with a logo on the pocket and his hair is still a little damp from the shower he took right before we left the house. “Well, you don’t have to order pancakes every time,” he says and sets the butter knife down on the table.
    “Or maybe you should order me