The Redemption of Callie & Kayden

concentration on Kayden. I have more important things to worry about than Jenna and Daisy.
    “I want to talk to you,” he starts, looking at the cracks in the table. “I just don’t know how.”
    “You don’t know how to talk to me?” I don’t know how to take what he said. I always thought we were great at talking, which is why I shared my secrets with him. “Why?”
    He traces his fingers along the oval-ringed patterns in the wood as he reaches up with his other hand and draws his hood off his head. He rakes his fingers through his hair and rearranges his brown locks into place so they’re out of his eyes and flipping up at his ears. “Because you saw me like that. And I’ve never wanted anyone to see me like that, especially you.”
    I pick at the cracks in the table, knowing I have to choose my words wisely. “Kayden, I’ve told you a thousand times that I’ll never judge you and I mean it.”
    “It’s not about judgment, Callie.” He glances up at me and the misery in his eyes matches what lies inside my heart. “It’s about what you deserve.” He sighs, rolls up his sleeves, and traces his finger along a fresh scar running vertically down his forearm. “You deserve better than this.”
    “No, I don’t.” I think about the last time I threw up in the bathroom because I couldn’t deal with the pain, something I’ve done for years and years. “You and I aren’t that different.”
    He looks even gloomier as he jerks his sleeve back down and covers up the scars. “We’re nothing alike. You… you’re beautiful and amazing and the sadness and pain in you was put there by someone else.” He lowers his voice and sucks in a breath. “I put the pain there myself.”
    I keep my voice soft as I lean over the table. “No, your father does.”
    He shakes his head, staring at the counter. “I cut myself that night.”
    My chest compresses and squeezes my heart into a miniature ball. “
All
of the cuts?”
    He doesn’t answer and his scruffy jaw goes taut. Carefully, so I don’t scare him, I slide my hand across the table and place it over his. “What happened isn’t your fault. It’s mine. It all started because of me.”
    His head snaps in my direction and the fire in his eyes makes me recoil. “In no way is this your fault and in no way do I regret doing what I did to him.” His gaze is piercing, but his voice is calm. “Are you mad that I did it?”
    I promptly know the real answer because I feel it every time I think of Caleb getting beat over and over again. “I wish I could say that I was, because I never ever wanted you to be the one to do that, but I can’t be.” Tears start to pool in the corners of my eyes, but I force them back because it’s not the right time or place to cry. “I’m sorry, Kayden. I’m so sorry for bringing you into this mess.”
    He edges his hand out from under mine and positions it on top of my fingers. “You have nothing to be sorry about… I’m the one who should be sorry, for bringing you into this mess. I can’t… I can’t even imagine how hard it must have been to walk in on me when I was like that.”
    I shake my head and focus on the unequal beat of his pulse in his hand. Everything is real and it’s hard to keep up. “It was only hard because I… because I thought you were dead.”
    He looks like he’s about to splinter apart and I’m verging into the same place. I want to clutch onto him. I want him to clutch onto me, because I know if we can just hold onto each other then we can make it through this. But suddenly he’s pulling away and getting to his feet and I don’t know what to do or say.
    “I need to walk away,” he says, not looking at me but at the door at the front of the café. “It’s better for you… You don’t deserve this… I don’t deserve you.”
    Just as quickly as I found him again he’s walking out of my life. I watch him weave around the tables and then he’s out the door, leaving me. I need to make him understand that I understand him. I need to make him see that he deserves to be happy and that he doesn’t ruin me. I get up and hurry around the tables, not caring that everyone is looking at me like I’m crazy. I slam my hand against the glass door and throw myself out into the cold, completely defenseless without my jacket on.
    “I sometimes make myself throw up,” I stammer as I run up to the bike with my feet slipping on the snow.
    He freezes with one foot on the ground on one foot off