The Redemption of Callie & Kayden

and turns his head. His eyes scroll across my body and I feel naked and exposed. “You
what?”
    I press my fingertips to my nose and shake my head because I can’t look at him when I say it again. “I sometimes make myself throw up.” I give him a moment and then I drop my hands to my side. “And not because I think I’m fat. It’s because…” I take a step toward him and angle my head back, looking up into his emerald eyes. I can see the reflection of myself in them and I look as scared as I feel. “It’s because I’m trying to get rid of all the vile, foul feelings inside me. The ones I can’t deal with.”
    He’s looking at me, and I mean really looking at me, and there’s this connection, this understanding that we are two people who have been fractured, not by ourselves but by someone else and we’re doing everything we can to not shatter to pieces.
    I wait for him to react and when he doesn’t budge I decide to do it for him. I walk up to him, getting close enough that I can feel the heat emitting from his body. Then I stand on my tiptoes, throw my arms around his neck, and hug him, praying to God he’ll hug me back, because even though it’s a simple gesture in theory, sometimes hugging is complex.
    His arms stay slack at his side as his chest rises and falls. I’m about to give up, back away, and allow myself to cry when his arms wrap around my waist. He grips me tightly and it gives me hope that maybe there might be some hope left.
    He holds me for what feels like forever, nuzzling his face into my hair. At some point it starts to snow, but we don’t move. We are frozen in a moment neither of us wants to leave.
    “For how long?” he finally asks, his breath warm against my cheek.
    I shut my eyes and bask in the feel of him. “Since it happened.”
    His arms tighten around me and he presses my body against his. “I’m sorry.”
    “It’s not your fault.” I tenderly run my fingertips up and down his back, working up the courage to ask. “Kayden?”
    “Since I was twelve.” He reads my mind and trusts me enough to answer.
    I constrict my arms around him, sealing us together in every way possible. Maybe if I try hard enough, we’ll fall into each other and become one single person and we can share our pain instead of carrying it by ourselves.
Kayden
    I’m shocked by what Callie tells me and at first I don’t understand. She makes herself throw up. Tiny, barely there Callie makes herself throw up. But then she explains why and it makes more sense to me than anything else in my life. I realize how perfect we are for each other and also how disastrous we could end up being. Because even though we can help each other pick up the pieces of our lives, we could also break at the same time and then nothing would be left to catch us as we crumble.
    “Maybe we should go inside,” I finally say even though I don’t want to. I want to stand in this very spot and hold onto her forever, but we’d freeze to death.
    She puts a sliver of space between us as she leans away and slants her chin up to look at me, her hair falling back from her eyes and forehead. “I’m not sure I want to go back in after I ran out like that.”
    I tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear as her palms travel up my arms. “How about I go in and get your jacket while you call Seth because I don’t want you riding on that bike.”
    “But what will you do?”
    I cup her cheek with my hand, desperately needing to touch as much of her as I can. “I can put the bike in the back of the truck and then we can go for a drive or something.”
    There’s a trace of a smile on her lips. “Where will we go?”
    I return her smile as I sketch my finger across her yielding bottom lip. “Wherever you want.”
    A sly look comes over her and then she stands on her tiptoes and kisses my cheek. “How about the beach?”
    I cock my eyebrow and give her a funny look as she moves back, and then I glance around at the mounds of snow in the parking lot, near the fence line, and below the roof where the snow is sliding off. “The beach?”
    She glides her hand down my arm and places it in mine. “Yeah, I’ll explain when Seth and Luke get here.”
    I don’t know what she’s up to and I’m scared to find out. I had a plan. I was going to stay away from her, but she’s standing here and she understands me so much more than anyone ever has and I’m not ready to let that feeling go just yet. “All right, you call them and