The Redemption of Callie & Kayden

drink.” He pushes the chair away from the table and rises to his feet. “What’s everyone’s poison?”
    “The least potent thing that exists,” Callie says, wringing her hands on her lap and picking at her nails. She’s anxious and I want to know why. Is it because of me, or is it something else?
    Seth takes out his phone and starts pushing at buttons. “I haven’t talked to Greyson since yesterday.” He sighs. “I think he might be upset with me.”
    Callie rests her arms on top of the table. “Why?”
    Seth shrugs as he slides his fingers across the screen of his phone. “Because I might have said something mean about our relationship.”
    “Like what?” Callie asks.
    “Like I wanted a break.” He sets the phone down and sighs as Callie frowns at him. “Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t mean it. I was tired and overthinking things and I didn’t mean it.”
    Callie runs her hand across the top of the table, sweeping some salt that’s on it onto the floor. “Did you tell him that?”
    “Not yet,” he says. “But I’m working up to an apology.”
    “Seth.” She extends her hand across the table and touches his arm. “Since when do you hold things in? You should never do that. It’s not healthy.”
    He shrugs, glances at me, and then grabs onto Callie’s arm. “Come with me for a minute,” he says, getting up from the table and pulling her to her feet.
    Nodding, she follows him without looking back at me. All I hear are their words echoing in my head. Never hold anything in. It’s unhealthy.
    If that’s true then I’m the unhealthiest person alive. I feel it rushing up inside me. What I am. What I feel. My life and the emptiness that will always own me. If it doesn’t then I have to feel the past years of my life. I can’t even think straight as feelings overtake me and I push to my feet. Rushing across the room, I head back to the bathroom and shove the door open. There are a few guys in there, so I go into one of the stalls and lock myself in. Pressing my hands against my face, I take deep breaths and then slide my fingers down to my wrists, snapping the rubber band. I do it over and over again until my wrist has a large red welt on it, but it still doesn’t feel better.
    I need something—anything—to make it go away. I search the stall looking for anything sharp, like the edge of the metal toilet paper dispenser. It’s a desperate move, one that might lead to tetanus. I’m not sure if I can do it. As I move my wrist toward it, I catch sight of the buckle on one of the leather bands on my wrist. Viewing it as better alternative, I place my other wrist above it and then drag it down, pushing hard. The skin splits open and the pain erupts up my arm. As the blood pools out, a calm blankets the inside of my heart.
    I sit down on the toilet and let it bleed out onto the floor, splattering red on the tile near my feet. I let my hands fall into my head, feeling ashamed yet gratified and wondering how the fuck I got to this place and how I became this person.
    I can track the compulsion back to when I was about twelve. It was right after my team had lost a baseball game, due to the fact that I’d struck out every time I was at bat. Part of me had done it on purpose out of spite because I knew it would make my dad angry. And even though it hurt, every time he got angry he was hurting too, on the inside.
    I remember how calm my dad had been on the drive home, which made me nervous. His fingers clutched the steering wheel as he drove the car up the street to our home. The wind was blowing and kicking up a lot of dust. The sky was cloudy and I remember wishing that the drive would never end.
    But all things do and too soon we were pulling up in front of the house. The grass had just been cut and the lawn-mowing guy was still cleaning up the piles of cut grass that the lawnmower had spit out.
    “Go inside,” my dad had finally said and the low tone of his voice meant I was in deep shit.
    I grabbed my bat and glove and climbed out of the car. With my head hanging low, I walked up the path, with my eyes fastened on my feet until I made it to the front door. I only looked up to open it and then I lowered my gaze back to the ground as I walked in.
    I started to climb the stairs, hoping for once that he’d just let it go. But halfway up, I heard the front door slam and the wind from outside silenced. I kept walking though, hoping that somehow I’d learned how to make myself