The Redemption of Callie & Kayden

I’m walking blindly into this, but I’m not. I think I might have known for a while that you… that you cut yourself, even before you told me.”
    My heart shrivels into nothing as she lowers her hand from my mouth. “How?”
    Tears bubble in the corners of her eyes. “That night when we… when you and I…” Her breathing is unsteady. “When we had sex, I saw you had all those cuts on your arms, I thought… the thought crossed my mind that you might have put some of them there.”
    “Why didn’t you say anything?”
    “What was I supposed to say? ‘Did you cut yourself?’ Besides, I didn’t want to believe it.”
    My shriveled heart has become a fucking pile of nothingness. “Because it’s too much?”
    She quickly shakes her head. “No, because I don’t want to believe that you have all that pain trapped inside of you… I know how much pain it takes to go that far… to want to hurt yourself.”
    There’s this mind-blowing moment when I realize something. Someone understands me.
Callie
understands me. She gets it and she’s not afraid of me or what’s inside me. And while I don’t understand it, I want it—I want her. How is it even fucking possible that I’ve been walking around for years and years and years with her in the same town—the same school—and I never really saw her? What would have happened if I had?
    “I’m too messed up,” I press again, wanting her to fully understand. “I hurt myself and let others hurt me and I don’t tell anyone.”
    “But you need to. You need to tell someone about your father. Even if they think you hurt yourself, people need to know.”
    “No one will ever believe me. I just got arrested for beating Caleb’s ass and then I have my fucking scars that I put on my body myself. No one will get it.”
    “I don’t care,” she responds and her fingers dig into my shoulders as she clings onto me. “We’ll make them understand.”
    I stop and look at her. How can someone like her exist? It’s impossible, and yet she’s here in front of me, looking as beautiful as ever beneath the pale glow of the moon. “Callie… but what about you and Caleb? You haven’t told anyone about that.” I feel like a jerk for saying it, but it seems like it needs to be said.
    “I’m working on it,” she utters and there’s a quiver in her voice. “You and I, we’re going to work on it… We’re not going to let other people own us anymore.” She seems to be making the speech to herself more than to me, but that’s okay. I want her to tell someone so that piece of shit can stop walking around owning her.
    She looks at me and I can tell she’s about to cry. I don’t want her to cry. I want her to be happy. “Callie, tell me what you need,” I say and tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear.
    “I need the world to stop being such an ugly place full of hurt.” Tears slip out of her eyes. “I need to wake up and really believe everything will be okay instead of just hoping it will be. I want to be one of the lucky ones who has a good life.”
    I nod, because that’s what I want for her too. “You can still get that. Just tell me what you need to make you happy.”
    She looks me in the eye with tears streaming down her cheeks.
“You.”
    I flinch because she just threw herself out there to a person who’s hollow and cracked. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I can give her what she wants. I don’t understand need or love. I don’t understand what makes people’s lives whole. My lips part and I honestly have no idea what’s about to come out of them, but I never find out because she presses her lips against mine and silences me.
    Maybe she knew it wouldn’t be what she wanted to hear or maybe she just wanted to kiss me, either way I pull back. Cupping her cheek, I say, “Callie, you don’t want me. Trust me. I’ll get you nowhere.”
    All she does is shake her head and kiss me again, clutching onto my shoulders for dear life. This time I can’t help myself. She’s shaking in my arms and I want to make her better, so I kiss her back, slowly at first, but then this hunger take over and I begin to kiss her fiercely and with all the passion I’ve kept trapped inside me.
    We fall back into the sand. She’s lying on top of me and our bodies are joined together as our tongues entangle. The heat of her is mind-numbing and I forget where I am. It’s just me and her lying in the sand and I swear for one fucking moment that