The Redemption of Callie & Kayden

his gray shirt. He flexes his muscles and I just about die of laughter. “Well, I’m glad I can entertain you.”
    “I’m sorry,” I say, wiping the tears away from my eyes. “It’s just so funny to picture.”
    He glares at me, but it vanishes as someone knocks on the door. “Oh good, there’s my breakfast.” He heads over to it, collecting his wallet from the nightstand. “And if it’s so funny to picture then stop picturing it.” He grins at me as he grabs the door handle. “You know we’re going to have to come up with a solution to the no-car dilemma…” He trails off as he opens the door and his jaw hangs to his knees.
    Kayden is standing on the other side of it, with a thin jacket on, and the bottoms of his jeans are wet with muddy water and so are his boots. He has snowflakes in his damp hair and water beads off the end of each strand. His lips are purple, his eyes are red like he’s been crying, and his hands are tucked up in the sleeves.
    “Nope, not breakfast for me,” he says, glancing at me. “I think this is what
you
ordered.”
    He’s making jokes, but none of this is funny. Kayden’s here after he took off and then I told him I loved him and sobbed on the phone as I told him my story. I don’t know what it means or if I’m stable enough to find out. I want to believe I am though, that I’m not the weak girl I used to be. That I can handle anything.
    Kayden runs his hand over his head, ruffling his hair and sending snowflakes to the floor. “Hey.”
    “Hey,” Seth says, glancing at me from over his shoulder.
    Kayden maintains his gaze on me, his emerald eyes sparkling in the sunlight flowing from outside. There is snow falling from the sun-kissed sky, something that occasionally happens when a small section of the sky is cloudy but the sun still can spill through.
    Kayden lowers his hand to his side and I just stare at him as I remain on my back, letting the cool breeze sink into my body. I can’t tell if he’s listened to my message yet, but I hope he has.
    “Um…” Seth coughs into his hand. “I think I’m going to go check out what’s taking room service so long.” He squeezes past Kayden, leaving the door wide open.
    Kayden doesn’t budge. He keeps looking at me with this perplexed, intense look on his face, like he’s afraid to cross the threshold. The moment keeps building, bricks stacking on bricks, as we just look at each other, afraid to move, to breathe, to be the one to speak first.
    I sit up, my hair blowing in the wind. “You can come in,” I say and my voice nearly gets carried away in the wind and knocks the bricks to the ground in a pile of dust.
    He doesn’t disconnect our gaze as he bends his knee and steps one foot into the room. He repeats the movement with the other foot and then shuts the door. The wind ceases and the curtain is closed so the room is mostly dark.
    “I got your message,” he says, shocking me with his bluntness.
    “Oh…” My throat feels like it’s closing as I kneel up onto the bed, bringing a pillow to my lap to hug it. “Kayden, where have you been all night? Were you with your therapist?”
    A breath eases from his lips as he rakes his hands through his hair, shifting his gaze to the wall just over my shoulder. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t do it with you there.”
    “Did you… did you tell him about your dad?” I ask and he just stares at me, with a strange look on his face, like he’s really studying me. I don’t know if it means he told him or not. I don’t know what any of this means. I move my feet to the floor and stand, tipping my chin up to meet his eyes. “Kayden, you need to tell someone… I thought we… I thought we had a deal.”
    He gives me a small smile and then threads his fingers through mine. His hands are as icy as breeze outside the room. “I did tell someone. I just didn’t want you there when I was giving… all the gory details.”
    My shoulders jolt upward as I imagine him on the floor again. “But you did tell someone?
Really?
”
    He nods and forces the lump down his throat with a hard swallow. “I wasn’t lying in the text. I went to talk to my therapist and I told him.”
    “And?” I’m not sure what the right question is or if one exists. I feel like I should just let him tell me what he wants to.
    He sighs and then lines form on his forehead as he presses a hand to his chest, massaging it over his heart. “And it feels kind of good.”
    I study his expression