The Redemption of Callie & Kayden

across from me, I give myself a final quick mental pep talk. I look at the photos around the room, the ones with our family and some even with Caleb.
    “That was fun, right?” I point at one photo of the two of us wearing jerseys and standing in front of a stadium with smiles on our faces. I was eight and I was happy.
    He tracks to where I point and then a smile turns up at his lips. “That was a good day.” His forehead creases as he looks back at me. “Honey, your mother and I have been really worried… about what happened that night and then you just ran away with those boys you barely know.”
    “Those boys are like my family, Dad,” I say truthfully. “They’ve really been there for me.”
    He fiddles with the string on his hoodie, tightening it and then loosening it. “Yeah, they always seemed like they were good kids.” He smiles. “They kicked ass on the field too.”
    I know right then and there that I’ve made the right choice by telling him first. He’s looking past the fact that Kayden beat Caleb and maybe that’s because he’s looked a little deeper into the situation.
    “I have to tell you something.” I clear my throat. “And it’s going to be kind of hard, not just for me to tell you, but it’s going to be hard to hear.”
    “Okay…” He’s puzzled and uncertain, which it is understandable.
    I take a few deep breaths and then I take some more, until I feel like I’m going to pass out. And then I stop breathing all together.
You better not fucking tell, or I swear I’ll hurt you.
I clutch the clover hanging on my neck in my hand, needing to hold on to a part of Kayden so I can have strength and courage. “You remember my twelfth birthday?”
    This seems to confuse him even more, his head slanting slightly to the side, his blue eyes getting a little squinty and his forehead scrunching up as he assesses me. “Yeah… didn’t you have a party?”
    Pressing my lips together, I nod. “And there were a lot of people there.”
    “You know how your mother likes a show,” he says with a heavy sigh. “She’s always loved her parties and get-togethers.”
    I nod again and then push forward before my pulse and my thoughts can catch up with my voice. “Something bad happened to me… that day.” My thoughts drift back to when he pinned me down and I start to shake.
Please get off me. It hurts. I’m breaking. Please. Help me. Help me. Help…
    He sits up straighter and scoots forward in his chair, like he’s about to go kick someone’s butt or something. I don’t want him to, though. I just want him to know.
    “Dad, please stay calm when I tell you this.” I fidget with the bottom of my coat, unzipping the pockets and then zipping them back up, and then I return my hand to the clover. “I need you to just stay calm.”
    His fists clench on his lap. “I’ll try my best, but no promises. Callie honey, you’re really scaring me.”
    “I’m sorry.” I run my hand down my face and then up it, drawing my hood off my head as I remember how I felt that day.
I wish I were invisible. I wish I didn’t exist. I want to die.
The room lightens up a little as the clouds part from the sun just outside the window. I grip onto the clover and grasp onto the feeling Kayden has given me. “I was raped.” Just like that it’s out there, in the air, for him to hear, like tearing off a Band-Aid, lifting skin, wounds, everything with it because there’s no way to prepare anyone for this.
    My father stares at me for an eternity and a thousand emotions rush across his expression: wrath, rage, frustration, pain. Then he does something I’ve never seen him do. He starts to cry. He’s sobbing hysterically, with his head hung in his hands, and I don’t know what to do, so I stand up, cross the room, and throw my arms around him.
    He keeps crying, but my eyes stay dry. I’ve cried enough over the last few years and I really don’t feel like shedding anymore.
    * * *
    The conversation with my mother doesn’t go as well as it did with my dad, especially when I have to tell her who did it.
    “No, no, no,” she keeps saying, like if she repeats it enough the denial will be real. She keeps tapping her feet against the ground as she sits in the chair in front of the window. “It didn’t happen… There’s no way…” But every time she looks at me, I know she knows it’s true. She’s probably going through every detail of my past, when I chopped off my hair, started hiding out in my