The Coincidence of Callie & Kayden (The Coincidence, #1)

When I get back to my room later that day, I write until my hand hurts, needing to get it out, but only daring to tell it to a blank sheet of paper. There are no accusations with writing, no judgment, no shame, only freedom. As the pen touches the paper, for a moment, I’m alive.

The day I changed is like a scar. It’s there, a memory in my mind, something I always remember and can never erase. It was the week after my birthday party. I’d locked myself in the bathroom and stared in the mirror for an eternity. I used to love how I looked, the length of my hair, perfect for braiding. I had always been tiny for my age, but suddenly I wanted to be smaller—invisible. I didn’t want to exist anymore.

I grabbed a pair of scissors out of the drawer and without even thinking, began hacking off my long brown hair. I didn’t even bother trying to make it look nice, I just cut, even shutting my eyes sometimes, letting fate take over, like it had done with my life.

“The uglier the better,” I whispered with each snip.

When I was finished, I didn’t look like myself. I hadn’t been sleeping very well and my blue eyes had dark circles under them and my lips were chapped from dehydration from all the vomiting. I felt ugly and the thought formed a tiny smile on my face, because I knew no one would look at me and want to come near me again.

When I walked into the kitchen, with my brother’s jacket on and the baggiest pair of jeans I could find, all the color drained from my mom’s face. My father had been eating his breakfast at the table and looked up at me with horror in his eyes. My brother and Caleb stared at me too, making repulsed faces.

“What the fuck happened to you?” My brother said with wide eyes.

I didn’t reply. I just stood there, blinking at him, wishing I could be smaller.

“Oh my God, Callie,” my mom breathed, her eyes so wide they looked like marbles. “What did you do?”

I shrugged and grabbed my bag off the doorknob. “I cut my hair.”

“You look… you look.” She took a deep breath. “You look hideous, Callie. I’m not going to lie. You’ve ruined yourself.”

I’m more ruined than you think, I wanted to tell her. But she kept looking at me in disgust, like she wished for a second I didn’t exist and I felt exactly the same way. I bottled everything up, knowing I could never tell; that she would look at me with even more hate and revulsion if I told her.

For the first few years of my turmoil, she tried to understand. And I give her credit for that. She asked questions, took me to talk to a counselor, who told her that I was acting out because I needed more attention. He was a small town shrink and had no idea what he was talking about, although I didn’t try to help him understand either. I didn’t want him to know what was living on the inside. At that point, all the good and clean had been spoiled and was rotten like eggs left out in the sun.

The thing about my mother is she likes things happy. She hates seeing bad things on the news and refuses to watch it. She won’t read the headlines of the newspapers and doesn’t like talking about the pain in the world.

“Just because the world is full of bad things, doesn’t mean I have to let them bring me down.” This is what she would say to me all the time. “I deserve to be happy.”

So I let my shame own me, kill me, wilt me away into a thousand dead flakes, knowing if I kept it all in, she would never have to learn the dirtiness that was forever inside me—the bad, the ugly, the twisted. She could go on living her life happy, just like she deserved.

Eventually, she stopped asking me so many questions and started telling everyone that I was suffering from teenage angst, just like the therapist told her.

I heard her tell the neighbor once, after he accused me of stealing his garden gnomes, that I wasn’t that bad of a kid. That one day, I would grow up and look back at my silly little time spent locked away in my room, writing dark words, wearing excessive eyeliner and baggy clothes as something I wished I’d never done. That I’d regret my lonely adolescence, learn from it, and grow into a beautiful woman who had a lot of friends and smiled at the world.

But the thing I regret—will always regret—is going into my room on my twelfth birthday.

Chapter 10
#49 Tell the Truth to Yourself

Kayden

I’ve been at my house for two days now, and I’ve almost returned to the place I ran away from. My dad hasn’t hit me yet or anything, but I’m afraid of him, just like when I was a child.

“Why the fuck did you leave that piece of shit truck parked out front?” he asks when he walks into the kitchen. He’s wearing a suit, even though he doesn’t have to work today. He just likes looking important.

“Because the garage is full.” I butter my toast as quietly as possible because my dad hates the noise the knife makes against the dry bread.

“I don’t give a shit.” He opens the cupboard and takes out a box of cereal. “You need to get it out of here. It’s leaking oil all over the driveway.”

“Fine.” I bite into my toast. “I’ll find somewhere to put it.”

He steps in front of me and I freeze. His green eyes are harsh, his jawline taut, his expression indifferent. “I think you forgot something.”

I force the bread down my throat. “Fine, sir, I’ll find somewhere else to put it.”

He eyes me with intimidation for a second longer, before stepping back. “And you better come back and clean those crumbs off the counter.”

I inhale through my nose as I move for the doorway. “Yes, sir.”

He takes out a bowl from the dishwasher and I hurry out of the house. Why can’t I just hit him? I thought about it a few times when I was younger, but was always afraid he would retaliate twenty times harder. By the time I got older and bigger, something had died inside me and I didn’t really care. I let him kick me, hit me, wishing he’d finally go over the edge and it’d all be over.

That is until the night he almost did and Callie showed up and saved me.

My phone rings and I retrieve it from my pocket as Daisy’s name pops up on the screen.

“What?” I answer, jogging down the steps of the front porch.

“Hey,” she says in the high-pitched voice she uses when she’s around her friends. “How’s my favorite guy?”

“Fine.”

“What? Aren’t you excited to hear from me?”

“I heard from you a few days ago,” I say. “When you made it very clear we weren’t a couple anymore. Or actually, Luke did when he told me you were fucking around with someone else.”

“God, he has such a vendetta against me,” she snaps. “It’s like he wants us to break up. I never got why you were friends with him. He’s not even like you.”

“What do you want, Daisy?” My tone is clipped as I hike across the grass toward the old truck, stuffing the last of the toast into my mouth.

“I want you to take me to homecoming, like you promised.”

“I promised that when we were together.”

She sighs dramatically. “Look, I know you’re mad at me, but I don’t have a date and I’ve been nominated for Homecoming Queen. The last thing I want to do is be alone when they call my name.”

“I’m sure there’s a ton of guys that would love to take you.” And get into your pants.

“But I want you to take me,” she complains. “Please, Kayden, I need this.”

The phone vibrates and I pause at the end of the lawn, quickly switching the screen to text messages.

Callie: I wanted to see if u were okay. Luke told me u had to go home. If u need anything let me know.

I shake my head at her sweet message. She’s worried about me. No one has ever been worried about me before.

“God dammit, I can’t do this,” I mutter, kicking at the dirt. “I can’t be with you.”

“Yes, you can,” Daisy says. “All you have to do is pick me up at seven.”