I feel like my body is being torn apart. I have no idea how I’m going to get through this. No idea at all. It doesn’t seem fair that I have to put Callan through this, or myself for that matter, but I can’t see another way out of this situation. My father is becoming more and more erratic and vicious as the months roll on. He won’t be able to stop himself soon, and he will kill me, unintentionally or in a pique of rage. Either way, I don’t want to end up dead by his hand, and I don’t want Callan to have to see my body being rolled out of next door on a goddamn gurney, covered with a sheet.
Better that he hate me. Better that he think I’m furious with him and never want to see him again.
I’m already crying as I begin my journey up onto the second story of the house. Callan’s just leaving his mother’s room, closing her bedroom door behind him, as I reach the landing. His face is ashen, and there are dark circles under his eyes. He doesn’t say anything when he sees me. Just goes very still. He stands there with his hand still on the door handle, his eyes traveling over my body, taking in the fact that I’m carrying a bag in my hand and the tears streaking down my face.
“Hey, bluebird,” he whispers. “What’s up?” I shake my head, trying to get out a breath before I tell him what I’m about to do. I don’t get the chance to, though. Callan sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. “Well, today’s been a seriously shitty day but I have a feeling it’s about to get ten times worse, huh?”
I look down at my feet. “I can’t stay,” I whisper. “You know I can’t.”
“Why?” His voice is small.
“Because…I’m not happy.” This is a lie. Despite everything I’ve been through and everything I’ve suffered, I am capable of happiness. He makes me happy. He somehow cuts through all of the hurt and continually helps to believe that there’s hope for my future. I will be forever grateful to him for that. I’m so damaged now, though. I don’t know how anything I touch or cherish or love could ever be good.
“You’re not thinking straight,” Callan says. “This is because of the baby? Because you’re not the only one who lost something here, Coralie. I lost my kid, too.” He speaks quietly, his words slow and measured, as if he’s trying to stay calm in the face of overwhelming odds. He’s hurting. I can see it all over him. He’s barely hanging on by a thread. I want to go to him, let him hold me, let him kiss me, let him fix all of this for me, but he’s already carrying so much. If I did that to him, the effort of it would break him and it would be all my fault.
“It’s not the baby,” I say. “It was the photo. I couldn’t stay even if I wanted to. If my father sees that magazine, he’ll fucking lose his mind. He won’t just hit me next time. He’ll fucking kill me.”
Callan’s face screws up. He takes a step back. “What? What do you mean, he won’t just hit you? When has he ever hit you?”
Shit. I didn’t mean to say that. I’m distracted, trying not to break down into a flood of tears. I’m not thinking about the words that are coming out of my mouth. “I didn’t mean—”
Callan holds up his hand, guiding me away from his mother’s bedroom, ushering me into his. He closes the door behind us and then rounds on me, eyes alight with horror. “You dad fucking hit you? When? What happened?”
I sigh. His reaction is one of immediacy—the kind reserved normally for breaking news. This is fresh for him. An atrocity that demands action. For me, the cruelty is so commonplace that it’s become routine. No surprise here. No outrage.
The fight has completely left me. I can’t even muster up the strength to continue lying about it. I feel weary in my bones and deeper down than that, closer to my soul. “He’s always done it, Cal. Always. Ever since my mother died.”
Callan sinks down heavily onto his bed. Some photographs slide from on top of his duvet, fluttering to the floor. I see a picture of myself there on the floorboards, lying on my back, surrounded by long grass, face lit in golden sunlight. I’m smiling, my teeth showing, but I can see the quiet pain lurking in my eyes. How can he not have seen it? How can he not have known somehow?
“Goddamn it, Coralie. You should have said something.”
“I should have done a lot of things.”
“That bruise was because he hit you, then? You didn’t get it playing lacrosse?”
“Yes.” My mouth forms the shape of the word, but no real sound comes out. At least I don’t think it does. My ears are ringing, buzzing with a high-pitched noise that blots everything else out.
Callan covers his face with his hands and sits there like that for a long time, his shoulders rising up and falling down as he breathes deeply. When he finally looks up at me, his eyes are bloodshot and his face is even grayer than before.
“You have to stay,” he says. “What can I do to make you stay?”
I look at him and I see everything in my life that brings me joy. I see hours spent on the riverbanks after school. I see the gentle way he studies me when he’s inside me. I see love, and I see hope, and I see possibility, and it hurts so fucking much. I go to him, placing one hand on his cheek, feeling the sharp prickle of his stubble scratch at my palm.
“Nothing, Callan. There’s nothing you can do.” I sound strangled as I force out my next words. “Don’t follow me. I’m sorry. Goodbye.” I kiss him quickly, crushing my lips against his. He takes hold of my wrist, making a gasping sound, but I pull away. I turn and I leave, and I don’t look back.