Fuck! “Because he hurt someone.” My voice comes out piercing and uneven and makes me sound weak and pathetic.
He sits forward in the chair. “Someone you care about?”
“Obviously.” I shake my head, annoyed. My heart is still beating too loud and I can barely think straight.
He raises his eyebrows. “Someone you love?”
My pulse speeds even more, erratic and without a distinct beat. I feel it pulsating underneath every wound and scar on my body. Love? Do I love Callie? Can I? “I don’t think I even know what love is.”
He looks like he’s struck gold and found an insight into what’s locked away in my soul. “Can you answer just one more question for me?”
I throw my hands in the air exasperatedly. “Do whatever the hell you want. You’re already on a roll.”
He asks, “Do you think you deserve love?”
“I already told you I don’t even know what it is,” I mutter and he waits for me to divulge more information. What does he want from me? To tell him that my dad beats the shit out of me? That my mom’s a drug-addicted zombie? That the only exchange of love I’ve ever gotten is from Daisy and that felt about as plastic and as fake as things can get.
He writes down a few notes, then clicks his pen and tucks it away in his pocket before shutting his notebook again. “I think we might have made some progress today.” He checks his watch and then gets to his feet, retrieving his trench coat from off the back of the chair. “Keep it up, and maybe you can have visitors who are not family.”
I slump back into the chair. “I’m not sure if I want visitors,” I mumble.
He doesn’t seem to hear me. When he reaches the door, he slips his arm through the sleeve of his jacket, secures the belt around his waist, and sticks his hand into his pocket. “And Kayden, keep using this, no matter how many times it breaks. We can always get you a new one.” He throws a rubber band at me and I catch it effortlessly. For a second I’m back on the field, running and catching the ball, free from life.
I wish I were back there, fixed and mended. But unlike the rubber band, I’m not sure I can be fixed so easily.
Callie “I can’t believe your truck doesn’t have a CD player,” Seth says with his arm extended across the front of me as he fiddles with the volume on the stereo. He has on a jacket, with the sleeves pushed up, and skinny jeans. “Or an iPod hookup. I swear I’m having flashbacks of mullets, spandex pants, and crimped hair.”
“I think you’re going back a little too far.” Luke has his hood pulled over his head and a leather band on his wrist that has the word redemption on it. I wonder if it means something to him or if he believes in redemption. I wonder if I believe in it. He stretches his arm in front of me and flips open the glove box. “Back to the eight-track era.”
I cringe at how close he is, but then release the tension, refusing to go back to that place. I zip up my jacket, because it’s cold inside due to the fact that they keep rolling down the windows to smoke.
It’s early in the morning, the sun is kissing the frosted land, and the highway is a hazard from last night’s storm so we have to drive slowly. There are a few cars stuck in the mounds of snow in the strip of land in the center of the opposing traffic and people have turned off onto the ramps because they’re too afraid to drive.
Luke and I are used to it though. It’s the conditions we grew up in.
Seth slaps his hand away from the glove box and Luke looks at me in disbelief, but I just laugh. “No, eight-tracks were still in play in the eighties.”
“Early eighties,” Luke corrects. “They faded out by mid-decade.”
I laugh because they are fighting over something so ridiculous and I’m tired and nervous and my head’s in a very strange place. “You guys are fighting like an old married couple.”
As soon as I say it, I want to take it back, because I’m not sure how Luke will take it.
When I look at Luke, he seems perfectly fine. He shrugs and then sticks his hand into the glove box and pulls out a tape labeled Let’s Get High. “Whatever,” he says and feeds it into the tape player. “As long as I’m the guy in the relationship, it’s all good.”
Seth rolls his eyes. “Whatever, you’d totally be my bitch and you know it.”
That’s it. I can’t hold it in any longer. My body falls forward as I cover my mouth and my shoulders shake as I laugh into my hand. “Oh my God, I can’t believe you just said that.”
“Yes, you can.” Seth pats my back. “I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t say the first thing that pops into my head.”
He’s right. Seth is blunt and funny and he totally says whatever the hell he wants. And I love him for it. I sit up, wiping the tears from my eyes, and then give him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for making me smile,” I say.
He grins. “Anytime, sweetheart.”
Luke shakes his head, but there’s a grin on his face so I know he’s not offended. I like Luke. He’s not judgmental and he seems accepting. I almost lean over to hug him and then realize how weird it is because it doesn’t freak me out. What does that mean?
Crap. What does that mean?
“Come on Eileen,” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners, blasts out from the speakers.
“This is so eighties,” Seth says and begins snapping his fingers and bobbing his head. He really starts to get into it, shaking his hips and shimmying frontward and backward. “Come on, Callie, you know you want to dance. It’ll make you smile even more.”
I grin from ear to ear. “No way.”
Cold air fills the cab as Luke cracks the window. The lighter flicks and then the smell of cigarette smoke flows through the air.
Seth keeps dancing as he reaches into the pocket of his hoodie and takes out his pack of cigarettes. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Luke bobbing his head as he sucks on the end of his cigarette.
He takes a long drag, and then puckers his lips and a thin trail of white smoke laces out of his mouth. Seth starts thrusting his hips wildly as he flicks the end of his lighter and puts it up to the tip of the cigarette. The paper curls in and turns black as he takes a long drag. The car starts rocking as the chorus comes on and both the guys really start getting into it. The smoke burns my lungs and the cold causes goose bumps to sprout all over my arms. I experience almost every single detail of the moment and I decide to experience it all.