The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden

in the eye multiple times and inflict as much pain as possible.
     
    “Mom thought you ran away,” Jackson says, licking the whip cream off the fork. “She texted you a thousand times.”
     
    “Good for her,” I snap. I’ve always had this bitter hatred toward my brother for bringing that asshole around. I know he didn’t know, but I can’t turn it off. “Can you tell her that we stopped by and that I’m okay so she can stop texting?"
     
    “No,” Jackson says. “I’m not your messenger. She’s just in the living room. Go tell her yourself.”
     
    “Why are you even here?” I ask and Kayden’s finger grazes the inside of my wrist. I blink at him. I’d almost forgotten he was there.
     
    Kayden shakes his head, and his emerald eyes convey something I don’t like. He can see it—sense it—hidden deep beneath the surface of my skin.
     
    Caleb rises up from the table and heads across the kitchen, his movements unhurried like he doesn’t have a care in the world. “So how’s college football?” he says to Kayden. “I’ve heard it’s a lot more intense at that level.”
     
    Kayden doesn’t take his eyes off me. “It’s not that bad. You just have to be tough enough to make it.”
     
    Caleb eyes Kayden’s inflamed cheek with a sadistic look in his expression as he opens the cupboard. “Yeah, you look pretty tough. Nice shiner by the way.”
     
    Kayden gives him a cold, hard stare, his fingers wrapping inward into his palms. “Didn’t you get kicked out of college for selling pot on campus?”
     
    “Hey, I had to make a living,” Caleb says, slamming the cupboard shut. “Not everyone has daddy’s money and a scholarship to live off of.”
     
    Kayden’s jaw tenses and I jerk on his arm. “Can we go?”
     
    He nods, backing toward the door with my hand in his and his eyes boring into Caleb, who’s growing uneasy.
     
    “No way,” Jackson says to me. “You are not leaving me here to be smothered by mom.”
     
    “Shouldn’t you be in Florida or whatever?” I ask with rage and unsteadiness in my voice. “You weren’t supposed to be here.”
     
    He messes with his hair as he gets up from the kitchen table with the pie tin in his hand.  “We had a last minute change of heart.”
     
    “Didn’t you have to work?” I ask derisively. “Or did you just quit another job?”
     
    “I have a fucking job, Callie.” He tosses the tin into the kitchen sink and glares at me. “So quit being a cunt. I don’t know why you always have to talk to me like this.”
     
    “Hey.” Kayden steps in on my behalf, moving in front of me. “Don’t fucking call her names.”
     
    “I can call her whatever I want,” Jackson retorts, folding his arms over his chest. “You don’t know the shit she put this family through. Her little issues or whatever they are have made my mom basically crazy.”
     
    Caleb watches me with interest, waiting for me to react. I can’t look away from him. I want to, but he’s overpowering me because he knows what my issues are—he put them there. I slowly start to die, wilt into pieces like I’m a Night-Blooming Cereus, the flowers that bloom only once a year at night and die before sunrise, their lives and happiness short lived.
     
    “Leave her alone.” Caleb arches his eyebrows at me with a smile surfacing at his lips. “Maybe Callie has reasons for the way she acts.”
     
    Take me out of here. Take me out of here. Save me. Save me. Save me.
     
    Suddenly, my legs are moving and I’m being dragged somewhere. The back door swings open and I’m hauled down the stairs into the center of the driveway.
     
    Standing at the bottom of the stairs and in the light of the porch, Kayden observes me with uncertainty in his eyes, his hands on my shoulders. “What’s wrong? You have this look in your eyes…”
     
    I let out a strangled breath. “I don’t like my brother very much.”
     
    The muscles in his neck move as he swallows hard. “Callie, I know what fear is. Trust me. I’ve seen it on my brothers’ faces, felt it many times. You’re afraid of him. I can see it in your eyes.”
     
    “Afraid of my brother?” I play dumb, praying to God he won’t find out, fearing what will happen if he does.
     
    “Don’t do that,” he says sternly, placing his hand on my cheek. “You’re afraid of Caleb. He was… he was the one who did it to you?”
     
    “Yes.” I don’t even mean to say it, it just falls out into the world. I stare at