by Stacey Kade
She makes it sound like we’re in the bottom of a collapsed mining shaft and running out of air.
The poster of the three of us keeps drawing my attention. “Have you ever … have you ever found the best thing—not perfect, nothing is perfect—but then it’s gone and you don’t know how to get back there?”
“No,” Beth says softly.
“I feel like I had everything, but I couldn’t fit it all together, and the worst part is, I still don’t know what I should have done instead.” My eyes well, and my vision goes blurry. “I just … I’m screwed.” I force a laugh.
“Calista,” Beth says. “What happened?”
So I tell her. Everything. From the time Eric and I left campus to when I boarded the plane yesterday.
Beth’s mouth is hanging open slightly by the time I finish.
“Yeah,” I say, wiping under my eyes. “A mess, right?”
“I didn’t … I had no idea,” she says.
“It’s not all red carpets, stylists and award shows,” I say. “We’re as messed up as everyone else.”
Her cheeks flush red, color rising all the way to her hairline. “I never meant that.”
I sigh. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“You know he loves you,” she says, after a moment.
A sinking feeling begins in my stomach. “Beth…”
She stands up and starts pacing the length of the bed. “Look, I know you probably think I’m one of those pathetic Skyron-obsessed freaks—”
Yes. “I would never—”
“And I am,” she says, meeting my gaze defiantly. “But I know the difference between fiction and reality, and Eric Stone loves you. Not Skye. It has nothing to do with Skyron. I saw it when he was here.”
“Look, Beth, I appreciate everything you’re trying to do, but—”
“When we went to that party, Blackout, it was because he wanted to make sure you were okay,” she insists.
“Because he didn’t want me to go in the first place,” I point out.
“No,” Beth says sharply. “We were there, I don’t know, for like fifteen or twenty minutes, and he wouldn’t interfere because you were having fun, talking to those girls.”
That party feels like a lifetime ago.
“He didn’t even intervene when that first guy was bothering you because he saw you could handle it. He only went over there when Carter,” she rolls her eyes, “started writing that … shit on your shirt.” Her color deepens with the swear word. “You couldn’t see it, so you didn’t know. You couldn’t protect yourself in that case, so he did it for you.”
And took a punch to the face for it, as well.
The ache in my chest swells until it feels like it might break through my ribs. “Stop,” I say raggedly. “It doesn’t matter. I tried, I wanted to choose him, but he didn’t understand why I couldn’t just leave my sisters, my family—”
“Yeah,” she says, sounding frustrated. “Because you can’t save someone when you’re still drowning.”
I blink at her.
“It’s like that thing they tell you on airplanes?” she continues. “When we went to Florida last summer to visit my grandma, it was the first time I’d ever flown.”
Beth’s only a few years younger than me. By the time I was her age, I’d traveled out of the country, flown on private jets. Of course, I’d also been audited by the IRS and never been to a dance. So maybe our experiences are just limited in different ways.
“But in the instructions, if you’re paying attention, they tell you to put your oxygen mask on first before helping the person next to you.” She nods to herself. “I think that’s what he was trying to say to you. How are you supposed to save your sisters when you can’t save yourself?”
I sink onto the edge of her roommate’s bed. “It doesn’t matter. It’s too late. He won’t forgive me for taking the job with his dad.”
“But you didn’t,” she points out. “You’re here.”
“Yes,” I say. “After I chose my family over him. And then bailed on everyone.” I shake my head. “Maybe Eric is right. I don’t know how to be a person without someone telling me what to do. Because this plan? Sucks. It’s only good for about a month, until the semester ends, and I have no idea what I’m going to do after that.” I’ve never felt so helpless and alone in my life.
Beth’s forehead furrows with concern. “But Calista, that’s what it’s like for everyone,” she argues. “No one knows for sure what they’re supposed to do. And fighting back took guts. Guts that some of us don’t even have,” she adds, picking at the loose edge of plastic on a ramen container.
I wait, sensing she has more to say.
“I’m a business major,” she says finally. “Do you know why?”
I shake my head.
“Because all my brothers were business majors. That’s what my parents wanted, so that’s what we are. They’re paying for my tuition, so…” She shrugs.
“What do you want instead?”
She gives me a sad smile. “I don’t know for sure. English, maybe?” She hesitates. “I do a lot of writing online.”
“Writing like blogs or…”
“Mostly Skyron,” she says. “But some Byrdy.”
It takes me a second to decipher that sentence. I know Skyron is Skye/Byron so Byrdy is … “Byron/Brody. Really?” I grin for the first time in what feels like days. I’d love to read some of that. Bet Chase and Eric would both have something to say if they knew. Probably an argument over who would have made the first move—Byron or Brody.
She nods, pleased. “My dad says there are no jobs for English majors. But I’m one of the top fic writers in both categories in views and kudos.”
“That’s awesome,” I say. I have no idea how it all works, but I vaguely remember hearing that someone got a book deal for a story they wrote based on an alternate version of Brody and Skye, with different names. So what she’s talking about isn’t impossible. Difficult, probably, but not impossible. Plus, there are all kinds of writing, not just fan fiction. Scripts, books, plays, advertisements.
“If writing is what you really want to do…” I begin and then stop.
“See, that’s the thing, isn’t it?” she asks softly. “First it’s figuring out what you want, but then it’s deciding what you want to do about it. What risk you’re willing to take. Who you’re willing to hurt.”
She stands up then and hands me the cups of ramen. “Because the thing is, I’m pretty sure someone’s always getting hurt when we make choices. It’s just that sometimes it’s easier to hurt ourselves than it is to believe we deserve what we really want and to take the chance of hurting someone else.”
32
ERIC
It takes a minute for me to wake up enough to identify the noise penetrating my consciousness.
I spent most of the weekend in the editing room. And after surfing yesterday morning with Chase—he is both as terrible and determined as I expected—my whole body is achy and slow to rouse.
The phone. It’s the phone.
But it’s early. I squint at the windows in my bedroom to confirm, but yeah, that’s definitely gray pre-dawn, not gray-from-rain.
Who the hell is calling before dawn on a Monday morning?
That thought alone is enough to catapult my heart into my throat. Calista.
I fumble for my cell underneath the pillow next to me. Bitsy grumbles and curls herself up tighter.
But the screen on my cell is dark.
Then I realize it’s the wall phone. Which never ever gets used.
Except when unapproved visitors are downstairs.
I throw back the covers and hurl myself toward the kitchen, where the wall phone resides.
Well, that’s what I try to do, but every muscle in my body is protesting.
Shit. I either need to quit surfing or do it more often.
I finally make it to the phone, breathless and sore, and grateful that Antonio hasn’t simply decided I’m not home. �
�Hello?”
“Hey, Mr. Stone. I have a woman here. I’ve seen her here before but—”
“It’s okay,” I say quickly. “You can just—”
There’s a clatter and the sound of fabric rustling. “Let me talk to him!” A shrill and familiar voice comes through the phone, loud and clear.
And my heart sinks. Not Calista.
“He knows me!” Lori shouts.
“Ma’am, I can’t let you have the phone,” Antonio protests.
“I’ll be right there,” I say to Antonio, and hang up.
I can’t imagine what Lori wants at this point. But … however small the possibility that it’s about Calista—a message from her—I have to at least see.
Plus, it’s really not fair to subject Antonio to Lori, who sounds like she’s in a mood. Why, when she’s gotten everything she wants, I have no idea.
But she better not be here to complain about my dad screwing her over, because that I could have told her over the phone. Last week. Years ago.
I pull on clothes and head for the lobby, taking Bitsy with me. She’ll need to go out anyway.
I’m barely out of the elevator before Lori is in my face.
She looks like shit, her hair plastered against her face and her makeup smeared from crying.
“Where is she? You send her down right now!”
I stare at her. “What are you talking about?”
“Mom,” Zinn tries. She’s over at the desk, watching her mother warily. Oddly enough, she’s in her pajamas, flip-flops and a knitted beanie. What is going on here?
“I know she’s up there.” Lori tries to shove past me, and Bitsy starts barking.
“Ma’am, if you persist, I’ll have to call the police,” Antonio says, lifting the phone.
Lori stops, folding her arms across her chest. “Good! Call the police, they can arrest him for … for … kidnapping!” She sounds just short of hysterical.
“Kidnapping? Who the hell would I be—”
“My daughter!”
Jesus, Lori’s really lost it this time.
“Lori, Zinnia is right—”
Zinnia’s too-serious expression stops me, and she gives her head a tiny shake.
“Which daughter?” I ask, with a growing sense of dread.
“Which daughter? The only one whose life you’re ruining!”
“You’re looking for Calista?” I ask to confirm, mainly because I’m still confused. “But she’s with you. I haven’t seen her since Friday morning.” When I said horrible, horrible things to her. Just remembering how we left it makes me feel ill.
“Oh, please, do you honestly expect me to believe that?” Lori scoffs at me. “She took off after you and we haven’t seen her since. And she’s due for her wardrobe fitting for Triple Threat this morning!”
It’s clear which part of this Lori is most upset about.
Fear, deep and ugly, spreads through my gut. “When, exactly, was the last time you saw her?”
“Friday morning. After you shut down production,” Zinnia offers quietly, edging closer, though she’s still keeping a cautious eye on her mother, as if expecting a slap or a backhand.
Three days ago. The fear sharpens. A lot can happen in three days, particularly if you’re feeling like your life has gone to hell. If people you trusted have stomped all over you. “We need to call the police.” I shift Bitsy to my other arm so I can pull my phone out of my pocket.
Only then does it finally seem to dawn on Lori that I’m serious and I really don’t know where Calista is.
“You don’t have her upstairs?” Lori asks.
“First of all, she’s twenty-three and a person, I wouldn’t ‘have’ her anywhere. She’s not a fucking doll, Lori. And second, no, she’s not upstairs.”
“Oh, my God. She’s using again. She has to be. I should have known. When she yelled at me like that…” Lori shudders.
I pause in dialing. “Wait, what?”
Zinn speaks up then. “She fired Mom. Not just, like, as her manager, but as her mom.” She sounds awed, and a tiny, gleeful smile plays around her mouth. The bruise on her temple looks better now. Or maybe it’s just that the beanie is so brightly colored that it distracts from the injury.
“She screamed at me and then she left,” Lori says. “God save me from my own children.” She gives a dramatic half sob, like she’s trying to hold back tears. But then she glares at Zinnia. “I’ve only ever wanted the best for them.”
I’m not sure what’s happening here.
Zinn pulls her beanie off with a grin then, revealing ragged and chopped sections of hair, some of them going all the way to her scalp.
Lori gasps, as if the sight is a shock all over again.
I raise my eyebrows in question.
“She wouldn’t listen when I told her I didn’t want be the Secret Service director’s daughter. I want to play basketball.” This last is directed at her mother.
“Secret Service … a role?” I ask, trying to piece this together.
Zinn nods. “But I don’t want to do it, and Calista’s not, so I shouldn’t have to either.”
Holy shit. She did it. Calista stood up to Lori. I try to keep my mouth from falling open.
Of course, she did that and then came to find me, only I wasn’t here.
That thought immediately clips the wings of my exuberance. Hell, I’m surprised she even came looking for me after what I said.
Zinn jerks her chin at my phone. “Are you calling the police?”
I look down at the phone in my hand, another idea slowly bubbling to the surface of my mind. For Calista, there just aren’t that many places for her to go, people that she trusts. And if she was willing to rebel that far against her mother …
“No,” I say. “Not yet. I need to check something first.”
It takes me a few seconds of scrolling to find the text conversation from last week, just a few messages back and forth with meet-up times and details.
I’m not going to ask if she’s with you. But have you heard from her? Is she okay?
The typing dots appear almost immediately.
Thank God.
Beth: She’s here. She’s fine. Sad, crying a lot, but not hurt. Physically.
That last bit tears through me. Her pain, that’s on me.
Beth: You should come.
I look up at Lori. “She’s fine. Calista’s safe.”
Lori lurches toward me. But Bitsy barks at the sudden movement, and she backs off. “Where? Where is she?”
“If she wanted you to know, if she wanted either of us to know, she would have told us,” I say, tucking my phone back in my pocket.
“You can’t do this. She doesn’t belong to you,” Lori says, frustration pulling her mouth tight, forcing new lines into existence.
For a second, I feel a flash of genuine pity. It has really never occurred to Lori that it might end this way. “I think,” I say, “the issue here is more that she doesn’t belong to anyone. Not like that. And she’s finally, thank God, figured that out.”
“I’ll just call the police myself,” she says, as if that will solve everything. “I’ll tell them she’s using again. They’ll find her.”
Calista’s an adult who left of her own volition, so I doubt it. But I’m not sure that point will register with Lori, so I go with the one that will. “And who will hire Calista then?”
Lori’s face seems to collapse in on itself. Then she turns without another word and marches out the door, where Wade’s Cadillac is waiting at the curb.
Taking a deep breath, Zinnia starts to follow her.
“Zinn?”
She pauses.
“You have a phone?”
She pulls it from the pocket of her pajama pants.
I take it and program my number in.
“If you need anything, I’m here, okay? If it gets to be too much at home, you call me. I will help you.” Her sister is gone and unable to step in because I couldn’t step up, but I won’t make
that mistake again in her absence.
Zinn takes her phone back when I hold it out. “Okay.” She hesitates. “Are you going to bring Calista back home?”
“I … don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Good,” she says with a decisive nod. “She deserves to be free.”
“So do you,” I say with a lump in my throat. Calista should have had someone looking out for her back then, when she was Zinn’s age.
She grins at me, her shorn hair sticking up all over the place like feathers on a baby bird. “I’m working on it.”
Then she turns and runs after her mother.
“Whew,” Antonio says, slumping behind his desk. “I don’t mean to criticize, but she’s a friend of yours or—”
“No, Lori is awful. No question. Thank you for not letting her up.” I watch Wade’s Cadillac pull away, with Zinn waving in the window until Lori yanks her hand down. Definitely going to have to do something about that.
“Sure thing, man. Oh, hey, you have a package down here. Came in on Saturday, I think. You want it now?” He doesn’t wait to hear my answer before unlocking the office door behind him and stepping inside. He reappears a few moments later with a slim, rectangular box. “Here.” He holds it up.
I frown. My name is on the address label, but I don’t remember ordering anything …
Then it clicks. The new laptop for Calista. To replace her old cracked one, one that she might not have if she left that quickly on Friday. I ordered it last Saturday, but it was out of stock at the time.
And it feels in that second like maybe this is a nudge, a push in the right direction. If nothing else, I can help her with this one small thing. And that’s more than I’ve done before.
“One second,” I say to Antonio. Then I pull my phone out and type another message.
Are you sure? I ask Beth.
Because I don’t deserve Calista, is what I mean. Because I really messed up.
Beth: No, not sure. But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? There’s a chance.
A chance I have to take, but there’s something I need to do first.
* * *
My father’s current assistant—Madisyn, according to the nameplate on her desk—shows me into my dad’s downtown office right away with a perfect, bleached smile. She’s maybe twenty-two. Maybe.
