Rekindled (23 page)

My heart hammers against my chest hearing the pain seeping through his voice. The guilt he feels from that day. The same guilt I’ve been harboring for the past seven years.

“You’d be nineteen today, a college sophomore. I like to think you’d be studying to become a marine biologist like you always wanted. Maybe somewhere in California or the East Coast. I still imagine what it would have been like to take you dress shopping for prom, or teaching you to drive. I’m sure you know by now that I finished that car of yours, and I hope wherever you are, that you like it.” His hands fist into the grass as he tilts his head back and stares at the small speckles of light twinkling against the dark canvas sky. “I’m sorry that I didn’t get to watch you enter into high school. I’m sorry that I didn’t get to see you have your first date, or hear about your first kiss. I’m sorry that you won’t ever get to experience falling in love or getting married, or raising a family. I’m sorry for not protecting you when I should have. I love you, Rylee, and I think about you every damn day and I hope that wherever you are, that you at least are at peace.”

He starts to get up, but startles when he turns and sees me standing a few feet away. I quickly try to swipe away the tears stained on my face, but it’s futile, as fresh ones keep falling. I half expect him to berate me for eavesdropping, and for intruding on this private moment, but he doesn’t. Instead, he opens his arms and steps towards me, wrapping me in his embrace.

“I miss her so much,” I sob softly into his chest.

“I know,” he says placing a gentle kiss on the top of my head while tightening his grip around my waist, pulling me closer to him. “We both do.”

I don’t know how long we stand there, me wrapped up in his arms, each of us relying on each other for strength. But in this moment, I know that none of our anger from the past matters right now. It doesn’t matter that I ran from him all those years ago, or that he cut me from his life after that. It doesn’t matter that he’s engaged, or that I told him that I loved him. In this moment, being wrapped up in Tate’s arms, everything feels
right
, and I don’t ever want to let go.

I close Jonah’s bedroom door and slowly make my way downstairs, picking up the stray toys he’s left behind from playtime this evening. I know I shouldn’t have let him stay up so late, but after getting home from the cemetery, Caleb said he was heading out to the bar, and I didn’t want to be alone, so I agreed to let Jonah stay up until eleven. But now he’s sound asleep, and I have nothing but the demons of my past left for company.

Gazing out the living room window, I watch as the storm clouds that have been looming since early this afternoon, finally crack open. Fat rain drops begin to assault the ground and thunder explodes into the air, making the house quake. Snatching my purse off the floor, I rustle through it in search of a mint, or a piece of gum. Anything to help relieve the tension that’s rapidly building in my jaw.

“Relax, you’re okay,” I say out loud, hoping to convince myself that everything’s fine. “You’re fine, Callie. Just breathe.”

Outside, lightning slices into the night sky, illuminating the trees bending in the wind. The movement reminds me of when I was eight and my mother enrolled me in ballet. Every Tuesday at five fifty-five sharp, I’d arrive at the Castelli Dance Studio wearing my cotton-candy pink leotard with matching tights and ballet shoes. My hair would be pinned in a tidy bun and I’d stand awkwardly in the corner as all the other little girls talked in excited whispers about how much they loved ballet, while all I wanted to do was go back home and watch cartoons in my pajamas. Our dance instructor, Ms. Peccolini, would hover over me smelling like mint and cigarettes as she’d silently chide my lack of flexibility and grace as we stretched: one leg balanced on the barre, my body clumsily bent forward while my arm arched above me, reaching for my toes.

Ms. Peccolini and I both knew I’d never be a dancer. I was too uncoordinated, and doubly uninterested, but despite my protests, my mother refused to let me quit, because in our town it was well known that little girls who knew how to plié properly would be bound for greatness. Unfortunately for her, fate had other plans for me.

My body tenses when a piece of debris smashes against the window with a loud
crack
. Squeezing my eyes shut, I try to visualize my breaths, a coping trick my therapist once taught me after my panic attacks started to worsen. Over the years, the frequency of the attacks has lessened, but this is the first time it’s rained since I’ve been back here, and the memory of that night is loaded into my mind like a shotgun, waiting for the trigger to be pulled.

A strand of thunder erupts into the night.
Boom
. And then the images come flooding in, the serrated pieces of that night whittling open the scars that have since formed on my heart.

“You’re being a dick,” I say as I pull out of the parking space and flick the windshield wipers on.

“I’m not being a dick. I’m being honest,” Tate replies as he props his feet on the dashboard and grabs his seatbelt and pulls it across his chest, buckling it in.”

“You haven’t even given him a chance.”

“I don’t need to. I’ve already seen enough.”

I let out a harsh breath. Zach arrived in town two weeks ago to spend the rest of summer with me, and for some reason Tate refuses to give him a chance. When Zach told me he was flying back home for a week to help his dad with something, I knew I wanted to spend all of my spare time with Tate and Rylee. Yesterday Johnny took us all fishing, but with the storm coming in today, we decided to spend the night at the movies. I thought Tate would be happy that we got to hang out, but all he’s done tonight is gripe about my boyfriend.

“Rylee, you met Zach, what do you think?” I glance at her through the rearview mirror.

She glances at Tate first before looking at me. “Uh, he seems okay, I guess.”

“Just okay?”

She shrugs. “It was a little weird that he bought me a Barbie doll. I’m twelve, not six.”

I laugh and shake my head. “He grew up with a brother and didn’t really know what to get you, I guess.”

“Why is he buying her anything at all?” Tate folds his arms across his chest and scowls. “Fucking spoiled golden boy thinks he can buy my sister’s approval. Doesn’t he know that money can’t buy someone’s love?”

“Seriously, Tate? What the hell is your problem?”

Lightning flashes up ahead, followed by thunder two seconds later. The hairs on my forearms stand on end as frenzied energy seems to crackle all around our car. Pine trees lining the highway groan as they protest against the howling wind, and I tighten my grip on the steering wheel as raindrops explode against my windshield. The storm’s worsening by the second.

“You want to know my problem,
Callie
?” he spits my name out as if it were poison. “My problem is that ever since you started dating Zach, it’s like I don’t even know you anymore. You never want to go fishing or camping with us, and the past two weeks I’ve barely even seen you because your family has you parading your rich boyfriend around town. It’s like whenever he’s near you, you become one of those stupid Stepford women who forgot how to use your brain.”

“Tate…” Rylee says leaning forward, resting her elbows on the console. “I don’t think—”

“You know what?” I shout, interrupting Rylee. “You’re right. I am different around Zach, and I like it, Tate. I like the way he makes me feel, okay? I like that he sends me flowers while he’s off at school, and that he surprises me with jewelry just because he wants to show me he cares. And yeah, maybe it’s shallow to enjoy that, but if it makes me smile, then so what?”

“God, you just don’t get it, do you?” he yells, slamming his fists into the dashboard. “Those things aren’t going to keep you happy. And the fact that you can’t see that he’s basically buying you off, is pathetic. You’re fucking pathetic.”

My bottom lip trembles and I release one hand from the steering wheel to swipe away the tears forming in my eyes. Rylee unbuckles her seatbelt and scoots to the edge of the seat, placing her hand on my shoulder.

“He didn’t mean that,” she says quietly. “Tate, tell her you didn’t mean that.”

When he doesn’t respond, a cold laugh rips from my throat. “It’s okay, Rylee. I wouldn’t expect him to understand. He spends all his time being bitter at the world, hating everything and everyone, I don’t think he’d know happiness if it smacked him in the head.”

Thunder rolls over us so loud that I can feel it in my stomach. My hand fumbles as I reach for the wipers, trying to turn it to the highest setting, but the rain is coming down so hard, I can barely see a foot in front of me. For a second, I forget about the argument, trying to focus on just getting home, but then Tate opens his mouth.

“Yeah well, not everyone has such a blessed life like you, princess. Not everyone has a rich mommy and daddy to pave a golden road for them. Some people have to actually work for what they have.”

His words blister inside me until my anger explodes like the detonation of a bomb.

“H-how dare you,” I say, turning to look at him. My foot instinctively presses down on the gas as my blood begins to boil. “I hate you, Tate Corbin.” Tears streak my cheeks and I know I should be paying more attention to driving, but my heart has stolen my ability to think, and I can’t turn away from him. “Do you hear me? I hate you. I HATE—”

“CALLIE! Look out!” Rylee yells as I swing my attention back to the road and see a pair of headlights careering directly at us.

Tate reaches over and jerks the steering wheel hard, and my foot slams on the brakes, but the roads are slick with oil and water, making it impossible to control the car. The squeal of tires can barely be heard beneath the roar of the storm, and high-pitched screams echo in my ears as our car pitches off the road, down a muddy embankment and rolls. Once. Twice. Three times.

Pain explodes through my body as the car smashes into something hard and the airbag socks me in the chest. The metallic taste of blood fills my mouth and I whimper when I try to move, unable to see anything, but darkness.

“Tate? Rylee?” I whisper, or at least I
think
I say it aloud. It’s hard to tell at this point.

“Yeah, I’m here. I’m trapped, though,” Tate says as I feel the soft touch of his fingers to mine. “Are you hurt?”

I blink and take a minute to try to move all my limbs. Everything feels okay, aside from the pounding in my head. I don’t think anything’s broken, although, maybe my body is in shock and I just can’t feel the pain. “I-I don’t think so,” I reply letting his touch comfort me. I blink a few more times until my vision focuses and I can make out the giant pine tree that stopped our car from rolling the rest of the way down the hill. And then I see the windshield and awareness strikes.

Mustering all the strength I have, I turn to look in the backseat, even though I already know what I’ll see. Or more accurately, what I won’t see.

“Tate, call 9-1-1,” I say, wedging open my door and scrambling out of the car.

“Where are you going?” he asks, panicked.

“I have to find Rylee. She’s not in the car.”

I hear him start to dial on his phone and my shoes sink into the muddy ground, making it nearly impossible to move. “Rylee!” I call out. No answer. “Rylee!” Pain begins to splinter down my side as I pitch myself forward, stumbling and falling to my knees, practically somersaulting down the hill. “Rylee! Please, answer me. Please.”

Scanning the area, I see the front end of the car completely obliterated by the tree trunk, and the windshield completely shattered. If we weren’t in my brother’s large Escalade we would have all been crushed. I try to regain my footing, wincing when spare pine needles pierce into my palms and a thin rivulet of crimson begins to trickle down my arm. Desperation grips me as I call out to Rylee again, but only hear the wind respond. And then I see it.

Looking so out of place, is a single glittery purple tennis shoe with neon orange laces that glow beneath the cloak of night. The same laces that Johnny bought her for her birthday so that he wouldn’t worry when she would ride her bike after sunset. The laces that were meant to keep her safe.

A surge of hope takes flight in my chest when I see her little body a few feet away, and adrenaline swells through my veins, propelling me forward. Dropping to my hands and knees, I scramble towards her, letting my hand brush the matted strands of hair that cling to her face. Her legs are bent at unnatural angles and blood drains from the corner of her lips, but her eyes are open and she blinks once as I lean over her.