The decisions I'd made the night before welled up in my throat—to nobody's surprise—as I gingerly made my way towards the farm. Fallen branches crunched beneath my heavy footsteps and scraped my ankles in passing; a familiar uneasiness boiled within me.
Sebastian had woken me with a gentle shake of my shoulder, the innate comfort of his touch yanking me from the grasp of sleep as though it were a butcher's knife caressing my skin. Safety felt so foreign that my body believed it was something to be feared.
The morning began before the sun said so, merely hours after the evening itself had ended. I had shoved two fingers into my throat and allowed the inevitable to take care of the rest, eventually trekking back into the abyss of the basement and allowing the night to consume me once more. It was the first time since my arrival that I'd slept between his sheets, the blanket of his scent coddling me through the hangover and threatening to fill my heart with something terrible and human and real.
I didn't know what the night before meant—as much as I longed to figure it out—there was not enough said to erase all of the vicious words and years of paralyzing quiet. There was something equally as terrifying as it was exciting stirring within me: the possibility of starting anew. The possibility of starting anew.
My thoughts ran wild. How do you talk about what was never said? Move on from the things that were? How do we even proceed from the events of last night? How—
My heart froze at the sight of the farm, the dirt path opening into what now looked like a debris-filled clearing.
I frantically scanned the area, searching for something that felt like me—like Grandpa—in the midst of the mess. The oak siding of the house was cracked and stained and, in some spots, non-existent—the interior had been infiltrated by the elements. Hoards of leaves and sticks littered the tile, mud soaked the once colorful rugs, and sizable branches laid haphazardly across empty flooring and furniture alike.
And the farm—the farm looked like the black and white photos Grandpa used to show to prove how much he'd done, to prove how far he'd come. The before. Ruined and neglected land stretched for as far as the eye could see, hiding fertile soil and the potential for better. There was nothing left.
There was nothing left.
The words echoed through my brain as I ran towards the fields, searching for something that I already knew was gone.
And then I saw it: the remnants of the one thing that mattered to me, that had mattered to me before anything else truly could. Its trunk sprawled across the grass lifelessly, rotting apples surrounding it. The stump stared through me.
And beside it, the rock covered in permanent marker that had managed to withstand decades, managed to outlive the very thing it was meant to honor.
Callie and Seb's Tree of Life
A searing pain electrocuted my foot as I kicked the rock, its weight barely shifting from the impact. I struck it until I was sure at least one of my toes were broken, cursing it for being there to rub everything in my face and cursing Sebastian's name for being on it and cursing myself for still holding onto it all. For simultaneously wanting more than a sorry and more than just a kiss. For wanting every part of him and wanting back everything that I'd lost and wanting to be anywhere but here and nowhere else all at once.
I bulleted back up the mountain, wanting nothing more than to scream how unfair it all was and get over it like I got over everything, to scream at him like he'd screamed at me and then utter the words I'd never been able to: I love you. To be swept into the darkness of his room and into the heat of his arms and the hell out of my own head.
The stairs sang below me as I heard muffled movement behind the door, expecting to see Sebastian's fingers flying over a keyboard.
The part of me that still believed in him couldn't bear to register the purple head of hair that completely covered his face, the pale legs straddled over dark pants, the crumpled comforter that screamed we're getting it on!
"Oh my god," I breathed out, my words catching his attention and sending his gaze darting towards me. My heart slammed into my ribcage.
The light from the hallway filled his dark eyes as he frantically peered at me from behind her, beneath her. His hands were firmly planted on the sides of her shoulders, icy veins snaking across them and swallowing her whole.
"Get off," he commanded Abigail. She stayed frozen in place. "Get off!"
She scrambled onto her feet and stared at me like a deer caught in headlights, and I could feel the adrenaline flowing through her blood; I imagined a sick part of her to be deriving pleasure from it all.
"Sorry to interrupt," I muttered, turning around and quickly ascending back into the foyer. My legs groaned as I strained to take two steps at a time.
"Cal, wait," Seb called after me. I moved faster.
And then I was surrounded by fresh mountain air that was now thick with smog, with memory. My pace picked up and suddenly I was running—I was running as fast as I could, trying to get to Sam, to get to anyone. I might've screamed for someone had I had a name to yell, had there been someone who would hear and come running just as fast. Someone who wasn't chasing after me with his tail tucked between his legs and someone else's spit on his lips.
His hand grabbed my shoulder right where it had grabbed hers, spinning me around and rooting me to the ground. "Callie," he said again.
"Get off of me!" I screamed, pushing him away.
"I can explain—"
"Explain it to someone who cares," I huffed, turning to walk away. "I'm over this."
"Please just talk to me," he pleaded, crunchy footsteps following mine. "Please."
"You want to talk?" I shouted, my voice echoing. "Fine! Let's talk about how she means nothing to you, but you still go running back? That's nothing? Then what does that make me?"
"She came onto—you know what? I was wasted, and so were you!" he said, his volume rising to match mine. "You can't possibly expect everything to be fixed with one drunk kiss."
"I—" the words were caught in my throat. "I didn't. I expected things to be different."
"I did all of the apologizing last night," he was quieter now. "It's your turn."
"You apologized because you got caught doing the one thing I'd never do to you." I hissed, venom in my words.
"I apologized because—"
"Because you're a coward."
"Because I care!" He shouted, flinging his arms towards the sky—it was like he was begging someone to believe him. "Because I care about you, no matter how hard I try not to. No matter how many times you remind me it's not mutual."
"It is—"
"You've still never been able to say it," he snarled, turning his back towards me. "And I'm the coward?"
"You kiss me when you're drunk, you kiss her when you're sober. How am I supposed to tell someone who can only look at me when they're hammered that I love them?"
"Do you?" He yelled, charging back towards me. "Do you fucking love me, Callie? Or do you love the idea of someone loving you? Because it's getting really fucking hard to tell."
"How do your fuck-ups always come back on me?" I yelled. "You tell me to get over my grandfather's death, a week after it happened, and I'm the asshole. You kiss my best friend the second I turn my back, and I'm the asshole."
"I was your best friend!" he screamed, practically cutting me off. His face was inches from mine now. "I was your best friend through it all, not her. She came onto me, and I tried to get her to stop. I wanted to talk to you about last night, but here we are again, right where we always end up. If I'm bad for that, what does that make her? Or does your wrath only apply to me?"
"The tree fell over," I said quietly, unable to muster up the energy to shout. His face fell. "All that was left of it was the rock with your stupid name on it. Your name is scribbled on every piece of me, and I hate it. I hate how much you mean to me; I hate that I kissed you; most of all, I hate that I was going to stand by it. I couldn't tell you I loved you because it was only a matter of time before you betrayed me again. And somehow, some way, you managed to do it before I'd even figured that out." An almost evil laugh escaped my lips. "The only thing time has changed is your age. You're still the same, sorry asshole you were at sixteen."
"Fuck you," he spat, his breath on my ear.
"I bet you'll want to next time you're wasted." I replied, turning to walk away.
This time, his footsteps didn't follow.