"Good morning, sweetheart! What's up?" Jodi's warm smile cradled me.
"Hi, Jodi, is Sam in?"
"He's in his room," she said lightly. "Come in!"
She gestured towards his closed door and nodded subtly in permission. Three knocks later, his voice—muffled and coated in sleep—sounded through the hardwood. "Hello?"
"Sam," I whispered as I turned the door knob, letting myself in. "Are you awake?"
"Been up for hours," he replied with a yawn, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. "What are you doing here?"
"Seb and I had a fight," I said.
"And?"
"And, well—"
"Cal, Robin will have your place fixed up in a few days. I understand it's probably exhausting by now, but if you just stick it out—"
"We kissed," I blurted out, cutting his sentence short. "He kissed me."
"Huh?" Bewilderment twinkled in his eyes. "He kissed you?"
"That's what I said."
"Are you going to say anything else?"
"What do you want me to say?"
He stood up gingerly, gently nudging my back towards the bed and shutting his door behind me. I tried to stifle a giggle at his Wumbus printed boxers, but the attempt was fruitless; he gave me the finger while haphazardly tugging a pair of pajama pants over them. A heavy silence ensued.
"Oh," he exhaled with a laugh as he sat beside me, the quiet finally breaking. "You're talking about when we were in high school. You had me for a second there."
"We never kissed back then, Sam," I said, annoyance tainting my tone. "I'm talking about yesterday. Last night. Less than twelve hours ago."
"Oh, shit," he said, a pink flush creeping onto his cheeks. "See, that's what I thought you meant, but then I was like, no way, so then I'm thinking, oh, I must have mis—"
"Does it matter?" I snapped, sending his hands flying upwards in surrender. "Point is, we kissed, and it seemed like everything was on the up, and then..." I paused.
"Then...what?" he said. He sounded as uneasy as I felt.
I gulped. "This morning, I went to go see the farm, and saw that the tree my grandfather planted had fallen over. I go back to Seb's—you know, seeking support? I get down the basement stairs and there's him and Abby again, getting down to it on the bed I slept in last night. Talk about a punch in the face, right?"
He nodded along, his eyebrows seemingly glued to his hairline.
"So then, naturally, I leave, and he comes running after me, like, please, Callie, talk to me! So I do, but I'm all mad, and then he gets all mad, and instead of saying sorry, he says she came onto him and blames our kiss on us being drunk! Can you believe that? Next thing you know, he's trying to get me to tell him I love him, like I haven't said it a million times before. And you know Seb; he always has to end things on a classy note, so he hit me with the timeless fuck you, and then I came here."
I gasped for air once the words had finished spilling out. Sam looked as though I'd shot him.
"Jesus," he sighed, messing with a strand of hair that was sticking straight upwards. "That was...a lot."
"Imagine living it," I groaned, smothering my face with a pillow. "It's awful."
"Have you told him you love him?"
"What?"
"You said, 'like I haven't said it a million times before,' but he's never reported it and I've never heard you say it."
"You didn't even know that we'd never kissed!" I shrieked, now smacking him with the pillow. "Of course I've said it!"
"When?" he asked.
"When—" when did I say it? That night at the lake? No, that was the whole root of the issue. That night that he and Sam got into it? That was that I missed him, not that I loved him. Surely I said it last night, before the kiss? He said, does love like that ever go away? And I said...I said no. I said sometimes I wish it would. Oh, fuck.
"You've never actually said it, have you?" He whispered.
"No," I croaked out, nausea welling up in my throat. "I thought I had; I guess I've just thought about it so many times that I was sure it had to have been put out there at some point."
"But you do," he said; it was more of a statement than a question.
"I do," I said. "I always have, and it used to be justified, but...now? He's changed completely, and it's like I'm chasing a version of him that doesn't exist anymore."
"What about you?"
"What about me?"
"The version of you that he fell in love with. You think you're completely the same? People change; it wasn't a 'version' of him that you fell for, it was who he was—who he is—at his core."
"I just don't get it," I said. "I feel like I hate him more than anything, and when I finally convince myself that I'm just delusional, or horny, or fucked in the head, I catch a glimpse of the old him and it all comes flooding back. How did I manage to fall for someone who is absolutely heartless?"
"By being heartless yourself." He shrugged.
"What?" I asked, my cheeks getting hot. "You think I'm heartless?"
"Kinda. It's nothing bad, though, just an observation. Honestly, I think that maybe you've found comfort in the distance—in the lack of commitment."
"What do you mean?" I fumed.
"You've lost a lot of people in your life, Cal...I think that follows you around. I'm not trying to overstep—and I'm certainly not the sole opinion to trust on this matter—but I know you, and I've known you since we were kids, and you've never been one to get too close. I think that by not smothering you—and occasionally making you hate him—Sebastian makes you feel a little more human. He knows how to make you feel something, whether it's positive or otherwise. You've learned to care from afar, and that's how you prefer it. I mean, think about it—nowadays, anytime you two have to spend more than an hour with each other, you wind up taking each other's heads off; it wasn't always like that. You might not want to hear this, but he struggles to open up, too—it just manifests itself differently. I think that you guys see yourselves in each other—more specifically, the parts of you that you try to ignore—and your own trauma doesn't allow you to recognize it. Maybe, just maybe, if you guys can look past the ugly, you could be integral to each other's healing process. I don't know, though. Just a thought."
"Where the hell did you learn all of that?"
"I've practically got a PhD in 'the relationship of Callie and Seb' at this point, and spending this past week with you two gave me just the epiphany I needed. You guys haven't been the same since the fallout, but I knew the second Seb lied for you that you two would come back around."
"Lied for me?"
"I'm not an idiot; I know he didn't fall that night at the lake, although neither of you have ever admitted it. Even when you two were in the middle of a screaming match, he didn't incriminate you. I mean, seriously, we were this close to a confession the other night, but you chickened out."
"I didn't want you to see me differently," I said, tears pooling in my eyes.
"Oh, Callie," Sam said, pulling me into a hug. "I'll never see you as anything except my beautiful and slightly emotionally unavailable best friend."
"I'm humiliated," I sobbed. I'd never been able to see it before—the fact that I'd gotten in my own way. The fact that I'd gotten in his way the same way I'd thought he'd been in mine.
"Nobody has ever expected you to handle this with grace," he said. "You're not a bad person for putting armor up over the wounds—you're just a person. Real people hurt others, and they, themselves, hurt. It's all part of it."
"Thank you," I whispered.
"Anytime, kiddo," he smiled and ruffled my hair. "Now go talk to him, and don't start it off defensively or let one of his comments set you off. You guys need to just hear each other, alright?"
I nodded, and he shoved my shoulder towards the door. "Now go," he said.
And I did.