It feels like I’m proving all Mom’s horrible assumptions right. But if she’s going to believe them anyway, why does it matter at all?
Lex: Already on my way.
Lex
~~~~~~~~~~~~
My heart has been pounding since Calypso’s second text, and it hasn’t slowed the whole journey back home. Not a single bit. It doesn’t help that when I picked her up, she was standing at the entrance to her neighborhood, right by the big sign. Right in the view of anyone. In the pitch darkness of night. And looking like she was freezing.
The only initial thoughts that filled my head when I pulled over and let her get in my car were that I was so dang glad I reached her first. Who knows what the heck could have happened in the middle of this city to someone little like her who looked lost and helpless outside in the cold.
Hardly saying a single word the whole way back, she just let her backpack drop to the floor and curled in a ball on the seat, her back to me. The first words she uttered were after ten minutes on the highway.
Thank you.
And that’s all until I’m pulling into the garage, the bleeding white lights embedded in the ceiling frying my corneas after driving thirty minutes in the dark.
The hum of the engine fizzles out, and I try to think of what I’m supposed to do, to say.
My father is home.
The staff has already turned in.
I only really have to worry about my father leaving his office, demanding to know where I went so late, if he knows I even left, if he even cares. Calypso doesn’t need to handle the backlash of an interaction with him right now. I’m not even sure how she’s going to unravel herself and stand and walk inside at the moment.
I’m not sure why she reached out tome.
Am I the only person who could have gotten her? Does her dad not live nearby, or is there more there than she’s let on? What about Rebecca? I think Rebecca has a car and is local.
Finally daring to broach the subject, I clench my jaw. “What happened with your mom?”
A fragile breath fills her. Her voice is even more broken. “She found out I quit my job.”
She quit her job months ago. It took the woman this long to notice? I figure Calypso hasn’t said anything about our situation or her new “job,” but I didn’t consider what she could have possibly said instead either. I know she doesn’t want her mom to know about a lot of things. I’m still coming to terms with the depth of why.
“I didn’t tell her anything. She got mad. I don’t remember the rest.”
For someone like Calypso tonot remember, it’s clear her mother caused her to completely shut down. I lift my hand and catch one of her loose braids between my fingers.
She feels it, and twists just barely to look at me.
She still hasn’t stopped crying.
My lips purse, and anger steams inside my chest. I don’t need to ask if she’s staying the night. I do need to ask if she minds staying in my room. Logically, it’s the easiest place to keep her hidden from my father and more family drama that she doesn’t need. And less logically, the idea of putting her in a large, cold guest room makes my teeth hurt. Instead, I ask, “Do you think you can make it inside? It’s going to get cold out here soon.”
She unravels, stretches her legs, whispers, “Sorry. Yeah. Thank you.” Swallowing, as though the words themselves hurt, she reaches for her bag.
I intercept it, pulling it into my lap.
Almost lost, her eyes follow her faded blue backpack thenmeet mine. “Where…” she begins. Then, “People?”
“My father’s in his office. The staff have already gone to bed. Don’t worry.”
Screw the fact my father is paying my way through college and letting me live the “sweet life.” If he appears tonight, has a problem with Calypso, and uses any of his usual threats, I’ll disown myself.
Quietly, without first getting any sort of permission, I lead Calypso in the back door and up the back staircase to my room, sidestepping my father’s office entirely. Once she’s safely tucked on my couch, her wide tearful eyes taking it all in, I go out to get the things she’ll need to stay the night.
Most notably, a toothbrush, toothpaste, change of clothes for tomorrow morning, freshly baked leftover cookies from dinner, and hot chocolate.
