Chapter 3.

The day Brandon was supposed to come home from the hospital, Callie sat in English class, her eyes glazed over in boredom. She missed having Brandon around at school, and was impatient to get home.

Behind her, she could hear Talya and her friends whispering and giggling. She had the feeling they were talking about her, as usual, and her suspicions were confirmed when her ears picked up the name; Juvie Girl. She could never figure out why Talya's group, who was supposed to be the most beautiful, rich, popular girls in school, seemingly had nothing better to do than gossip about everything she did, twenty-four hours a day. It seemed pathetic, when she stopped to think about it.

She was supposed to be taking notes from the board, where Timothy was busily writing. She glanced up to copy something, then darted her eyes back down at her notebook when the teacher turned to face the class. She couldn't look Timothy in the eye. No since Jesus has made up the joking nickname at the dinner table; "Spermothy." He had whispered it to Callie, and told her to pass it on to Mariana. When she did, Mariana laughed so hard that milk squirted from her nose.

It was odd, Callie thought, how she could joke and argue with Mariana and Jesus like regular siblings. It was almost as if they had grown up together, like her and Jude did. It had never been that way with Brandon. Their relationship was something more intense from day one. And as hard as she tried to force it into something else, she couldn't. It made her wonder if what they had was proof that everyone had someone in the world who they were predestined to be with, and her's just happened to be him. Just her luck that her soul mate would end up being her foster brother.

In front of her, someone passed back a worksheet, and she took it, and picked up her pencil.

Across the top, she wrote her name; Callie Jacob. Then, on a sudden impulse, she erased 'Jacob' and wrote 'Quinn.' Callie Quinn... she studied the name as if it were the dead sea scrolls, until the words swam on the paper. Then, sighing, she erased 'Quinn,' and wrote 'Jacob' once again. However, the name didn't completely erase, and it's faded imprint remained on the paper, overlapped by the name she'd always known.

Finally, the bell rang, signaling the end of the day, and she grabbed her bag and hurried out of class. As she walked across the courtyard, she got a text. Glancing down, she saw that it was from Wyatt: Wanna do something 2nite?

She paused with a sigh, then quickly typed in a reply: Can't. Sorry. Next time she saw him in person, she resolved to tell him she only wanted to be friends.

After school, Callie sat at the kitchen table, studying. She didn't usually do her homework in the kitchen, but Stef and Lena had gone to the hospital to get Brandon right after work, and she wanted to be right there when he came home. As she sat there, though, absentmindedly sipping a can of soda, her thoughts were far away from school.

Suddenly, Mariana pranced into the kitchen, carrying a shoebox. "Hey!" she chirped, sitting down.

"What's that?" Callie asked.

"Craft stuff," her sister replied, opening the boxing and setting out colorful paper, glue, markers, and glitter. "I thought we could make Brandon some 'Get Well' cards to cheer him up." She studied Callie's skeptical expression and laughed. "Come one! It'll be fun!"

"I can't draw to save my life," Callie confessed.

"Oh, anyone can put glitter on paper," Mariana assured her. "It's not like it's going to hang in a museum."

"Okay," Callie replied, pushing her books aside. She thumbed through the stack of construction paper until she found her favorite color; green. It had only become her favorite when she met Brandon, and noticed his beautiful green eyes. Carefully, she folded the paper in half, and began to write the words; 'Get Well Soon!' across the front.

"Mariana?" she asked as she worked.

"Hmm?" The younger girl was busily writing Brandon's name in glitter glue on a piece of blue paper.

"What made you get in touch with your birth mom?"

Mariana paused, studying her card for a moment, thinking. "I guess," she began, "I guess I just felt like a part of me was missing."

"'Missing' like how?" Callie asked, as she drew a lopsided heart with runny white glue.

"What the heck is that?" Mariana asked, pointing to Callie's card and playfully raising an eyebrow.

"A heart," she replied, laughing. "Don't judge." She set the glue down on the table, and reached for a vial of gold glitter. "Come on. Just answer the question. Please?"

"It's hard to explain," Mariana confessed. "But it doesn't matter, anyway. All it did was cost me a lot of money and get mom shot. If I could go back, I wouldn't have done it." She picked up some markers, and began drawing a rainbow of balloons around Brandon's name. "Why do you ask?"

"I can't stop thinking about Robert Quinn," Callie admitted. "I'm a part of him. And my mom must have cared about him if she used his name for my middle name. I think I want to meet him, so I can find out who I am and where I came from."

"You should talk to moms about it," Mariana suggested. "Just don't do what I did and be all weird and secretive about it."

"I'll think about it," Callie sighed. "But I don't want to bother them about it today. They have a lot on their minds."

"Callie?" Mariana asked.

"Yeah?"

"Can I tell you a secret?"

"I guess so," she shrugged. "Yeah."

"Pinkie swear you won't tell anyone?"

"Pinkie swear," Callie agreed, linking her finger with her sister's.

"Sometimes I feel like everything that's happening is my fault," Mariana confided. She looked as if she were about to cry. "If I didn't meet with Ana, mom would have never gotten shot, and Mike wouldn't have gotten in trouble, and Brandon wouldn't have had to sell those IDs, and he would never have gotten beaten up."

"Wow," said Callie, studying Mariana's downcast face. "I didn't know you felt that way."

"It was all like a chain reaction," Mariana explained. "And it started with me. I hate knowing that."

"Hey... you can't blame yourself," Callie told her, placing her hand on her sister's shoulder. "It's not your fault. Sometimes, things happen that we can't control."

At that moment, Callie got another text. This time it was from Lena. "They're on their way home!" she announced.

"Let's make a banner!" Mariana said, breaking the somber mood of their conversation. "Go find some yarn and tape, and I'll start doing the words."

"Okay," Callie nodded.

She hopped up, and went to Lena's office. Hurrying, she rummaged around in the closet and found a ball of yellow yarn, a souvenir from when her foster mother briefly took up knitting.

Then, she scanned the top of the desk, but didn't see any tape. She knew they didn't have a lot of time to finish the banner, so she opened the top desk drawer, and dug through the pens and paperclips. No tape. She pulled open another drawer, and sifted through it's contents. Her hand stopped on a file folder that was labeled; Important Paperwork, Callie and Jude. She knew it was wrong to snoop through her foster mother's things, but curiosity got the better of her. Looking around, she quickly flipped it open. It was mostly reports from Bill, and her parole officer. But when she dug a little deeper, she found her birth certificate. She touched her fingertips to it gently, tracing her mom's script-like handwriting. Sure enough, Robert Quinn was listed as her father. Something was paper-clipped to the certificate. She turned it over, and found a scrap of paper. Her eyes went wide when she read it, because there it was, hastily jotted down; Robert Quinn's name and address.

"Did you find the tape?"

Callie nearly jumped out of her skin, her hand flying to her chest as her heart raced. "Uh, no," she stammered, closing the folder. "And thanks for the heart attack."

"Sorry," Mariana apologized. "It's right in here." She opened another drawer, and the tape was there, right in plain sight. "Come on. Hurry up!"

Callie followed her sister back to the kitchen. Spread out on the table were sheets of construction paper, with letters that spelled out the words; 'Welcome Home!'

"This looks great," Callie told her, as she cut a long piece of yarn. Working quickly, they taped the yarn to the backs of the papers. Then, they carried it to the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. Mariana dragged two chairs over, and they each stood on one, and taped up one end of the string, so the words hung across the doorway in a cheerful greeting. Stepping down, they admired their work, just as the lock on the front door clicked.

To Be Continued