Back in the kitchen, the Moms and Sharon were hard at work preparing the spaghetti and meatballs and vegetables that the family would be eating for dinner that night. Stef was getting quiet again, causing Lena and Sharon to glance at each other.
"Honey? What's up?" Lena asked cautiously.
"I just can't believe it, Lena. She knows better than to do this." Stef said, mixing the salad with more vigor than she had previously.
"Yes, she does, and she's sitting up in her room filled with guilt because you taught her that it's wrong." Lena responded.
"But it's the fact that she still did it that concerns me. I thought she left her irresponsible decisions behind when she came home after running away. She learned how to accept our love and become a part of this family and promised that she would make good decisions and work harder to take care of herself." Stef said, pausing her dinner preparation to pace around the counter.
"Yeah… but Stef, she's a teenager. A teenager who is bound to make mistakes." Lena replied.
Stef was about to open her mouth to speak when Sharon piped up from the other side of the room.
"And may I just add, Stephanie, that you did this type of thing several times during your teenage years. Do you remember that time that you and your new 'cool' friend group skipped science class to go to the pier?"
"No? I don't remember that at all." Stef said, confused.
"I do. You were 15, and had just started to hang out with the popular kids, a whole bunch of them. You all decided to go to the pier one day and left school early, thinking I wouldn't notice. I gave you a talking to, but that was during one of the rough patches of my relationship with your dad and I didn't tell him. It probably would have been way more memorable if he knew you skipped school. Anyway, I was very disappointed in you, but I knew that it was a thing that teenagers do and that I would have to more or less allow you to handle the situation on your own. You learned from it, and to my knowledge, you never did it again."
Stef nodded, thinking deeply about the information that was just given to her as they finished dinner and put it on the kitchen table. Stef and Lena allowed Callie to eat dinner upstairs so she didn't have to move her leg, something Callie was very thankful for. Callie didn't get much sleep that night, but neither did her mother, who was stuck reliving one of the scariest parts of her life.
-Flashback- 2 years earlier
"All right, babies, up and at 'em! It's such a beautiful day out! Come on!" Stef called as she knocked on her kids' doors on a bright summer morning. She opened the door to the bedroom shared by her two girls, expecting to see two grouchy faces with crazy bedhead protesting having to wake up before noon. Instead, she only saw one.
"Hey Mariana, where's Miss Callie?" Stef asked, furrowing her brow.
"Dunno." Mariana said sleepily.
Stef playfully combed the house, searching for her foster daughter. Her playful confusion turned to fear when she had searched every room in the house to no avail. By 11:00, she was in full blown panic mode. She and Lena had been calling the parents of her few friends, the kids checking the spots she frequented that were in walking distance from the house. Stef paced around Callie and Mariana's room, looking for any sign of a note that explained Callie's whereabouts. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw a piece of ripped notebook paper through a crack in the doors of Callie's closet. She opened the double doors, but was overcome with emotion when she took in what was in front of her. The closet was almost empty, save for a few items that Stef and Lena had bought her with their own money. The piece of paper read:
I have to be on my own now. Thank you for everything and please take care of Jude and let him know this isn't his fault. He deserves to be happy.
I'm really sorry.
Stef gasped. She recognized the handwriting immediately as the handwriting of her sweet 12-year-old that she had just asked to adopt. She put her head in her hands and sunk onto Callie's bed in tears.
Her family didn't know anything, not even Jude, who cried into Lena's shoulder upon reading the note. Despite Lena calling out to her about protocol and trying to calm down, Stef grabbed her car keys and jumped into her car, speeding down the street to find Callie before anyone could stop her.
She drove on all the routes that she knew her foster daughter was familiar with: the road to school, the way to her favorite burger stand… but she didn't see the brunette anywhere. As frustration and desperation were about to set in, she spotted an old wooden sign in the corner of her eye that caught her attention.
SAN DIEGO PIER AND MARINA
-EST 1963-
Something in the back of her head told her to head over there, so she made the turn and drove into the parking lot. As she approached the pier, she felt goosebumps on her arms. There was something so familiar about it, but she couldn't quite place it. She forgot the uneasy feeling instantly when she saw her Callie sitting on a bench overlooking the water.
She slowly approached the girl, taking a seat next to her on the bench. Callie was in her own little world, gazing into the waves, not realizing that the woman she was most desperate to hide from was right next to her.
"Callie-" Stef started to say. Callie jolted back into reality, trying to sprint away as soon as she saw Stef.
"Oh no you don't." Stef said firmly as she got a good grip on Callie's arms, pulling her backwards and into her lap. Callie struggled against her hold for a few moments.
"Hey, Hey, Hey." Stef cooed into Callie's ear as she began to rock the both of them. "No more running, baby. I've got you." It didn't take much longer for tears to start pouring out of Callie's eyes and she buried herself into Stef, who only held her tighter. Once she had calmed down a little, Stef wiped away Callie's tears and shuffled her until she sat perched on Stef's knee, her arm around Callie, but in a way where she could see her daughter's face and hold onto her at the same time.
"You can't take off like that, Callie. Everyone is so worried. What happened, huh? I thought you wanted to be adopted, so did something change your mind?" Stef asked sharply as the waves crashed in front of them. Callie stayed silent.
"You have to say something, missy." Stef paused to look her daughter in the eye. Callie broke the eye contact almost immediately, but soon her quiet voice could be heard above the background noise on the pier.
"I'm scared."
"Scared of what?"
"I don't know."
"I need a little more than that, Callie."
"I'm scared that I'm putting too much trust in a family that I only met a few months ago… and that… maybe, since I'm an older kid, you'll change your mind and send me away and I'll miss you. It's happened before, but I didn't let myself get too attached. I'm scared because… I think I love you. You and your whole family. And that's scary, cause I haven't felt love for anyone but Jude for a really long time… And everything is just really scary."
Stef took a second to process what she heard before speaking again.
"Baby. Don't you think trust and commitment are a two-way street? Don't you think that when we adopt you, Lena and I are promising to be your moms forever?"
"I've never really seen people stick to their promises." Callie responded.
"Sweetheart, I know that loving and trusting people can be scary and hard, but I want nothing more than to help you trust us. Loving us isn't a bad thing, in fact, hearing you say those words was one of the most beautiful sounds in the world. We love you so much and we want you to be a part of our family officially, if that's what you want."
Callie nodded. She leaned against Stef and took a deep breath. After a long pause, Callie spoke again.
"What's gonna happen to me?"
Stef sighed. "Well, Callie, I'm going to get you home as fast as possible so we can talk to Mama about all this."
"Is CPS there?"
"No, Callie. We wanted to give you a chance to come home."
"But I didn't take that chance. You found me."
"We didn't call CPS because we hoped that we could find you and see where your head's at. You won't be getting away with skipping consequences for your little stunt today, but I'm keeping you far away from juvie because I believe in second chances. That being said, though, you are going to be on a short leash for a while, young lady. Come here. Stand up. Let's go home, it's getting late."
END OF FLASHBACK
The next day, the Adams Fosters busied themselves with tasks around the house, doing some gardening with Sharon and Lena and spending the beautiful April day enjoying the outdoors. Even though it was Saturday, Stef had gone off to catch up on some paperwork, leaving Callie with more guilt for pushing her out of her own house. Callie spent most of the day moping around, eventually sitting on the back porch to watch the sunset alone, when she heard Sharon walk through the double doors and look up at the night sky, then at Callie. She sat down beside her granddaughter. Callie could sense what was going to happen next: Sharon wanted to talk.