Chapter Sixteen: Never That
Stef reeled backwards as though physically struck, but she did not relinquish her hold on Callie. After a beat of perplexing silence, a smile slowly blossomed across her lips, and Stef tossed her head in a burst of genuine, raucous laughter.
"Is that all you've got, love? That's the best that you can do?" Stef squeezed Callie's hand affectionately in her own and fixed her twinkling gaze on the teen's awestruck eyes.
Although Callie was swiftly thrown off balance by the bizarre and unparalleled response to her lashing out, she rebounded equally rapidly.
"No. I seduced your son." There was less venom in Callie's character this time, but the words that she had uttered were the most dangerous weapons at her current disposal. This show has to end now. The truth is finally out… all of it. There is no turning back.
Ignoring the cataclysmic tearing of her heart, Callie stared candidly back at Stef, boldly challenging the woman to pull away so that she could finally be free.
But, abruptly, Jude's face rose before her eyes, and Callie's stomach sickened at the image. She had done it again. In the impulsive heat of her obsession to drive Stef away, she had stupidly forgotten that doing so wasn't just important for her own selfish protection—it was life altering for Jude. She had run to AVOID this very moment… Revulsion possessed the girl with devilish speed.
Stef hadn't moved a muscle while Callie played judge and jury in her mind, condemning her own guilty soul. Her face had gone slack, that much was obvious, yet she hadn't stirred. Callie wasn't sure how to interpret the reaction, or lack thereof, but she was irrefutably confident that she couldn't handle the desperation beginning to throttle her once more. No longer caring who had the upper hand, Callie ferociously twisted her wrist in an attempt to liberate her limb from Stef's grasp, and she frantically scanned the room for an exit, needing to be anywhere but here, RIGHT NOW, or she was going to truly lose it.
Witnessing Callie skip from fight to flight so suddenly snapped Stef out of her astonishment and into mommy-mode. Answers to the hundreds of questions unexpectedly dominating her psyche could wait. Callie's immediate safety and well-being is first and foremost.
Recognizing telltale signs of the adolescent's self-destructive anguish, Stef hurriedly shifted positions on the bed, placing her body at the rear of Callie's but not loosening her existing hold. She hugged the girl fiercely from behind, a non-threatening embrace that also served to limit Callie's potential movements.
Because, sure enough, the teen began to violently thrash on contact, digging her nails recklessly into Stef's smooth skin without any intention of ceasing. A broken plea escaped her chapped lips so diminutively that Stef wasn't sure that she had heard it at all. "Please… give it back to me." The tenuous form wrapped in Stef's solid arms seemed to writhe of its own accord.
It took a second for Stef to understand what was meant by the statement, and, when she did, no attempt was made to stop the tears from cascading down her cheeks. She rested her chin softly on Callie's shoulder so that her hair fashioned a defensive curtain around them, and so that her words would be perceptible.
"Shhh…baby… I would do most anything for you, but never that. Do you understand? Never that."