Chapter Twenty-Eight

The sound of Daddy a pacing along the first floor was distracting, but it wasn't what kept me awake. It was Jenny's absence. She was somewhere in the night, at a party or a club, but even I didn't know where. Her cell phone was turned off, no one had seen her all day, and I found I couldn't sleep without her ten feet away from me.

My insides tensed when I heard a foot scrambling on the trellis outside my window but it wasn't her-she wasn't a chicken. I knew who it was. I'd been expecting him.

I ran to the window, shivering in my thin satin nightie. I opened it fully and looked down. It was definitely him, awkwardly climbing up the trellis, avoiding rose thorns.

"Hey," I whispered when he arrived, his upper body leaning through my window. He kissed me.

"Hey. For you," he said, handing me a red rose. I sniffed it, and noted that it was wet. I giggled.

"You got this climbing up here," I accused.

"Well, it's the thought that counts. Help me out here?" he asked, holding out one of his large hands. I grabbed it and pulled.

All at once he tumbled into the room, landing on the floor and pinning me underneath him.

"You planned this," I said.

"No, just luck. How are you doing?"

"Weird. Jenny's not back yet," I worried.

"She'll be okay," he said confidently. He leaned down to kiss me again. I became aware of his weight pressing down on me, but I'd ceased to care-now, more than I ever had, I wanted him to do all he'd done to me. I wanted him to do all that, and then go further. That one last step.

But right then, all we needed was the kissing. We kissed and kissed, our kisses ranging from passionate to loving.

"Sawyer?" I said, interrupting the kiss.

"Yeah?" he said, pulling his face from mine.

"What if we don't last?"

"What do you mean?" he asked confusedly.

"Well what if we break up? We'll still be pushed together for the rest of our lives-how are we supposed to handle that?"

"Well, we just won't split up," he said easily.

"What, ever?" I asked. He sensed fear in my eyes.

"No, don't freak out. I can't handle that now. We'll just um, ford that bridge when we come to it," he suggested.

Smiling, I leaned up and we began kissing again.

"Hey!" barked a voice, slicing the moment in half. I craned my neck to look-Daddy. Of course. He'd heard a noise, presumed it was Jenny…

"Daddy," I said weakly. Sawyer leapt up.

"Uncle Jake!" he said breathlessly.

"Does anyone tell me anything in this house?" he ranted as I sat up on my knees, carefully arranging the thin fabric of my nightie to cover as much as possible.

"We weren't going to have sex," I explained.

"Really?" he said sarcastically.

"Really. We've been doing this type of stuff for a week now, but not much more," said Sawyer.

"I'm not blind, everyone knows all about you," he said. I cringed-the stories, he meant. Of Sawyer and cheerleaders. The true stories.

"This means more to me than that," he said, resting a hand on my bare shoulder.

"Fine. Cal, we'll talk in the morning. Sawyer Scott, go home," he said tiredly.

"Daddy no," I said impulsively.

"What?"

"Cal, it's okay," said Sawyer gently.

"No, it's not. I want you to stay-we won't do anything, I just can't sleep alone," I said. Daddy looked at Sawyer for a long moment. But trust won out. He did trust him. He'd known him since the day he was born. He'd watched him grow in his mother's stomach.

"Fine. Go, sleep. Calista Jagielski, put on some more presentable pajamas," he ordered before leaving. I giggled and put out my hands for him to help me up.

"So, planning on changing into something presentable?" he said suggestively. I laughed and gave him a coquettish look before spinning around and dropping the thin satin fabric.

I'd only once woken up pressed to his body, his arms around me, and the one time hadn't been enough to make my body grow used to it.

"Hey," I said sleepily.

"Hey."

"Um, I have to get up," I said reluctantly.

"Aww," he joked.

"I know. I have to go locate my Mom and my sister," I explained.

Lauren barely glanced my direction when I walked downstairs fully dressed and ready to go out, but Daddy nodded at me. They were both of them lost souls.

Sawyer offered to go with me to search the town, but I turned him down. He was close to me, but just outside my immediate circle of family. And of course, he wasn't really family any more-he'd banished himself from that realm, that day at the rivercourt.

I'd go to the river court if I was lost and confused. Or to the Scott house. Mom wouldn't. I knew she'd had her first date with Daddy along the boardwalk, but it wasn't the sort of place she'd hide. She needed something more contained, more hidden.

On inspiration I turned back to residential Tree Hill and pulled to a stop in front of a familiar house. We still owned it. Even after Daddy had made his practice successful, and we'd bought the newer, more beautiful red brick house, we'd kept the first. We rented it out most of the time, but I knew it was empty. It was the house I'd been born in, the house they'd first lived in together. It was too small to live in, but too precious to let go of.

The door was open. Mom never could learn to shut her doors.

"Hey," I whispered. I rounded the corner into a bare room-she was sitting on the floor, crying again. I walked over and sank down to join her.

"What are you still doing out here?" I asked.

"Callie, I know in the last few weeks you've found some things. Probably more than you ever wanted to know. And I'm sorry for that, really I am. I just thought I'd found everything by now," she said.

"I don't think we ever can."

"Jake and I wouldn't have gotten married then without the pressure of Nikki on our necks. It wouldn't have been necessary, and we were so young. I wasn't in love with him, or didn't know I was. But I thought I could handle being married to him, if nothing else but to keep Jenny safe. He's a good guy, your father. But I always thought he loved me. I thought he turned to me for help because he loved me, not just because he knew I'd come through. But now I find out he basically did the same thing for Nikki, only she never fell for it?" said Mom, her voice growing hysterical near the end of her speech.

"Mom, Daddy loves you. He always has," I comforted.

"I always thought that, but he loved Nikki once," she countered.

"Not as much as he loves you!"

"How could he keep this from me?"

"He didn't want to hurt you. And he just did it because it was what was expected of him, not because he wanted to. Come on, he was fifteen," I said.

"Some would say that's old enough," she said.

"Who, Haley Scott? Come on," I said, helping her to her feet.

I breathed a sigh of relief later in the day as Dad and Mom forgave each other. Their strong relationship had always meant a lot to me.

Jenny wasn't back in time for dinner, so the four of us had dinner alone.

"This is weird, both of you being home on a Saturday night," mentioned Mom.

"Yeah, I'm being monitored," sneered Lauren.

"The other options were lame," I said, hoping they wouldn't pick up one Lauren's remark.

"Hey, you know who died?" asked Mom to us. We all shook our heads. "Erica Marsh-she went to high school with us."

"Poor girl, how?" asked Daddy.

"She O.D'd. She was a good person a long time ago," said Mom.

"Couldn't that be said of many?" asked a self aware, triumphant voice from behind us. A voice that all but one of us recognized. A voice that was impossible not to dread.

Author's note: So obviously I'm a little bitter. But seriously, what is WRONG with Mouth? I should write that show.