Chapter Thirty-Five
"Callie!" came a voice from behind me. I swiveled, and caught sight of John Fenning running toward me. I smiled slightly and beckoned.
"What's up?" I asked him as he fell into step beside me.
"Oh, not much. How are you doing?"
"I'm okay. Want a ride?" I asked, as we reached my car.
"Sure," he said, climbing into the passenger side.
"So, how are you really?" he asked, after a pause of several minutes.
"Sawyer and I broke up," I said briskly.
"Why?" he asked. As though he had the right.
"It was going too fast," I explained.
"What, for you? Because something was good between you two. You're the only girl he's never mentioned or bragged about. You mean everything to him," said John.
"Yes, for me. Come on, I'm seventeen. Doesn't anybody get that?" I implored.
"People would kill for what you got given to you on a silver platter at the age of two, Cal," said John.
"You're very deep, you know?" I said, meeting his eyes in the mirror. He smiled.
"Yeah, so I've been told. So when are you getting back together?" he questioned.
"Do you even hear me?" I asked, slightly annoyed with him.
"Do you hear yourself?"
John's words rang through my head even after I'd dropped him off at his massive house and continued onto my own.
Jenny was AWOL, like she was so often. Lauren was ill, sleeping in her room with a basin by her bed. Mom was with Haley. Or Brooke, maybe.
But Daddy was in his office. I stopped and timidly knocked on the doorframe. He spun around quickly in his chair and smiled at me. We hadn't talked in months-I missed the relationship I'd had with my father before everything that had happened to ruin our lives.
"Hey Cal," he said, genuinely glad to see me.
"Hey Daddy," I said, going in to sit on his knee. I smiled at him. I loved my Daddy. He still looked about seventeen, down to the light sprinkling of freckles across his nose. He looked younger than Mom, though he was about three months older.
"We haven't done anything recently," I stated.
"That's true. It just that everything around here's been so different and Jenny's just been so… distant. I'm sorry, what do you want to do?" he asked. Both our eyes wandered around the room and mine hit the basketball that sat on the floor.
"Hey, want to play?" he said, stealing my thoughts from me.
I stared at it, letting the memories flood in to take over me. I remembered the time Lucas had shown-Sawyer, lifting me up high to make a slam dunk, how I so often messed up his free throws, how he'd taught me how to do granny throws when I was too small and unskilled to make it any other way.
"Yes," I answered.
We went out onto our court. I was wearing flip-flops on my feet and a small skirt with a white sweater overtop. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, much better off. He tossed the ball to me and I made a basket. For the next point, he stole it back from me and easily made it. We laughed and talked as we played. He beat me, but not crushed me. I was small, but the combined efforts of Daddy, Nathan and Sawyer over the years had made some impression on me, however small.
Sawyer Scott turned up as Daddy scored the winning basket. We both turned to face him, and Daddy turned to leave.
"Uncle Jake, wait," requested Sawyer. He looked pensive. Somehow forgetting our tumultuous weeks, I walked to him and took his hand. He squeezed. He was afraid.
Sawyer handed Jake a note he carried. Daddy read it, read it again. He handed it to me.
"How can she mean this?" I asked, a moment later. A year later.
"She can't," said Daddy.
"Where is she?" I asked Sawyer.
"Nikki's."
"Of course. Callie, you coming?" asked Daddy, heading for his car. My eyes met Sawyer, and for a sliver of a second we let ourselves look.
"Yeah," I said, tearing my eyes away and running to the car, pulling him with me.
We ended up at a seedy looking motel. Daddy easily found the door he was looking for and banged on it. How did he know which room?
Nicole Turner answered, looking triumphant.
"Jake. What can I do for you?" she asked, smirking.
"Give it up, Nikki," he said.
"I did, it's how she came about," she quipped.
"Funny. Where's my daughter?" he asked.
"Our daughter?" challenged Nikki. Their eyes met, and I wondered again how they ever could have been lovers.
"My daughter. Where is she?" he asked.
"Inside," she said. He pushed past her, and I and Sawyer watched from the door.
Jenny was sitting on a bed, working on a homework assignment. She looked up, unperturbed, when he walked in.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I'm eighteen. It's my right," she explained.
"But with her? Don't you understand what we've been telling you?" he demanded.
"You mean in the last month? Maybe I would understand, if you'd have been telling me all my life. As it is…" she said.
"You're punishing me," he said.
"You're very self centred today," she said.
"So what's your plan now?"
"It's simple. I'm here, I'll go to Brown in September and never have to see any of you again," she spat out. She met my eyes, and lingered in them for a moment. I smiled slightly at her, and she sent me the silent message.
"Go to Brown? How, may I ask? Now that you're so independent and all?" asked Daddy. I gasped almost inaudibly.
"Cutting me off. Boy, that's original. Nikki said she'd pay," she'd explained. I glanced at Nikki-for the first time ever, her face betrayed uncertainty.
"You do know how she earns that money, right?" asked Daddy.
"Not anymore," explained Jenny.
"How can you believe anything she says?" implored Daddy.
"How can Jenny believe anything you say?" asked Nikki, placing her hand on Jenny's shoulder.
"Jenny, come home," I called out desperately. She walked over to me and surprised me with an embrace.
"Callie, you'll always be my best friend, and I'm sorry about our relationship recently. But I can't stay," she said. I nodded reluctantly.
"Callie, we're going," said Daddy, surprising us all. With a last look at my sister, I followed him out the door.
"What was that?" I demanded as we walked back to the car.
"I want your sister to consider us her family again. For that to happen, she needs to understand what she can only learn by experience," he said tiredly.
"So you're just leaving her there?" asked Sawyer, speaking up for the first time.
"I'll bring it to Court if I have to, but that's a last resort. She'll come back," he said, his confident words betrayed with uncertainty.
"And you're cutting her off?"
"No," he said.
"Then…?"
"Jenny's my daughter. I love her, I'd never do that to her. Deep down, she knows this. She'll come back," said Daddy consolingly.
The three of us drove silently to the house. We all piled out in our driveway, and Mom came to meet us. She fell into Daddy's open arms and cried.
"This is my fault," she said.
"No," he said, half into her hair.
"She'll never come back."
"She will," I said, confident for the first time. I met Sawyer's eyes again.
