Callie looked at the end of the bed, and her backpack wasn't there either. Then she remembered. It was in the dining room, under the table.
She also had a sudden thought — each Friday night, either Stef or Lena went through her bag to see what she'd done through the week. Lena and Stef made sure all of their homework was always done and asked about papers or work sent home for them to look over for her, Mariana, and Jesus, but it was their responsibility to tell them during the week. They checked Jude and Frankie's bags every day. They no longer checked the twins' bags at all. But every Friday, like clockwork, one of them, usually Lena, checked her bag.
She felt her chest tighten. She always made sure to take out everything in her backpack she didn't want them to see and shove it in her locker. This time, she'd forgotten.
Maybe, with some luck, they forgot.
Not thinking about anything else, Callie ran down the stairs and straight into the dining room in search of her bag.
She knew what would happen if they found things they didn't like. Callie had been in way too many homes NOT to know.
Callie was practically starting to hyperventilate when she looked on the floor where she had been sitting the previous night and her bag was not where she last remembered it being.
She got on her hands and knees and started crawling under the table and continued to look.
It wasn't here. If it wasn't here, where could it be?
Tears started cloudy her vision, her breath began to hitch. She couldn't catch her breath, no matter how hard she tried. She couldn't get kicked out of another home. She just couldn't. Not when Jude loved it here so much.
She went toward the front door, looking at the hooks there, where Frankie and Jude's backpacks hung. Her's wasn't there either.
She didn't know where else to look. Her shoulders heaved as her breath caught in her chest. Tears threatened to fall, but she knew from experience they would just make it worse.
Her entire body was shaking.
"Callie, love, what is wrong," Lena asked, coming in from the back yard where she had been waiting on Callie.
Lena had heard Callie in house, and had waited several minutes for her to come outside. She'd planned on talking to her this morning about a few things and wanted to do it before the others got up.
All of that went out the window when she walked inside the house to see Callie in the midst of a panic attack.
Lena was grateful the girl let her lead her into the living room. Lena sat down and then turned Callie around, pulling her onto her lap, her back against Lena's chest. She wrapped her arms around Callie, loosely so as not to scare her, and then put her chin on top of Callie's head.
"Feel me breath, Love. In and out. In and out. Try to calm down and breath with me. It will make you feel so much better," Lena whispered softly, evenly, to the child. She'd not seen Callie like this since they'd brought her, Jude, and Jesus home nearly a month prior. Before that, Callie had rarely shown any emotion at all. She'd lived through the motions of their home, neither misbehaving nor trying to include herself in their day to day lives.
Once they had found out about Jude, though, it had all made sense. She'd been planning to get him for a while. She hadn't expected to be allowed to stay after she got her brother, but had been hoping they would keep Jude when they sent her away.
Callie's breathing was still fast, and Lena could tell she was having trouble regulating her breathing herself. Lena, with her left arm wrapped across Callie's waist, brought her right hand up and wrapped it over her shoulders, not restraining her, but letting her feel the breathes she was taking.
"Love, can you take a deep breath and then breath with me," Lena asked. Callie nodded and tried, but it was several more minutes before she could get her breathing under control and could relax.
After she did, the two just sat there. Part of Callie was just worn out. In the past she'd barely even let Stef or Lena touch her, let alone sit in their laps. If nothing else, though, it did tell her one thing — Callie really was beyond underweight. They knew she was tiny for her age, not even near five feet tall, but she needed to gain some weight on her small frame.
"I can't find my backpack," Callie whispered hoarsely.
Lena sighed, "Oh, sweetie."
She leaned down and kissed Callie's hair, noticing how badly it needed combed out.
"I have your backpack. I wanted to talk to you about some things I found inside of it last night when I was checking through it."
She immediately felt Callie stiffen in her arms and stifle a sob.
"But, you already suspected that, didn't you, Love Bug," Lena asked.
Callie could only nod. Yes, she did suspect it.
"Can you turn around and look at me, so we can talk about it?"
Callie, who hadn't been held by anyone in many years, didn't want to get off Lena's lap, or out of her arms. She felt safe. But she knew once Lena started talking about the contents of her bag, it would be like every other foster home.
Callie started to get up, but Lena just held her there, and helped Callie turn so her back would be against the arm of the couch, her legs over Lena's lap.
"You're not doing so hot in math, are you, Love," Lena asked, but had already known the answer. She had been notified by Callie's teacher the day before and they had a conference set for the next week. Lena had been angry when she had told Stef — angry at a member of her staff not notifying her or any parent about their children falling behind. It had made sense when they'd found Callie's backpack the night before. The math teacher thought they did know.
Lena was answered with another stifled sob. She and Stef had talked at length about how to handle the situation before her. Stef, ever the disciplinarian and cop, wanted to confront Callie the moment she'd seen the signed math test in the girl's bag … a test that had supposedly been signed by herself. Lena had told her they couldn't do that. Not to Callie. The teen wasn't ready for that.
Upon further inspection, Stef and Lena had found several more assignments from math with grades lower than a D. Several had been "signed" by Stef.
Callie shook her head.
"Why didn't you tell me or Stef you were having so much trouble in math," Lena asked her. They'd known it wasn't easy for her, but they'd honestly had no idea it was as big a struggle as it actually was.
Callie just shrugged.
"I think, just maybe, you were a little bit afraid of our reactions, so you signed your tests with Stef's name on them. Am I pretty close?"
Callie nodded, "I couldn't sign yours. You work there," she sniffed.
Lena hugged Callie closer to her, kissing the teen's knotted hair. She or Stef really needed to help Callie comb her hair out. She wasn't sure why they had not noticed it before. They had to carefully comb out Jude's curls, and Callie had the same curly hair, only much longer. Plus, she usually wore it in a messy bun on top of her head. They'd definitely not realized there was a possibility Callie wasn't brushing it out at all.
But, at the moment, that was neither here nor there. Right now they needed to talk about why she had felt the need to forge Stef's signature on several math assignments.
"You knew it was wrong, didn't you? It is why you got so upset when you couldn't find your backpack."
"Yes," she whispered in response.
"You know, Cal, you know you're safe here, right? You know that no matter what you do, you are safe here?"
"Until you make us move to another home. Then we won't be safe. I've been here before. It's easier to hide bad grades than it is to tell a foster parent I made a bad grade. I know I can't do the math. I can barely help Jude with his math, and he's only in the second grade. I'm in the seventh grade. It was safer not to tell you I was doing so badly."
"Oh, Love," Lena said, pulling Callie to her closely. She wanted to soak up as much of this closeness as Callie would allow her.
"You know we can't let this go, right, Cals," Lena asked. She felt Callie stiffen on her lap.
"We'd never hurt you, Love. We will never not let you eat. I know that is a major fear of yours. We would never punish Jude for something you did wrong or punish you for something Jude did. You are two separate children, and it is time people started treating you that way. And I think now is as good a time as any," Lena started her mini lecture with, but then Callie interrupted her, "Please don't send me away. Please. I will try harder at math. I won't sign Stef's name to anything. I am sorry. Is Stef mad at me, too?"
"No, Stef isn't mad at you. Neither is Lena," came a voice from the living room doorway.
Callie looked toward the door, another sob escaping her lips as she watched Stef come over to the couch and sit down with Lena and Callie, picking up the laters feet and placing them on her lap so she could sit closely with them both. She wanted to be able to give Lena the moral support she knew she needed, present a united front with Callie without overwhelming her, and show Callie she had nothing to fear in their home. She knew it would be hard for Callie to accept though. She'd been through too much.
"We also aren't going to be sending you away anywhere. You are staying her for the foreseeable future, Cals. But you do have to have a consequence for lying to us," Lena said gently.
Callie looked back and forth between the two adults. She had not lied to them. Not at all. The confusion was evident on her face.
"Oh, you definitely lied to us, Love. A lie by omission is still a lie. Signing my name on those assignments was a lie. Not showing us those papers was a lie," Stef told her.
"Will you at least keep Jude?"
Stef sat back and sighed, rubbing Callie's leg through her pajama pants, trying to comfort her.
"How many times are we going to have to tell you that you are not disposable, Callie? That you are just as important as Jude, Frankie, Jesus, and Mariana? We are not sending you anywhere, Cals. You are, however, going to be grounded for one week," Stef told her.
Callie scrunched her face, "Again? You just ungrounded me two weeks ago. It wasn't even a punishment. You fed me and just made me go to bed an hour earlier," Callie said, more to herself than the two adults she was literally on top of.
Stef raised her eyebrows, "We can make you eat lima beans for dinner and send you to bed every night at seven."
Callie's eyes widened. She hated lima beans and somehow Stef knew it.
"Being grounded sounds great," Callie said meekly.
"You will also sit with me each night to work on math and any other assignments you need help with. If I need too, I will start checking with your teachers as well, okay, Callie," Lena told Callie.
Callie nodded, sneaking her hand slowly around Lena's waist and gently tucking her other hand behind Stef.
She'd not felt this safe in a long time. She didn't even care she was in trouble for forging her foster mother's name. She didn't care one bit.
