We all know it's not mine.
A/N: Hi! Sorry, it took so long. You should all thank SpectraVondergeist for kicking my ass into gear. She PMed me a few days ago, asking about my writing. Life has been super busy. Two promotions. A husband. A new marriage. I will try to be better for you all. I promise.
Callie stood there, just watching her son interact with his aunt and uncles. Her small hands gripped the mug of tea tightly. The joints turning white from the pressure, the pads of her fingers turning red from the heat. She is tense, that is apparent, in the way she is standing in the doorway. Leaning casually like she used to do as a teenager. Feeling, once again, like an outcast.
She could feel her mother-in-law's eyes on her back, glaring a hole into the backless lace top she wore around her petite frame.
"My clothes not good enough for you either, Stef?" The younger woman whispered across the room, her eyes never leaving her sons frame. "Should I go change into khakis and a polo, would that be suitable?"
Stef sighed from the island where she was nursing her own cup of tea.
"Callie," she began but the young mother stood up straighter, silencing Stef without a glare.
"Unless you have an apology on the tip of your tongue, I don't want to hear it." She said, taking the final sip of her coffee. On long tan legs, that peeked out from cutoff jeans she crossed the room and washed her mug.
"Her name was going to be Stefanie Alena, you know. We thought it would be fitting..." With her words hanging heavily in the air, Callie walked out onto the back porch. Twisting her long hair into a bun as she went, not bothering to look back once she heard the gut wrenching sob from the older woman. Even though, deep down in her gut, she knew that she had shattered the woman completely.
It was a long while later, when the sun had changed places in the sky, and the air dulled down to a cool breeze, did she feel a body sitting in the chilling grass beside her.
"You didn't have to tell her." Jude said quietly. "She's a wreck." Callie turned her head towards the quiet bravado of her brother.
"I know." Were her delicate words to him, slipping off of a parched tongue and a sun chapped mouth.
"So why did you?" He asked quietly. Pulling at the blades of grass he deemed too tall. As he waited for her answer, he spun a blade between his fingers, glancing at his sister every so often. Her shirt had slipped over one shoulder now and her converses were kicked off. Her toenails were painted a bright red.
"I did it because I had to." She said suddenly, flouncing back into the law. "She attacked me. Said I wasn't good enough, when since I walked through those doors the first time, all she would ever tell me was that I was good enough." Callie flung her left hand over her face, her diamond catching the fading sunlight and illuminating the freckles spattered across Jude's nose.
"She cut me so deep, Jude." The girl blew out a puff of air. "I don't think I will be able to ever forgive her." Callie say back up, sliding her feet back into her shoes, and standing up in the waning light.
"Or love her again, for that matter." She whispered to her brother, the confession hanging between them for a while. With a sigh, she squared her shoulders and walked back into the kitchen.
Lena closed the door when the evening was over, tapping her fingers against it lightly, before sighing and leaning her stress wrinkled forehead against the smooth wood. She could feel the presence of her wife before she heard her.
" I've never seen that Callie before." Stef whispered, gathering her wife into her arms, while nestling her face into the taller woman's neck. Lena nodded, dropping her head down a bit to lean on her wife.
"To be fair, you showed a side of yourself none of us wanted to see." Lena whispered back, disentangling herself from the blonde woman. Stef recoiled as if Lena had hit her.
"Brandon deserves better, Lena. He's my son. I would know." The chuckle Lena gave was anything but amusing in context.
"Funny Stef, I thought he was our son." She said, before locking the door and making her way to the stairs. Reaching out her slender fingers, loaded with midi rings, Lena turned out the hallway light.
"You get the couch tonight."
"Yep." Stef said, sighing into the dark. "The couch and I are well aquatinted.
Stef sat in the dark for a long while, mulling over the day's events. Rolling the name Stefanie Alena on her tongue. The immense guilt settled over her heart, and before she knew it, she was doubled over sobbing into her hands.
There, in the middle of her dark living room, with her entire family not speaking to her, Stef decided that maybe, just maybe...
She could accept.
She could forgive.