That afternoon, Stef and Lena looked up from their conversation in the dining room when Brandon stopped in the doorway. "Hey, B, what's up?" Stef asked her son.
"It's my fault," he quietly told her.
The moms looked at each other in confusion. "What's your fault?" Lena asked.
"Callie. Leaving. It's my fault."
Stef stood up. "I don't understand. Did you know that she was going to leave?"
"No. I didn't know anything. But... I think I'm why she left."
"What happened?" Lena asked.
Brandon sighed, his eyes downcast. "I know you said that foster kids can't hook up or anything - "
"Oh, jeez, Brandon!" Stef interrupted, already certain where this was going.
"We didn't do anything! Not like that, at least. But... I liked her - like her," he corrected himself. "I couldn't help it. And at first she said that nothing could happen, but... she liked me, too. She kissed me, before the wedding. Well, I kissed her, too. It was amazing, but I think that scared her, and that's why she left."
Stef sighed. "Thank you for telling us."
He nodded. "After all the stuff that happened before, I didn't want there to be secrets."
"We appreciate that." After lingering for another awkward moment, Brandon headed upstairs to his room. "Why is it that they always come clean too late to stop the drama?" Stef murmured.
Lena was still staring after her stepson in shock. "Do we know ANYTHING about our kids anymore?" she asked. It seemed like they kept getting blindsided over and over again.
"Some days, I wonder..."
"What are we going to do?"
"We're going to find Callie," Stef quickly replied. The knowledge of what their children had been up to didn't change the fact that they needed to bring their foster daughter home.
"Obviously, but... if there really is something going on between her and Brandon, we can't go through with the adoption."
Stef leaned back in her chair, staring at the ceiling. "I know."
"So what are we going to do?"
By the time that night was starting to fall, Callie and Wyatt found themselves near Tulsa, Oklahoma. They got dinner at a Jack in the Box and Wyatt found an empty parking lot to stay in for the night. Stargazing was harder since they weren't in the middle of nowhere, so they quickly gave up in favor of just getting some sleep.
Around 1AM, Callie woke up to the sound of banging on the window next to her. A light was being shone into the car. "Hey!" a voice called. "Wake up!"
For a second as the flashlight moved around, Callie caught a glimpse of the person outside of the car and absolutely froze. Her eyes completely convinced her brain that it was Liam standing there.
Wyatt turned the key enough in the ignition to be able to open the window. "Is there a problem?" he asked the tall, blonde-haired police officer.
"Yeah, this is private property and you're trespassing," the cop replied. "Can I see your license and registration?"
"Sure." Wyatt took out his wallet and reached over Callie to open the glove compartment. Once he'd retrieved the registration, he handed both items over. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Callie was inexplicably motionless, staring at the cop in fear.
"You're a long way from California," the officer pointed out.
"Yeah. Our family's moving to Indiana." Wyatt knew things would go much easier if he pretended Callie was his sister instead of a underage runaway with a criminal record that he'd picked up on the side of the road.
The cop looked down at Callie. "Do you have ID?" he asked.
"She doesn't have her license yet," Wyatt smoothly answered for her.
"Where are your parents?"
"Our mom came out last week."
"And your father?"
"If you find him, let us know."
The cop eyed him for a long moment, then handed back his license and registration. "Find somewhere else to spend the night," was all he said before walking back to his patrol car.
Wyatt rolled the window back up. "Are you okay?" he asked Callie.
"Y-yeah."
"You're shaking," he pointed out.
Callie looked down at her trembling hands, as though she hadn't even noticed. She clasped them together in an attempt to make it stop. "I just... I had a dream."
"About what?" She didn't answer. "Come on, Callie, talk to me!" He started to reach for her hand, but she violently jumped away. "What the..."
"I'm sorry," she told him. "I'm sorry, I just... He looked like someone."
"Someone you knew?"
She nodded. "My foster brother, from a couple years ago."
"Okay. I take it you didn't like him or something?"
"He raped me," Callie ground out.
Wyatt froze. "What?"
"That's my big, dark secret that you wanted to know so badly. My foster brother raped me!"
"Oh, damn... I'm sorry."
"Now you know how screwed up I really am, okay?" Callie tried to curl up in her seat, pulling away from him, but the loose end of the seatbelt dug into her right side. "Ow."
"What happened?" Wyatt asked.
"Nothing, I'm fine."
Before she could think, before she could stop him, he was reaching to see if she'd hurt herself. As she tried to move away, her shirt shifted, exposing the skin on her right side. Wyatt froze. Even with just the dim light from streetlights outside, he could see her wounds. One of them had started bleeding again. "Oh, God..." he murmured.
Callie jerked her shirt back down. "I said I'm fine," she spat.
"Did you do that, or did someone else?" Wyatt wondered. His heart was pounding. It was obvious that some of those cuts were very new.
She tried to force herself further back into the corner of her seat, further away from the only person currently available to help her. "It doesn't matter," she told him.
"Yes, it does! If you're hurting yourself - "
"I deserve it!" she exasperatedly shot.
"No, you don't, Callie. Nobody does." Wyatt reached for her again, and was very glad that this time she didn't move away. She let him gently pull her into his arms as her tears started to fall. "You were there for me when I really needed someone," he reminded her. "And I'm going to do what you need. I'm going to take care of you, okay? I promise."
After Callie had calmed down some, Wyatt drove further down the road to another parking lot. Once he was certain that she'd finally fallen back to sleep, he quietly opened his door and crept out of the car. As he walked a few steps away, he searched through the contact list on his phone for the right number to call. At least with the two-hour time difference between Oklahoma and California, it wasn't quite so late back in San Diego.
At the Foster house, Brandon reached for the phone when the land-line in the kitchen rang. "Hello?"
"Can I speak to Stef or Lena Foster?"
"Who is this?"
"It's Wyatt."
"Where the hell are you? Is Callie with you?!" Brandon wondered.
Wyatt looked back toward the car. "Yeah, she is."
"Everyone's been going crazy looking for her. Is she okay?"
He sighed. "No, not really. That's why I'm calling. I'm really worried about her..."
TBC...