Chapter 7.

You want to know how I got that scar, don't you?" Callie asked. It was later that night, and she and Brandon were still curled around each other, neither saying much, but just being together.

Brandon hadn't even realized he was touching the scar, but he was, running his finger across it over and over. "If you want to to tell me."

"It's not an exciting story, like this one here." She pointed to a small, pale scar near her hairline. "That, I got when I was nine. Jude threw a toy teapot at me, and I got three stitches." She smiled briefly at the memory."But this one... it happened in our..." She paused, thinking. "Third foster home? Yeah," she nodded. "I was just laying on the living room floor, doing my homework. I was on my stomach, and my foster father was sitting on the couch, smoking a cigarette. He kept blowing smoke at me. I asked him to stop it, and he just reached down, and burned my back with his lighter." Her voice shook as she talked. She could still hear her younger self screaming in pain. "I... I still don't know why. I didn't do anything wrong..." She shuddered involuntarily.

Brandon moved his hand from her naked body to her face, caressing her cheek. "Callie, I'm... sorry. I can't even imagine all you've been through."

"Don't worry about it," she told him. "There's no way to change things now. Hey... you know what I really want to know?"

"Hmm?" Brandon asked.

She traced her finger down his chest. "Was this... with me... better than it was with Talya?" She couldn't stand Talya, and though she'd never been the competitive type, part of her wanted that validation, silly as it was. Brandon was with her, after all.

Brandon kissed her forehead, just near the scar Jude gave her, then looked into her chocolate brown eyes. "No comparison, Cal. You were amazing. That one time with Talya was just sex. But you and I made love."

"I didn't know there was a difference," Callie admitted. She always thought the two terms were interchangeable.

"There's a difference," Brandon explained. "I think... sex is just physical, and you might only think about making yourself feel good. But making love is spiritual, because you have an emotional connection with your partner, and you care more about pleasing them than yourself."

"I see," Callie nodded, staring up at the ceiling. And she did. Nothing she'd ever felt in her life could equate to being with Brandon. When they were together, she felt as if they were two people sharing one heart.

Brandon leaned in and kissed her again. "Let's go to bed. It's late." Callie nodded, and he clicked off the lamp. "Goodnight, Cal. I love you."

In the dark, Callie snuggled beside Brandon. "I love you too," she whispered back. "Goodnight." It was weird, she thought. That night alone, she said those three words, I love you, more than she normally did in a year. Liam used to tease her, saying she was coldblooded. Maybe she was? It was hard for her to show people how she felt about them, and with good reason. She'd been rejected or abandoned by anyone and everyone she got close to, except her little brother. Jude was the only person to whom saying those words came easy. They were so simple. I. Love. You. But they had the tendency to make things so complicated, to make her feel so vulnerable. There were several times she wanted to say them to another person, especially Stef. She and Brandon's mom had formed a special bond, almost instantly. And Callie truly did love her, as well as Lena. But that little voice in her head told her not to bother getting attached, that she'd just embarrass herself, because they probably didn't feel the same way. Sometimes, those three little words sounded like a foreign language to her. Meaningless, unfamiliar words that she couldn't pronounce. But that night, Brandon brought them out of her. Maybe if she said them enough, she could finally express to the people she cared most about, how much they meant to her. Thinking of all this, she slowly drifted off to sleep.

It was three o' clock in the morning, when Callie was roused from her sleep by the sound of her phone. She was having a beautiful dream, in which she and Brandon climbed a tree, and were sitting on a high branch. Brandon was just carving their names into the trunk. She groaned, not wanting to let her dream drift away before it ended, but she knew she had to, thinking there could be an emergency. She picked up the phone and turned it on. When she saw the message, her stomach dropped to her feet. Sobbing, she shook Brandon awake, not at all gentle in her frantic state.

Brandon sat up with a jolt, his heart racing. "What the heck?" He mumbled. "Callie... what's going on?" He reached past her and turned on the lamp. In the dim light, he saw Callie hunched over, her hand covering her mouth. Her body shook as she wept. "Callie! Talk to me!" He cried. "I want to know what's going on."

To Be Continued