Free The Redemption of Callie and Kayden by Jessica Sorensen

your mom since you told her about Greyson.”

    He shrugs as he laces up his shoe and fastens a knot. “She’ll
    get over it. It’ll just take some time, just like it did when I told her I was gay.”

    I flop back onto the bed and drape my arm over my
    forehead. “How do you decide what’s worth telling your parents
    and what’s not?”

    He’s silent for a while and then I hear his footsteps as he
    walks around to my side of the bed. He lifts my arm off my head
    and looks down at me. “If you’re asking me if I think you should
    tell your parents about what happened with Caleb, then the
    answer is yes. I think you should.”

    He releases my arm and I lean up on my elbows. “How can
    you be so sure?” My mouth sinks to a frown. “She could get mad
    at me. Or she could hate herself as much as I hate… hated myself.”

    Seth brushes my bangs out of my eyes with his fingers.
    “Callie, if she hates herself for a while, then she hates herself for a while. You’ve been carrying around the burden for the last six
    years and it’s about time someone else took a little bit of the
    weight off of you.”

    “I’m not sure I can,” I whisper, clutching at the dull ache
    inside my chest. “There’s just so much… so much acceptance in
    telling her the truth.”

    “Like you might have to accept that it’s finally real?”

    I nod as I gaze at the clear sky outside. The sunlight is
    beaming down on the houses across the street. Sunlight is a rare
    occurrence in Afton, but maybe it’s a sign that not everything is
    caped in darkness. That light does exist even in the darkest of
    corners.

    He moves back as I sit up and head for my bag on a fold-up
    chair near the door. “I was thinking we could go out to breakfast
    this morning. There’s this café in town that has the best pancakes
    in the world.” I take a purple shirt out of the bag and a pair of
    jeans.

    “I was thinking we could go see Kayden first,” Seth says as he
    texts something on his phone.

    “But he’s not allowed visitors.” I hold my clothes to my chest
    and head for the bathroom to change.

    “Yeah, he is.” Seth sets his phone down on his knee and
    takes a deep breath. “I just got a text from Luke saying that not
    only is Kayden allowed to have visitors but he’s leaving the facility today.”

    I stop in the middle of the room as reality finally catches up
    with me. Although I’d never admitted it aloud, I’d wondered if I’d
    ever see Kayden again. That maybe he didn’t even exist and that
    everything that had happened between us was just my
    imagination attempting to force my mind to thrive again. “Should
    we wait for him to get out and then go see him?” I stare at the
    open bathroom door.

    The mattress squeaks as Seth gets up from the bed and
    steps into my line of vision. “I think we should go pick him up.
    Luke said that his mother’s supposed to and then she’s going to
    take him home, but he thinks we should go pick him up and take
    him somewhere.”

    I raise my chin up and meet his eyes. “Like kidnap him?”

    Seth laughs at me and his face turns red and his eyes water
    over. “He’s nineteen years old, Callie. We can’t kidnap him if he
    wants to go.”

    “But isn’t he supposed to be being watched?”

    “What? At his parents’ house? With his dad?”

    I free an unsteady breath from my lungs. “But I worry that we
    might be doing more harm than good… running away.”

    Seth steps closer to me, places his hands on my shoulders,
    and fixes his eyes on me. “You want to know what I think? I think
    that you’re afraid.”

    I hug my clothes tighter against my chest because I need to
    hold onto something. “Of what?”

    “About hearing the whole story about that night. I think
    you’re afraid of the truth.”

    “But what is the truth exactly?” I ask.

    Seth gives a lopsided smile and gently shakes my shoulders.
    “That’s for you to find out because he needs you.”

    He’s right.