charges?”

“Callie Lawrence, you will not use that kind of language on

the phone with me, young lady,” she warns. “You know how much I

don’t like the F word.”

“Sorry,” I apologize. “But why is Caleb pressing charges? They

both beat each other up.”

“No, Kayden hit Caleb for no reason,” she says. “Caleb was

just defending himself.”

“He didn’t hit him for no reason. He hit him because of me.”

It slips out like poison vapor and I choke on each syllable.

There’s an extensive pause. “Callie, what do you mean he hit

Caleb because of you? Why would he do that?”

My shoulders curl in as the shame and the dirtiness floods

my body and I remember her limited ability to understand things.

“It’s nothing. I’m just upset and saying stuff. It doesn’t mean

anything.”

She pauses again and I wonder if for a split second, she’s

contemplating my words on a deeper level. “Callie, is there

something you want to tell me?”

When I breathe again, it’s deafening and I swear the whole

world can hear it and they know my secret. “No, Mom.”

“Okay then.” She sounds disappointed, like I was just about

to give her the secret locked in a box inside me. But only Kayden

has the key to it. “Well, I just wanted to let you know in case it

comes up. I know his best friend goes to school there with you and

I don’t want you to have to hear it by gossip.”

I shake my head. “All right.”

“I’ll talk to you later, Callie.”

“Okay, bye.”

We hang up and I clutch the phone in my hand, strangling

the life out of it. My palms start to sweat and I can’t stop thinking about Kayden. He did it for me. He did it for me. I need to save

him. “I think we should go to Afton.”

When Luke looks at me, there are lines on his forehead and

his hands are gripping the steering wheel. “Really?”

“Yeah.” I raise my hips and slide the phone into the pocket of

my jeans. “My mom said Caleb’s going to press charges against

Kayden.”

He keeps some of his attention on the road as he turns the

truck into the parking lot in front of my dorm. “Are you shitting

me?”

I zip up my coat and put my gloves on. “No, and I need to fix

it… somehow. It’s my fault it happened to begin with.”

He parks the truck near the front, puts his hand on the

shifter, and pushes it into park. The radio plays and the engine

keeps cutting out. I wonder if he knows why Kayden beat up Caleb

that night, if he ever told him.

“All right, it’s a deal.” Luke stares at the McIntyre residence

hall in front of us. It’s the tallest of the residence halls at the

University of Wyoming and it looks lonely, towering above the

others. “You want to leave tonight or in the morning?”

I grab the door handle and pull on it. “In the morning. I’d like

Seth to come too if that’s okay.”

He nods and reaches for his pack of cigarettes on the

dashboard. “That’s fine as long as you guys don’t mind squishing

into this thing. It’s a piece of shit, but Seth’s car’s never going to make it to Afton with all the snow.”

I shove open the door. “He’ll be fine with it I’m sure.” I swing

my feet over the edge of the seat, getting ready to jump down.

“Callie,” Luke calls out. “Is there any way we can fix this? Stop

Caleb from pressing charges? You know, if he does, Kayden’s

going to get suspended from the team. He’ll probably never play

again. And he’ll probably get suspended from school. Plus, he

might have to go to jail or pay a huge fucking fine that he can’t

afford without his father’s help.” He pauses, deliberating with his

forehead bunched. “I just really want to make sure that

everything’s okay with him… Sometimes when people hit bottom,

they give up…” His voice grows softer, like the weight of a fall leaf.

“Kind of like my sister.”

The gravity of the situation pushes on my chest as I hop out,

grabbing the door for support. I remember that Luke had a sister.

He never said how she died, but after what he just said, I wonder if

it was suicide.

Pressing my palm to the nagging ache in the center of my

heart, I turn around toward the cab. “I’m going to try. I just have to figure out how.” I already know how. The big question is, can I do

it? Can I finally say it aloud, confront him, threaten him, make it so that he’s so terrified he’ll walk away from it. Can I tell my mother, father, and brother? Can I trust them to believe me and be on my

side?

Do I have that much power? Do I have that much courage?

In the end, I know I’m going to have to answer those

questions and make a decision that’s frightened me for the last six

years of my life, but maybe it’s time to face it.

Maybe it’s time to quit being so scared.

Chapter 3

#46 Transform yourself

Kayden

I’ve been here six days, almost a week, but it seems so much

longer. It’s just after lunch and I’m in the middle of my daily

individual therapy session, which is better than group (I don’t

bother talking in that one). I’m sitting in my room in an

uncomfortable metal fold-up chair. My side hurts like hell and I

can’t stop picking at the wounds underneath the bandage on my

wrist. It’s cloudy outside and thunder and lightning keep snapping

and booming, lighting up the room with a silver glow.

“Tell me how you feel,” the therapist says.

He says it every God damn time.

And every God damn time I give him the same response.

“I feel fine,” I reply and flick the rubber band on my wrist

over and over again until the skin on the inside of my wrist stings.

This is what they gave me to help my self-mutilation, like a tiny

sting can replace a lifetime of cuts, stabs, broken bones, the raw

pain of life.

My therapist’s name is Dr. Montergrey, but he told me to call

him Doug because using his professional name makes him feel

old. But he is old, well into his sixties, with gray thinning hair and lots of wrinkles around his eyes.

Doug puts his finger to the bridge of his nose and adjusts his

square-framed glasses as he reads over the notes he has on me. I

can only imagine what they say: a threat to himself, angry,

irrational, uncooperative, self-damaging. He jots down some notes

and then looks up at me. “Look, Kayden, I know sometimes it’s

hard to talk about how we feel, especially when we have so much