The Guardian (Callista Ryan Series) (44 page)

             
Without thinking, Callie captured Maggie in her arms, feeling like she was seeing her for the first time in ages. But the hug lasted barely a second before Maggie pushed her away.

             
“I can’t even look at you right now,” Maggie said, disgusted. She stalked out of the room and up the stairs, and Callie heard her bedroom door slam.

             
Jacob pushed back from the table, standing slowly. “Hey, Cal,” he said.

             
“Jake,” Callie replied, crossing her arms. “I haven’t seen you around in a while.”

             
He rubbed a hand across his throat, looking after Maggie. “You really did a number on her, Callie. She’s been a mess.”

             
She snorted. “You’re one to talk. I’ve been gone barely three weeks. You were gone three years.”

             
She didn’t know why she was suddenly so mad at Jacob. She understood why he’d broken up with Maggie—Maggie hadn’t been the same girl he’d fallen in love with in high school. Even back then, when he had left, Callie hadn’t been mad at him.

             
But now, for some reason, she felt mad at everyone.

             
“I know,” he said, taking her anger as though he deserved it. “I should have been around more. I had no idea things had stayed so bad around here.”

             
Callie crossed her arms uncertainly. “So why are you back?” she asked.

             
“The day she found out you’d left, she was a wreck. I found her roaming the neighborhood, calling your name. I brought her to the police station, but she was hung over and no one really took her seriously. I think that was the last straw for her, not being able to get people to look for you. That was when she realized how messed up things had gotten.”

             
“And so… What? You decided to stick around?” Callie asked, not quite believing it. She’d always known Jacob to be a good guy. But as of last night, she’d lost some of her faith in good guys.

             
“Well, yeah,” he said, sitting back down. “She wanted to stop drinking, so I stayed. I never…Callie, I never stopped loving her. I just couldn’t be with her while she was like that.”

             
Callie hesitated, and then sat in the chair where Maggie had been sitting the minute before. She looked down at the newspaper. “Job ads?”

             
“She put in her two weeks’ notice at Chili’s four days ago.”

             
“Why?” Callie asked.

             
“She’s turning it around, Cal. I even convinced her to go to a meeting with me last night,” he said, a small smile beginning on his face. “Though Lord knows she fought me on it.”

             
“A meeting?” Callie asked. “An AA meeting?”

             
“Sure. In the basement at St. Pat’s. She didn’t say anything, I don’t think she’s ready for that yet. But just the fact that she went is a good sign.”

             
“Yeah,” Callie murmured. She’d seen the ad that Maggie had circled while Jacob had been talking. Bank teller. It was circled in powder blue ink, which Callie traced with her finger. She looked back up at Jacob. “Thank you. For being here. I’m sorry I wasn’t around.”

             
“Don’t tell me,” he said. He nodded towards the stairs. “I know it must have been hard for you these past few years, but she loves you, Callie. She might seem mad now, but the truth is, not knowing where you were scared the shit out of her.”

             
Callie nodded, and stood up. Then she paused, and turned back to Jacob. “So, are you going to be sticking around for a while?” she asked.

             
He drew a breath, and said, “I think so. It’s up to your sister.”

              Later that night, Callie knocked on Maggie’s door.

             
“Come in.”

             
Callie opened the door slowly, not knowing what to expect. The last time she’d been in Maggie’s room, she’d had to check to make sure Maggie was still breathing.

             
“Maggie?” she asked, paused in the doorframe. “Can I come in?”

             
“Nice to see you’re still around,” Maggie said. Callie stepped inside, and saw Maggie cross-legged on her bed, looking at her laptop.

             
“Look,” Callie said, feeling awkward. She didn’t know how to talk to her sister anymore. “I’m sorry I left, okay? Trust me, I hadn’t planned on it.”

             
Maggie looked up reluctantly, and after a moment rolled her eyes. She shut her laptop and said, “Sit down.”

             
Callie sat at the foot of the bed, grateful Maggie was even speaking to her.

             
A few seconds passed with Maggie looking absently at her knuckles, until she spoke. “I know why you did it.”

             
Callie was surprised, unsure what Maggie meant. “You do?”

             
“The truth is, I think I’ve been waiting for you to get fed up with me for years. I always sort of knew you’d leave one day. I just never thought about what it would mean to me.”

             
“I wasn’t fed up with you—“

             
“No, Callie, I get it. I haven’t exactly been around since the accident. But you have to understand, the second I realized you were gone, it was like I was living through the accident all over again. Getting that note was exactly like getting that phone call from the hospital. I didn’t think about the fact that you were still alive, all I knew was that you were gone.”

             
“I’m so sorry,” Callie whispered, close to tears for the third time that day. She reached for Maggie’s hand, feeling like a horrible person for having been so happy these past few weeks.

             
“No, that’s not what I mean,” Maggie said, sounding frustrated. “I don’t want you to be sorry. I
needed
to relive it. I haven’t let myself think about it since it happened. I was always too busy trying to forget about it.”

             
“That’s why you drank?” Callie asked. “I always thought you just hated having to take care of me. I thought you were upset you had to give up college.”

             
Maggie shook her head. “No. Grandma Anne offered to take you in so that I could stay in school. But after everything that happened, you were all I had left. And had you been buckled in that day, I wouldn’t even have had you. Really, it was because of me that I left college. I needed to be near you, to have you around so that I could be sure you were still real.”

             
Callie winced at the reminder of her survival.

             
“I started drinking because I couldn’t stop seeing their faces,” Maggie whispered.

             
Callie squeezed her hand. “Neither could I.”

             
“You don’t understand,” Maggie said, her voice sounding broken. “It was my fault that you were even in that accident to begin with. If I’d gone somewhere closer to home, if I’d just gone to Santa Clara like they’d been planning on all those years, they’d still be here.”

             
“Maggie,” Callie said, shocked.

             
“It’s true,” Maggie went on, angrily wiping a tear away. “If I hadn’t been so selfish, insisting that I go somewhere far away, we’d still have a mom and dad. It’s because of me that they’re gone.”

             
Callie hadn’t let her finish before she had closed the space between them and hugged her. “You’ve been thinking this all these years?” Callie asked.

             
Maggie didn’t reply. But this time, she hugged Callie back.

             
“Maggie, you had every right to go away to college. Mom and Dad were proud of you. They were happy, even as we drove home.”

             
“But you wouldn’t have
had
to drive so far if I—“

             
“Stop,” Callie said. “None of this is true. The accident wasn’t your fault. The truck came out of nowhere. Dad tried to avoid it but… It was no one’s fault, Mags. It was an accident. I don’t blame you.”

             
“I blame me,” she said softly.

             
Callie pulled away, and brushed away the matted hair from Maggie’s forehead.

             
“Hey,” she said. “Do you remember the story Mom used to tell us? About how they met?”

             
Maggie sniffed. Then, without meaning to, she laughed. “The gardenia.”

             
“He was buying a corsage for his date,” Callie said.

             
“Who
wasn’t
Mom.”

             
“Nope. But she was the one who sold it to him. She was working at Grandma Anne’s flower shop after school.”

             
“She said, ‘If anyone ever bought me gardenia like this, I’d love him the rest of my life.’”

             
Callie laughed at Maggie’s impression of their mother. “And so he gave it to her,” she said.

             
Maggie nodded. “And she loved him the rest of her life.”

             
“Do you remember the way they used to dance out in the front yard on the first really warm night of spring?”

             
“Oh, God,” Maggie said, rolling her eyes. “I hated that. It was so embarrassing.”

             
“Yeah,” Callie replied. “It was awful.”

             
They were both quiet for a minute. “I miss them,” Maggie said, and she sounded like a child again.

             
“I know,” Callie said. “I do, too.”

             
“So what do we do now?” Maggie asked.

             
Callie shrugged. “I don’t know. I think we kind of threw the rule book out the window a long time ago.”

             
“You know, you can go to college,” Maggie said. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. I just never really knew how to tell you. I don’t want to be the reason you don’t go.”

             
“I just thought…you know. If
I
went, well, that wouldn’t really be fair to you.”

             
“No,” Maggie said, shaking her head. “You’re allowed to be happy, Cal. Don’t let my problems become yours.”

             
“But,” Callie said, feeling awkward, “I thought you said…well, when I left—“

             
“To tell you the truth, yeah, you scared me. But I needed to be scared. It woke me up. I think, if I know that you’re okay, the next time you leave won’t be so bad.”

             
Callie smirked. “Does that have anything to do with Jacob?”

             
Maggie drew a deep breath, and sighed. “Jacob. Who knows what will happen with him.”

             
“Oh, come on Mags,” Callie said. “Anyone can tell he’s still crazy about you.”

             
“Yeah, but look what happened the last time.”

             
Callie reached across the bed and placed her hand on top of Maggie’s. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that there are always going to be things we don’t know about that factor into the way things turn out. Maybe he had his reasons,” she said. “Don’t let last time ruin this time.”

             
Maggie frowned. “Where were you, anyways?” she asked.

             
She paused, then shook her head. “Nowhere I’m going back to anytime soon.”

              Callie couldn’t fall asleep. Her bed felt empty without Alex next to her. She kept thinking about the canopy, and the Big Ben, and the way he’d looked at her the last time they talked. And she kept wondering if that
would
be the last time they talked. Even though she was angry, she couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing him again.

             
Somewhere between midnight and sunrise, she realized that this was the first night she’d spent in her bedroom since the accident that she hadn’t felt his eyes on her. The thought occurred to her that maybe he was still here, somewhere, hiding in the shadows as he had done all those years. Maybe he hadn’t been able to stand being apart from her, either.

             
“Alex?” she whispered. A moment went by, and she felt foolish. “Alex,” she said a little louder. “Are you there?”

             
Still, there was nothing.