The Opposite of Nothing (12 page)

She spun in her chair. It felt good nailing her lead with the song’s catchy intro.

“I like this, Callista.”

“I figured Foster the People was a safe bet.”

“No, you. I like you bouncy with pop songs. No emo. No
wah wah
angst. It feels lighter, like my head.” She grinned and ruffled the inch of hair cropped close against her scalp. Callie was so accustomed to Jessa’s ever-changing looks she’d taken the drastic hair cut in stride, only pausing to tell her she looked pixie-cute before darting into the sound booth to get started.

“That’s what I’m going for—lightness. It must be spring fever.” She cued up a few more tracks, saving a chart topper she knew Jessa would hate for last. Holding the words from Tayber’s last email to Sasha close to her heart.
Things have changed. If we keep talking...I can’t do that to Callie.
He wanted her, not Sasha. Her. An actual relationship. The kind where even an anonymous cyber fuck-buddy felt like cheating.

“I’m glad to hear you say that because I signed Random Nonsense up for an on-location spot at Spring Fest.”

“The Phi Ep party?” She winced. The bubble of happiness building inside her turned to stone and dropped instantly to the pit of her stomach. She could handle chattering into the void, but out in the open, on location, with a crowd of revelers on the quad?

“Spring Fest does not belong to the Greeks just because Phi Ep throws a big party at the same time. It’s a campus-wide event.”

“Okay. But why sign us up? You want to participate to prove that anyone can?”

“No. Maybe. It’ll be fun. And I don’t know about you, but I think I might like to make broadcasting my career. More experience is more experience. Besides, you can play all the mainstream top forty you want.”

Callie had no idea what she wanted to do. Get a degree. Start her
real
life. What was real? She thought she’d have figured it out by now. Everyone else had. Tayber was racing through his degree program at warp speed so he could start teaching as soon as possible. Now Jessa wanted to make radio a career. She couldn’t ride on Jessa’s coattails forever. She felt lightheaded. The way she’d felt when she’d looked over the edge of the Grand Canyon.
Such a long way down.

“If it’s important to you, I’ll find a way to muddle through.” Because that’s what friends do, they muddle through the important things. They pick you up at the airport even when the parking lot there scares them to death. They learn your favorite songs even when they hate the band. They compromise.
They tell the truth.
A flicker of fear tickled at the edges of her joy.

Jessa scrolled through her song queue and did a little toe-tapping jig in place. “Oh, I could kiss you. I know it’s not exactly pop, but I’m playing
Hallelujah
because Halle-fricken-lujah.”

“I think it’s been performed on enough reality TV talent shows to qualify as part of the pop lexicon.”

It felt good to jam like this, to bounce back and forth with songs, like call and response. And then the lyrics hit. Hard and fast, right in the solar plexus.

She could forget for a few moments at a time that she was a lying liar who lied, but not when she was listening to Buckley’s voice shred all her emotional armor. Every note raw and honest. She pressed her thumbs against her eyelids. What would it do to Tayber when she finally told him? What would it do to her?

“Hey, hey, hey. I didn’t play that to undo all the happy. It’s almost over.” Jessa cross-faded Buckley into some ska. The abrupt shift reminded her of how startling Jessa’s haircut really was. How easily her friend seemed to handle change. How would Jessa react if she shared this terrible secret?

“Why did you cut your hair?”

“You hate it?” She covered most of it with her hands, little tufts peeking out between her fingers, and wrinkled her nose.

“No, not at all. It’s just so drastic.”

“The dreads were really heavy, plus my aunt hated them. I did it for her, mostly. To support her.”

Callie’s heart raced as she considered why people shaved their heads to support other people. Cancer. “Oh, God.”

“She’s a fighter, I come by it honest. We’re all focused on being super positive. Only good thoughts. Thoughts have power.” She jutted her chin and smiled. It was a fierce smile, the kind of smile that would see a warrior through battle.

Callie’s thoughts were a dark, twisted mess. There was a reason she’d called her secrets a cancer, but now she felt ashamed. They were not a cancer, they hadn’t split inside her body against her will.

She’d created them, and she had the power to eradicate them. She needed to unburden her soul now, if not for Tayber, then for herself.

She reached across the soundboard and grabbed Jessa’s hand, squeezing it in her own. Passing strength on as much as taking it. “Only good thoughts.”

C
allie paced, breathless and dizzy, outside her apartment, their apartment, tucking the damp curls at the nape of her neck back into her ponytail. Her palms tingled. She clenched and unclenched her hands a few times, trying to banish the prickles, and blew out a shaky breath. Her whole body felt clammy as the thin sheen of sweat covering her skin dried. She shouldn’t have run across campus, but walking would have given her too much time to think. No good came from that kind of thinking.
Thoughts have power.

If they were going to have any chance at a relationship, she had to tell him the truth. She no longer had any excuses. His break up email to Sasha played over and over in her head.
I can’t do that to Callie.
Now or never. The sharp rap of her knuckles against the door echoed in the empty corridor. At least she didn’t have an audience. Don’t be home. Don’t be home. Don’t be—

“Come in.”

The door might have been lead. It took every ounce of her resolve to push the damn thing open. Head down, she stepped over the threshold and into her new life.

“Hey, I was looking for you. And some cookies. Why were you knocking?” He looked so at ease, slouched on the futon, so relaxed and happy with his feet up and his dimples flashing.

She opened her mouth to speak. Nothing.

“What’s wrong?” Voice edged with concern, he launched himself off the futon. The game controller resting on his lap clattered to the floor and spun between them.

“I, I—” Skipping like scratched vinyl, she couldn’t force the words out. He tugged at her sleeve, gently guiding her into the camp chair set up beside the milk crate coffee table. If he offered her tea and a blanket she’d scream. He didn’t get to be nice to her. Not now. She needed him to be an asshole.

Sitting on the futon, he reached over to grip the arms of the nylon chair and pulled, dragging her closer. Their knees touched. The contact, and the weight of his regard, did nothing to ease the fear churning in her gut. He skated his thumb over the back of her hand. She flinched.

“You’re scaring me. Are you hurt? Just nod yes or no.”

“I’ve done something terrible. I mean, I stopped doing. But I did it. Did do it.” She was actually blithering.

“What did you do?”

“I’m Sasha, Tayber.” There. She’d said it, and the universe hadn’t imploded on the spot. Her galloping, stuttering heart, though? That was still a distinct possibility. She couldn’t even cry. The mix of fear and relief was a paralytic swirling in her veins.

His brows knit together. She watched in horror as all the color drained from his face. “No, that’s not possible. You can’t be.”

Tayber blinked twice, stood, and said nothing. He just looked at her like he was seeing her for the very first time. And he did not like what he saw. She shuddered and fought against the tightness in her throat, the aching sorrow in her chest, until it heaved up inside her with a wrenching sob.

“I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.” She couldn’t stop saying it, pouring out all her regret in a torrent of meaningless syllables. She reached for him and he stumbled back like her touch might burn him. Oh, God, if she never got to touch him again, to laugh with him...She couldn’t think about that.

“Not good enough.”

She wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans and swallowed hard. “Let me explain.”

He shook his head and grabbed his keys off the hook by the pantry. “I don’t even know you, do I?”

“I’m still me, Tayber. We’re still us. I know I did something stupid...” She followed as he picked up his laptop and shoved it into the backpack still sitting on the floor by the futon.

“Stupid? You think? I’ll be back for the rest of my shit later. Around ten. You probably shouldn’t be here then.”

She hadn’t thought, and that was the problem. Or she’d thought too much. “Please, let me explain.”

He threw his bag over his shoulder and turned around. She’d thought she’d seen him angry that night in the bar. She’d been wrong. He curled his lip in disgust and sneered. “Go ahead, Callie, explain.”

She couldn’t explain it or justify it. No matter what she’d thought of him, or herself, he hadn’t deserved her lies, her manipulation. Her vision hazed out into tiny pinpricks of light at the edges. She dried her hands again and again, wringing the hem of her shirt in front of her. Would they ever get dry?

“I didn’t trust—I didn’t—I—I—” She couldn’t get anything out. It was too important. And indefensible.

“Explain to me how deceiving me for months is okay. How tricking me into sharing the most personal details of my life is no big deal. You violated me. For what? So we could fuck around? You only had to ask.”

“I didn’t know how.” And she wanted more than that. But how could she tell him that? She felt small and very far away.

“Sasha did.”

His words were a bee sting, a shocking burn. Her face flamed as she remembered all the things she’d told him. All the things she couldn’t tell him now.

When he left, he didn’t even bother to slam the door. The jangle of keys, the barely audible click of the lock, the muffled thump of his footsteps trailing off, were all more devastating and final. She’d known this confession would be ugly and painful, that it would make him hate her. At least she didn’t need to hate herself anymore.

She didn’t deserve to cry, not for the person she had been, the one who couldn’t be honest with anyone. Maybe for Tayber, who had deserved her truth much sooner. Or for Jessa and her aunt. For everything awful and unfair and unforgivable in the whole fucking world. But not for herself. Never that. She choked it all back, squeezing her fingers into fists, nails cutting deep into the flesh of her palms. She’d cried enough in high school. Maybe she’d deserved that too.

T
he force of his fury propelled him four blocks before he remembered he had a car. Tayber stopped in the middle of the broken sidewalk and bent over, hands on his knees, to get some blood back in his brain. That stitch in his chest was from exertion, not heartbreak, right?

He wanted Callie to take it back, to tell him she’d snooped on his laptop and was playing a practical joke. But as soon as she’d said it, he knew it was true. Her confession had been the last puzzle piece falling into place. And it fit. He didn’t have to jam at the edges or pound it with his fist. It fit. Why had she done it? To make fun of him? To dig up dirt? To use him for a thrill and then throw him away?

All he could do was breathe, and curse, and pick himself up to walk back to his car. He’d been living in Callie’s bubble even more than he’d realized. She knew everything about him, and he knew nothing about her. Less than nothing, because what he did know could be all lies.

When he rounded the corner into the parking lot, his bastard brother was leaning against his car, arms crossed, sunglasses blocking eyes Tayber knew looked exactly like his own.
Salt in a motherfucking paper cut.

“Hear me out.” Aaron held up his hands, palms out. Warding Tayber off and beckoning at the same time.

He didn’t know if he wanted to punch him again or hug him. He jogged ahead, fists balled, but Aaron didn’t move. Tayber launched himself and Aaron caught him. The punch he’d been considering melted into a gut tap, his other arm wrapped around his brother’s neck. He should still be angry—and he was—but it was muted now, like he only had enough room in his heart to be angry with one person he loved at a time. Squeezing, he buried his face in Aaron’s shoulder.

He hadn’t hugged his brother in eight years, maybe longer, but it was only awkward for a moment. It melted into warmth and safety. Comfort. “Fine, you fucker, fine. You win.”

“Yeah, I do.” Aaron squeezed him again and stepped back, gripping Tayber’s shoulders.

“You alright? You blew outta that apartment like you were dodging the cops. I was about to tear after you once I realized no one was following behind.”

He almost wished he were in trouble with the cops, then maybe Aaron could help him. No, not even that. His brother hadn’t fought his battles for him in years. He shrugged out of his grip. “I don’t even know.”

“Fight with the girlfriend? I know I bolted from Kelsey like that a few times. Usually she was throwing my shit at me while I ran.”

Kelsey, of course.
That was the girl Aaron had taken off with. He remembered her like a cloud of Baby Soft perfume mixed with smoke. Sweet and harsh. Callie wouldn’t throw things. She’d probably box his stuff up neatly and set it in the corner. Damn. He didn’t want to go back up there and deal with her. He jingled the keys in his pocket. “You hungry?”

“I could murder some burgers. There’s this dive attached to my motel...”

He lobbed the keys. “You drive, old man. I’m not up for it.”

He hopped into the passenger seat, Callie’s seat, and cursed. He knew if he reached under the seat he’d find a brush full of her hair, a CD with her handwriting scrawled across the front.

The scent of her shampoo clung to the headrest. She lingered. He ducked his head and focused on breathing through his mouth.

They pulled up in front of a faded motel that seemed to exist solely to house family members in town for tours, sporting events, and graduations. “I’m staying here for now. Until I figure out my next move.”