For The Love of Callie

Burning for Home

Brandon's POV

Callie has been away for a little over a month now. Mom and Mama had their interviews a couple days ago to get their intake on what happened and how. They said they think the interview went fine. Secretly I have been going to see Callie here and there and updating her through her phone on the situations at home. I still haven't told Mom and Mama about the phone yet. I'm unsure if they'd be okay with the fact I broke code to go and bring it to her or happy to have a way to communicate with her. Either way, I've still been nervous to say anything.

"B Let's go!" Mom says from downstairs. I look at my watch. 7:15 on the dime. It's time to go to school.
"Coming!"
Once I reach the bottom of the stairs, my phone pings and it's Callie. Just the regular good morning text to let me know her phone hasn't been revoked yet.
I hear a gasp behind me "you've been texting Callie??" Mariana says excitedly.
Before I have time to tell her to be quiet, everyone on the first floor comes into the vestibule. "Brandon have you been communicating with Callie?" Mom asks with a tinge of urgency in her voice.
"Thanks a lot Mariana."
"Sorry..."
"Yeah...I uh snuck her a phone a couple weeks ago and I've been filling her in on family events and she's been updating me when she can."
Mom gains disappointment in her face "you know we have a zero contact and zero visiting rule from the state Brandon."
"I know I just...everyone seemed so upset when she left and I wanted to be sure she was being treated right in her new placement." I look down at my feet and avoid their gazes.
"B this could get us in trouble if anyone finds out." Mama warns giving me a mom look.
It's quiet for a moment. "How is she doing?" Mariana asks which I know is a question everyone has been waiting to hear an answer too, even moms.
"So far she's doing okay. Apparently they run a tight ship there so she's gotta keep her phone hidden anyways." I say seeing if that eases moms at all.
"It's good she's okay but you gotta stop texting her Branson. You could put us in deeper than we already are right now. In order to get her home, we all have to follow the zero contact rules." Mom says grabbing her coat from the rack by the door.
"Okay..." I say turning my phone off and putting it in my pocket.

"Alright in the car, let's go!" Mom yells wrangling everyone up and pushing us out the door.

Callie's POV

We just finished group this morning and everyone is parting ways to work on school work. As I walk to the stairs, I meet Cole at the bottom of the"Hey you okay? You didn't speak much in group."
Cole shrugs "yeah I'm alright."
I raise an eyebrow "you sure."
"Yes just, leave it." He says.
I nod "okay..." with that he walks away.

"He's on edge because he finds out today if he's going into the LGBTQ home or not." Daphne says walking with me up the stairs. Since she had my back when Nicole and I had our fiasco, we've been pretty close. Same with Cole and I but things are obviously a little rocky with this whole LGBTQ thing.
"Ahh...that makes more sense."
"You hear that Becka is going home tomorrow?" Kiara asks following us both up the stairs.
"Yeah that's so wild. She really did 180 out of that slump she was in." Daphne says as we enter Kiara and Daphnes room. Somewhere I've spent quite some time over the last few weeks. Kiara and Daphne are the only two other girls here that I really bonded with though I like being with all of them. I guess group homes really do warm up to you after a while.

"So what about you Callie? You know when you are going to get out of here? Move back with your foster family?" Daphne asks popping herself up onto her bed.
"Not yet. It's getting harder and harder to have hope that it'll ever happen to be honest."
"Girl you can't think like that. You gotta believe that you are going to go back. Manifest that shit." Daphne says.
"Yeah I guess."
"How's things going with you getting into the ILP?" I ask Daphne. She's been trying to get in for a while so she can start building a life for her and her daughter Tasha. I think her telling me about Tasha is when we really clicked. I'd never realized that she'd had a kid before that and it was a clear motivation for her to get it together.
"I think I look at an apartment on Wednesday...things are looking really good." Daphne smiles.
I'm so beyond happy for her. She's been working at this for a while. It'll be sad when she's no longer here with us but she deserves it after all the work she's done to get to this point.
"Alright y'all enough with the real talk, let's get to some school work." Daphne says breaking the silence.
Kiara and I giggle and grab our assignments.