Wounded; A Brallie Fan Fiction *EDITING*

Chapter Thirteen: And And And And . . . .

Callie's POV
Jesus had a burner phone that he'd been using every since he got kicked out of boarding school, which allowed him to have the same phone number without being tracked by Moms. After he found a pleading voicemail from Stef in his voice mailbox, he let me log onto my account to see if I had one, too.

And sure as hell, there it was, daunting me with its presence; a reminder that I hurt my mother and I had run away from her. Twice. I knew it'd be hard, but I had to listen to it. I ached to hear her voice, and there was no way I could pass up the opportunity.

"Callie," breathed Stef on the other end of a message she left thirty two minutes ago. "It's Mom. I want you to know I am not mad at you, love. You don't have to be afraid to come home, to face us. The social worker called; she confirmed the interview, and she's letting you come home. Love, we know everything. We know about you and Brandon, and Callie, I promise you, we'll figure this out. We are not going to tell the social worker, and nobody outside the family will know. We'll tell people that you didn't run away; that Jesus was in trouble, and you went to find him. We'll work through this, as a family, just like we always do. Nothing is going to stand in our way of adopting you, you hear me? Please hear me, Callie. Just get in the car and let your brother take you home to us, huh? There's nothing holding you back."

Stef breathed into the reciever, and seconds later, the recording ended. Tears streamed down my face, I snapped back into reality, and found Jesus's hand on my shoulder I'm comfort.

"Let's go home, Callie." He said.

But he didn't understand, nobody seemed to understand that I was not going home.  In fury, I darted out of the motel room and down the stairs, to wander across the dark parking lot until I sat on the curb next to the motel's advertisement sign.

Tears poored down my cheeks, and I choked on my sobs as I heaved my chest in and out. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears, and my face was hot with anger and frustration.

Footsteps approached behind me, and I turned to find Jesus towering over me with an expectant expression.

"If you think I'm just gonna jump in the car and go back to La-La land, you can forget it." I snapped at him as I stood up and walked further down the sidewalk. Yet, nothing stopped him from following me.

"Give me one good reason why you can't-"

"Brandon! Brandon is why!" I choked out as I sobbed irrationally. "I can't go back there and continue to hurt him, I can't pretend we never happened. I can't. So stop asking, Jesus! You can stop pretending to be the brother who cares because we both know you just don't wanna walk into that house alone!"

I walked away, but stopped in my tracks when Jesus began to fire back. "That's not true, Callie and you know that! I don't care what you say to me on this street, but nothing is gonna keep me from being the 'brother who cares'. What if it were me, huh? Or Mariana? Or Jude! You'd be doing everything to keep us safe! Would you let one of us rot here in this sketchy mo-"

"It's different! You don't have to go home and face the sibling you had sex with! You don't have to share a bathroom with the person you're in love with!" I screamed, and as soon as I began to feel the rawness in the back of my throat, I gave up, and I mumbled one last thing before walking away for the last time. "Go preach to another trashy foster sister, because I'm done, Jesus. I'm just done."

Frantically, I stepped out onto the street as the pain drenched my cheeks in the form of tears, and my throat closed in on my cries. I found myself sobbing so hard, with so little air, that I could barely move.

"CALLIE!" Jesus screamed with pure terror in his voice.

Before I could scream back at him to knock it off, I myself, was knocked. My head turned, and my eyes looked directly into the glow of golden headlights in the night.