Stop Judging Him

Stop Judging Him

Summary - Callie returns home to the Foster household, but is unhappy about the family’s treatment of Brandon and let them know her feelings about it.

Callie awoke up early before sunrise in the morning. She took a quick look at Mariana, who was still sleeping, before going to the bathroom to brush her teeth and get a quick shower. Callie was slowly getting back to her old routine since coming back home from the group home. After Callie finished in the bathroom, she dried off and put on her robe before going back to her and Mariana’s bedroom. It took a few minutes for Callie to get dressed in a pair of blue jeans, a black t-shirt and a red long sleeved shirt. As Callie was putting on her shoes, Mariana slowly began to wake up.

"You better get up before the hot water is gone." Callie said as she shook Mariana, who reluctantly got up.

Callie headed downstairs to the kitchen where she found Lena cooking breakfast.

"Good morning Callie." Lena said. "Do you want some eggs?"

"Yeah." Callie replied as she poured some cereal in a bowl.

Callie began to eat breakfast at the table. Slowly everyone else in the house came and join, with one noted exception, Brandon. He had decided to go stay with Mike due to things getting pretty bad between him and everyone else in the family after he confessed about the kiss with Callie. While breakfast had it’s usual activity with some conversations and eating, Callie felt detached from it and could only pay attention to the empty chair next to her’s that illustrated Brandon's absence. She was told about all this by Brandon himself and felt very offended that the family would judge him so harshly to the point of comparing him to Liam. After finishing breakfast, Callie followed Lena, Jesus, Mariana and Jude for the ride to school. During the ride to Anchor Beach school, Callie took a quick look around at everyone else in the car and felt a rising wave of disappointment and disgust at everyone else in the family for their treatment of Brandon to the point of hardly speaking to any of them since coming back home. However she made it a point to finally speak to everyone about this later in the day.

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The kitchen was full of activity as Lena finished cooking dinner, while Jude helped set the tables by placing the plates, forks, spoons and glasses at the seats, except for the empty spot that Brandon would’ve been sitting at. Stef finally came from work and greeted everyone as she got herself a bottle of water from the refrigerator.

"Good job setting the table Buddy." Stef said, praising Jude for his work.

"Thanks." Jude replied as Stef gave him a hug.

"Why don’t you go get everyone else for dinner." Lena asked.

Jude immediately left the kitchen to go get Jesus, Mariana and Callie. The kids all entered the kitchen a couple of minutes later for dinner. The dinner had it’s usual activities, with the eating and talk about school and work. However Callie kept quiet the whole time, eating and sizing up everyone at the table. She felt detached from the conversation, choosing not to speak until the time was right for her to say what had been on her mind for a while.

"Callie." Stef said, getting Callie to snap back to attention. "You wanna go to Jesus’ first match next week?"

"Umm yeah, sure." Callie replied.

"You've been awfully quiet lately." Lena said. "Is everything alright?"

Callie took a moment to see Stef, Lena, Jesus, Mariana and Jude staring at her. Now she felt it was time to speak up. “No it isn’t” She replied.

Everyone were taken aback by what Callie’s response.

"Okay, do you want to talk about it?" Lena asked.