Callie's Sister

Chapter 9

Another two months passed and not much had changed. The doctors confirmed there was pretty much no chance Callie would recover. My mother, a micromanager extraordinaire, was still obsessed with Callie. And kept her vow not to speak with me.

My father buried himself in his work.

Both of my parents were often at the rehab place so the house was either empty or full of three people not talking.

And yet, everything was about to change.

I snuck out of my miserable house at exactly seven a.m.

The only escape I had lately was running. With my iPod blasting my best music I could run for miles. Unfortunately, I always had to come home. Back to my depressing house. But that day I wasn’t sure I wanted to come back.

The October sun was starting to streak through the clouds. I should have brought my sunglasses. Now I was destined to squint the whole day, which would give me a giant headache and ruin everything. I spied Cam’s old Duke baseball hat on his patio and thought it might do the trick. I swooped over to his patio and grabbed the cap. There was a rap on the glass sliding door.

Caught.

Cam slid the glass door open and bounced out. My breath caught, as it seemed to every time I saw Cam lately. I don’t know why I was still surprised to see how big-sigh hot he was. Our biking sessions disappeared the second school started. He was too focused on school and his new girlfriend.

“Hey, Maddie,” he said. “You going running?”

I nodded, trying to act like it was just another Saturday morning run.

“Me, too,” he said. “I’ll come with you. Maybe go over by the farm path?”

I had to get out of this.

“Cam, I want… I just need… well, I think I’d like to run alone.”

“No,” he replied, looking right at me. “You need some company today. Today of all days.”

“No,” I answered, trying to stare him down, “Today of all days, I need to be alone.” He held my gaze and saw right through me. Strong. I had to stay strong. I had to do this. But he kept looking at me.

“Take me to the beach?”