Joe and Calum Figure Things Out

15th July, 2018

"Cal, we've got a letter. A handwritten letter. It's uh, from your mom? Cal, I thought you said your mom was dead. Cal? Cal!", my incessant voice finally makes Calum move to where I'm standing with our morning mail. Calum is still ruffled from his sleep - he looks downright adorable in his pyjamas. He's moving towards me and for the first time I can't recognise the look on his face. He slowly takes the envelope from my hand, sits down on our bed and just stares at it.

"Cal?", I think I'm imagining it but Calum flinches at my voice. He's still sitting and he's still staring. I go and sit down next to him determined not to move till he does something, anything. It's Sunday and we have the whole day. It seems like eternity has passed when Calum finally moves and pulls the letter towards him. He rips it open, reads It and passes it over to me. He doesn't even look at me. That just won't work. I refuse to let a part of Calum's life just open up to me without any explanation. I keep the letter on my lap and continue looking at Calum. It's got to get weird for him because I've been looking at him for a good hour now.

"Just read it, Joe.", Calum's voice is soft. Calum's voice is always soft, but right now it's this defeated version. I hate It. I never want to hear Calum's defeated soft voice again. I guess that's why I pick up the letter and skim through it as fast as possible. The first thing I feel when I read the letter is how much I hate people. No, scratch that. It's how much I hate people who treat the people I love like they're dispensable, like they're secondary. Calum Blight is primary. I crumple the letter up and I'm about to go on a rampage but I hear Calum crying. Calum doesn't cry much. He thinks he's being a burden: a burden on whom I'll never guess because nothing Calum can do is a burden for me. I shift slightly and pull Calum towards me. We lie down side by side and I wrap him in my arms. Calum is shivering and I'm ready to go to war for him.

"When I was twelve, my brother told me I was adopted. I didn't believe him. I mean, he lied to me almost daily about where the chocolate chip cookies were kept. How could I believe something so huge? Then he pulled out these papers. Birth certificates and adoption papers and letters. I read them all. My birth mother - the one who's sent this letter now - she was my father's best friend at college. They dated and she got pregnant and then broke up with him without telling him about me. By the time I was a few months old, my parents were already married and she left me with him telling him that I was the biggest mistake she'd ever made. He never saw her again but he always sent letters, every month. I finally tracked her down when I was sixteen. My brother told me not to. But I just had to know why she didn't want me. I found her with her boyfriend. They lived in a trailer at the edge of Austin. They were drug dealers. She told me never to come back because I ruined her life. I pretended like it didn't matter but from that moment on, I changed. It changed everything about me. I did every new thing in life thinking 'oh I'll probably ruin this too'. Then one day you sat next to me on the train. You loved me. You love me. And for the first time in my life, I haven't thought that I'm ruining something. You changed me all over again, Joe. I told you my mother was dead because she is, my mother, the one who loved me is dead."

Calum has stopped crying but I can't let him go. I don't want to. In one spilt second I decide that no matter what Calum will never feel like this again.