What Nobody Else Sees

chapter forty

If he wanted her gone so badly, he should've said something. If he wanted her gone, he should've let her leave when she tried.

Everyone knew.

If she was ever caught, there was already a narrative in the works. Peter was unhappy in his marriage. He believed that Callie was unfaithful, and he had already found a new lover in her sister. Perhaps he told her that he wanted a divorce and she snapped. Women could be so jealous.

Dazed, she stared out at the gate of the baseball field, a few yards from the parking lot. He had felt so comfortable on the field, like it was where he was meant to be.

He was still there.

He was wearing a white baseball uniform, a navy 'three' sewn on the back. In his hands was a bat, swinging loosely. It wasn't threatening, not anymore.

Callie gazed at him longingly. She felt her hand rise, a hesitant wave to the boy she once knew. His eyes landed on her, and he lit up like Christmas lights. He couldn't have been older than eighteen. By the time he was nineteen, he had stopped looking at her like that. He waved back.

She wanted to run to him, let him hold her close. But, for some reason she couldn't recall, she didn't. Instead, she went forward slowly and carefully. There was a sense of disbelief in her delighted mind, a cautious hesitance.

"Callie, what are you doing? Hello, Earth to Cal?"

She spun around, finding Hollis standing beside her. She was staring at her, clearly concerned. "Cal, are you ok?"

She looked over her shoulder back at the field. Peter was gone.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just got distracted, that's all."

Hollis looked into her face for a moment longer. She eventually sighed and held out a hand to Callie. Relieved, Callie took it.

It was real, tangible. She had to remember what was real and what wasn't.

"I'm very tired," Callie murmured.

"I know," Hollis said, squeezing her hand.

She was looking at Callie like she was some porcelain doll sitting too close to the edge, ready to shatter and fall at any moment.

But Callie had already fallen.

Slowly, Hollis dropped Callie's hand. "I'm going to get him back to you. No matter what."

Callie didn't know how to explain that she didn't want him anyways, that Hollis shouldn't waste her time. Was there a way to close the case, to say that it wasn't a big deal?

Instead, she just nodded and closed her eyes.

"I wish I could've brought Max," she said, half smiling though it wasn't a joke. She needed her dog, if only to distract her from the overwhelming grief and rage.

Hollis nodded, though her eyes were distant. "He's a good boy," she mumbled. "Can I ask you something?"

Callie's heart stopped. She had done something wrong. She had screwed up, she had ended her life.

Pretending like her head wasn't spinning, she nodded. "Of course."

Hollis took a breath, like she was trying to gather herself. "Do you ever miss people who have done you wrong? Like, for you, Sam? Even though he abandoned y'all, do you still miss him?"

It was such a cruel question.

For years, all of her late adolescence, she mourned him. She bought him Christmas and birthday presents, she wrote him letters to the address on that stupid postcard, and she hated herself for it.