Better Off Alone (Adopted by Brendon and Sarah Urie)

96. Sarah

"Where's Callie?" Brendon asked coming into the house.

"Upstairs. She slammed her door. Didn't even stop to say hi to me. What happened?"

"I tried to explain to her that I'm going to be better and tell her if I can't make it to something I promised I would. But she yelled at me."

"Yelled at you?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Signed really aggressively?" He said, raising his own eyebrow. I nodded I understood.

"What did she say?"

"She said I haven't kept any promises, so why should she believe me now," he sighed.

So did I. Callie was so, so hurt. And we didn't seem able to make this better. But we were sure as hell trying.

"We're going to just have to keep trying. What did your vros say?"

He smirked. He knew I knew he'd gone outside to stream without me even having to log on to his Twitch stream.

"Just to keep trying, basically. Can't change what's happened, but try to stick to things I said I'd be there for. And communicate. I'm paraphrasing," he said.

I nodded.

"Do you want to go see if she wants a snack?" I asked him.

"I think she needs some time to cool down. She was really pissed off at me."

I sighed, again.

"Alright. We'll give her a few minutes."

Brendon and I chatted more about Callie, how to get her to trust us again, and weaved into plans for the summer tour and then back to discussing Christmas. We wanted to make Christmas really special for Callie this year. We couldn't imagine she'd had many great Christmases.

"Should we go to Vegas?" Brendon asked. "Or Michigan and see your family?"

"As much as we need to take Callie to Detroit, Christmas will be too overwhelming. Why don't we invite your parents and have our friends and have a little party? A small party."

"Yeah. We could do that. I think a Christmas at home might be good for her," Brendon agreed.

We sat in the living room for a little while while Brendon went through his phone and I read some mail.

Brendon sighed and ran his hand through his hair.

"What's wrong?"

"Scott doesn't want to change the meeting. Don't worry. I'm going to change it. I'll make it clear it's not negotiable. I think he's just trying to push his authority."

"Well, you'll just have to explain to him that your daughter comes first."

"Exactly what I'm telling him," he said as he texted his manager.

I got up to start making dinner.

"Want to check on Callie? Tell her dinner will be ready at six?" I asked. Brendon shrugged and headed upstairs while still looking at his phone.

I made dinner, chicken, rice and veggies with a salad.

Brendon and Callie still hadn't come downstairs. I sighed and went to find my family.

Brendon was sitting on our bed typing furiously on his phone.

"Where's Callie?" I asked.

"Who? Oh. Callie. Shit. I got into it with Scott and I completely forgot to check in on her."

I rolled my eyes.

"Great. That's exactly the problem, Brendon. You're not putting your family first. I know you're busy leading up to the release but you have to sort out your priorities. Callie doesn't feel like she's a priority to you."

He looked at me with one of the saddest looks I've ever seen.

"I'm really screwing this all up, aren't I?" He said.

"You're not. You made a few mistakes. That's what parenting is all about. Making mistakes and learning from them. Now, let's go get our kid and have dinner.

I knocked on Callie's door, waited a minute and then opened the door.

Callie was curled up on her bed, fast asleep. On her desk I saw a notebook open and just filled with writing. I didn't want to invade her privacy but I was curious. I picked up the notebook and started reading.

It broke my heart. She'd written out everything that was upsetting her. And how worried she was that we were going to send her back to the Children's Home.

And that she was going to run away before we could do that.

I thought of the pile of Christmas gifts in our bedroom closet and in the spare bedroom closet. How much we love our daughter in material form.

"Bren?" I said, showing him the notebook. He frowned and then read it. I saw his features harden and then soften.

We left Callie to sleep and went downstairs, leaving her notebook the way I'd found it.

"What do we do? We can't tell her we read her notebook."

He looked at me.

"I don't know."

We both sat and thought. I decided I'd go up and see if she wanted to come down for dinner. It wouldn't help if we didn't actually try.

I went into her room again and sat beside her on her bed. I gently shook her shoulder. I watched as her eyes opened and she looked ahead of herself and then blinked and turned over. Her features darkened when she saw me sitting on her bed. I smiled at her. She did not return my smile.

"Dinner's ready," I said.

"I'm not hungry," Callie said and turned back over.

"Sweetie...?" I tried turning her back over but she wouldn't have it. I knew she had to figure out her complicated emotions but she couldn't starve herself!

I tried to talk to her more but she wouldn't look in my direction. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to leave her alone and let her think we didn't care, still. But I didn't want to force her either.

I pulled her gently to get her to roll back over again.

"Callie, come have dinner," I said. "We can talk."

She frowned at me and signed aggressively that she wasn't hungry and for me to go away and leave her alone. Then she rolled back over and pulled her pillow over her head.

I sighed. If she kept refusing to talk to us, we'd never get past this.

But Callie had years of abuse and mistrust to work through. But she had to let us in. She had to talk to us.